Major Themes, SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS

SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS
 

Between the seventh and mid-15th centuries, Christian and Muslim scholars of Europe and the Middle East preserved and studied the scientific and technological knowledge that they had inherited from ancient Greek, Roman,  and Hellenistic  civilizations.  They also made progress in many fields, including astronomy, mathematics, and human  physiology, that led to greater understanding of the natural world.  They thus laid the foundations for the Renaissance  to come. Life, culture,  and learning  were severely set back in Europe  when the Roman  Empire fell. Several centuries  would  elapse before the barbarian invasions subsided, allowing recovery to begin.
 

Education. Before about  1000,  monks dominated learning and education in monastic  and cathedral schools where boys from elite families were educated in the seven liberal arts derived from ancient Greco-Roman civilizations.  These were grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry,  astronomy, and music. Later they benefited from knowledge  from the classical world transmitted through Jewish and Arab scholars.  After 1000,  universities  were founded  where monks  and secular scholars  taught theology, law, the sciences, and medicine.
 

Roger Bacon (1214–94) made Oxford University famous by pioneering  the inductive investigation method  of observation and experimentation. He described the nervous system of the eye, made magnifying  glasses, and  wrote  about  creating  gigantic  mirrors  that  would  focus the Sun’s rays to incinerate  one’s enemies in warfare.  A hundred years before Copernicus, Jean Buridan (c. 1300–58), rector  of the University of Paris, had written  that  Earth  was round  and rotated on an axis. Many universities  became  famous  in particular disciplines,  for  example,  medicine  at  the  University  of Padua. Two inventions first made in China and then spread across Eurasia had an incalculable affect on advancing  learning.  They were the introduction of paper  making that  spread from China  to the Muslim  world  in the eighth century,  thence to Europe,  and the invention  of printing  and movable type, which reached Gutenberg in Germany  in 1450.
 

Theoretical advances  in such areas as mathematics had practical  application. For example,  the architectural style for church  building during the 11th and early 12th centuries  was called Romanesque because it employed the plan of the Roman  basilica. It featured  a cross-shaped floor plan with intersecting  aisles and a large open rectangular area called a nave to accommodate the worshippers and a semicircular  apse for the altar. A new Gothic style was introduced in the 12th century,  reflecting mastery  of complicated  mathematical calculations and  great  engineering  skill. Its innovative features  were height,  with  raised  high roofs  supported by pointed  arches  and  external  buttresses, space, and brilliant  light through soaring windows  decorated with stained  glass. 

All major European cities would  build cathedrals in the Gothic style until the 16th century.
Europe  and  the  rest  of the  world  owed  much  to  Islamic  civilization  for  the  preservation of ancient Persian and Hellenistic manuscripts after the conquest  of Persia and the eastern  Mediterranean area by the first caliphs. The early caliphs at Damascus encouraged the arts and education and established  universities,  the most famous being the al-Ahzar  in Cairo,  probably the oldest continuing university in the world.  The famous  Bayt al-Hikmah (House  of Wisdom)  in Baghdad  attracted scholars from around the Mediterranean. Islamic culture  reached its zenith between the eighth and13th centuries.  Arts and the sciences flourished  during this era, called the golden age, and incorporated  the earlier achievements  of lands  that  the Arabs  had  conquered. Scholars of many  cultures, including Jewish, Zoroastrian, and Christian, worked together,  translating Hebrew,  Indian, and Persian texts into Arabic, the lingua franca of the entire Muslim Empire. For example,  major works of ancient Greek physicians  and scientists such as Hippocrates and Galen were studied and advanced in centers from Baghdad to Granada in Spain.
 

Scientific Developments. During the Islamic golden age from the eighth to 13th centuries,  Arab and Muslim scientists and scholars were the most advanced in the fields of medicine and pharmacology as well as in applied  sciences and mechanical  engineering.  Scholars like Ibn Rushd  (Averroës) and al-Kindi made major contributions to the knowledge  of mathematics as well as music.
 

