The study of mathematics, natural philosophy, and the natural world were all part of medieval European science. Christian Western Europe was cut off from a significant source of ancient knowledge with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the subsequent drop in Greek language proficiency.
Early Middle Ages Western Europe would witness a period of scientific decline, despite a spectrum of Christian clerics and academics from Isidore and Bede to Jean Buridan and Nicole Oresme maintaining the spirit of rational inquiry. By the High Middle Ages, though, the area had recovered and was poised to regain the lead in scientific advancement.
The Late Middle Ages produced scholars and scientists who set the foundation for the Scientific Revolution of the Early Modern Era.
The various conceptual origins of the various theories of the supposed scientific revolution in the 17th century, according to Pierre Duhem, who established the academic study of medieval science as a critique of the Enlightenment-positivist theory, lay in the works of churchmen like Thomas Aquinas and Buridan in the 12th and 14th centuries.(Source: )
“Western Europe” in this context refers to the European civilizations that are united by the Latin language and the Catholic Church.
Western Europe
Roman imperial rule in the West came to an end in the fifth century, and Western Europe faced significant challenges as it entered the Middle Ages, which had a significant impact on the intellectual output of the continent. There were only condensed summaries and compilations available because the majority of the Greek-language classical scientific treatises from antiquity were unavailable.
However, reading and studying scientific writings from the Roman and early medieval periods added to the knowledge of nature as a rational system operating under divinely prescribed laws that could be understood in the context of reason.
This research was carried out throughout the Early Middle Ages, and with the translation of Greek and Arabic scientific works during the Renaissance in the 12th century, interest in this field of study was rekindled.
These writings were examined and expanded upon in the newly formed medieval universities, where scientific research continued to grow and produce new understandings of the universe’s events. The modern lay public is largely unaware of these developments, in part because the majority of the theories developed in medieval science are now out of date and in part because the Middle Ages are stereotyped as a “Dark Age” in which “the word of religious authorities over personal experience and rational activity.”[2]
Early Middle Ages (AD 476–1000)
Greek had been the main scientific language throughout antiquity. Even under the Roman Empire, advanced scientific research and instruction remained in Greek on the Hellenistic side of the empire, while Latin books heavily borrowed from Greek works, some pre-Roman and some current. There was little success in late Roman attempts to translate Greek works into Latin.[3]
With the collapse of Greek knowledge throughout the transition to the Middle Ages, the Latin West became isolated from its Greek scientific and philosophical foundations. The majority of scientific research was founded on data collected from sources that were frequently unreliable and presented difficult interpretation challenges. Books written by these Roman authors were the only ones available to Latin speakers who wished to understand science.
The breadth of education was narrowed by de-urbanization, and by the sixth century, instruction had shifted to monastic and cathedral institutions, with Bible study serving as the focal point of instruction.[5] In the regions of Italy, Spain, and southern Gaul where Roman influences were most enduring, lay education survived in limited measure. While Latin was a foreign language and Latin books were enthusiastically studied and taught, learning started to emerge in Ireland and the Celtic kingdoms in the seventh century.[6]
The most eminent academics of the early ages were clergymen, and the study of nature constituted only a minor portion of their interests. The environment in which they lived offered less institutional backing for the objective examination of natural occurrences.
More often than not, the study of nature was driven by practical needs rather than academic curiosity. For example, the need to heal the sick prompted researchers to study medicine and medical literature from antiquity. Monks needed to know when to pray, so they studied star motion.
To figure out when Easter fell, they studied and imparted basic mathematics and knowledge of the Sun and Moon’s motions.[9] It might be unsettling to contemporary readers that the same works occasionally address both the symbolic meaning of natural events and their technical aspects.[10]
Charles the Great launched a program known as the Carolingian Renaissance in 800 with help from the English monk Alcuin of York.
The main scientific component of Charlemagne’s educational reform was the study and instruction of astronomy, both as a theoretical subject and as a practical skill needed by clergy to determine the date of Easter.11] Proclamations encouraging the refurbishment of existing schools and the establishment of new ones across the empire were made starting in 787. From an institutional standpoint, these new schools fell under the jurisdiction of a noble court, a cathedral, or a monastery.
The intensive study and exploration of old Roman scientific works preoccupied the scientific effort of the era following Charlemagne, rather than novel inquiry.[12] This study prepared the ground for later efforts by Western academics to locate and translate classical Greek literature.
