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This thread is for the discussion of Medieval Science. This is a thread requested by Jorge.



"European science in the Middle Ages comprised the study of nature, mathematics and natural philosophy in medieval Europe.

Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the decline in knowledge of Greek, Christian Western Europe was cut off from an important source of ancient learning. Although a range of Christian clerics and scholars from Isidore and Bede to Buridan and Oresme maintained the spirit of rational inquiry, during the Early Middle Ages Western Europe would see a period of scientific decline. However, by the time of the High Middle Ages, the West had rallied and was on its way to once more taking the lead in scientific discovery (see Scientific Revolution).

According to Pierre Duhem, who founded the academic study of medieval science as a critique of the Enlightenment-positivist theory of a 17th-century anti-Aristotelian and anticlerical scientific revolution, the various conceptual origins of that alleged revolution lay in the 12th to 14th centuries, in the works of churchmen such as Aquinas and Buridan."

See remainder of article -

Source: Wikipedia

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"With the division of the Roman Empire, the Western Roman Empire lost contact with much of its past. In the Middle East, Greek philosophy was able to find some support under the newly created Arab Empire. With the spread of Islam in the 7th and 8th centuries, a period of Muslim scholarship, known as the Islamic Golden Age, lasted until the 13th century. This scholarship was aided by several factors. The use of a single language, Arabic, allowed communication without need of a translator. Access to Greek texts from the Byzantine Empire, along with Indian sources of learning, provided Muslim scholars a knowledge base to build upon.

While the Byzantine Empire still held learning centers such as Constantinople, Western Europe's knowledge was concentrated in monasteries until the development of medieval universities in the 12th and 13th centuries. The curriculum of monastic schools included the study of the few available ancient texts and of new works on practical subjects like medicine and timekeeping.

Islamic world

Muslim scientists placed far greater emphasis on experiment than had the Greeks. This led to an early scientific method being developed in the Muslim world, where significant progress in methodology was made, beginning with the experiments of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) on optics from c. 1000, in his Book of Optics. The law of refraction of light was known to the Persians. The most important development of the scientific method was the use of experiments to distinguish between competing scientific theories set within a generally empirical orientation, which began among Muslim scientists. Ibn al-Haytham is also regarded as the father of optics, especially for his empirical proof of the intromission theory of light. Some have also described Ibn al-Haytham as the "first scientist" for his development of the modern scientific method.

In mathematics, the Persian mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi gave his name to the concept of the algorithm, while the term algebra is derived from al-jabr, the beginning of the title of one of his publications. What is now known as Arabic numerals originally came from India, but Muslim mathematicians did make several refinements to the number system, such as the introduction of decimal point notation. Sabian mathematician Al-Battani (850-929) contributed to astronomy and mathematics, while Persian scholar Al-Razi contributed to chemistry and medicine.

In astronomy, Al-Battani improved the measurements of Hipparchus, preserved in the translation of Ptolemy's Hè Megalè Syntaxis (The great treatise) translated as Almagest. Al-Battani also improved the precision of the measurement of the precession of the Earth's axis. The corrections made to the geocentric model by al-Battani, Ibn al-Haytham, Averroes and the Maragha astronomers such as Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Mo'ayyeduddin Urdi and Ibn al-Shatir are similar to Copernican heliocentric model. Heliocentric theories may have also been discussed by several other Muslim astronomers such as Ja'far ibn Muhammad Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi, Abu-Rayhan Biruni, Abu Said al-Sijzi, Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, and Najm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-Kātibī.

Muslim chemists and alchemists played an important role in the foundation of modern chemistry. Scholars such as Will Durant and Fielding H. Garrison considered Muslim chemists to be the founders of chemistry. In particular, Jābir ibn Hayyān is "considered by many to be the father of chemistry". The works of Arabic scientists influenced Roger Bacon (who introduced the empirical method to Europe, strongly influenced by his reading of Persians writers), and later Isaac Newton.

Ibn Sina (Avicenna) is regarded as the most influential philosopher of Islam. He pioneered the science of experimental medicine and was the first physician to conduct clinical trials. His two most notable works in medicine are the Kitāb al-shifāʾ ("Book of Healing") and The Canon of Medicine, both of which were used as standard medicinal texts in both the Muslim world and in Europe well into the 17th century.

Amongst his many contributions are the discovery of the contagious nature of infectious diseases, and the introduction of clinical pharmacology.

Some of the other famous scientists from the Islamic world include al-Farabi (polymath), Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (pioneer of surgery), Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (pioneer of Indology, geodesy and anthropology), Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (polymath), and Ibn Khaldun (forerunner of social sciences - such as demography, cultural history, historiography, philosophy of history and sociology), among many others.

Islamic science began its decline in the 12th or 13th century, before the Renaissance in Europe, and due in part to the 11th��13th century Mongol conquests, during which libraries, observatories, hospitals and universities were destroyed. The end of the Islamic Golden Age is marked by the destruction of the intellectual center of Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid caliphate in 1258.

