The story we all learnt at school is that science was invented by the ancient Greeks but then languished until the Renaissance. Medieval people supposedly thought that the earth was flat, while the Church is said to have banned human dissection and burnt scientists at the stake. So it comes as a surprise to find that historians have radically revised their understanding of science in the Middle Ages and Christianity’s influence upon it. It turns out that the myth Christianity held back science was invented during the eighteenth century and, despite concerted attempts by scholars to kill it off, it simply refuses to die. In reality, the medieval Church demanded that every student should study math and science in the new universities. More people were exposed to these subjects than at any time in the past. And because the universities were self-governing bodies answerable directly to the Pope, students and masters enjoyed an unprecedented level of academic freedom. Of course, this was circumscribed by the demands of the faith, but it turns out that Christian theology itself was especially conducive to science. Western Europe certainly did suffer a decline after the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD. But this wasn’t due to Christianity. Barbarian tribes, such as the Goths, Vandals, Franks and Saxons, dismembered the old western provinces and established new militarised kingdoms. These would eventually evolve into the nation states of Europe that we know today. In the meantime, it was the Church that was the main conduit of literacy and culture. An intellectual revival began to take root in the empire of Charlemagne in the ninth century, but Viking raiders and the empire’s collapse caused progress to stall again. Thankfully, by the eleventh century, a degree of stability had returned and Europe entered a philosophical golden age. This was fuelled by the translation of the ancient Greek logic, science and mathematics. Christian scholars built on these foundations to produce a new way of thinking that eventually gave birth to modern science. biologos.org/blog/rediscovering-the-science-of-the-middle-ages
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 11:13:10 +0000
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