Tea at Trianon: Science and the Medieval University

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, September 14, 2012

Science and the Medieval University

For people who think that the Age of Faith was opposed to scientific inquiry.

Prior to the monumental research on medieval science by Pierre Duhem in the first two decades of this century, the title of this article would have evoked laughter and/or scorn. Any juxtaposition of the terms “science” and “medieval” would have been thought a contradiction in terms. Since Duhem’s time, however, and largely because of him and a series of brilliant successors, we have grown accustomed to the concept of medieval science, which has even developed into a significant research field. But now that historians of science have grown accustomed to the idea that there was indeed science in the Middle Ages, the time has come to risk laughter and/or scorn once again by proposing the prima fadae outrageous claim that the medieval university laid far greater emphasis on science than does its modern counterpart and direct descendant. It is no exaggeration or distortion to claim that the curriculum of the medieval university was founded on science and largely devoted to teaching about the nature and operation of the physical world. For better or worse, this is surely not true today. This paper will attempt to describe not only the origins of this incredible development, but to present the details that will substantiate the claim that the medieval university provided to all an education that was essentially based on science. (Read entire article.)