What did medieval people see when they stared at the stars? Why did devout monks study science? How did students at the first universities prove the world was round? And how can you tell the time today using an ancient brass astrolabe?
This course will bring the medieval worldview to life. It will be taught via ten lectures, richly illustrated with the textures and sounds of the Middle Ages. Each lecture will include stimulus material in the form of readings and images: elegant diagrams; innovatively presented tables; vivid bestiaries. In some you will learn practical techniques: how to use an astrolabe; how to calculate the size of the earth using only your shadow; how medieval astrologers produced weather forecasts; or how to navigate by the stars.
Scientific ideas were not just an important part of medieval culture – they shaped people’s ideas of the universe and their place in it, and continue to colour how we see the world today. We will discuss how Christian scholars depended on scientific ideas from Greece, Arabia and India. We will see how those ideas spread far beyond the confines of monasteries and universities, feeding into many aspects of belief, culture and daily life, and were translated into rapidly evolving languages. Centuries before science came to be defined by professional scientists and their laboratories, study of the created world – as it was universally seen by medieval people – was inseparable from other subjects of learning. It could be carried out anywhere people had ideas and the urge to communicate or use them. Knowledge was seamless, so that a science like astronomy was directly linked to others like mathematics and medicine, music and theology.
This course will reveal the complex and often productive relationship between science and religion. It will investigate the ways in which monks and friars laid the foundations for modern science and technology. And it will communicate the fascination of the forgotten past.
Learning outcomes
- Know about a wide range of scientific achievements from the Middle Ages (c.500-1500);
- Understand the complex social and cultural factors underlying scientific development;
- Be able to use a long view of the history of science to critically assess claims about modern scientific prowess.