Europe

An intellectual revitalization of Europe started with the birth of medieval universities in the 12th century. The contact with the Islamic world in Spain and Sicily, and during the Reconquista and the Crusades, allowed Europeans access to scientific Greek and Arabic texts, including the works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Jābir ibn Hayyān, al-Khwarizmi, Alhazen, Avicenna, and Averroes. European scholars had access to the translation programs of Raymond of Toledo, who sponsored the 12th century Toledo School of Translators from Arabic to Latin.

Later translators like Michael Scotus would learn Arabic in order to study these texts directly. The European universities aided materially in the translation and propagation of these texts and started a new infrastructure which was needed for scientific communities. In fact, European university put many works about the natural world and the study of nature at the center of its curriculum, with the result that the "medieval university laid far greater emphasis on science than does its modern counterpart and descendent."

As well as this, Europeans began to venture further and further east (most notably, perhaps, Marco Polo) as a result of the Pax Mongolica. This led to the increased influence of Indian and even Chinese science on the European tradition. Technological advances were also made, such as the early flight of Eilmer of Malmesbury (who had studied Mathematics in 11th century England), and the metallurgical achievements of the Cistercian blast furnace at Laskill.

At the beginning of the 13th century, there were reasonably accurate Latin translations of the main works of almost all the intellectually crucial ancient authors, allowing a sound transfer of scientific ideas via both the universities and the monasteries. By then, the natural philosophy contained in these texts began to be extended by notable scholastics such as Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus and Duns Scotus.

Precursors of the modern scientific method, influenced by earlier contributions of the Islamic world, can be seen already in Grosseteste's emphasis on mathematics as a way to understand nature, and in the empirical approach admired by Bacon, particularly in his Opus Majus. Pierre Duhem's provocative thesis of the Catholic Church's Condemnation of 1277 led to the study of medieval science as a serious discipline, "but no one in the field any longer endorses his view that modern science started in 1277".

However, many scholars agree with Duhem's view that the Middle Ages were a period of important scientific developments.

The first half of the 14th century saw much important scientific work being done, largely within the framework of scholastic commentaries on Aristotle's scientific writings.

William of Ockham introduced the principle of parsimony: natural philosophers should not postulate unnecessary entities, so that motion is not a distinct thing but is only the moving object and an intermediary "sensible species" is not needed to transmit an image of an object to the eye.

Scholars such as Jean Buridan and Nicole Oresme started to reinterpret elements of Aristotle's mechanics. In particular, Buridan developed the theory that impetus was the cause of the motion of projectiles, which was a first step towards the modern concept of inertia.

The Oxford Calculators began to mathematically analyze the kinematics of motion, making this analysis without considering the causes of motion.

In 1348, the Black Death and other disasters sealed a sudden end to the previous period of massive philosophic and scientific development. Yet, the rediscovery of ancient texts was improved after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, when many Byzantine scholars had to seek refuge in the West. Meanwhile, the introduction of printing was to have great effect on European society. The facilitated dissemination of the printed word democratized learning and allowed a faster propagation of new ideas. New ideas also helped to influence the development of European science at this point: not least the introduction of Algebra. These developments paved the way for the Scientific Revolution, which may also be understood as a resumption of the process of scientific inquiry, halted at the start of the Black Death.



For most medieval scholars, who believed that God created the universe according to geometric and harmonic principles, science �� particularly geometry and astronomy �� was linked directly to the divine. To seek these principles, therefore, would be to seek God.

Please make sure when adding books that you are recommending that you add both the book's cover and the photo or link to the author. This helps populate the site properly.

Fibonacci's Liber Abaci: A Translation into Modern English of Leonardo Pisano's Book of Calculation

by Leonardo Fibonacci

Synopsis:

First published in 1202, Fibonacci's Liber abaci was one of the most important books on mathematics in the Middle Ages, introducing Arabic numerals and methods throughout Europe. Its author, Leonardo Pisano, known today as Fibonacci, was a citizen of Pisa, an active maritime power, with trading outposts on the Barbary Coast and other points in the Muslim Empire. As a youth, Fibonacci was instructed in mathematics in one of these outposts; he continued his study of mathematics while traveling extensively on business and developed contacts with scientists throughout the Mediterranean world. A member of the academic court around the Emperor Frederick II, Leonardo saw clearly the advantages for both commerce and scholarship of the Hindu positional number system and the algebraic methods developed by al-Khwarizmi and other Muslim scientists. Though it is known as an introduction to the Hindu number system and the algorithms of arithmetic that children now learn in grade school, "Liber abaci" is much more: an encyclopaedia of thirteenth-century mathematics, both theoretical and practical. It develops the tools rigorously, establishing them with Euclidean geometric proofs, and then shows how to apply them to all kinds of situations in business and trade - conversion of measures and currency, allocations of profit, computation of interest, alloying of currencies, and so forth. It is rigorous mathematics, well applied, and vividly described. As the first translation into a modern language of the "Liber abaci," this book will be of interest not only to historians of science, but to all mathematicians and mathematics teachers interested in the origins of their methods.

Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages

by Richard E. Rubenstein (no photo)

Synopsis:

Europe was in the long slumber of the Middle Ages, the Roman Empire was in tatters, and the Greek language was all but forgotten, until a group of twelfth-century scholars rediscovered and translated the works of Aristotle. His ideas spread like wildfire across Europe, offering the scientific view that the natural world, including the soul of man, was a proper subject of study. The rediscovery of these ancient ideas sparked riots and heresy trials, caused major upheavals in the Catholic Church, and also set the stage for today's rift between reason and religion.

In Aristotle's Children, Richard Rubenstein transports us back in history, rendering the controversies of the Middle Ages lively and accessible-and allowing us to understand the philosophical ideas that are fundamental to modern thought.

The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization

by Jonathan Lyons

Synopsis:

The remarkable story of how medieval Arab scholars made dazzling advances in science and philosophy—and of the itinerant Europeans who brought this knowledge back to the West.

For centuries following the fall of Rome, western Europe was a benighted backwater, a world of subsistence farming, minimal literacy, and violent conflict. Meanwhile Arab culture was thriving, dazzling those Europeans fortunate enough to catch even a glimpse of the scientific advances coming from Baghdad, Antioch, or the cities of Persia, Central Asia, and Muslim Spain. T here, philosophers, mathematicians, and astronomers were steadily advancing the frontiers of knowledge and revitalizing the works of Plato and Aristotle. I n the royal library of Baghdad, known as the House of Wisdom, an army of scholars worked at the behest of the Abbasid caliphs. At a time when the best book collections in Europe held several dozen volumes, the House of Wisdom boasted as many as four hundred thousand.

Even while their countrymen waged bloody Crusades against Muslims, a handful of intrepid Christian scholars, thirsty for knowledge, traveled to Arab lands and returned with priceless jewels of science, medicine, and philosophy that laid the foundation for the Renaissance. I n this brilliant, evocative book, Lyons shows just how much “Western�� culture owes to the glories of medieval Arab civilization, and reveals the untold story of how Europe drank from the well of Muslim learning.

God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science

by James Hannam

Synopsis:

This is a powerful and a thrilling narrative history revealing the roots of modern science in the medieval world. The adjective 'medieval' has become a synonym for brutality and uncivilized behavior. Yet without the work of medieval scholars there could have been no Galileo, no Newton and no Scientific Revolution.

In God's Philosophers, James Hannam debunks many of the myths about the Middle Ages, showing that medieval people did not think the earth is flat, nor did Columbus 'prove' that it is a sphere; the Inquisition burnt nobody for their science nor was Copernicus afraid of persecution; no Pope tried to ban human dissection or the number zero. God's Philosophers is a celebration of the forgotten scientific achievements of the Middle Ages - advances which were often made thanks to, rather than in spite of, the influence of Christianity and Islam. Decisive progress was also made in technology: spectacles and the mechanical clock, for instance, were both invented in thirteenth-century Europe. Charting an epic journey through six centuries of history, God's Philosophers brings back to light the discoveries of neglected geniuses like John Buridan, Nicole Oresme and Thomas Bradwardine, as well as putting into context the contributions of more familiar figures like Roger Bacon, William of Ockham and Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Lots of new adds - thanks Jerome and Jose

You're welcome, Bentley.

Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition

by Marcia L. Colish (no photo)

Synopsis:

An analysis of the course of Western intellectual history between AD 400 and 1400. It surveys the comparative modes of thought and varying success of Byzantine, Latin-Christian and Muslim cultures, and then proceeds from the 12th-century revival of learning to the high Middle Ages and beyond.

On the Reckoning of Time (De temporum ratione)

, edited by Faith Wallis (no photo) and originally written by Bede

Synopsis:

The science of making a calendar does not seem like a particularly fascinating topic, but it was hugely important to many medieval thinkers (especially those living in Bede's era, c. 700). A big part of this was the calculation of the date of Easter, a subject that inspired passionate debates (!) during the period. This is a good way to think of Bede's work - it's a great example of how medieval theology and science were so deeply intertwined.

Bede's era is not one known for scientific progress, and in large part that's fair. But another fun aspect of this book is to see how genuinely inquisitive Bede's mind was, and to watch him design little proto-experiments to figure out problems or provide examples for his students. You will also learn how to do math like a monk using magical finger tricks, which probably came in handy when you were working with large numbers armed with Roman numerals and no calculator.

Thank you Katie.

Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages

by Frances Gies

Synopsis

An illuminating look at the monumental inventions of the Middle Ages, by the authors of Life in a Medieval Castle.

by Joseph Gies

Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time: John of Rupecissa in the Late Middle Ages

by Leah DeVun (no photo)

Synopsis:

In the middle of the fourteenth century, the Franciscan friar John of Rupescissa sent a dramatic warning to his followers: the last days were coming; the apocalypse was near. Deemed insane by the Christian church, Rupescissa had spent more than a decade confined to prisons--in one case wrapped in chains and locked under a staircase--yet ill treatment could not silence the friar's apocalyptic message.

Religious figures who preached the end times were hardly rare in the late Middle Ages, but Rupescissa's teachings were unique. He claimed that knowledge of the natural world, and alchemy in particular, could act as a defense against the plagues and wars of the last days. His melding of apocalyptic prophecy and quasi-scientific inquiry gave rise to a new genre of alchemical writing and a novel cosmology of heaven and earth. Most important, the friar's research represented a remarkable convergence between science and religion.

In order to understand scientific knowledge today, Leah DeVun asks that we revisit Rupescissa's life and the critical events of his age--the Black Death, the Hundred Years' War, the Avignon Papacy--through his eyes. Rupescissa treated alchemy as medicine (his work was the conceptual forerunner of pharmacology) and represented the emerging technologies and views that sought to combat famine, plague, religious persecution, and war. The advances he pioneered, along with the exciting strides made by his contemporaries, shed critical light on later developments in medicine, pharmacology, and chemistry.

Averroes: His Life, Work and Influence

by Majid Fakhry

Synopsis:

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the life, times, and achievements of Averroes, a twelfth-century Muslim philosopher whose ideas were so controversial that his books were burnt not once, but twice. A fascinating introduction that covers all the key issues and underlines the importance of Islamic philosophy as a vital ingredient in contemporary Western culture.

Ordering the Heavens: Roman Astronomy and Cosmology in the Carolingian Renaissance

by Bruce S. Eastwood (no photo)

Synopsis:

The astronomy of the Carolingian era has commonly been represented as concerned exclusively with "computus," the science of calendar construction as well as arithmetical calculation in general. This volume shows the error of that portrayal by exploring the study and teaching of four Roman texts on astronomy and cosmology in the Carolingian world and the diagrams connected to those texts. As each of these works came into use over the Carolingian era, its contributions merged into a progressively more ordered picture of the heavens. Both eccentrics and epicycles appeared by the 840s. These techniques were subsequently introduced clearly and qualitatively to complete the Carolingian enterprise. The primary tool for understanding this effort is the analysis of their diagrams.

Light From the East: How the Science of Medieval Islam Helped to Shape the Western World

by John Freely

Synopsis:

Long before the European Renaissance, while the Western world was languishing in what was once called the “Dark Ages,�� the Arab world was ablaze with the knowledge, invention, and creativity of its Golden Age. Through the astrologers, physicians, philosophers, mathematicians, and alchemists of the Muslim world, this knowledge was carried from Samarkand and Baghdad to Cordoba and beyond, influencing Western thinkers from Thomas Aquinas to Copernicus and helping to inspire the cultural phenomenon of the Renaissance. John Freely’s spellbinding story is set against a background of the melting pot of the cultures involved and concludes with the decline of Islam’s Golden Age, which led the West to forget the debt it owed to the Muslim world and the influence of medieval Islamic civilization in forging the beginnings of modern science.

Jerome wrote: "Light From the East: How the Science of Medieval Islam Helped to Shape the Western World

[bookcover:Light From the East: How the Science of Medieval Islam Helped to Shape the Western World|8546119..."

Thank you, Jerome!

The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages: Their Religious, Institutional and Intellectual Contexts

by Edward Grant (no photo)

Synopsis:

Contrary to prevailing opinion, the roots of modern science were planted in the ancient and medieval worlds long before the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. This volume illustrates the developments and discoveries that culminated in the Revolution.

The Abacus and the Cross: The Story of the Pope Who Brought the Light of Science to the Dark Ages

by Nancy Marie Brown

Synopsis:

The medieval Catholic Church, widely considered a source of intolerance and inquisitorial fervor, was not anti-science during the Dark Ages—in fact, the pope in the year 1000 was the leading mathematician and astronomer of his day. Called “The Scientist Pope,�� Gerbert of Aurillac rose from peasant beginnings to lead the church. By turns a teacher, traitor, kingmaker, and visionary, Gerbert is the first Christian known to teach math using the nine Arabic numerals and zero. In The Abacus and the Cross, Nancy Marie Brown skillfully explores the new learning Gerbert brought to Europe. A fascinating narrative of one remarkable math teacher, The Abacus and the Cross will captivate readers of history, science, and religion alike.

Hooray for Gerbert! The less-optimistic of his time also apparently referred to him as the "Sorcerer Pope."

That isn't unique of him - Petrus Hispanus (known before becoming Pope as John XXI and the only Portuguese pope) was also postumously known as a sorcerer when in fact he was a physician, philosopher and theologian.

Thank you Katie for your thoughtful post.

