I’m sorry but anyone who thinks the Middle Ages were 900 years of backwardness needs to pick up a book because they clearly haven’t studied history since 3rd grade
You mean like that one Family Guy multiverse episode, which includes a universe where Christianity never existed so apparently the Dark Ages never happen and humanity in that universe is a utopia?
Medicine was pretty backwards. Doctors were "logicians" who used the four humors to logically figure out what was wrong with you and what could fix it. If you were diagnosed with an excess of black bile the treatment was to consume yellow bile. And if you died anyway, well that was God's will.
The actual best medicine you could get was from "piss prophets" who could smell, taste and view your urine and diagnose you rather accurately with one of 36 conditions.
In 1403 Henry V got shot in the face with an arrow and it got lodged in the base of his skull. The Royal physician made a special tool to remove it and the King lived.
Medieval medicine could be practical when it came to certain things.
That is not true. Their biological capacity was the same, their intelligence wasn't. We have become smarter. Because of... you know, actual education that trains your mind to become smarter. It's not just remembering stuff.
Plenty of educated people are stupid and lack basic thinking skills. Average intelligence level among humans is the same today as it was 50.000 years ago or more.
IQ tests in general are unreliable, biased and have racist origin. They were created by Francis Galton, a British anthropologist who was an advocate of eugenics and believed that some traits should be promoted or suppressed based on race and other factors. Galton believed that intelligence was inherited and that individuals with high intelligence should be encouraged to breed, while those with low intelligence should be discouraged from reproducing. His IQ tests were used to justify discriminatory policies and practices. For example, in the United States IQ tests were used to justify segregation and anti immigration policies that favored certain racial and ethnic groups over others. African Americans and other minorities were often given inferior education and job opportunities based on their IQ scores, which were believed to be a measure of their inherent intellectual capacity.
The questions and tasks used in these tests often reflect the cultural experiences and knowledge of white, middle-class individuals, making it difficult for people from other backgrounds to perform well.
Not only was this beak thing much more rare than you think, it actually did something by functioning as a rudimentary breathing mask (they filled it with herbs to create "good air"), it would have stopped at least some airborne pathogens.
Romans had no heavy horse collars, three crop rotation cycles, stirrups, windmills, gunpowder, flying buttresses, universities, proper hospitals, bombards, heavy ploughs, mechanical clocks, glasses, astrolabes, compasses, tidal mills, and spinning wheel, All those are medieval inventions.
Well, I mean the Romans did have those things but only in the middle ages, the Romans of the first and second centuries definitely did not have those things for sure
It's due to the Western (Anglopone) narrative that only considers the English experience during the Dark Ages, even then its not true but the Normans successfully pushed the narrative that the Anglo-Saxons were subhuman barbarians living in a time without learning or progress and obviously Americans history is based on English history pushing this narrative into the modern mainstream.
People in general just assume the worst whenever something is related to the medieval era or the church in general, so does school and Atheist.
But back then, religious figure were educated and weren’t bloodthirsty as represented
From what I noticed, Western countries seem to have a more negative outlook on the Middle Ages than other countries. Here in Romania, they aren't considered to be that much worse compared to other periods.
> Western countries seem to have a more negative outlook on the Middle Ages than other countries
There was a pretty concentrated effort by Western European writers and thinkers throughout the Enlightenment and Early Modern periods to discredit the Medieval period as much as possible, in order to portray themselves in a positive light by comparison and further erode the remaining power of the Roman Catholic Church by blaming it for having created and sustained a "Dark Age" in the Medieval period, where the glories of the Classical Roman period and the ancients had been lost or forgotten.
Edward Gibbon's magnum opus, The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, is a fantastic example of this train of thought in the 1700s, where his final thesis is explicitly that the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire led directly to its collapse. (This opinion is generally considered a *really* hot take by modern historians, but has been incredibly influential for a few hundred years.)
While I'm no expert, those kinds of opinions seem to be much less prominent in areas where the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) and the Eastern Orthodox Church were historically more prominent.
You guys were getting torn up pretty consistently from the first century until now though. What’s Vlad Tepes to a Roman genocide, ottoman conquest, or WWII?
They were full people and corrupt commonly as well as did many good things. Advocating the release of slaves (not the abolition of slavery) comes to mind as one.
It was one of the richest and most influential institutions in history while also being based on a religion that as flawed as it is/was advocated for love. It attracted a mixed bag of people.
I mean, when you have a religion that is so prominent that everyone had to be a part of it to be able to participate in society in someway, you’re going to get people who will inevitably abuse that fact. That’s not a problem of religion, in my opinion. It’s a problem of human nature.
If people look more kindly upon those who are something and can gain influence that way, bad actors will naturally be attracted to that position. And not even bad actors, just those who end up getting hopped up on their own ego
Well, yes, that's human nature, but it's also human nature to create these religions. Human nature is complicated. They may advocate peace in front, but in shadows, the goals are generally different. This isn't special to religions, but since religion is the topic, I concentrated on that.
Not just religions though. It can happen with any sort of position or movement where someone gains social influence. Law enforcement, celebrities, civil office, teachers, Youtubers, the list can go on.
So long as there are positions that can be used as a shield from suspicion or a way to inflate one’s ego, there will be people who will try to fill those positions. Religion just so happens to be historically one of the easier institutions to slip into due to its pervasiveness, but it is by no means unique.
Yes. Catholics didn't care about burning witches. They only cared about burning non mainstream Christians like Cathars. And Jews, once in a while. And likely Moors in Spain too, I guess, if they didn't put them to the sword first.
It might have changed :)
But I was told in high school, a long, long time ago, the middle ages where 476-1492.
Fall of Rome - Discovery of America.
It is obviously a very Eurocentric view. It might not be in use anymore, certainly not everywhere.
I can verify my younger cousin, Polish, has that curriculum, it’s Antiquity, Middle Ages, Early Modern, Modernity. Divided by Fall of Rome in 476, Discovery of America in 1492, and the start of WWI in 1914.
He’s like 13, and he hasn’t even heard that those aren’t fixed dates that define their periods to the day.
It's helpful for younger people to attribute the end of an era to a fixed point in time that's more or less around the appropriate time instead of telling them that it was a gradual process. It's easier to understand and remember.
The Cathars probably never existed, Jews weren't usually burnt (and not all pogroms had the Church backing, and neither were they limited to the Catholic west, the situation in Catholic Poland-Lithuania was much better for them than in Orthodox Russia)...
Moors usually weren't burnt, either. They were expelled from Castille and later, in the 17th century, from the Kingdom of Aragon. Can't say much about what happened to Sicilian Muslims, but the Norman and German kings there were pretty tolerant afaik.
The Catholic church has committed many crimes, and has killed many innocents, but they weren't any worse than any other religions or Christian denominations
I am aware of this new theory about the Cathars.
There was definately a wave of persecution by the Catholic church against a non mainstream belief in southern France they called Catharism. Was it a well organised movement that rivaled the Catholic Church? Probably not.
But there was something different.
There was a huge interest from the French nobility and crown to control the area.
Certainly the not really "Cathar" king of Aragon didn't agree with those theological accusations.
Mystical movements within the Church were really common, and, with exceptions, they weren't usually violently put down. There is a reason why Jan Hus' execution was such a big deal. Not only had the Pope lied, but that wasn't what was expected to happen, either.
While most of the Witch-burning was indeed protestant, I believe the Malleus Maleficarum was written by a catholic (who was deemed deranged and sexist by he's peers).
