I. Greeks and Romans
II. Popularizers and Encycolopedists
III. Christianity
IV. Early Medieval Education in the West
V. State of Science in Early Medieval West
VI. Learning and Science in Greek East
VII. Islam
VIII. Age of Translations (1000 – 1200)
IX. Medieval Universities
X. Medieval Medicine
XI. Medieval Natural History
XII. Reactions to Aristotle
A. The Roman Empire (1st C BCE – 476 CE)
B. The Practical Romans and Greek Envy
• engineering, medicine, logic, rhetoric
• Stoic and Epicurean philosophy popular
A. Simplification of Greek knowledge
B. Pliny the elder (23 – 79)
• Natural History
• Facts, no theory
• No skepticism about claims
“… the place which is known by the name of Geskleithron, the Arimaspi are said to exist .
. . a nation remarkable for having but one eye, and that placed in the middle of the
forehead. This race is said to carry on a perpetual warfare with the Griffins, a kind of
monster, with wings, as they are commonly represented, for the gold which they dig out
of the mines, and which these wild beasts retain and keep watch over with a singular
degree of cupidity, while the Arimaspi are equally desirous to get possession of it.”
C. The Christian Intellectual Inheritance
• Roman empire permanently divided into West and East ca. 400 CE
• West in rapid decline: civil wars, invasions, disease
• End of Roman Empire: 476
• East (Byzantine Empire) survives until 15th Century
• Revival of learning in West beginning in 11th Century
A. Triumph of Christianity
1. Mystery Religions
• grew popular thanks to economic and political repression
• Roman tolerance
• Cults: Isis, Mithras (popular with Roman soldiers), Gnostics
• Rituals and beliefs in common
• World is evil and will pass away (within lifetime)
• Man is inherently sinful
• Called to turn away from the material world and
concentrate on the spiritual
• Asceticism
• Many: redeemer God who would die and bring Vision of
Constantine, 312
eternal life to faithful
2. Major religious force by 3rd Century; state
religion by 4th C
3. Why Christianity?
• Religious intolerance/ evangelism
B. Literacy and Reaction to Greeks
• Intellectual tradition evolves, 2nd and 3rd Century
•To read the Bible, need to be literate
• in defense of faith against intellectual pagans
• used logical tools developed by Greeks
• acceptance of Plato
• “only pagan allowed into the City of God” Augustine
3. Opposition
• many saw Greek philosophy as source of error even heresy
4. Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430)
• ambivalent towards pagan Greek sources
• only source of natural knowledge
• science as handmaiden to theology
• in later life, recanted
“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what
you believe.”
Which of the following Greek concepts would the Romans have most
likely adopted?
a. The Stuff is atoms interacting in a void
b. Form and matter cannot be separated
c. An object displaces its weight in water
d. Love and Strife are the two forces that bring the elements together
and pull them apart
Which of the following might you find in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History?
a. The ultimate movement of the celestial spheres is related to the nature
of the Prime Mover
b. Unicorns are hunted for their horns in Great Britain
c. Every object has four causes
d. The principle of the lever
What term best describes the early Christian attitude towards Greek
knowledge?
a. Hostile
b. Admiring
c. Ambivalent
d. Clueless
A. From Romans: 7 liberal arts
1. Trivium: grammar, rhetoric, logic
2. Quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy
• mostly astronomy: facts, no theory
B. Greek Natural Philosophy decreases in importance
1. Loss of Greek language
2. Opposition to Greek sources increases (pantheistic)
3. Monasteries become the centers of learning
• dedication to spiritual education
A. Dismal (Dark Ages for science)
B. Pagan sources for understanding nature all there is
• Uneasy truce
C. Pagan sources available
1. Handbooks and encyclopedias
• condensed, diluted
• inaccurate, contradictory
2. Plato’s Timaeus
A. Byzantine Empire
1. Pagan learning continues
2. Greek sources preserved
• deemphasized
B. Fall of the Byzantine Empire
1. Fragmented by Crusades (1204)
2. Finished off by Ottomans (Mehmed II) 1453
3. Greek scholars flock to the West during Crusades and with the fall
of the Byzantine Empire
Which of the following is NOT one of the Quadrivium?
a. Music
b. Geometry
c. Astronomy
d. Logic
Which of the following did NOT lead to a loss of Greek Natural Philosophy
in the West?
a. loss of Greek language
b. hostility towards Greek monotheism
c. popularity of Roman encyclopedias
d. the rise of the monasteries
What happened to Greek Natural Philosophy in the Byzantine Empire?
a. It flourished
b. It was officially abolished
c. It was deemphasized
A. Historical Overview
1. Founded by Muhammad 610
2. Qur'an: Muhammad's revelations
3.