Medieval Technology and Social Change

by Lynn Townsend White (no photo)

Synopsis:

In Medieval Technology and Social Change, Lynn White considers the effects of technological innovation on the societies of medieval Europe: the slow collapse of feudalism with the development of machines and tools that introduced factories in place of cottage industries, and the development of the manorial system with the introduction of new kinds of plows and new methods of crop rotation. One invention of particular import, writes White, was the stirrup, which in turn introduced heavy, long-range cavalry to the medieval battlefield. The development thus escalated small-scale conflict to "shock combat." Cannons and flamethrowers followed, as did more peaceful inventions, such as watermills and reapers.

Thank you Jose

The First Scientist: A Life of Roger Bacon

by Brian Clegg

Synopsis:

Legend may have transformed the thirteenth-century English friar Roger Bacon into the Faust-like sorcerer Doctor Mirabilis, but he stands today in high regard as Europe's first great pioneer in the field of science. Bypassing the vicissitudes of Bacon's reputation, this definitive new biography by science writer Brian Clegg places the medieval monastic firmly in the turbulent and contentious intellectual atmosphere of his day. It also finds in Bacon's attempt to reconcile, or at least acknowledge, the variant methods and means of science and theology a quest that places him well ahead of his intellectual times. For Bacon brought to his inquiry into the nature of things his gifts not only as a lucid observer of natural phenomena, rigorous experimenter, empirical thinker, and gifted mathematician but as a theologian and philosopher as well. In his search for truth he would, like Galileo, suffer imprisonment rather than sacrifice his intellectual integrity. From Bacon's popularity as a teacher at Oxford and Paris, through his innovations in calendar reform, his experiments in optics, his designs for a flying machine, and, most famously, his development of the principle of inductive experimental science, this illuminative volume unfolds the story of a brilliant career.

Medieval Medicine: A Reader

edited by Faith Wallis (no photo)

Synopsis:

Medical knowledge and practice changed profoundly during the medieval period. In this collection of over 100 primary sources, many translated for the first time, Faith Wallis reveals the dynamic world of medicine in the Middle Ages that has been largely unavailable to students and scholars. The reader includes 21 illustrations and a glossary of medical terms.

The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 2, Medieval Science

by David C. Lindberg (no photo)

Synopsis:

This volume in the highly respected Cambridge History of Science series is devoted to the history of science in the Middle Ages from the North Atlantic to the Indus Valley. Medieval science was once universally dismissed as non-existent and sometimes it still is. This volume reveals the diversity of goals, contexts, and accomplishments in the study of nature during the Middle Ages. Organized by topic and culture, its essays by distinguished scholars offer the most comprehensive and up-to-date history of medieval science currently available. Intended to provide a balanced and inclusive treatment of the medieval world, contributors consider scientific learning and advancement in the cultures associated with the Arabic, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew languages. Scientists, historians, and other curious readers will all gain a new appreciation for the study of nature during an era that is often misunderstood.

The Medieval Discovery of Nature

by Steven A. Epstein (no photo)

Synopsis:

This book examines the relationship between humans and nature that evolved in medieval Europe over the course of a millennium. From the beginning, people lived in nature and discovered things about it. Ancient societies bequeathed to the Middle Ages both the Bible and a pagan conception of natural history. These conflicting legacies shaped medieval European ideas about the natural order and what economic, moral, and biological lessons it might teach. This book analyzes five themes found in medieval views of nature grafting, breeding mules, original sin, property rights, and disaster to understand what some medieval people found in nature and what their assumptions and beliefs kept them from seeing.

God and Reason in the Middle Ages

by Edward Grant (no photo)

Synopsis:

The Age of Reason associated with the names of Descartes, Newton, Hobbes, and the French philosophers, actually began in the universities that first emerged in the late Middle Ages (1100 to 1600) when the first large scale institutionalization of reason in the history of civilization occurred. This study shows how reason was used in the university subjects of logic, natural philosophy, and theology, and to a much lesser extent in medicine and law. The final chapter describes how the Middle Ages acquired an undeserved reputation as an age of superstition, barbarism, and unreason.

Science and Religion, 400 B.C. to A.D. 1550: From Aristotle to Copernicus

by Edward Grant (no photo)

Synopsis:

Historian Edward Grant illuminates how today's scientific culture originated with the religious thinkers of the Middle Ages. In the early centuries of Christianity, Christians studied science and natural philosophy only to the extent that these subjects proved useful for a better understanding of the Christian faith, not to acquire knowledge for its own sake. However, with the influx of Greco-Arabic science and natural philosophy into Western Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Christian attitude toward science changed dramatically. Despite some tensions in the thirteenth century, the Church and its theologians became favorably disposed toward science and natural philosophy and used them extensively in their theological deliberations.