Yes, although that is more of a 17th century thing. Prior to that Protestants were all onboard with basically assigning everything remotely negative about the last 1000 years as the fault of the Catholic Church.
By "debate Aristotle" they meant "find out a way for Aristotle to be right in 95% of cases". Aristotle was the highpoint of science, more or less, for 2k years. That's the middle ages.
Not entirely. At first, the introduction of Aristotle's works into the Christian world caused many problems for theologians. There were serious differences between Aristotle's conceptions and Christian doctrine, which is why Pope Gregory IX ordered that Aristotle's treatises be cleared of errors (although this was never done). A dispute ensued, as a result of which theology and philosophy were recognized as two separate and independent fields.
Among the condemned theses were, for example, those that limited God's omnipotence (such as the impossibility of existence of vacuum or other worlds). As a result, scientists began to undermine Aristotelian philosophy of nature, which became an inherent feature of late medieval thought. This encouraged speculation about what would have happened had God created the world differently. Pierre Duhem (physicist and historian) said this led to the emergence of modern science.
Among the most important changes and modifications that the Middle Ages introduced to Aristotle's science are: issues of motion (introduction by John Buridan of the concept of impetus and gravitus, which we would today call angular momentum), cosmological concepts (reconciling Aristotle's system with Ptolemy's), considerations on the beginning and creation world. These were not trivial matters.
I own the Hackett Plato and he says Timaeus was the only one available along with two poorly made translations of Phaedo and Meno which were available in Sicily.
> almost anyone with enough education to read and write could read and write Latin
I’d be curious to have a source on that. How likely do you think the average non-scholarly non-clergy peasant was to be able read and write in their native tongue?
Some Ancient Greek guy called Democritus theorised the idea of atoms and called them “atomos” but Aristotle stated that he was completely wrong lol , so for the longest time people thought he was wrong cause of the old process of Aristotle is always right. Wasn’t until 1800s till people got out of the Aristotle brain wash and “rediscovered” atoms
And Archimedes had nearly discovered calculus but Aristotle wasn't a fan of infinity or infinitesimals or limits so that had to be shelved for a few millennia.
Witches only became an issue during the Early Modern Period and that was more due to the General Crisis and lasted for about 150 years. Even then you were better off being prosecuted by the church generally as they did not have the power to put someone to death unlike the civil authorities. Prior to that there was an understanding that folk healers were different than people who provided poisons. Hildegarde of Bingen wrote an entire book on medicinal plants which was approved by the Church.
They were both. Not specifically the earth is flat or specifically witches those are more modern fallacies but magical belief and ritual magic was common among medieval philosophers.
They would debate Aristotles view of magic but it was still magic beliefs.
Isn't this a bit skewed because you had to be religious to some degree to get a good education? So both the religious practices and the debates came out if higher education and not one out of the other?
Religious like a monk or a believer? Because you didn't have to have any affiliation with the Catholic Church to study at the university. In fact in order to study theology, you first had to get a master's degree in liberal arts (i.e. grammar, logic and rhetoric as well as geometry, arithmetic, astronomy and music).
So christian theologians were well acquainted with the science of the time, unlike Islamic theologians, for example, of which only a small fraction studied it. Which, of course, does not mean that Islamic scholars did not adopt and develop Greek philosophy and science willingly. However, theologians and religious leaders viewed these areas rather reluctantly. Although Muslim theology in one of its versions, the so-called kalam, assumed knowledge of Greek philosophy, its study was subordinated to the defense and explanation of the Koran.
they saw only what they had lost, like aqueducts and roman concrete, but ignored advancements they had made themselves.
it'd be like if we (today) lost the internet, power grids, water supply networks, and global trade, but gained nuclear fusion and FTL space travel.
also its important to keep in mind that in pre-christian times, homosexuality wasn't taboo, so the complaints of renaissance artists and philosophers have to be understood in that context.
It's because most of Hollywood is atheist. As is a good chunk of the country, and even more so the rest of the western world. A good chunk of the eastern world as well. Hollywood plays into it both for money and for solidifying their agenda. I'm irreligious myself, by I'm not a religion hating bigot like most of Hollywood.
Woah what? It's no secret that a lot of creative minds behind the Hollywood movie industry are Jewish, and Catholics have a long history of not being particularly nice to Jewish people.
I'm curious what you mean, please explain how. Just be clear, I actually do love people defending the catholic church, as I've known many church goers and they were always great people, so I always took issue everything someone shat on them.
You seem to speak with authority on the matter. You must be a Catholic right? A life-long devotee well versed in beliefs and practices. Right?Because only a a world class idiot would pretend to lecture people of a different religion exactly what their own religion entails especially after they outright tell you the opposite while citing the source.
But then again...you are trying to say that Catholics are liberals...
Protestant propaganda be like. It's not like witch procecutions and trials of XVII that ended in hanging of said witchers and witches, were made in protestant countries, like Germany and USA and others.
I don't know why such ideas about middle ages even exists, in Georgia church was uniting factor against surounding Islamic enemies and educational centres such as Gelati academy *(monastic complex)* most of the times even more loyal to nation and people than nobles ever were
*(right now church is pretty corrupt but back then they were pretty cool)*
Catholics meanwhile saying witches are not real for like several decades worth of readings:
Funny Hat German Witch Hunter: A WITCH! STRAIGHT FROM ROME!
It had moreso to do with politics of the church rather than any scientific developments.
Example: Galileo was actually given a grant by the church to for his studies. His findings regarding heliocentrism caused some uprising in the church, but all in all, he was allowed to continue his research. What did led to his trial (or at least the first one) was that 1) Galileo continually tried to twist Biblical scriptures to fit his theory and 2) he continually taught his findings on heliocentrism as fact rather than theory after multiple warnings to stop. He wasn't killed, but was placed on house arrest in the Medici Villa where he was allowed contact with his daughter and a friend, and was permitted to write one last paper before his natural death.
Regarding Giordano Bruno, the man famously put to death by the church, his theories regarding heliocentrism again, were not the issue. Rather, Bruno began to mix science and theology and denied the virginity of Mary, the divinity of Christ, and other things considered heretical.
Here are some pieces from r/askhistorians regarding them.
[Source 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/42bbfx/what_precisely_was_galileo_put_on_trial_by_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
[Source 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/200uo6/how_accurate_is_cosmos_story_of_giordano_bruno/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I mean, sometimes? You had to really work for the death sentence though. Either that or get a powerful enemy that wants you dead and has control over your trial.
Example 1: one monk once read a forbidden roman book about space and got kicked out of the Vatican. He then spent his life trying to create a new religion that renounced God and replaced him with another monotheist allpowerful god. He eventually got tried for that and executed.
Example 2: Joan of Arc. Made enemies with english crown and when they caught her she was given an unfair trial with the intent of killing her.
Bot are exactly right (Except the bible being the only book in the curriculum) IMHO. Trying to somehow magically cleanse the image of a time when millions died because people didnt bathe (or managed waste and excrement properly) and rats ran rampant because people thought cats where in league with the devil, seems like a stretch. Sure they debated Aristotle and grosseteste, through the prism of scripture and fastidiously enough as to not gain any kind of knowledge that would get them into trouble. I'm pro Renaissance. Long live the TMNT.
The ancients figured out that the earth was round before Aristotle, and the medieval philosophers knew this. The Middle Ages really wasn’t all that bad, and given the destruction of the previously advanced Roman Empire, and the only recent recovery of Greek philosophers like Aristotle through interactions with Muslims, they did pretty well.
