The myth of the flat Earth is the modern misconception that the prevailing cosmological view during the Middle Ages in Europe saw the Earth as flat, instead of spherical. Europeans believed that a ship could sail out to sea just so far before it fell off the edge of the sea. During the early Middle Ages, virtually all scholars maintained the spherical viewpoint first expressed by the Ancient Greeks. From at least the 14th century, belief in a flat Earth among the educated was almost nonexistent.