Music and the Stars: Mathematics in Medieval Ireland

by Mary Kelly (no photo)

Synopsis:

Ireland's contribution to modern science is well attested, yet it is not so well known that Ireland, famed for over half a millennium for its saints and scholars, was equally renowned for the scientific endeavor carried out in its monastic schools. Nor is it generally appreciated in wider historical debate that the principles of scientific discovery - observation and analysis - flourished in early medieval Ireland. This book addresses that lacuna. For the first time, international experts introduce and explore the history of mathematics in medieval Ireland - its reception, philosophy, and the contribution made by Irish scholars to the development of science in Ireland and Western Europe. Medieval mathematics comprised the quadrivium of arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy, and it is no accident that the period of Ireland's great artistic achievements - such as the Book of Kells and sculptured crosses - occurs when mathematical skills merge with artistic expression.

The Astronomical Tables Of Giovanni Bianchini

by Bernard R. Goldstein (no photo)

Synopsis:

The Alfonsine Tables became the main computing tool for astronomers for about 250 years, from their compilation in Toledo ca. 1272 to the edition in 1551 of new tables based on Copernicus s astronomical models. It consisted of a set of astronomical tables which, over time, was presented in many different formats. Giovanni Bianchini (d. after 1469), an astronomer active in Ferrara, Italy, was among the few scholars of that extended period to compile a coherent and insightful set based on the Alfonsine Tables. His tables, described and analyzed here for the first time, played a remarkable role in the transmission of the Alfonsine Tables and in their transition from manuscript to print.

The Revival of Planetary Astronomy in Carolingian and Post-Carolingian Europe

by Bruce S. Eastwood (no photo)

Synopsis:

Before the introduction of Greco-Arabic mathematical astronomy in the 12th century, what astronomy was there in the medieval West? While we know of developments in computus, which calculated with solar and lunar cycles to create Christian calendars, and in monastic time-telling by the stars, was anything known of the five planets? Using glosses, commentaries, and diagrams to the early manuscripts of four classical Latin authors - Pliny, Macrobius, Martianus Capella, and Calcidius - Bruce Eastwood provides evidence for the extensive development of the sixth liberal art, astronomy, from the time of Charlemagne forward, with a particular focus on the diagrams used and invented by Carolingian and later scholars. Learning to understand the motions of planets in terms of spatial, or geometrical, arrangement, they mined these Roman writings for astronomical and cosmological doctrines, in the process not only absorbing but also creating models of planetary motions. What they accomplished over three centuries was to establish a basic set of models that showed the reasoned order of the planets in the heavens.

Jerome wrote: "God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science

by [authorim..."


Thanks for this. I plan to see if my local library has this or if they can get it through Interlibrary loan.

Religion, Learning and Science in the 'Abbasid Period

by M.J.L. Young (no photo)

Synopsis:

This volume of the Cambridge History of Arabic Literature deals with writings on learned subjects from the 'Abbasid period (8th to 13th centuries AD), the golden age of Arabic literature. These cover a wide area, from philosophy, theology and law, through grammar and lexicography, to mathematics, astronomy and medicine. There are separate chapters on six of the greatest scholars of the period, on the development of translations from Greek into Arabic, and on the Arabic literature of the Christians and Jews who lived under the rule of the 'Abbasid caliphate.

Medieval Economic Thought

by Diana Wood (no photo)

Synopsis:

This book offers an introduction to medieval economic thought, as it emerges from the works of the twelfth to the fifteenth century academic theologians, lawyers and other sources. Using Italian merchants' writings, vernacular poetry, parliamentary legislation, and manorial court rolls, it discusses property, charity, the role of money, weights, measures, coinage, trade, fair price and fair wage. It makes a relatively neglected subject accessible by exploring the relationship between theory and practice.

Herrad of Landsberg

Herrad of Landsberg (c. 1130 �� July 25, 1195) was a 12th-century Alsatian nun and abbess of Hohenburg Abbey in the Vosges mountains. She was known as the author of the pictorial encyclopedia Hortus deliciarum (The Garden of Delights).



Born about 1130 at the castle of Landsberg, the seat of a noble Alsatian family. She entered the Hohenburg Abbey in the Vosges mountains, about fifteen miles from Strasbourg, at an early age. The Hohenburg Abbey, also known as Mont St. Odile, was run by Abbess Relinda, a nun sent from the Benedictine monastery of Bergen in Bavaria to Hohenburg Abbey. Due to her support from the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa the abbey was extremely successful and powerful, as well as a source for reform. At the abbey Herrad received the most comprehensive education available to women during the 12th century. As she grew older she rose to a high position in office at the abbey, and was soon put in charge of governing and educating her fellow nuns. After Relinda’s death, Herrad was elected abbess in 1167.

As abbess, Herrad worked on rebuilding the monastery, as well as consolidating the land surrounding the monastery under its ownership.She proved herself to be a capable and well loved abbess, and it was at this time that she began her work on the Hortus Deliciarum. Herrad was abbess for 28 years, and continued in that office until her death in 1195. Adelhaid von Vaimingen (Faimingen) became her successor as the Abbess of Hohenburg.

