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no period of history is more misunderstood or under appreciated than
the middle ages ten centuries from the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth
century to the start of the renaissance in 15
this is especially true between the year 1000 when global warming brought grapes
to England and grain to the coast of Greenland doubling the population and
reviving town life all across Europe and 1348 after the warming had ended and the
Black Death arrived from the east
let's take a closer look at these years will make a good start by dispelling
some nonsense
the people of the Middle Ages did not believed the earth was flat
they knew it was around the ancient said it was round the Fathers of the Church
said it was round they saw its shadow during an eclipse of the Moon and the
shadow was round they saw masks ships sinking below the horizon round more
nonsense
the Middle Ages were cheerless quite the reverse
they were full of color of celebrations involving everybody in town they
invented the carnival
they revived popular drama which had lain dormant for a thousand years
whatever they did whether it was sinning or fighting or repenting or falling in
love or traveling thousands miles to Rome or to the church of the holy
sepulchre they did it with energy and gust 0
what do we owe to the Middle Ages
how about the University medieval man invented it for the first time in the
history of the world
you could go to Paris or bolonia or Panama or Oxford or Prague or cologne
and study under masters of law medicine philosophy and theology and your degree
designating you as a master or a doctor would hold good anywhere in Europe
it was an international community of scholars a young Thomas Aquinas born in
southern Italy at the beginning of the 13th century would travel to cologne to
study philosophy
under the philosopher biologist Albert the grade then to Paris where he taught
theology and philosophy than to Rome and back to France and this sort of thing
was the rule among scholars not the exception
how about modern science Thomas's teacher Albert was a biologist
why should that surprise us medieval man believed that God made the world as an
ordered whole they learned it both from Scripture and from pagan thinkers such
as Aristotle science did not burst on the scene with Galileo Copernicus died
in the 16th century but he was a priest astronomer at a Polish university
founded in the Middle Ages
he wasn't even the first man to suggest that the earth orbited the Sun others
had ventured the suggestion most prominent was the late medieval Nicholas
of Cuza a philosopher and a cardinal in the church
how about architecture if the Middle Ages were dark and ignorant
how come ordinary people masons carpenters painters sculptors glaziers
erected the most beautiful and majestic buildings to grace the earth the Gothic
cathedrals
without power tools with pulleys and winches and scaffolding and their bare
hands
they built up lace work in stone and glass flooding vast interior spaces with
color and light
we have nothing to match their complexity and beauty and art studying
the ancients medieval man produced whole genres of art that the world had never
seen there had never been anything like dante's divine comedy or Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales or the our theory and legends of credit wha
or the paintings of job Joe or the astonishingly beautiful and precise work
of the illuminators of manuscripts
what else do we owe to them western music they invented our musical notation
and western harmony
not to mention the humble Carol's we enjoy it Christmastime a tradition of
local self-government witness the chartered towns all over Europe free
associations of men
united for the common good friars Guildsman members of lay orders devoted
good works
people who established schools orphanages and hospitals far from the
dark ages which it is popularly called the Middle Ages might better be
described as the brilliant ages startling epic of progress from science
art from philosophy to medicine
indeed in one crucial way we are less civilized than those who enhanced human
existence over a thousand years ago we dismiss the achievements of our
ancestors and fall short of them they honored their ancestors and surpassed
them
i'm anthony esalen of Providence College for Prager University join Prager
University
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