Boniface and a certain Virgil, bishop of Salzburg.[242] The latter, who doubtless thought that there were antipodal regions if not antipodeans, was accused by Pope Zachary, to whom St. Boniface had complained, of holding “perverse and iniquitous doctrines regarding another world.” Unfortunately we do not possess Virgil’s own account of the incident and are unable to tell exactly what these doctrines were.[243] At all events, belief in antipodes contained the seeds of bitter religious quarrels and was one of the charges brought against Cecco d’Ascoli, who, after our period, was burnt to death for holding this and other damning convictions.[244] _PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY_ In the field of physical geography slight was the contribution of the early medieval writers. METEOROLOGY Classical ideas about the atmosphere were repeated and garbled,[245] little progress was made in the development of earlier theories, and little new was added but superstition. Isidore, followed closely by Bede and Raban Maur, was the primary authority in matters of meteorology.[246] The ancient view persisted, that the polar regions were uninhabitable on account of cold and the equatorial zone on account of heat. The sort of popular meteorology that prevailed is illustrated in an early ninth-century treatise written by Agobard, archbishop of Lyons, and entitled _Against the Absurd Opinion of the Vulgar Touching Hail and Thunder_.[247] This was an attack on charlatans who claimed that they could control the weather, produce storms and hail at will, and who asserted that there is a region, called Magonia, “whence ships come in the clouds” (Poole’s translation).[248] Natural enough as it is for the uneducated in any age to believe such things,[249] the significant fact here is that Agobard did not attempt to invoke scientific arguments to confute the claims of the impostors. Poole says: “He disdained to allege scientific reasons to overthrow what was in its nature unreasonable. He could only fall back on ... broad religious principles. He argued that God’s relation to nature is immediate and least of all conditioned by the artifices of men.”[250] THE WATERS ABOVE THE FIRMAMENT