Hortus Deliciarum

As early as 1159 Herrad had begun within the cloister walls the work for which she is best known, the Hortus Deliciarum, a compendium of all the sciences studied at that time. Hortus Deliciarum was written as a compendium for the women in Herrad's convent, in order to further learn biblical, moral, and theological material, and was completed in 1185.[7] In it, Herrad delves into the battle of Virtue and Vice with vivid visual imagery preceding the text.

The original manuscript consisted of 648 pages on 324 parchment sheets.[8] The majority of the work is written in Medieval Latin, with approximately 1250 glosses in Old High German and Middle High German.[9] The work shows a wide range of reading. Its chief claim to distinction is the three hundred and thirty-six illustrations which adorn the text. Many of these are symbolical representations of theological, philosophical, and literary themes; some are historical, some represent scenes from the actual experience of the artist, and one is a collection of portraits of her sisters in religion. The technique of some of them has been very much admired and in almost every instance they show an artistic imagination which is rare in Herrad's contemporaries.

While other artists and writers contributed to the Hortus Deliciarum, it was largely compiled, written, and edited by Herrad. Many of the poems and hymns were written by Herrad, and it is speculated that much of the art was created under the direction of Herrad as well.

After having been preserved for centuries at the Hohenburg Abbey, the manuscript of Hortus Deliciarum passed into the municipal Library of Strasbourg about the time of the French Revolution. There the miniatures were copied by Christian Moritz (Maurice in French) Engelhardt and published by Cotta in Stuttgart in 1818.[10] The text was copied and published by Straub and Keller between 1879 and 1899 including some coloured copies from Herrad's illustrations made by Wilhelm Stengel.[11] Thus, although the original perished in the burning of the libraries of the Protestant seminary and the City of Strasbourg[12][13] during the siege of 1870 in the Franco-Prussian War, we can still form an estimate of the artistic and literary value of Herrad's work.

Source: Wikipedia

Medieval Science and Technology

by Elspeth Whitney (no photo)

Synopsis:

Medieval science and technology was firmly rooted in Aristotelian explanations of the physical world. This book begins by introducing the basic concepts of the classical tradition, and explains how these ideas were promulgated by the ancient Greeks, preserved and commented on by the great Muslim scholars of the early middle ages, and finally transmitted to western Europe as that region began to grow and expand around 1100 C.E. Specific avenues of inquiry such as astronomy and astrology, optics, chemistry and alchemy, zoology, geography, and medicine are described on their own terms. Rounding out the work is a discussion of the many technological innovations of the medieval age, such as mechanical clocks, firearms, and the blast furnace, that profoundly altered the course of European and world history. Biographical sketches provide insight into the lives and accomplishments of 20 men and women, Christian, Muslim, and pagan, whose works profoundly shaped the era's scientific spirit. Eleven annotated key primary documents afford a fascinating glimpse into how the best minds of the time posed their questions and their answers. An annotated timeline, glossary of terms, several illustrations, and an annotated bibliography round out the work.

Medieval scientists, or natural philosophers, as they were then called, were powerfully influenced by the authority of older traditions, including Christianity and scientific ideas dating back to Plato, Aristotle, and Ptolemy. Yet their respect for these traditions was balanced by an equal respect for reason and the spirit of inquiry. Religious faith, far from dampening scientific and technological innovation, actually buttressed their efforts to understand the natural world as it was generally taken for granted that knowledge acquired through reason would harmonize with religious beliefs. While medieval science and technology did not seek to overthrow the prevailing worldviews of the time, their accomplishments did lay the groundwork for the scientific revolution and European global expansion of the early modern age.

Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia

by Thomas F. Glick

Synopsis:

Medieval Science, Technology and Medicine: An Encyclopedia examines the state of scientific and medical knowledge, as well as technology, in the middle ages. The coverage spans numerous disciplines and various countries, relating their advancements of science and placing discoveries within their cultural context. This work dispels the notion of the 'dark ages', revealing instead a world where scientific and medical research and discoveries were abundant and varied.

Nowadays, astrology is not a science in any way, but before the 16th-17th centuries its distinction from astronomy wasn't clear. As such, I am including this book on this thread. :)

Astrology In Medieval Manuscripts

by Sophie Page (no photo)

Synopsis:

In the Middle Ages the art of predicting earthly events and human characteristics from the movements of the stars and planets was a scientific branch of learning with a philosophical basis. Its influence extended to natural philosophy and cosmology, medicine, agriculture, weather-forecasting and alchemy. Yet astrology was never an entirely acceptable practice, attracting both religious and scientific objections. These ambivalent medieval attitudes are just one aspect of this wide-ranging and clearly-written account of astrological ideas and practices in medieval society, comprehensively illustrated from a wide range of manuscripts.

Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe

by Thomas Cahill

Synopsis:

After the long period of cultural decline known as the Dark Ages, Europe experienced a rebirth of scholarship, art, literature, philosophy, and science and began to develop a vision of Western society that remains at the heart of Western civilization today.