4.
5.
6.
Split after Muhammad’s death (632): Shia and Sunni
Rapid expansion of Islam
Islamic Golden Age (750 -1250)
Crusades (11th Century): Muslims driven out of West
B. Translations and extensions of Greek knowledge
1. Translations with commentaries
• Ibn Rushd: major translator and defender of Aristotle’s work
Ibn Rushd (1126 – 1198)
2. Ibn Sina: physician
• contagious nature of diseases/ quarantine
• Canon of Medicine
Ibn Sina (980 -1037)
C. Recovery by the West
• crusades beginning in
11th Century
A. How it was (500 – 1000)
1. West
• Greek knowledge and language mostly lost
• encyclopedias etc provide secular knowledge
• spiritual life emphasized
2. East (Byzantium)
• Greek knowledge preserved but deemphasized
• spiritual life emphasized
3. Islam
• translations of all major Greek works
into Arabic
• commentaries and extensions
of Greek works
B. How it changed in the West
1. Bible translations
• Bible corrupted by multiple translations
• The Church turns to original Greek
2. Works of Greeks become available from East and Islam
3. Revitalization of the West: Medieval Renaissance
4. By 15th C, Medieval science at peak: Aristotelian
Who was the most famous of the Islamic translators?
a. Ibn Rushd
b. Ibn Sina
c. Ibn Al-Razi
d. Ibn Haiyan
Who was the most famous of the Islamic physicians?
a. Ibn Rushd
b. Ibn Sina
c. Ibn Al-Razi
d. Ibn Haiyan
What was the original impetus for the revival of Greek language in the West?
a. Desire to know more about Nature
b. Popularity of Greek philosophy
c. Corruption of Bible translations
d. Christian elites think it’s cool to speak Greek
A. By 1200, medieval universities flourishing
1. Paris, Bologna, Oxford
2. Inspiration: trade guilds
3. New learning disseminated from
B. Curriculum
1. Heavy on Aristotle
• logic, ethics, arts, physics
2. School texts: question format
• question posed; answer with reference to authority (usually
Aristotle)
• Is a vacuum possible? If a vacuum possible, can a heavy
body move in it?
A. Early Middle Ages in the West
1. Decline of trained physicians
2. Transmission through Romans – Galen simplified
3. Herbal Medicine: De Materia Medica
• Dioscorides (40 – 90)
• 500 plants with medicinal uses
Acorum has leaves which resemble those of iris very
much only narrower, and the roots are similar only
one wrapped in the other, not growing downward but
sidelong in the upper part of the earth. They are sharp to
the taste, distinguished by pale white knots, and not
unpleasant to smell. The best is thick and white, not
worm-eaten, full and fragrant. Root such as this comes
from Colchis and from Galatia and is called asplenium.
The root is heating and a decoction of it (taken as a
drink) causes an urge to urinate. It is good for pain of the
rectum, chest and liver; and for griping, hernia and
convulsions. It reduces the spleen, and it helps those sick
with dripping mucus, and those poisoned by animal
bites. It is effective in a hip bath like iris for female
problems. The juice of the root cleans off things that
darken the pupils of the eyes. The root of it is also
effective mixed with antidotes. It is also called chorus,
aphrodisia or the mariner’s root; the Romans call it venerea,
and the Gauls call it the pepper of bees, piper apum.
B. Interaction of Greek medicine and Christian healing
1. Tension
• sickness a divine visitation
• cure spiritual
• tradition of miracle cures
• cult of saints
• shrines and relics
• Greek (secular) medicine denounced
“… to buy special kinds of medicines, to seek out doctors and
swallow their nostrums, this does not become the religious.”
