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Post by turoldus on Jan 8, 2011 13:39:17 GMT
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Post by James Hannam on Jan 8, 2011 21:05:53 GMT
As it happens, I reviewed the book about Gerbert for which this article is puff in New Scientist. I thought it was OK but didn't go far enough.
J
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Post by gymnopodie on Jan 9, 2011 5:41:32 GMT
Could someone explain this to me? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_AgesThe public idea of the Middle Ages as a supposed "Dark Age" is also reflected in misconceptions regarding the study of nature during this period. The contemporary historians of science David C. Lindberg and Ronald Numbers discuss the widespread popular belief that the Middle Ages were a "time of ignorance and superstition", the blame for which is to be laid on the Christian Church for allegedly "placing the word of religious authorities over personal experience and rational activity", and emphasize that this view is essentially a caricature. |
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Post by James Hannam on Jan 9, 2011 8:16:45 GMT
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Post by merkavah12 on Jan 9, 2011 11:26:23 GMT
Funny you mention it, James. There's an interesting comment on your book by a reviewer: " Now for the big caveat. The Subtitle, "how the medieval world laid the foundations of modern science". Is it true?
No it isn't. You can't cure people with a hunoral theory of medicine. Your satnav will not work based on medieval astronomy. Aristotle's "Physics" is completely useless to an engineer. Medieval scientific theories had to be junked in their entirety in order to usher in the modern age where, you know, stuff does what it's supposed to, the pills work, you get where you meant to go, etc.
The author seems to acknowledge this difficulty as the timeline extends all the way up to Galileo and Newton. Were they medieval? Well, take your pick - the Black Death, the Fall of Constantinople, the Reformation - all are to me candidates for closure of the medieval period. Or maybe we should extend it to the foundation of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital (1849, still extant with taxpayer money)? But if medievalism means anything, it means a period in history, and the ideas were simply wrong. They still flourish, of course: go into any alternative bookshop and browse. " |
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Post by gymnopodie on Jan 9, 2011 13:22:33 GMT
gymnopodie wrote:The public idea of the Middle Ages as a supposed "Dark Age" is also reflected in misconceptions regarding the study of nature during this period. The contemporary historians of science David C. Lindberg and Ronald Numbers discuss the widespread popular belief that the Middle Ages were a "time of ignorance and superstition", the blame for which is to be laid on the Christian Church for allegedly "placing the word of religious authorities over personal experience and rational activity", and emphasize that this view is essentially a caricature.OK, I understand it now. It's a long sentence and I was tired when I first read it. It makes perfect sense this morning.  One thing though, it is our understanding, my wife and I, that the Dark Ages was the period, at least in England, from the time the Romans left and for the next approximately 400-500 years. The way we understand it, it was called dark because there wasn't any advancement in knowledge. I would never have thought of the year 1000 as being smack dab in the middle of the dark ages. This comes from many sources, classes, books and TV programs. Are we wrong about this?
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Post by James Hannam on Jan 9, 2011 16:18:53 GMT
In the US, the dark ages tend to mean the whole middle ages rather than the early middle ages only. In England, we tend to call the dark ages up to 1066, although this is also a misnomer.
The dark ages were originally called so simply due to the lack of written sources. Hence they appeared dark because we didn't know what was happening. Later, ignoramuses assumed dark meant stupid or lack of progress or similar. Earliest use of the word dark to describe the early middle ages is from Petrarch but he appears to be have been concerned with literature and was a hopeless snob.
In either case, historians now never use the phrase (it is a useful way to tell between real historians and amateurs).
Anyway, there was a considerable advance in technology in the early middle ages. So the question of when the dark agesought to be is moot.
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Post by James Hannam on Jan 9, 2011 16:24:09 GMT
Hi Merkavah12,
Up to a point the reviewer is right. But he is confusing ancient Greek science, which he is talking about, with medieval science which he thinks he is talking about. The point of the middle ages is that this is the period when the hegemony of Aristotle was questioned and began to be challenged.
The reason my book extended to Galileo was to show how Medieval science was used by early modern natural philosophers. Otherwise, it might have looked as if the advances of the middle ages had no influence in the future. Galileo was certainly unwilling to admit that they did.
Best wishes
James
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Post by himself on Jan 9, 2011 22:16:03 GMT
And once you show that scientific advances were made in the Middle Ages, some of the Usual Suspects will then declare those centuries to be "really" part of the Renaissance. (They use Petrarch as a marker.) As if the Renaissance had been concerned in any way with natural science.
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Post by davedodo007 on Jan 10, 2011 22:52:01 GMT
James Hannam.
I take issue with this part of your statement. 'ignoramuses assumed dark meant stupid or lack of progress or similar.' How come we know more about life in Roman times than we do about life many centuries later? How come so little information is coming out of these times when writing and reading should have at some level progressed? Is it ignorant to ask why civilization was stagnant or even moved backwards when Christianity was at its Zenith?
