08. For Rabanus Maurus, see his De
Universo, lib. xii, cap. 4, in Migne, tome cxi, p. 339. For Hugh of
St. Victor, se his De Situ Terrarum, cap. ii. For Dante's belief, see
Inferno, canto xxxiv, 112-115:

"E se' or sotto l'emisperio giunto, Ch' e opposito a quel che la gran secca
Coverchia, e sotto il cui colmo consunto Fu l'uom che nacque e visse senza pecca."

For orthodox geography in the Middle Ages, see Wright's Essays on
Archaeology, vol. ii, chapter on the map of the world in Hereford
Cathedral; also the rude maps in Cardinal d'Ailly's Ymago Mundi; also
copies of maps of Marino Sanuto and others in Peschel, Erdkunde, p. 210;
also Munster, Fac Simile dell' Atlante di Andrea Bianco, Venezia, 1869.
And for discussions of the whole subject, see Satarem, vol. ii, p. 295,
vol. iii, pp. 71, 183, 184, and elsewhere. For a brief summary with
citations, see Eiken, Geschichte, etc., pp. 622, 623.

Nor did medieval thinkers rest with this conception. In accordance with
the dominant view that physical truth must be sought by theological
reasoning, the doctrine was evolved that not only the site of the cross
on Calvary marked the geographical centre of the world, but that on this
very spot had stood the tree which bore the forbidden fruit in Eden.
Thus was geography made to reconcile all parts of the great theologic
plan. This doctrine was hailed with joy by multitudes; and we find in
the works of medieval pilgrims to Palestine, again and again, evidence
that this had become precious truth to them, both in theology and
geography. Even as late as 1664 the eminent French priest Eugene Roger,
in his published travels in Palestine, dwelt upon the thirty-eighth
chapter of Ezekiel, coupled with a text from Isaiah, to prove that the
exact centre of the earth is a spot marked on the pavement of the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre, and that on this spot once stood the tree which
bore the forbidden fruit and the cross of Christ.(31)

(31) For the site of the cross on Calvary, as the point where stood "the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil" in Eden, at the centre of the
earth, see various Eastern travellers cited in Tobler; but especially
the travels of Bishop Arculf in the Holy Land, in Wright's Early Travels
in Palestine, p. 8; also Travels of Saewulf, ibid, p. 38; also Sir John
Mandeville, ibid., pp. 166, 167. For Roger, see his La Terre Saincte,
Paris, 1664, pp. 89-217, etc.; see also Quaresmio, Terrae Sanctae
Elucida