2. Ambiguity
C. Islamic Medicine
1. Directly from Greek East: Galen
2. Extension of Greek medicine: Ibn Sina
Ibn Sina (980 -1037)
D. Transformation of Western Medicine
1. 11th and 12th Century: Period of revitalization
2. Growth of urban centers: need for physicians
3. Translations from Islam and East
4. De Materia Medica
E. Treatment: Galen
1. Imbalance of humors, urinalysis and pulse analysis
2. Herbal remedies (deemphasis: exercise)
F. Medical astrology
1. Celestial forces from birth flow through body
2. Planet alignment: cause and cure of disease
3. Black death (1347 – 1351)
G. Anatomy and Surgery
1. Surgery common: mostly minor
2. Anatomy: Galen
• human dissection: 13th C
H. Development of hospital
• radical idea: treat the poor
XI. Natural History
A. Botany: De Materia Medica
B. Zoology: Bestiaries
Which of the following was the direct inspiration for the development of
medieval universities?
a. The flood of translations from Islam
b. The revitalization of the Greek language
c. The rediscovery of the works of Aristotle
d. The formation of trade guilds
What word best describes the attitude of medieval Christians toward Greek
medicine?
a. Tense
b. Admiring
c. Hostile
d. Dismissive
Why was zoology minimized in medieval natural histories?
a. Most animals by this time had been driven into extinction
b. Zoology was banned by the Christian church
c. It had minimal practical application
A. Introduction
1. Goals of Alchemy
• transmutation of metals into gold
• panacea
• elixir of long life
2. The Philosopher’s Stone: essential ingredient
3. The Hermetic Writings- Influence of Aristotle
B. Middle Ages : Alchemy becomes more mystical and a philosophy
1. Attainment of Goals lead to evolution of the soul and enlightenment
• macrocosm-microcosm theory
2. Roger Bacon (1214-1294) – the first medieval alchemist
• experiment more important than reason
C. Alchemy after the Middle Ages
1. 14th and 15th Centuries: backing off from Alchemy
2. Paracelsus (1493 – 1541)
3. The influence and end of alchemy
A. Viewed with suspicion and hostility by many theologians
• Thomas Aquinas (1225 -1274)
• attempts to reconcile Aristotle with Christianity
• book of Words and Works cannot conflict
B. Aristotle conflicts with Christianity
1. Cosmos eternal
• Genesis/ Revelation (Plato?)
2. Form changes; matter doesn’t change
• Eucharist and transubstantiation
3. Nature is regular, predictable, unalterable
• Miracles
4. Soul dies with the body
C. Condemnation of 1277 (Aristotle’s natural philosophy)
1. 219 propositions condemned
2. Paris professors forced to sign oath (don’t ask – don’t tell)
3. Some of propositions condemned
• theological discussions based on fables
• only wise men of the world are philosophers
• no first man, nor will there be a last
• the first cause (i.e. God) cannot make several worlds
• God cannot move the heavens in a straight line
• what is naturally impossible cannot be done
• the Earth is a sphere at the center of the Universe and it
could be no other way
4. Punishment by excommunication (condemned to Hell)
• Aquinas’ works condemned as heresy
5. Unintended consequences
• consideration of the impossible
• led to beginnings of real science (?)
• shook Aristotle’s authority
D. Problems with Aristotelian physics
1. Projectile motion: Aristotle’s explanation rejected
• medieval solution: internal force (impetus) keeps it going
2. Cosmology: mixed acceptance
• Celestial spheres accepted
• Aristotle’s model of planetary motion rejected: doesn’t work
• Solution: Ptolemy's model
• Earth eternal rejected
• Earth is a sphere at the center of the universe unquestioned
3. The rest of Aristotle ‘s works become authoritative
E. Ultimately …
1. Best game in town … no viable alternative
• certainty about nature not ever possible
• what works (saving the phenomena) more important than true
nature of Nature
2. Anti- Christian bits ‘corrected’
3. 1324: Aquinas receives sainthood
4. Aristotle essentially unchallenged
until 16th Century
What was Thomas Aquinas’s attitude towards Aristotle?
a. He made too many errors to be taken seriously
b. His works could be reconciled with Christianity
c. Where Aristotle and the Bible conflict, choose Aristotle
d. All Greek knowledge should be banned
Which of the following was NOT an Aristotelian concept in conflict with
Christianity?
a. Form changes; matter never changes
b. The Earth is the center of the universe
c. The Universe is eternal
d. Natural phenomena are always regular and predictable
What ultimately becomes of Aristotelian teachings in medieval times?
a. Completely rejected
b. Reconciled with Christian theology
c. Replaces Christian theology