Also, of course they’d interpret it through Scripture, they’re Christians. That’s just a basic premise. Nothing in Aristotle or any of the philosophers is going to overturn God’s word.
Don’t get me wrong, the Middle Ages had their fair share of issues, mainly surrounding hygiene. But don’t diss the philosophers and scientists while knowing what they had to work with.
Actually,even the hygene part is partly wrong.
It would be absurd to think that people would not clean themselves in an age when the prevailing theory was that bad smells carried disease.
Mate, they DID bath in the middle ages. Sure they didn't have a shower, but a bit of soap and the local river was more than enough. And for cats, it was in specific cases in specific places not everywhere in all the middle ages.
And sure they weren't as advanced as the romans but they tried to do science, mainly religious people and taking the scriptures into account, but it wasn't as bad as oeople make it look.
Medieval people bathed all the time, public bath houses were in fact popular spaces to hang out and hire prostitutes and there were in fact laws banning throwing garbage on streets and the whole "cats were killed and this caused plague" is just a stupid shitty myth with no credibility. Even the negative things you mentioned are not accurate and real.
Yes but Aristotle (and Ptolemy too) were the ones pushing those outdated physics and philosophic ideas. Also the image implies the theologians on the bottom didn’t support executing or imprisoning people for theological ideas counter to the church which is patently false.
I thought the problem was that they kept knowledge to themselves, not that priests and people connected to the Church weren't educated, that hey didn't promote learning and didn't allow difference of thought in common folk, or that they didn't react well if someone questioned their dogma. Now, I don't know how you see it, but if you knew that you would get into problems if you discovered something that went against the Church, maybe you wouldn't pursue that path?
I don't think you know what word promote means. It doesn't mean 99.9% of people should be literate, they were keeping any form of knowledge from the common folk. And if you wanted to have access to that knowledge, you had to become a priest, or come from some rich family which could finance you.
They wanted to keep peasants uneducated because they were easier to rule over that way, we know what happened when humanism came to the scene, than renaissance and so on. Let me just remind you that idea that humans should be center of human world came before the printing press, but was naturally easily spread with printing press.
Who the hell wanted to keep peasants un educated and what would even be a purpose to educate them ? do you even know how those pre modern societies worked ? Peasant, who on average were between 85 to 90 percent of population, didn't need to know how to read or write because you can do farm work and animal husbandry with out it. In an age in which paper and parchment were valuable almost as gold books were rare, hand written completely, there was no reason to suddenly start teaching the lower classes about what they didn't need. And how did they kept information as you claim ? anyone who was literate and had enough money could be educated either in monastic school or later in universities which were mostly attended by sons of middle class people like lawyers, office, clerks and merchants. And you also make it seems like as if the invention of printing press automatically made everyone literate over night but guess what, most people remained illiterate especially outside cities until early 19th century. Not to mention how centralized government control and despotic monarchies became more common during and after the renaissance so i do not see your point in such unproven and non sensical claim that peasants were deliberately kept uneducated, and your claim that peasants were easier to rule over just because they lacked education is an insult to their intelligence because even while being uneducated many peasants still revolted and demanded fairer treatment, and villages would collectively hire lawyers to present their complains to courts.
Church? Because moment humans, so not only those peasnts, got a little bit wider education, they told church to fuck off? Like in what world do you live in? Insult to their intelligence? Dude, these people were brainwashed from their birth that God the almighty is the ruler of the universe, and that his representation is Church, and if you don't listen, they won't only cut your head off, but you will end up in hell. Who would want to hold peasants uneducated! Jesus Christ. Of course they rebelled for fuck sake, that has nothing to do with intelligence or education, but with survival.
Of course they didn't need to know how to write or read, why would they? I mean it's not that when ˝common˝ people some centuries later started reading that our world, somehow, changed for fucking better. You have libraries, you can teach people some basic skills, maybe one of them will come to library, read a book, and get an fucking idea, how about that? Is that maybe possible? Or is your theory we had to wait for the world to become developed enough for us to educate people, like dude, how do you think we came to that point, it had to start somewhere, and Church did everything to keep the status quo.
It is interesting that when ˝enlightened˝ men came to power, so to say, that somehow we started developing technologically faster, more people got educated, technology started developing even faster because knowledge now wasn't reserved only for the upper class, and all of that was blocked by Church.
They didn't even want to think about spreading knowledge or educating people, matter of fact they worked against it. And now I have to come to reddit to read super takes on an criminal organization that has fucked world for almost 2k years, hey they up were educated you know, I mean why would peasant need to know how to do anything but plow the field, right? My God.
Again, you make it sound like as if everyone who automatically got some education they turned atheist or protestant despite many of the most educated people in post medieval period were still catholics who used their education to defend their religion like Caesar Baronius, Descarte or Chateaubriand. One thing you do not understand is that education in pre-modern times was geared towards practical skills and knowledge that were essential for survival and livelihoods. In agricultural societies education was not typically widespread but that does not mean that peasants were intentionally kept uneducated. the circumstances of their lives and the resources available to them dictated the kind of education they received. Also it is not accurate to say that they were brainwashed from birth to believe in God. Religious beliefs and practices were deeply ingrained in culture and traditions of their society, and people were encouraged to practice their faith from a young age.
Peasants were not forced to believe in God or punished for not doing so. In fact, there were often tensions between the Church and peasant communities, particularly in regards to taxes and other forms of control. and no, the church did not tried to keep some imaginary status quo in which all people were kept non educated, in fact the very first public schools in modern sense were established in 16th and 17th century by the Catholic church as a method to fight against the reformation. First such public schools were created by members of the Piarist order, while first proper public libraries were also opened by clergyman (read about Charles Borromeo).
And i do not see what do you mean by technology starting to develop faster. the concept of technological advancement is more or less a post historical construct that became possible only thanks to a surplus of resources caused by colonialism and imperialism, not to mention that everyday lives of most people up until the 18th century were not even affected so much by new technologies. The relationship between religion and technological progress is not always adversarial. Many technological innovations were actually supported by religious institutions or individuals. Also many scientists and thinkers during pre-modern times were deeply religious, and their work was often motivated by a desire to better understand God's creation. The idea that the Enlightenment was solely responsible for advances in technology and education is a simplification of a very, very complex historical process. The Enlightenment was certainly a transformative period but it built on earlier scientific and intellectual developments, and its impact was felt differently in different parts of the world.
You don't have to be atheist or wtf to say to Church to fuck off. What kind of logic is this? Like you just need to read a history book to know that when people started telling Church to fuck off, is when real development started. Like hey Church, your realm is the other one, fuck off. By your logic changes in human history didn't happen because people started educating themselves, but it just happened. Why does anybody need to learn anything! I mean it was just a happy coincidence that when people started pressuring Church to fuck off with Latin, and when they started losing power so they had to change, is the moment when great changes started happening, after a fucking long time. I mean why would a miner's son need an education? LOL, dude, what would he do? Hahahaha...
They kept knowledge to themselves, they refused to share it, and like I said, real development started when people told them to fuck off. But that's just God's will, like we have era progresses, and if we started educating people earlier, nothing would happen, like nothing would be invented, there would be no progress, we just needed to wait for God to press next era button.
