If, as the latest advertisement for Stella Artois would have it, the inhabitants of Leuven in 1366 really did believe that the earth was flat, then they were quite possibly the only people in all of history who have ever done so, at least until the rise of modern Flat Earth Societies.
The suggestion that this was the Mediaeval view can be dated precisely to January 1828, which saw the publication of The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, as highly fictionalised an account as one would expect from its author, Washington Irving, who also gave the world those noted works of historical realism, Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, as well as popularising the use of "Gotham" to refer to New York.
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Not only that, David, but they didn't actually sell Stella Artois in Leuven in 1366 - at least, not as we'd recognise it today. Good for you for exposing these lies.
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