This 1997 book views the substantive achievements of the Middle Ages as they relate to early modern science.

Named a Best Book of 2020 by The Telegraph, The Times, and BBC History Magazine An illuminating guide to the scientific and technological achievements of the Middle Ages through the life of a crusading astronomer-monk. Soaring Gothic cathedrals, violent crusades, the Black Death: these are the dramatic forces that shaped the medieval era. But the so-called Dark Ages also gave us the first universities, eyeglasses, and mechanical clocks. As medieval thinkers sought to understand the world around them, from the passing of the seasons to the stars in the sky, they came to develop a vibrant scientific culture. In The Light Ages, Cambridge science historian Seb Falk takes us on a tour of medieval science through the eyes of one fourteenth-century monk, John of Westwyk. Born in a rural manor, educated in England’s grandest monastery, and then exiled to a clifftop priory, Westwyk was an intrepid crusader, inventor, and astrologer. From multiplying Roman numerals to navigating by the stars, curing disease, and telling time with an ancient astrolabe, we learn emerging science alongside Westwyk and travel with him through the length and breadth of England and beyond its shores. On our way, we encounter a remarkable cast of characters: the clock-building English abbot with leprosy, the French craftsman-turned-spy, and the Persian polymath who founded the world’s most advanced observatory. The Light Ages offers a gripping story of the struggles and successes of an ordinary man in a precarious world and conjures a vivid picture of medieval life as we have never seen it before. An enlightening history that argues that these times weren’t so dark after all, The Light Ages shows how medieval ideas continue to color how we see the world today.

This Source Book explores a millennium of European scientific thought accompanied by critical commentary and annotation; nearly half the selections appear for the first time in the vernacular. Representing "science" in the medieval sense, selections include alchemy, astrology, logic, and theology as well as mathematics, physics, and biology.

In this book, sixteen leading scholars address themselves to providing as full an account of medieval science as current knowledge permits. Designed to be introductory, the authors have directed their chapters to a beginning audience of diverse readers.

Despite the popular view of medieval Europe as a Dark Age of intellectual stagnation, scientific and technological achievement thrived during this time. As any vacationer to Europe knows, churches and castles remain lasting testaments to the ingenuity of that period in history. Through carefully chosen examples which are presented in easily accessible thematic chapters, Science and Technology in Medieval European Life demonstrates how these two aspects of human achievement, far from being ivory-tower enterprises, impacted the daily life of people in medieval Europe. These topics will also resonate with modern readers in their own daily lives. This reference work begins with an historical introduction that situates medieval science and technology into its social, intellectual and religious context. Among the varied topics found in the chapters are: armor making, waterwheels and waterpower, chimneys, stained glass, communication technology, ship building, medicine both academic and village, mechanical clocks, calendar creation, and astrology. For those interested in pursuing further research into this area of history, the book concludes with a chronology of events, a suggested list of further reading and a glossary.

Provides the first comprehensive overview by world-renowned experts of what we know today of medieval Jews' engagement with the sciences.

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.

Histories of modern science often begin with the heroic battle between Galileo and the Catholic Church, which sparked the Scientific Revolution and led to the world-changing discoveries of Isaac Newton. In reality, more than a millennium before the Renaissance, a succession of scholars paved the way for the discoveries for which Galileo and Newton are credited. In Before Galileo, John Freely investigates the first European scientists, many of them monks, whose influence ranged far beyond the walls of their monasteries. He shows how science and religion coexisted, and places the great discoveries of the age in their rightful context.

The Not-So-Dark Dark Ages What they forgot to teach you in school: People in the Middle Ages did not think the world was flat The Inquisition never executed anyone because of their scientific ideologies It was medieval scientific discoveries, including various methods, that made possible Western civilization’s “Scientific Revolution” As a physicist and historian of science James Hannam debunks myths of the Middle Ages in his brilliant book The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution. Without the medieval scholars, there would be no modern science. Discover the Dark Ages and their inventions, research methods, and what conclusions they actually made about the shape of the world.

A “well-organized and interesting” overview of science in the Muslim world in the seventh through seventeenth centuries, with over 100 illustrations (The Middle East Journal). During the Golden Age of Islam, in the seventh through seventeenth centuries A. D., Muslim philosophers and poets, artists and scientists, princes and laborers created a unique culture that has influenced societies on every continent. This book offers a fully illustrated, highly accessible introduction to an important aspect of that culture: the scientific achievements of medieval Islam. Howard Turner, who curated the subject for a major traveling exhibition, opens with a historical overview of the spread of Islamic civilization from the Arabian peninsula eastward to India and westward across northern Africa into Spain. He describes how a passion for knowledge led the Muslims during their centuries of empire-building to assimilate and expand the scientific knowledge of older cultures, including those of Greece, India, and China. He explores medieval Islamic accomplishments in cosmology, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, geography, medicine, natural sciences, alchemy, and optics. He also indicates the ways in which Muslim scientific achievement influenced the advance of science in the Western world from the Renaissance to the modern era. This survey of historic Muslim scientific achievements offers students and other readers a window into one of the world’s great cultures, one which is experiencing a remarkable resurgence as a religious, political, and social force in our own time.