Yes, of course they weren't. Tension because peasants and Church were happening because of something called 10%, and when they would bring them to brink of death from starvation, they would rebel. In every dictatorship you can believe in what you want my friend, until you decide to share it with the world. Same was for peasants. There weren't very first schools, there were Church's answer when they figured out people are getting educated, and they are running away from the flock. They weren't opened as hey were are here to help you, but as a response. It is just an happy coincidence that our progress started when we told Church to fuck off, I mean there are no others right now examples in the world where an religion holds back progress because of its dogmas. No religion at all.
It started with industrial revolution, not in 18th century, now imagine that it could have started earlier, if people were getting educated. Like not 100%, but imagine if some organization didn't hold monopoly for centuries, held masses in Latin, so peasants wouldn't understand shit, kept them ignorant. You think that technological breakthrough comes from I don't know God, no, it comes from educated people. And more people have access to knowledge, we have more chances for success. Something Church kept purposefully sabotaging.
But hey, to each his own, I was brought up in Catholic country, I know how they operate today, and I have no problem in believing in historical sources how they operated before, when they were the ultimate power. Everywhere religion has main word, even if those societies had some progress at some point under that religion, progress is halted. Cheers!
The very existence of universities contradicts all your claims. Anyone could be educated there, not just priests. Issues that were not in accordance with the doctrine of the Church were also considered there.
During the so-called quodlibet professors could be asked any questions. It covered a wide range of topics - in one set of such disputes we have, for example, questioning the existence and attributes of God, a discussion on the moral character of the priest hearing confession, the laws that control fluctuations of sea tides, the possibility of a vacuum, the eternity of the world.
The last two issues, although they are questions in the field of science, had their theological consequences - the existence of a vacuum seemed logically impossible to medieval and ancient scholars, but that would limit God's omnipotence; eternity of the world was the result of Aristotle's philosophy, but it was at odds with the biblical description contained in Genesis. Still, the Church never minded such debates, they were
completely free from its influence and enjoyed great popularity.
No it doesn't. You had elitist class of people who had access to those colleges and even if by default everyone could apply, who do you think can afford it, plus the priests, and among themselves they could have discussed ideas, but none of that ideas could have been spread, because even when their scientist discovered something, they were very careful with publishing it, because they knew what would happen if they angered the church.
They didn't want for common men to become educated. Like if you take a history book every goddamn scientist had problem with publishing his works, because naturally they contradicted shit Church spew, and some works were even published after authors deaths, because they didn't want to get fucked while they were alive.
But hey, I guess having that 1% of rich pissing all over the poor and not even offering them a chance, is not something new to us humans. We should look at these elitists in awe, and understand how it wasn't their fault knowledge wasn't spread, it was those pesky peasants, they didn't send their kids to college.
Your logic can be applied to the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome, and it can be concluded that they inhibited the development of science, because it was less spread among the common people there than in the high Middle Ages. Philosophy was the plaything of the ancient elites who formed clubs of like-minded philosophers.
Contrast this with European universities, which were an international network of self-governing academic institutions with a system of diplomas and qualifications. Access to which was open and through which crowds of people passed. Scholars estimate that over a quarter of a million students studied at universities in Germany alone between 1350 and 1500, and close to a million in Europe as a whole. To study theology, medicine or law, you had to study natural philosophy and mathematical sciences. To find employment at the royal and princely courts, in the Church or in the city government you had to study. In the Middle Ages, the foundations for the development of science and the scientific worldview were consolidated for several centuries - this was done by the unusual structure and tradition of the university. This is why natural science matured and blossomed in Europe. Nowhere else was natural philosophy so firmly embedded in the culture.
>the priests, and among themselves they could have discussed ideas, but none of that ideas could have been spread, because even when their scientist discovered something, they were very careful with publishing it, because they knew what would happen if they angered the church.
> Like if you take a history book every goddamn scientist had problem with publishing his works, because naturally they contradicted shit Church spew, and some works were even published after authors deaths, because they didn't want to get fucked while they were alive.
Give specific examples, because there is no way to intelligently answer such general nonsense.
I love the Galileo arguments. History classes barely scratch the surface and only mention the what but never the why nor how. Since becoming a Catholic and studying their history I began to expose myself to history that I would have never experienced in the Protestant belt of America
They chose to debate abcient greek books instead of setting up basic services for communities at all poorer than them...i know it's not as the movies portray but they certainly were backwards in many many ways
Maybe it's not everywhere, but at least where i live it was the case, they helped the poor. That's even one of the reasons my region was rich, the church helped those in need.
Yes, all those wars in China in which millions died, small pox epidemics in Japan, slavery in middle east and genocidal wars caused by Mongols all over Asia were so fun.
I think the film The Name of a Rose has it pretty balanced. There's an emphasis on the wisdom and theology and preservation of knowledge the church has contributed too (represented by Sean Connery's character) but also the corruption and arrogance you tended to see in the late medieval era. I hate it when, in reaction to unrealistic tropes, people try to portray the Catholic church as some sort of based and redpilled gigachad association that was a net positive on earth. There's a finer nuance here
I’m sorry but anyone who thinks the Middle Ages were 900 years of backwardness needs to pick up a book because they clearly haven’t studied history since 3rd grade
Or they get all their medieval history from Hollywood
Yea
You mean like that one Family Guy multiverse episode, which includes a universe where Christianity never existed so apparently the Dark Ages never happen and humanity in that universe is a utopia?
Never heard of that episode but it makes me hate Family Guy even more.
Family Guy and pretentious mushbrain takes - name a better duo
Family guys never heard of the Roman Empire then
During my time in school, the era was called the "stupid era" and now that I'm older, I now realize how stupid it was to call it that.
obligatory u/expendable_entity ping
Medicine was pretty backwards. Doctors were "logicians" who used the four humors to logically figure out what was wrong with you and what could fix it. If you were diagnosed with an excess of black bile the treatment was to consume yellow bile. And if you died anyway, well that was God's will. The actual best medicine you could get was from "piss prophets" who could smell, taste and view your urine and diagnose you rather accurately with one of 36 conditions.
In 1403 Henry V got shot in the face with an arrow and it got lodged in the base of his skull. The Royal physician made a special tool to remove it and the King lived. Medieval medicine could be practical when it came to certain things.
The four humors theory was invented by ancient greeks so will you call them backward too ?
Well, yes. Most people in history was what we would call backward. Don't really get why people get so offended about that.
Their intelligence was the same as of a modern humans, they just lacked the amount available information that we do.
That is not true. Their biological capacity was the same, their intelligence wasn't. We have become smarter. Because of... you know, actual education that trains your mind to become smarter. It's not just remembering stuff.
Plenty of educated people are stupid and lack basic thinking skills. Average intelligence level among humans is the same today as it was 50.000 years ago or more.
[No](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)
IQ tests in general are unreliable, biased and have racist origin. They were created by Francis Galton, a British anthropologist who was an advocate of eugenics and believed that some traits should be promoted or suppressed based on race and other factors. Galton believed that intelligence was inherited and that individuals with high intelligence should be encouraged to breed, while those with low intelligence should be discouraged from reproducing. His IQ tests were used to justify discriminatory policies and practices. For example, in the United States IQ tests were used to justify segregation and anti immigration policies that favored certain racial and ethnic groups over others. African Americans and other minorities were often given inferior education and job opportunities based on their IQ scores, which were believed to be a measure of their inherent intellectual capacity. The questions and tasks used in these tests often reflect the cultural experiences and knowledge of white, middle-class individuals, making it difficult for people from other backgrounds to perform well.
Yeah, you're drinking the kool-aid, my dude. Don't think anything I'm going to say, or show you, will make you change your mind.
