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Well, repression of innovation was actually begun much earlier. For example, the Roman emperor Trajan forbade the use of new, wondrous labor-saving inventions for fear of the unemployment they would cause, making him history's first Luddite. The distrust of invention, innovation, and science would remain until the Renaissance and the Printing Press. During the intervening 1000-year period, the only major invention was the windmill.
I think one needs only reflect upon the great architechtural achievements of the late Roman and Byzantine periods before going overboard with some of the unexamined generalities that have appeared here. Huge domed buildings were not the creations of Luddites and people without an advanced understanding of math and physics.
I would suggest that going to the library and reading a few issues of Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period would bring some balance, as well as specificity and reality into the discussion.
I am not a Christian or even a god-believer but it looks as if some of the responses and perhaps the original question are motivated by a need to slag and demean the early development of a Christian-oriented civilization in Europe. And no one really seems to have considered the influence of invasion and war upon cultural environment either.
I think one needs only reflect upon the great architechtural achievements of the late Roman and Byzantine periods before going overboard with some of the unexamined generalities that have appeared here. Huge domed buildings were not the creations of Luddites and people without an advanced understanding of math and physics.
I would suggest that going to the library and reading a few issues of Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period would bring some balance, as well as specificity and reality into the discussion.
I am not a Christian or even a god-believer but it looks as if some of the responses and perhaps the original question are motivated by a need to slag and demean the early development of a Christian-oriented civilization in Europe. And no one really seems to have considered the influence of invasion and war upon cultural environment either.
Who is there to be offended? What's more, as somebody whose major course of study in college dealt with the medieval period, I am fully aware of the period---warts and all.
You make an important mistake in believing that the architecture of late Rome and the Byzantines evidence an ongoing progress in technical proficiency. For example, the dome of Hagia Sophia was finished by the 6th Century, the tail end of the Roman period. In fact, when you realize that domes was built as early as the Assyrians, then it really isn't much of a scientific advancement for the period--rather a simple continuance of knowledge that already existed. Even then, given the absence of new domes in Europe after the final spasm of building by the Romans, it's safe to say that the proficiency waned until its revival in the Renaissance period.
Instead, even if isolated cases of technical achievement occurred, those innovations certainly weren't disseminated around Europe. It says a lot that, for 1,000 years, the Roman roads remained the best ones on the continent, even after centuries of disrepair. So, no, I think your argument does not make the least bit of sense.
I am not a Christian or even a god-believer but it looks as if some of the responses and perhaps the original question are motivated by a need to slag and demean the early development of a Christian-oriented civilization in Europe. And no one really seems to have considered the influence of invasion and war upon cultural environment either.
I think that such responses are motivated by a desire to deal with the facts. Is it your thesis that the church was not a powerful force for supporting a system which discouraged social mobility and free thinking in the middle ages?
What do you think the modern world would look like?? Do you think we would be centuries ahead of the present time?
It would be rather harder for a lot of my countrypeople to claim that the planet really was created in a week, that the whole human race is descended from two people though there was never any incest, and that because a social activist was martyred, we can all be forgiven for our bad deeds since said social activist rose from the grave.
I dont think there was a repression of science. What there was instead was a collapse of commerce and safety that meant basic survivial rather than study dominated European life. Science requires cities, surplus, and safety and that simply did not exist for centuries after the collapse of the roman empire.
I dont think there was a repression of science. e.
We may rely on what you "think" or we may rely upon the factual history.
I wonder if Galileo thought that there was any scientific repression.
Or how about Hypathia of Alexandria, the female mathematician and last director of the Alexandria library? She was murdered by the local Christian sect after Pope Alexander had condemned her apostate ways. I wonder if she "thought" that there was any church repression. She wasn't just killed, she was stipped naked, dragged through the streets, had the flesh whipped from her skin and finally burned to death.
You of all people should know what the Spanish Inquistion was about. The Domicans who ran it were charged by the church as the protectors of doctrine. Those who questioned the doctrine were automatically "wrong" and were tortured until they renounced their "error." That isn't a repressive atmosphere, is it? That encourages scienitific research and learning, doesn't it?
It is still going on. Since you don't "think" it happened, the rest of us must just be imagining the ecclesiastical reception given to Darwin's research and conclusions. We must have dreamed up all the business about creationists demanding that their myth enjoy equal status with scientific theory in the classrooms.
Apart from the specifics, there was a general anti free thinking stance. Anything which challenged dogma had to be incorrect regardless of the proof being offered. Consequently, those advancing the ideas which challeneged dogma were apostates and subject to persecution. Further, the church was allied with the aristocracy in supporting a system where all of the wealth and power was concentrated in the hands of the aristocracy and church. Everyone else was taught that their low station in life was ordained by divine will and it was a sin to aspire to bettering one's station in life. That really helped encourage individuals to explore different explanations for things, didn't it?
You are religious, so you feel the need to defend the church regardless of the facts....the very same dynamic which the church employed in supressing science.
First we are talking about the middle ages, or I was, and a trial in the 17th century has little to do with that. Second, one can always chose a single incident from history and build a theory on it. But the Galieo trial was a rare exception not the general rule to the threatment of science. Much of the scientific breakthroughs and learning that did occur in the middle ages (which ended around 1500) were carried out by the monks and teaching orders of the Catholic Church.
The Spanish Inquisition, which modern scholars agree was far less powerful than protestant propagandist argued at the time, had nothing at all to do with science and I know of not a single case when a Spanish scientist was prosecuted by it. It dealt with Jewish and Muslim converts to christianity and to a lesser extent catholic dogma. Not science. Your welcome to cite cases where it prosecuted scientist (while Galileo was prosecuted by the church it was by Roman not Spanish officials).
Science weakened after 500 not due to the church, which was the primary force to preserve and exstend learning unto the 14th century at least, but because of the collapse of the society after the desinigration of the Roman Empire. Most of what learning existed after 500 was focused in the church as was most new learning. And by 1100 new scientific knowledge was being created, notably in architecture (such as the cathedral arches), medicine, ship building, and agriculture.
Tht's swell, Noetsi. You are very much in keeping with the closed set thinking which the church promotes. If the facts are in conflcit with dogma, then the facts must b denied.
PLease don't bother responding, I'm not going to waste time trying to convert a zealot.
What I said is either historically correct or not GS. Feel free to show how its inaccurate if its not historically correct. I never had a church history of this era - its not what you learn in Catholic schools these days (or those days as it was decades ago).
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