By placing the image of the Virgin Mary at the center of their churches and their lives, medieval people exalted womanhood to a level unknown in any previous society. For the first time, men began to treat women with dignity and women took up professions that had always been closed to them.

The communion bread, believed to be the body of Jesus, encouraged the formulation of new questions in philosophy: Could reality be so fluid that one substance could be transformed into another? Could ordinary bread become a holy reality? Could mud become gold, as the alchemists believed? These new questions pushed the minds of medieval thinkers toward what would become modern science.

Artists began to ask themselves similar questions. How can we depict human anatomy so that it looks real to the viewer? How can we depict motion in a composition that never moves? How can two dimensions appear to be three? Medieval artists (and writers, too) invented the Western tradition of realism.

On visits to the great cities of Europe—monumental Rome; the intellectually explosive Paris of Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas; the hotbed of scientific study that was Oxford; and the incomparable Florence of Dante and Giotto—Cahill brilliantly captures the spirit of experimentation, the colorful pageantry, and the passionate pursuit of knowledge that built the foundations for the modern world. Bursting with stunning four-color art, Mysteries of the Middle Aages is the ultimate Christmas gift book.

The History of Science from Augustine to Galileo

by Alistair Cameron Crombie (no photo)

Synopsis:

Richly illuminating study of the Western scientific tradition from its decay after the collapse of the Roman Empire to its full reflowering in the 17th century. Topics include the incorporation of Greek and Arabic learning, criticism of Aristotle in the later Middle Ages and the Scientific Revolution itself. Over 60 illus. Introduction. Bibliography. 1959 edition.

Medieval Science: 500-1500

by Charlie Samuels (no photo)

Synopsis:

The period between the end of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance used to be known as the Dark Ages. As this book shows, it was in fact a time of constant technological innovation and an increasingly accurate understanding of the world, often based on ancient classical wisdom. Readers will enjoy the enlightenment that this narrative provides, never to view the Dark Ages in the same way again.

The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A.D. 1450

by David C. Lindberg (no photo)

Synopsis:

This landmark book represents the first attempt in two decades to survey the science of the ancient world, the first attempt in four decades to write a comprehensive history of medieval science, and the first attempt ever to present a full, unified account of both ancient and medieval science in a single volume. In The Beginnings of Western Science, David C. Lindberg provides a rich chronicle of the development of scientific ideas, practices, and institutions from the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers to the late-medieval scholastics.

Lindberg surveys all the most important themes in the history of ancient and medieval science, including developments in cosmology, astronomy, mechanics, optics, alchemy, natural history, and medicine. He synthesizes a wealth of information in superbly organized, clearly written chapters designed to serve students, scholars, and nonspecialists alike. In addition, Lindberg offers an illuminating account of the transmission of Greek science to medieval Islam and subsequently to medieval Europe. And throughout the book he pays close attention to the cultural and institutional contexts within which scientific knowledge was created and disseminated and to the ways in which the content and practice of science were influenced by interaction with philosophy and religion. Carefully selected maps, drawings, and photographs complement the text.

Lindberg's story rests on a large body of important scholarship produced by historians of science, philosophy, and religion over the past few decades. However, Lindberg does not hesitate to offer new interpretations and to hazard fresh judgments aimed at resolving long-standing historical disputes. Addressed to the general educated reader as well as to students, his book will also appeal to any scholar whose interests touch on the history of the scientific enterprise.

A Source Book in Medieval Science (Source Books in the History of the Sciences)

(no image) A Sourcebook in Medieval Science by Edward Grant (no photo)

Synopsis:

Modern scholarship has exposed the intrinsic importance of medieval science and confirmed its role in preserving and transmitting Greek and Arabic achievements. This Source Book offers a rare opportunity to explore more than ten centuries of European scientific thought. In it are approximately 190 selections by about 85 authors, most of them from the Latin West. Nearly half of the selections appear here for the first time in any vernacular translation. The readings, a number of them complete treatises, have been chosen to represent "science" in a medieval rather than a modern sense. Thus, insofar as they are relevant to medieval science, selections have been drawn from works on alchemy, astrology, logic, and theology. Most of the book, however, reflects medieval understanding of, and achievements in, the mathematical, physical, and biological sciences.

Critical commentary and annotation accompany the selections. An appendix contains brief biographies of all authors.This book will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars in the history of science.

The Light Ages - A Medieval Journey of Discovery by Seb Falk shows how sophisticated medieval scientists were and how christians, Muslims and Jews developed their ideas from discoveries made by Ancient Greeks, Persians and Mongols. Falk describes the life and achievements of John Westwyck, astronomer, who wrote in English, French and Latin.

Gracious Me, Bentley! HOW DID I MISS THIS POST!!! My TBR List thanks you! And, DANAE, that book, “The Light Ages�� sounds like a real winner! Thank you both!!!
Regards,
Andrea

bySeb Falk (no photo)