Muslim  medical doctors  and scientists were pioneers in treating  such ailments as kidney stones and small pox. Hospitals were established in many cities under Muslim rule. Arab astronomers were influenced by the Ptolemaic (Earth-centered) system of the universe, based on which they developed new accurate  tables of solar and lunar  eclipses. Their superiority to earlier calculations were such that Muslim astronomers were given employment  in the Bureau of Astronomy in the Chinese court and  were given the responsibility for calendar  making  and  predicting  eclipses until  around 1600 when  they  were  replaced  by Jesuit  astronomers from  the  by then  more  advanced  Europe.  The first paper  mill in the Islamic world  was established  in Baghdad  in 793,  followed  by many others. Paper was important to transmitting technological inventions  among scholars of many cultures and enabled the growth  of libraries with large collections.
 

Most of India’s many contributions to world civilization, including those in the sciences and technology, occurred  before 600. The Indian subcontinent suffered repeated  devastating conquests  after 600 from Scythians, Huns,  Afghans, and Turks.  Muslim  raids and conquests  launched  by Afghans and Turks  from Afghanistan  were particularly destructive.  Besides destroying  cultural  centers and libraries, the invaders amassed huge amounts of loot, massacred the population, and deported many as slaves. Indians gradually  ceased sailing to other lands as they had done during earlier eras, when they had spread so much of their scientific and technological knowledge  to the peoples of South and Southeast  Asia. However,  many Arabs who came to India learned and spread much of Indian learning on mathematics (for example,  the zero) and astronomy to other lands.
 

Many  of China’s great scientific breakthroughs occurred  before the era covered here, although knowledge  continued to be advanced,  refined, and spread throughout China  and to other cultures. Japan in particular was the beneficiary of many of China’s earlier inventions after 600. This was due to Japan’s policy to learn all major aspects of China’s civilization,  starting  around 600, that continued for several centuries. An important example of technological breakthrough and diffusion is the stirrup.  The use of a loop made of rope or leather to assist people in mounting horses probably first began with the nomads  north  of China.  Expert  at metal casting and needing to counter  the threat of the nomads  on their northern borders,  the Chinese began to make cast iron stirrups  in the third century.  Fierce nomads  called Avars in the sixth  century  carried  this invention  to Europe  as Avar attacks  threatened the Byzantine Empire.
 

In response,  Byzantine  emperor  Maurice  Tiberius  promulgated a military  manual  in 580  that specified the need for Byzantine cavalry to use iron stirrups.  After that,  stirrups  became universal throughout Eurasia.  China  was also the first to make  true  porcelain  in the third  century  through high-temperature firing in kilns. In the next 1,000  years and beyond,  all innovations and advances

in porcelain  making  were initiated  by the Chinese, hence the name china for porcelain.  This technology was later copied by every culture throughout Europe and Asia. The same is true of gunpowder used in warfare,  first invented  by Chinese in the ninth  century.  Its invention  and rapid  spread throughout Europe and Asia forever changed the nature  of warfare.
 

Alchemy and Metallurgy. Alchemy was an area of inquiry that preoccupied many people throughout Europe and Asia. Many alchemists conducted experiments  in their quest to turn base materials into gold. This quest turned  out to be a dead end. However,  although incidental,  the experiments of the alchemists  contributed to advancing  scientific knowledge  in many fields, including  pharmacology,  chemistry,  and  metallurgy.  In China,  alchemy  was  associated  with  Daoists  (Taoists)  and their  quest  for longevity and immortality as well as the search for gold. This association between science with magic and alchemy contributed to the denigration of scientific research by scholars in traditional China.  Similarly in Europe alchemy acquired  ill repute among scientists. The cultures of Mesoamerica made no dramatic advances  in scientific and technological developments during  this period,  due in part  to political  fragmentation. The Mayan  city-states had earlier developed  sophisticated calendrical  and astronomical knowledge,  which they continued to rely on.
 

The centuries  between  600  and  1450  witnessed  gradual  and  incremental increases  in human knowledge in the sciences and technology. Islamic civilization led the way in assimilating the knowledge of the ancients,  integrating them  with  that  garnered  by other  cultures,  and  advancing  them during  the first part  of this era. Its achievements  made those centuries  the golden age of Islam. By the latter  part of the period under discussion, Europeans were rising to the forefront in many areas of scientific inquiry  and technological improvements. This trend  of rapid  progress  would  continue and accelerate in the following centuries and result in Europeans becoming world leaders.