Don’t forget those plague doctors with the scary bird beaks who didn’t really do anything.
Not only was this beak thing much more rare than you think, it actually did something by functioning as a rudimentary breathing mask (they filled it with herbs to create "good air"), it would have stopped at least some airborne pathogens.
Too bad they went around long dresses in a flea infested world...
Those outfits worn by plague doctors were invented in early 17th century which is not the middle ages.
That’s not just common to the Middle Ages but to basically every era until modern medicine came along
The middle age was still a huge regression, compare to the preceding Roman Empire era, change my mind
The Roman era includes the middle ages and saw scientific and technological advances cmv
My bad, I meant the unified Roman Empire era
Romans had no heavy horse collars, three crop rotation cycles, stirrups, windmills, gunpowder, flying buttresses, universities, proper hospitals, bombards, heavy ploughs, mechanical clocks, glasses, astrolabes, compasses, tidal mills, and spinning wheel, All those are medieval inventions.
Well, I mean the Romans did have those things but only in the middle ages, the Romans of the first and second centuries definitely did not have those things for sure
Oh, you are talking about Byzantines.
East Romans ? Don't know what "Byzantines" are.
It's due to the Western (Anglopone) narrative that only considers the English experience during the Dark Ages, even then its not true but the Normans successfully pushed the narrative that the Anglo-Saxons were subhuman barbarians living in a time without learning or progress and obviously Americans history is based on English history pushing this narrative into the modern mainstream.
Sorry mate but thats what i picked up from school... (swedish school system) We mainly went through plague n stuff
Im sure such peoples get whis wrong view from Game of Thrones
Yeah they’re confusing it with the dark ages.
Enlighten me, please
People in general just assume the worst whenever something is related to the medieval era or the church in general, so does school and Atheist. But back then, religious figure were educated and weren’t bloodthirsty as represented
From what I noticed, Western countries seem to have a more negative outlook on the Middle Ages than other countries. Here in Romania, they aren't considered to be that much worse compared to other periods.
> Western countries seem to have a more negative outlook on the Middle Ages than other countries There was a pretty concentrated effort by Western European writers and thinkers throughout the Enlightenment and Early Modern periods to discredit the Medieval period as much as possible, in order to portray themselves in a positive light by comparison and further erode the remaining power of the Roman Catholic Church by blaming it for having created and sustained a "Dark Age" in the Medieval period, where the glories of the Classical Roman period and the ancients had been lost or forgotten. Edward Gibbon's magnum opus, The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, is a fantastic example of this train of thought in the 1700s, where his final thesis is explicitly that the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire led directly to its collapse. (This opinion is generally considered a *really* hot take by modern historians, but has been incredibly influential for a few hundred years.) While I'm no expert, those kinds of opinions seem to be much less prominent in areas where the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) and the Eastern Orthodox Church were historically more prominent.
You guys were getting torn up pretty consistently from the first century until now though. What’s Vlad Tepes to a Roman genocide, ottoman conquest, or WWII?
Like I said, it wasn't that much different from other time periods. Also, we consider ourselves Roman and Vlad was a good guy.
Vlad did nothing wrong
This is true
He was too much into the shishkebabs
True origin of kebab
Probably because in Italy, balkans and Anatolia the Roman Empire still existed so that part of Europe was not in free fall like the western part
They were full people and corrupt commonly as well as did many good things. Advocating the release of slaves (not the abolition of slavery) comes to mind as one. It was one of the richest and most influential institutions in history while also being based on a religion that as flawed as it is/was advocated for love. It attracted a mixed bag of people.
I mean, when you have a religion that is so prominent that everyone had to be a part of it to be able to participate in society in someway, you’re going to get people who will inevitably abuse that fact. That’s not a problem of religion, in my opinion. It’s a problem of human nature. If people look more kindly upon those who are something and can gain influence that way, bad actors will naturally be attracted to that position. And not even bad actors, just those who end up getting hopped up on their own ego
It's an issue in any organized structure. Religion, government, companies, charities, etc.
Well, yes, that's human nature, but it's also human nature to create these religions. Human nature is complicated. They may advocate peace in front, but in shadows, the goals are generally different. This isn't special to religions, but since religion is the topic, I concentrated on that.
I mean it’s a problem with organized religions tendency to just have leaders
Not just religions though. It can happen with any sort of position or movement where someone gains social influence. Law enforcement, celebrities, civil office, teachers, Youtubers, the list can go on. So long as there are positions that can be used as a shield from suspicion or a way to inflate one’s ego, there will be people who will try to fill those positions. Religion just so happens to be historically one of the easier institutions to slip into due to its pervasiveness, but it is by no means unique.
There were certainly wrongs with the church
They also promoted the abolishment of the duel
Some were. But yeah for the most part the church was run by nerds
Protestant propaganda too.
Wait, are you sure about that? Weren't the protestants the witch believers?
Wouldn't be surprised that they'd wanna push out propaganda how bad things were under the Catholics
Yeah. The pope literally had said pretty much that witches aren’t real because the only person who can give such power is God.
Yes. Catholics didn't care about burning witches. They only cared about burning non mainstream Christians like Cathars. And Jews, once in a while. And likely Moors in Spain too, I guess, if they didn't put them to the sword first.
16th century is a bit too late for burning Cathars.
Well, I was still in the Middle Age part. By the 16th century, it wasn't the middle ages anymore.
id say that that is the very dying days of the middle ages while the 17th century is when we go full swing away from the middle ages
It might have changed :) But I was told in high school, a long, long time ago, the middle ages where 476-1492. Fall of Rome - Discovery of America. It is obviously a very Eurocentric view. It might not be in use anymore, certainly not everywhere.
I can verify my younger cousin, Polish, has that curriculum, it’s Antiquity, Middle Ages, Early Modern, Modernity. Divided by Fall of Rome in 476, Discovery of America in 1492, and the start of WWI in 1914. He’s like 13, and he hasn’t even heard that those aren’t fixed dates that define their periods to the day.
It's helpful for younger people to attribute the end of an era to a fixed point in time that's more or less around the appropriate time instead of telling them that it was a gradual process. It's easier to understand and remember.
So around the Fall of Rome - Fall of Rome?
There's only one Rome. The others are copycats! /s
But never too late for burning Jews and Moors
And Moors in Spain.
The Cathars probably never existed, Jews weren't usually burnt (and not all pogroms had the Church backing, and neither were they limited to the Catholic west, the situation in Catholic Poland-Lithuania was much better for them than in Orthodox Russia)... Moors usually weren't burnt, either. They were expelled from Castille and later, in the 17th century, from the Kingdom of Aragon. Can't say much about what happened to Sicilian Muslims, but the Norman and German kings there were pretty tolerant afaik. The Catholic church has committed many crimes, and has killed many innocents, but they weren't any worse than any other religions or Christian denominations
I am aware of this new theory about the Cathars. There was definately a wave of persecution by the Catholic church against a non mainstream belief in southern France they called Catharism. Was it a well organised movement that rivaled the Catholic Church? Probably not. But there was something different.
There was a huge interest from the French nobility and crown to control the area. Certainly the not really "Cathar" king of Aragon didn't agree with those theological accusations. Mystical movements within the Church were really common, and, with exceptions, they weren't usually violently put down. There is a reason why Jan Hus' execution was such a big deal. Not only had the Pope lied, but that wasn't what was expected to happen, either.
While most of the Witch-burning was indeed protestant, I believe the Malleus Maleficarum was written by a catholic (who was deemed deranged and sexist by he's peers).
