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Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

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Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#131

Post by 6510 »

chippy wrote: post #66
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which isn't really all that special. In England alone, there are 816 churches named after St Michael. He's pretty popular. It'd be a lot more spectacular if they were all named after someone much more obscure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedications_in_the_Church_of_E...

That's right. I would actually expect there to be a few more than 7! And if we extend the search to all placenames dedicated to St Michael quite a bit more! It's not pure coincidence but it is a kind of observation error as highlighted in other comment. Increasing and decreasing the variables and measurements effects the odds. Basically you can get a line between many things on earth, but 1) the dimensions of that li…

If one finds all of those lines one might find something.

Also compare star maps.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#132

Post by pdabbadabba »

margalabargala wrote: post #110
grahamlee wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you add every single other church or shrine that's dedicated to St. Michael to the map, what's the straight line you can draw that contains the most of those locations?

As this article found, the answer to that question depends heavily on the map projection you use.

Perhaps we have yet to discover the real St. Michael's sword, which would, of course, be aligned along a geodesic line.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#133

Post by miniwark »

karaterobot wrote: post #98

Are any of these actually cathedrals? I see some monasteries and sacred sites, I don't see any cathedrals in that list. The difference is that 7 cathedrals, all named after St. Michael, found in a basically straight line would certainly not be a coincidence. It would be like there being 7 Google complexes in a straight line spread around the world: something's going on here. But 7 random religious sites named after o…

- Skellig Michael: monastery, circa 6th century

- St Michael's Mount: monastery, 9th century

- Mont Saint-Michel: monastery & sanctuary, 708

- Sacra di San Michele: monastery, circa 983-987

- San Michele Arcangelo: sanctuary, 490 (St. Michael, supposedly did appear here)

- Taxiarchi Michail: monastery, 18th century (the younger one)

- Stella Maris: monastery, 1185 for the latin monastery (but in fact 15th century BCE as part of Mount Carmel)

So, none of them are a proper cathedrals but monasteries and sanctuaries. With San Michele Arcangelo & Mont Saint-Michel the only two important ones as pilgrimage destinations.

For a partial map of St. Michael churches or alike see: https://www.reseausaintmichel.eu/carte-des-sites/

The "line" could easily be "broken", if we add for example, the Castel Sant'Angelo in Roma (Mausoleum of Hadrian) or Saint-Michel de Cuxà. Both are far more prestigious than... Skellig Michael than nobody would know about if if was not on this "line".

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#134

Post by irrational »

> we know that the cathedrals are not aligned on the geodesic

Maybe not exactly aligned, but looking at that image of the geodesic line and the location of the churches, they all seem close enough to make me think their locations are not random chance (especially since they were laid out in the days before satellites and airplanes). I presume these are all Catholic churches? Could the medieval Catholic Church have had a plan to do this?

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#135

Post by SamBam »

irrational wrote: post #134

> we know that the cathedrals are not aligned on the geodesic Maybe not exactly aligned, but looking at that image of the geodesic line and the location of the churches, they all seem close enough to make me think their locations are not random chance (especially since they were laid out in the days before satellites and airplanes). I presume these are all Catholic churches? Could the medieval Catholic Church have ha…

I also wondered about the strategy of joining the first and last church. The authors switched to a regression for their last test, but only on the Mercator projection.

(I actually remember in 7th grade that our math teacher had to repeat time and again that a line of best fit does not necessarily need to join the first and last dot. For some reason it's a very instinctual thing to do.)

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#136

Post by SamBam »

willis936 wrote: post #38
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which isn't really all that special. In England alone, there are 816 churches named after St Michael. He's pretty popular. It'd be a lot more spectacular if they were all named after someone much more obscure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedications_in_the_Church_of_E...

Only ~30 are cathedrals, still more than a selection of 7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Saint_Michael

Right, but none of the 7 are cathedrals.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#137

Post by SamBam »

TillE wrote: post #95

More interesting to me here is the history of the "line". Is this a medieval idea or a modern one? Wikipedia is surprisingly unhelpful. "According to legend", yeah ok. Who first wrote about this? Who picked those seven sites? The earliest source mentioned is from 1969, and it's not even about this particular line. There's no shortage of writing about esoteric Christian topics throughout the centuries, but this one se…

Right, that's the biggest thing. If medieval builders were deliberately placing these in a line, there would be documentation and discussion about it.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#138

Post by egypturnash »

karaterobot wrote: post #98

Are any of these actually cathedrals? I see some monasteries and sacred sites, I don't see any cathedrals in that list. The difference is that 7 cathedrals, all named after St. Michael, found in a basically straight line would certainly not be a coincidence. It would be like there being 7 Google complexes in a straight line spread around the world: something's going on here. But 7 random religious sites named after o…

This is an interesting point. Wikipedia's page on St. Michael's Sword describes it as "monasteries and other sacred sites" and also notes that they are also "almost all located on prominent hilltops". Only four of the seven locations show up on Wikipedia's list of "churches dedicated to Saint Michael" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_(archangel)#Churches_d...).

Also worth noting: "[Michael's] churches were often located in elevated spots", says the page on San Michele Arcangelo, Perugia.

The obvious next step here is gathering a database of every spot claimed to be sacred to Michael, plotting them on a map, and seeing if this particular set of seven places leaps out of the data. But that sure sounds like work.

(Well, that's the obvious next data scientist step, there's also the obvious next step for the magician or priest, which is to go to or create a sacred space suitable for summoning archangels, call down Michael, and say "hey thanks for coming, so what's up with this line we call your sword?".)

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#139

Post by theginger »

gravescale wrote: post #49
arethuza wrote: post #14

When I was a kid (11/12 or so) I was fascinated by finding alignments between ancient things in the landscape (of which there are many here in Scotland!) - eventually I came to the realisation that given the scale of the maps I was looking at (1:25,000) that you can find loads of meaningless alignments if you look hard enough...

The Ancient Aliens discovered the same laws of engineering: 5. (Miller's Law) Three points determine a curve. 6. (Mar's Law) Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker. https://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html

Assume pi is 1

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#140

Post by sigzero »

mrbonner wrote: post #123
karaterobot wrote: post #98

Are any of these actually cathedrals? I see some monasteries and sacred sites, I don't see any cathedrals in that list. The difference is that 7 cathedrals, all named after St. Michael, found in a basically straight line would certainly not be a coincidence. It would be like there being 7 Google complexes in a straight line spread around the world: something's going on here. But 7 random religious sites named after o…

A cathedral has nothing to do with size of the church. If a church has a bishop resides, it's a cathedral.

Correct!

The word cathedral comes from a Latin word meaning “seat.” The seat referred to is the seat of the bishop, who is the leader of a group of churches related to the cathedral. The bishop's seat is both a metaphor for the cathedral as the bishop's “seat of power” and his actual chair, the "cathedra," inside the cathedral.

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