High Middle Ages (AD 1000–1300)
Starting about the year 1050, researchers in Europe expanded on what they already knew by looking for old wisdom in Greek and Arabic manuscripts that were translated into Latin. They came across a vast array of classical Greek manuscripts, some of which had already been translated into Arabic, along with independent works and commentary by Islamic scholars.[13]
An excellent example is Gerard of Cremona, an Italian who went to Spain to copy a single text but ended up staying to translate some seventy volumes.[14]
The establishment of medieval universities coincided with this era, as they gained material advantages from the translated works and established a fresh framework for scientific societies. Several of these new institutions were given the title Studium Generale and designated by the Holy Roman Empire as centers of worldwide excellence. Italy, France, England, and Spain were home to the majority of the early Studia Generali, which were regarded as the most esteemed educational institutions in Europe.
As more universities were established throughout Europe, this list expanded swiftly. The current academic atmosphere found in contemporary European universities originated in the 13th century, when academics from Studium Generale were encouraged to share records and give lectures at other institutes around Europe.
The whole development of the new Christian philosophy and the scholasticism technique was made possible by the rediscovery of Aristotle’s writings. By the year 1200, the major works of Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, Archimedes, and Galen—that is, all the cognitively significant ancient writers aside from Plato—had been translated into reasonably accurate Latin. In addition, a large number of important Arabic and Jewish writings from the Middle Ages, including the major works of Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides, were now available in Latin.
Scholastics added independent treatises and commentaries to these books’ natural philosophy during the 13th century, which was connected to university instruction. Among these were the writings of Duns Scotus, John of Sacrobosco, Roger Bacon, Robert Grosseteste, and Albertus Magnus.
Scholastics supported Roman Catholic teachings with reason, logic, and secular research. They also believed in empiricism. One of the most well-known was Thomas Aquinas, who was eventually dubbed a “Doctor of the Church” and spearheaded the shift from Augustinian and Platonic thought to Aristotelianism, even though his primary focus was not natural philosophy.
Meanwhile, Grosseteste’s emphasis on mathematics as a means of comprehending nature and Roger Bacon’s admiration for the empirical approach are already indications of the contemporary scientific method’s forerunners.
An optical diagram from Roger Bacon’s De multiplicatione specierum depicts light being refracted by a spherical glass container filled with water.
Grosseteste established the renowned Franciscan school at Oxford. Aristotle’s idea of the dual road of scientific reasoning served as the foundation for his work.
drawing conclusions from specific observations into general laws, and vice versa: from general laws to specific observation prediction. This was dubbed “resolution and composition” by Grosseteste. Furthermore, according to Grosseteste, in order to confirm the principles, both ways should be tested through experimentation. These concepts created a legacy that extended to Padua and Galileo Galilei throughout the 17th century.
Under Grosseteste’s guidance, Bacon outlined a recurring cycle of observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and the requirement for independent verification. He was greatly influenced by the works of Arab alchemists who had maintained and expanded upon Aristotle’s depiction of induction.
He meticulously documented the way he carried out his experiments so that others might duplicate and verify his findings on their own. This is an essential component of the scientific method and an extension of the work of scientists such as Al Battani.
Though a lot of what Bacon and Grosseteste studied about optics was already being done by Arab scholars at the time. By writing to the Pope encouraging the study of natural science in university courses and creating numerous volumes documenting the status of scientific knowledge in many subjects at the time, Bacon did make a significant contribution to the development of science in medieval Europe.
Late Middle Ages (AD 1300–1500)
Great philosophers’ contributions to science emerged in the first part of the fourteenth century. William of Occam’s studies in logic led him to propose a particular formulation of the principle of parsimony, which is now referred to as Occam’s razor. To be fair, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas both used this principle directly before it was adopted as one of the primary heuristics by modern science to choose between two or more underdetermined theories.[Reference required][Vocal tone]
These readings generated fresh ideas and conjecture as Western academics become more conscious of—and tolerant of—the contentious scientific treatises of the Byzantine and Islamic Empires.
By focusing on kinematics and examining instantaneous velocity, Thomas Bradwardine and his collaborators, the Oxford Calculators of Merton College, Oxford, differentiated kinematics from dynamics.
They developed the mean speed theorem, which states that a body moving at a constant speed will cover the same distance in the same amount of time as an accelerated body whose velocity is half its ultimate speed. Additionally, they proved this theorem—the core of “The Law of Falling Bodies”—much earlier than Galileo, who gets the credit for it.[16]
Nicole Oresme, in turn, presented the simplicity argument in support of the view that the Earth moves and not the skies, demonstrating that the arguments put forth by Aristotle’s physics were unfounded.
But what would come to be recognized as the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages was already underway. The previous era of scientific advancement came to an abrupt halt with the arrival of the Black Death in 1348. A third of Europe’s population perished from the plague, which was particularly bad in the crowded centers where most inventions took place. Throughout a century, the population continued to dwindle due to repeated outbreaks of the plague and other natural disasters.