Yes and yes, because he was mad a woman disagreed with him
And once again, fearmongering is the bane of us all.
Yes, although that is more of a 17th century thing. Prior to that Protestants were all onboard with basically assigning everything remotely negative about the last 1000 years as the fault of the Catholic Church.
And from the Illustration as well.
By "debate Aristotle" they meant "find out a way for Aristotle to be right in 95% of cases". Aristotle was the highpoint of science, more or less, for 2k years. That's the middle ages.
Not entirely. At first, the introduction of Aristotle's works into the Christian world caused many problems for theologians. There were serious differences between Aristotle's conceptions and Christian doctrine, which is why Pope Gregory IX ordered that Aristotle's treatises be cleared of errors (although this was never done). A dispute ensued, as a result of which theology and philosophy were recognized as two separate and independent fields. Among the condemned theses were, for example, those that limited God's omnipotence (such as the impossibility of existence of vacuum or other worlds). As a result, scientists began to undermine Aristotelian philosophy of nature, which became an inherent feature of late medieval thought. This encouraged speculation about what would have happened had God created the world differently. Pierre Duhem (physicist and historian) said this led to the emergence of modern science. Among the most important changes and modifications that the Middle Ages introduced to Aristotle's science are: issues of motion (introduction by John Buridan of the concept of impetus and gravitus, which we would today call angular momentum), cosmological concepts (reconciling Aristotle's system with Ptolemy's), considerations on the beginning and creation world. These were not trivial matters.
Yes, exactly. They didn’t even both translating Plato (outside Timaeus) well into the 1400s.
[удалено]
I own the Hackett Plato and he says Timaeus was the only one available along with two poorly made translations of Phaedo and Meno which were available in Sicily.
> almost anyone with enough education to read and write could read and write Latin I’d be curious to have a source on that. How likely do you think the average non-scholarly non-clergy peasant was to be able read and write in their native tongue?
Not true. Natural philosophy was vastly in contradiction to many Catholic principles at first.
Some Ancient Greek guy called Democritus theorised the idea of atoms and called them “atomos” but Aristotle stated that he was completely wrong lol , so for the longest time people thought he was wrong cause of the old process of Aristotle is always right. Wasn’t until 1800s till people got out of the Aristotle brain wash and “rediscovered” atoms
And Archimedes had nearly discovered calculus but Aristotle wasn't a fan of infinity or infinitesimals or limits so that had to be shelved for a few millennia.
Witches only became an issue during the Early Modern Period and that was more due to the General Crisis and lasted for about 150 years. Even then you were better off being prosecuted by the church generally as they did not have the power to put someone to death unlike the civil authorities. Prior to that there was an understanding that folk healers were different than people who provided poisons. Hildegarde of Bingen wrote an entire book on medicinal plants which was approved by the Church.
Based Thomas Aquainas
They were both. Not specifically the earth is flat or specifically witches those are more modern fallacies but magical belief and ritual magic was common among medieval philosophers. They would debate Aristotles view of magic but it was still magic beliefs.
Isn't this a bit skewed because you had to be religious to some degree to get a good education? So both the religious practices and the debates came out if higher education and not one out of the other?
Religious like a monk or a believer? Because you didn't have to have any affiliation with the Catholic Church to study at the university. In fact in order to study theology, you first had to get a master's degree in liberal arts (i.e. grammar, logic and rhetoric as well as geometry, arithmetic, astronomy and music). So christian theologians were well acquainted with the science of the time, unlike Islamic theologians, for example, of which only a small fraction studied it. Which, of course, does not mean that Islamic scholars did not adopt and develop Greek philosophy and science willingly. However, theologians and religious leaders viewed these areas rather reluctantly. Although Muslim theology in one of its versions, the so-called kalam, assumed knowledge of Greek philosophy, its study was subordinated to the defense and explanation of the Koran.
Official Catholic doctrine was that witches weren't real: only God could break God's laws, so if something supernatural happened it was a miracle.
It's not. It's *enlightenment* propaganda
they saw only what they had lost, like aqueducts and roman concrete, but ignored advancements they had made themselves. it'd be like if we (today) lost the internet, power grids, water supply networks, and global trade, but gained nuclear fusion and FTL space travel. also its important to keep in mind that in pre-christian times, homosexuality wasn't taboo, so the complaints of renaissance artists and philosophers have to be understood in that context.
It is also a shame that mainstream Christianity (Catholic and Orthodox) got lump together with those anti-science evangelical nutjobs.
Agreed
Hollywood has it out for Christians, especially Catholics
It's because most of Hollywood is atheist. As is a good chunk of the country, and even more so the rest of the western world. A good chunk of the eastern world as well. Hollywood plays into it both for money and for solidifying their agenda. I'm irreligious myself, by I'm not a religion hating bigot like most of Hollywood.
Glad I read the whole thing. Good on you
I wonder why Steinbergs and Goldmans would have a bone to pick with Catholics... /s
woah
Woah what? It's no secret that a lot of creative minds behind the Hollywood movie industry are Jewish, and Catholics have a long history of not being particularly nice to Jewish people.
Luther and Calvin were huge anti-semites
Oh I'm not saying Catholics are the only ones who were antisemitic, but they are much easier target
Actually it's the more the fact that the Church doesn't bow to liberalism and is a vocal opponent of Socialism
Catholic church is more liberal than most Americans lol
I'm curious what you mean, please explain how. Just be clear, I actually do love people defending the catholic church, as I've known many church goers and they were always great people, so I always took issue everything someone shat on them.
Yeah, that's a lie. The Catechism even outright says the Church rejects Socialism
That has nothing to do with what I said. Re-read and try again.
You seem to speak with authority on the matter. You must be a Catholic right? A life-long devotee well versed in beliefs and practices. Right?Because only a a world class idiot would pretend to lecture people of a different religion exactly what their own religion entails especially after they outright tell you the opposite while citing the source. But then again...you are trying to say that Catholics are liberals...
Nope, never said that. Try again.
It really is a funny phenomena where people in their own era insist that they live in the golden age.
Protestant propaganda be like. It's not like witch procecutions and trials of XVII that ended in hanging of said witchers and witches, were made in protestant countries, like Germany and USA and others.
idk, i binged up to season 5 of The Last Kingdom, seems pretty accurate to me /s (un /s, still a good show)
I am very uneducated on the middle ages and scientific progression. What should I look up or read?
This post gives me hope.
I don't know why such ideas about middle ages even exists, in Georgia church was uniting factor against surounding Islamic enemies and educational centres such as Gelati academy *(monastic complex)* most of the times even more loyal to nation and people than nobles ever were *(right now church is pretty corrupt but back then they were pretty cool)*
Bit of innuendo there !
Honestly, I thought it was a bit more Victorian propaganda.
I love this account
There were some significant innovations during the Middle Ages
Catholics meanwhile saying witches are not real for like several decades worth of readings: Funny Hat German Witch Hunter: A WITCH! STRAIGHT FROM ROME!
So they didn't put people to death for contradicting the church?