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Post by timoneill on Jan 11, 2011 2:52:40 GMT
Is it ignorant to ask why civilization was stagnant or even moved backwards when Christianity was at its Zenith? Yes, it is. The ignorance lies in the assumption that any stagnation was somehow due to Christianity rather than being an extension of a stagnation that began in the mid-Third Century, long before Christianity was more than a tiny persecuted illegal sect. It also lies in the assumption that things "moved backwards" thanks to Christianity rather than because of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Ask yourself this, why didn't the (equally Christian) Empire in the East experience things "moving backwards"? Why was this purely a western phenomenon? You seem to have a lot of reading and a lot more thinking to do. |
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Post by davedodo007 on Jan 11, 2011 19:53:25 GMT
Is it ignorant to ask why civilization was stagnant or even moved backwards when Christianity was at its Zenith? Yes, it is. The ignorance lies in the assumption that any stagnation was somehow due to Christianity rather than being an extension of a stagnation that began in the mid-Third Century, long before Christianity was more than a tiny persecuted illegal sect. It also lies in the assumption that things "moved backwards" thanks to Christianity rather than because of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Ask yourself this, why didn't the (equally Christian) Empire in the East experience things "moving backwards"? Why was this purely a western phenomenon? You seem to have a lot of reading and a lot more thinking to do. Sorry I have to disagree with you here. Yes the collapse of the Western Roman Empire would have thrown the people living there but the technology was still available (roads, building and sanitation plus the fighting skills of the Romans.) Why was it not rediscovered and advanced upon? This left Western Europe open to the Germanic and Nordic invasions If so little information was coming out of the area at the time then the term dark ages is a valid though vague term and not ignorant at all. Constantinople was a stable government which probably helped trade continue and no doubt literature and poetry flourish but I see no great scientific advances there. |
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Post by blessedkarl on Jan 11, 2011 21:00:25 GMT
Yes, it is. The ignorance lies in the assumption that any stagnation was somehow due to Christianity rather than being an extension of a stagnation that began in the mid-Third Century, long before Christianity was more than a tiny persecuted illegal sect. It also lies in the assumption that things "moved backwards" thanks to Christianity rather than because of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Ask yourself this, why didn't the (equally Christian) Empire in the East experience things "moving backwards"? Why was this purely a western phenomenon? You seem to have a lot of reading and a lot more thinking to do. Sorry I have to disagree with you here. Yes the collapse of the Western Roman Empire would have thrown the people living there but the technology was still available (roads, building and sanitation plus the fighting skills of the Romans.) Why was it not rediscovered and advanced upon? This left Western Europe open to the Germanic and Nordic invasions If so little information was coming out of the area at the time then the term dark ages is a valid though vague term and not ignorant at all. Constantinople was a stable government which probably helped trade continue and no doubt literature and poetry flourish but I see no great scientific advances there. Permit me to ask a question. In times of invasion and war, what are the things most focused upon? Easy to answer: War. After the empire fell you are dealing with a new social and cultural situation with Germanic chieftains now ruling portions of the old Western Roman Empire. Why would some chieftain ruler wish to become literate? Their main focus was the wars they fought. They already had duties towards their clans. Besides, it wasn't until sometime later that they became Christian. When they did become Christian their realms were beset by a plethora of problems. The Merovingians of Gaul were too disorganized and their power became to easily eroded after the death of Clovis. By the time of Pepin, some two centuries after Clovis, the Merovingian king rode around in an ox-cart! In Spain, infightings with assassinations and civil wars destablizied the Visigoths. The Vandals of Africa were invaded by the Byzantines. During Charlemagne's rise to power you DO have an intellectual revival which has sometimes been termed the "Carolingian Renaissance." For example, on Charlemagne's large chapel in Aachen, there are two beautiful, and massive, bronze doors. It has been suggested that this is an example of a revival of techniques not seen in centuries. Furthermore, one can look at the intellectual revival such as the Carolingian miniscule style of writing and also the attempts to have a spread of education by making sure that all major churches would have schools that would be free to learn at. Look at Alcuin of York, a great scholar who journeyed to Charlemagne's court where he became a leader in this enterprise. Charlemagne's empire disintegrated because it was not organized to stand upon its institutions but upon its leader. The leaders after Charlemagne were not strong and fought among themselves, as well as the Scandinavian and Magyar invaders. Also you speak of the fighting skills of the Romans. By the end of the Western Empire the vast bulk of the imperial troops were Germanic mercenaries, or foederati, not Romans. We even have accounts of father's cutting off their son's thumbs so they would not be conscripted. As for your final point, about the Eastern Empire, I am unsure. I leave it to one of the more learned members of this forum to answer that point. |
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Post by ignorantianescia on Jan 11, 2011 21:30:36 GMT
Didn't the empire of Charlemagne mainly disintegrate because of the Frankish custom to divide property amongst sons? Or was that what you meant with "Charlemagne's empire disintegrated because it was not organized to stand upon its institutions but upon its leader"? Anyway, indeed after Charlemagne's death we see increased Viking activity, with at least one emporium declining due to Viking raids and geographical factors.
Anyway, from what I gathered from other people on these fora, the Byzantines did continue the Roman tradition in natural philosophy, but already during the second century overall interest in natural philosophy was faltering.
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Post by blessedkarl on Jan 11, 2011 21:59:39 GMT
That is indeed what I meant. Thank you for bringing this up so my words are more clear. Not only that, but the rest of his descendants were simply not good rulers and fought among one other. Heck, Charles the Bald even permitted nobles to obtain their titles and lands by inheritance. Although that was done to maintain their loyalty to him in his wars it nonetheless meant that they would become more and more independent and the kingdom would be even more decentralized than it was before.
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