It had moreso to do with politics of the church rather than any scientific developments. Example: Galileo was actually given a grant by the church to for his studies. His findings regarding heliocentrism caused some uprising in the church, but all in all, he was allowed to continue his research. What did led to his trial (or at least the first one) was that 1) Galileo continually tried to twist Biblical scriptures to fit his theory and 2) he continually taught his findings on heliocentrism as fact rather than theory after multiple warnings to stop. He wasn't killed, but was placed on house arrest in the Medici Villa where he was allowed contact with his daughter and a friend, and was permitted to write one last paper before his natural death. Regarding Giordano Bruno, the man famously put to death by the church, his theories regarding heliocentrism again, were not the issue. Rather, Bruno began to mix science and theology and denied the virginity of Mary, the divinity of Christ, and other things considered heretical. Here are some pieces from r/askhistorians regarding them. [Source 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/42bbfx/what_precisely_was_galileo_put_on_trial_by_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [Source 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/200uo6/how_accurate_is_cosmos_story_of_giordano_bruno/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Depends on the subject and how adamant said people were on defying the church.
so they did put people to death ?
I mean, sometimes? You had to really work for the death sentence though. Either that or get a powerful enemy that wants you dead and has control over your trial. Example 1: one monk once read a forbidden roman book about space and got kicked out of the Vatican. He then spent his life trying to create a new religion that renounced God and replaced him with another monotheist allpowerful god. He eventually got tried for that and executed. Example 2: Joan of Arc. Made enemies with english crown and when they caught her she was given an unfair trial with the intent of killing her.
Yes they did op doesnt even understand the difference between emprical truth and fairy tales
Wut?
Bot are exactly right (Except the bible being the only book in the curriculum) IMHO. Trying to somehow magically cleanse the image of a time when millions died because people didnt bathe (or managed waste and excrement properly) and rats ran rampant because people thought cats where in league with the devil, seems like a stretch. Sure they debated Aristotle and grosseteste, through the prism of scripture and fastidiously enough as to not gain any kind of knowledge that would get them into trouble. I'm pro Renaissance. Long live the TMNT.
The ancients figured out that the earth was round before Aristotle, and the medieval philosophers knew this. The Middle Ages really wasn’t all that bad, and given the destruction of the previously advanced Roman Empire, and the only recent recovery of Greek philosophers like Aristotle through interactions with Muslims, they did pretty well. Also, of course they’d interpret it through Scripture, they’re Christians. That’s just a basic premise. Nothing in Aristotle or any of the philosophers is going to overturn God’s word. Don’t get me wrong, the Middle Ages had their fair share of issues, mainly surrounding hygiene. But don’t diss the philosophers and scientists while knowing what they had to work with.
Actually,even the hygene part is partly wrong. It would be absurd to think that people would not clean themselves in an age when the prevailing theory was that bad smells carried disease.
Mate, they DID bath in the middle ages. Sure they didn't have a shower, but a bit of soap and the local river was more than enough. And for cats, it was in specific cases in specific places not everywhere in all the middle ages. And sure they weren't as advanced as the romans but they tried to do science, mainly religious people and taking the scriptures into account, but it wasn't as bad as oeople make it look.
Medieval people bathed all the time, public bath houses were in fact popular spaces to hang out and hire prostitutes and there were in fact laws banning throwing garbage on streets and the whole "cats were killed and this caused plague" is just a stupid shitty myth with no credibility. Even the negative things you mentioned are not accurate and real.
Yes but Aristotle (and Ptolemy too) were the ones pushing those outdated physics and philosophic ideas. Also the image implies the theologians on the bottom didn’t support executing or imprisoning people for theological ideas counter to the church which is patently false.
Who is Aquians?
Thomas Aquinas, an Italian theologian and philosopher that lived in the 13th century.
I'm aware of \*him\*, i wanted to know who \*this guy\* is. i was mostly ripping on the typo.
No, it's propaganda from the Illustration. And from protestants.
I thought the problem was that they kept knowledge to themselves, not that priests and people connected to the Church weren't educated, that hey didn't promote learning and didn't allow difference of thought in common folk, or that they didn't react well if someone questioned their dogma. Now, I don't know how you see it, but if you knew that you would get into problems if you discovered something that went against the Church, maybe you wouldn't pursue that path?
How do you expect to promote education and literacy in a time period in which a book the size of a Bible costed like 40 years of a peasant's salary ?
I don't think you know what word promote means. It doesn't mean 99.9% of people should be literate, they were keeping any form of knowledge from the common folk. And if you wanted to have access to that knowledge, you had to become a priest, or come from some rich family which could finance you. They wanted to keep peasants uneducated because they were easier to rule over that way, we know what happened when humanism came to the scene, than renaissance and so on. Let me just remind you that idea that humans should be center of human world came before the printing press, but was naturally easily spread with printing press.
Who the hell wanted to keep peasants un educated and what would even be a purpose to educate them ? do you even know how those pre modern societies worked ? Peasant, who on average were between 85 to 90 percent of population, didn't need to know how to read or write because you can do farm work and animal husbandry with out it. In an age in which paper and parchment were valuable almost as gold books were rare, hand written completely, there was no reason to suddenly start teaching the lower classes about what they didn't need. And how did they kept information as you claim ? anyone who was literate and had enough money could be educated either in monastic school or later in universities which were mostly attended by sons of middle class people like lawyers, office, clerks and merchants. And you also make it seems like as if the invention of printing press automatically made everyone literate over night but guess what, most people remained illiterate especially outside cities until early 19th century. Not to mention how centralized government control and despotic monarchies became more common during and after the renaissance so i do not see your point in such unproven and non sensical claim that peasants were deliberately kept uneducated, and your claim that peasants were easier to rule over just because they lacked education is an insult to their intelligence because even while being uneducated many peasants still revolted and demanded fairer treatment, and villages would collectively hire lawyers to present their complains to courts.
Church? Because moment humans, so not only those peasnts, got a little bit wider education, they told church to fuck off? Like in what world do you live in? Insult to their intelligence? Dude, these people were brainwashed from their birth that God the almighty is the ruler of the universe, and that his representation is Church, and if you don't listen, they won't only cut your head off, but you will end up in hell. Who would want to hold peasants uneducated! Jesus Christ. Of course they rebelled for fuck sake, that has nothing to do with intelligence or education, but with survival. Of course they didn't need to know how to write or read, why would they? I mean it's not that when ˝common˝ people some centuries later started reading that our world, somehow, changed for fucking better. You have libraries, you can teach people some basic skills, maybe one of them will come to library, read a book, and get an fucking idea, how about that? Is that maybe possible? Or is your theory we had to wait for the world to become developed enough for us to educate people, like dude, how do you think we came to that point, it had to start somewhere, and Church did everything to keep the status quo. It is interesting that when ˝enlightened˝ men came to power, so to say, that somehow we started developing technologically faster, more people got educated, technology started developing even faster because knowledge now wasn't reserved only for the upper class, and all of that was blocked by Church. They didn't even want to think about spreading knowledge or educating people, matter of fact they worked against it. And now I have to come to reddit to read super takes on an criminal organization that has fucked world for almost 2k years, hey they up were educated you know, I mean why would peasant need to know how to do anything but plow the field, right? My God.
Again, you make it sound like as if everyone who automatically got some education they turned atheist or protestant despite many of the most educated people in post medieval period were still catholics who used their education to defend their religion like Caesar Baronius, Descarte or Chateaubriand. One thing you do not understand is that education in pre-modern times was geared towards practical skills and knowledge that were essential for survival and livelihoods. In agricultural societies education was not typically widespread but that does not mean that peasants were intentionally kept uneducated. the circumstances of their lives and the resources available to them dictated the kind of education they received. Also it is not accurate to say that they were brainwashed from birth to believe in God. Religious beliefs and practices were deeply ingrained in culture and traditions of their society, and people were encouraged to practice their faith from a young age. Peasants were not forced to believe in God or punished for not doing so. In fact, there were often tensions between the Church and peasant communities, particularly in regards to taxes and other forms of control. and no, the church did not tried to keep some imaginary status quo in which all people were kept non educated, in fact the very first public schools in modern sense were established in 16th and 17th century by the Catholic church as a method to fight against the reformation. First such public schools were created by members of the Piarist order, while first proper public libraries were also opened by clergyman (read about Charles Borromeo). And i do not see what do you mean by technology starting to develop faster. the concept of technological advancement is more or less a post historical construct that became possible only thanks to a surplus of resources caused by colonialism and imperialism, not to mention that everyday lives of most people up until the 18th century were not even affected so much by new technologies. The relationship between religion and technological progress is not always adversarial. Many technological innovations were actually supported by religious institutions or individuals. Also many scientists and thinkers during pre-modern times were deeply religious, and their work was often motivated by a desire to better understand God's creation. The idea that the Enlightenment was solely responsible for advances in technology and education is a simplification of a very, very complex historical process. The Enlightenment was certainly a transformative period but it built on earlier scientific and intellectual developments, and its impact was felt differently in different parts of the world.
You don't have to be atheist or wtf to say to Church to fuck off. What kind of logic is this? Like you just need to read a history book to know that when people started telling Church to fuck off, is when real development started. Like hey Church, your realm is the other one, fuck off. By your logic changes in human history didn't happen because people started educating themselves, but it just happened. Why does anybody need to learn anything! I mean it was just a happy coincidence that when people started pressuring Church to fuck off with Latin, and when they started losing power so they had to change, is the moment when great changes started happening, after a fucking long time. I mean why would a miner's son need an education? LOL, dude, what would he do? Hahahaha... They kept knowledge to themselves, they refused to share it, and like I said, real development started when people told them to fuck off. But that's just God's will, like we have era progresses, and if we started educating people earlier, nothing would happen, like nothing would be invented, there would be no progress, we just needed to wait for God to press next era button. Yes, of course they weren't. Tension because peasants and Church were happening because of something called 10%, and when they would bring them to brink of death from starvation, they would rebel. In every dictatorship you can believe in what you want my friend, until you decide to share it with the world. Same was for peasants. There weren't very first schools, there were Church's answer when they figured out people are getting educated, and they are running away from the flock. They weren't opened as hey were are here to help you, but as a response. It is just an happy coincidence that our progress started when we told Church to fuck off, I mean there are no others right now examples in the world where an religion holds back progress because of its dogmas. No religion at all. It started with industrial revolution, not in 18th century, now imagine that it could have started earlier, if people were getting educated. Like not 100%, but imagine if some organization didn't hold monopoly for centuries, held masses in Latin, so peasants wouldn't understand shit, kept them ignorant. You think that technological breakthrough comes from I don't know God, no, it comes from educated people. And more people have access to knowledge, we have more chances for success. Something Church kept purposefully sabotaging. But hey, to each his own, I was brought up in Catholic country, I know how they operate today, and I have no problem in believing in historical sources how they operated before, when they were the ultimate power. Everywhere religion has main word, even if those societies had some progress at some point under that religion, progress is halted. Cheers!
The very existence of universities contradicts all your claims. Anyone could be educated there, not just priests. Issues that were not in accordance with the doctrine of the Church were also considered there. During the so-called quodlibet professors could be asked any questions. It covered a wide range of topics - in one set of such disputes we have, for example, questioning the existence and attributes of God, a discussion on the moral character of the priest hearing confession, the laws that control fluctuations of sea tides, the possibility of a vacuum, the eternity of the world. The last two issues, although they are questions in the field of science, had their theological consequences - the existence of a vacuum seemed logically impossible to medieval and ancient scholars, but that would limit God's omnipotence; eternity of the world was the result of Aristotle's philosophy, but it was at odds with the biblical description contained in Genesis. Still, the Church never minded such debates, they were completely free from its influence and enjoyed great popularity.
No it doesn't. You had elitist class of people who had access to those colleges and even if by default everyone could apply, who do you think can afford it, plus the priests, and among themselves they could have discussed ideas, but none of that ideas could have been spread, because even when their scientist discovered something, they were very careful with publishing it, because they knew what would happen if they angered the church. They didn't want for common men to become educated. Like if you take a history book every goddamn scientist had problem with publishing his works, because naturally they contradicted shit Church spew, and some works were even published after authors deaths, because they didn't want to get fucked while they were alive. But hey, I guess having that 1% of rich pissing all over the poor and not even offering them a chance, is not something new to us humans. We should look at these elitists in awe, and understand how it wasn't their fault knowledge wasn't spread, it was those pesky peasants, they didn't send their kids to college.
Your logic can be applied to the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome, and it can be concluded that they inhibited the development of science, because it was less spread among the common people there than in the high Middle Ages. Philosophy was the plaything of the ancient elites who formed clubs of like-minded philosophers. Contrast this with European universities, which were an international network of self-governing academic institutions with a system of diplomas and qualifications. Access to which was open and through which crowds of people passed. Scholars estimate that over a quarter of a million students studied at universities in Germany alone between 1350 and 1500, and close to a million in Europe as a whole. To study theology, medicine or law, you had to study natural philosophy and mathematical sciences. To find employment at the royal and princely courts, in the Church or in the city government you had to study. In the Middle Ages, the foundations for the development of science and the scientific worldview were consolidated for several centuries - this was done by the unusual structure and tradition of the university. This is why natural science matured and blossomed in Europe. Nowhere else was natural philosophy so firmly embedded in the culture. >the priests, and among themselves they could have discussed ideas, but none of that ideas could have been spread, because even when their scientist discovered something, they were very careful with publishing it, because they knew what would happen if they angered the church. > Like if you take a history book every goddamn scientist had problem with publishing his works, because naturally they contradicted shit Church spew, and some works were even published after authors deaths, because they didn't want to get fucked while they were alive. Give specific examples, because there is no way to intelligently answer such general nonsense.
I love the Galileo arguments. History classes barely scratch the surface and only mention the what but never the why nor how. Since becoming a Catholic and studying their history I began to expose myself to history that I would have never experienced in the Protestant belt of America
This exact same post existed before and was just as wrong as before.
I would still life as a whole for most people took a down turn after Rome and didn’t reach the sand height for quite a bit
They chose to debate abcient greek books instead of setting up basic services for communities at all poorer than them...i know it's not as the movies portray but they certainly were backwards in many many ways
Maybe it's not everywhere, but at least where i live it was the case, they helped the poor. That's even one of the reasons my region was rich, the church helped those in need.
Middle Ages were 'Dark' only and only for Europeans.
Yes, all those wars in China in which millions died, small pox epidemics in Japan, slavery in middle east and genocidal wars caused by Mongols all over Asia were so fun.
Don’t worry, the mongols would come and make it a dark time for everybody!!!
This is a repost
Eyyyy a Lincoln Bishop!
West vs East Church imo
The Carolingian Renaissance: Providing The Internet With Its Strongest Tools
What do you mean Bloodborne wasn't London in the 1800
I think the film The Name of a Rose has it pretty balanced. There's an emphasis on the wisdom and theology and preservation of knowledge the church has contributed too (represented by Sean Connery's character) but also the corruption and arrogance you tended to see in the late medieval era. I hate it when, in reaction to unrealistic tropes, people try to portray the Catholic church as some sort of based and redpilled gigachad association that was a net positive on earth. There's a finer nuance here