Recall:

• Characteristic Features of Medieval Europe:
  • Lack of security of persons and of property: Chauvigny; Carcassone
    
  • Despite the apparently unified nature of western Europe in respect to Christianity, the continent was deeply divided politically. 1360 ; 1600
• Economy and Society:
  • Population
  • Overwhelmingly agricultural economy and villages rather than cities.
  • Feudal: no sense of public property; private armies secured by personal oaths of allegiance between war lords and their fighting vassals.
  • Church: education and development of land, but clerical ownership significant amounts of land of arable land was becoming a problem.
• Higher Culture and after AD 1250 and inceasingly toward 1500.
  • Universities. Yes, primarily for the study of theology, philosophy, law, medicine --all directed at the support and/or service of ecclesiastical and civil authorities. Physics and astronomy? yes, but at a low level and consisten with a literarl interpretation of the Bible.
  • Lecture room; sample

The Reformation [beginning in 1517 when Martin Luther posted on the doors of the cathedral at Wittenberg [central Germany] the theses he wanted to debate about Church teachings and rituals]. The ensuing discussion divided Europe and demolished any sense of religious and cultural unity; political unity had been gone since the end of the Roman Empire, tho the nostalgia for a more stable and properous world remained as real as the many monuments [aqueducts, public buildings] of Roman civilization. For this course whast is important is the following:

• Divisions between Catholics and between the many Protestant sects illustrate that it was not as easy for any of the established religions to control dogma anywhere even when they enjoyed royal protection as established churches [Anglicanism in Britain, Lutheranism in Sweden and northern Germany, Catholicism in Austria and Spain, etc.].
• That does not mean that both Catholics and Protestants did not have dogma, they did;
  • moreover, religious toleration was not a feature of Reformation Europe. 
  • the monolithic structure of Christianity was destroyed, and that ipso facto allowed for greater individual and collective freedom for scholars to pursue research in areas that were more tolerant and also to gain support for their endeavors [royal patronage] 
  • Nonetheless, the established churches retained control most aspect of cultural life including education.
• For scholars and scientists, the lack of tolerance and dependence on a princely patron meant that they always had to be ready to move to another and more tolerant venue (The Veneto and Holland especially were open to controversial scholars). It is not surprising then that the most controversial scholars, Descrates [Amsterdam] and Galileo and Vesalius [Veneto] chose those places. The physiologist Vesalius and the physicist Bruno were very controversial and had to move many times and do so all over Europe.
• Bear in mind that the Churches, Catholic and Protestant, were not completely hostile to science. Consider the work done (admittedly to determine the date of Easter) that required considerable care and insight and accurate measurement, namely using cathedrals to measure the solar year. The device; the orb of the sun ; and the system; and how it looks . Cathedrals had clocks! but not necessarily clocks with faces and hands. Bells and trumptes to indicate the hour.

On the Protestants: Even tho there is a clear movement among SOME scholars and educated members of the political and commercial elite toward adopting a new cosmological perspective, consider this comment from Luther: in one of his Advent sermons . . . said, "The heathen[!!] write that the comet may arise from natural causes, but God creates not one comet that does not foretoken a sure calamity." Again he said, "Whatever moves in the heaven in an unusual way is certainly a sign of God's wrath." What conclusions do you come to?

RETURN TO THIS COMPONENT AFTER DOING COPERNICUS AND GALILEO.

What was different? In brief: The monopoly on knowledge by the priestly caste was broken

• Developments:
  • of national, secular and centralized states whose structure was legitimized by the appeal to reason (rather than religious belief).
  • The growth of commerce and trade empowered a bourgeoisie that needed education [and not dogma] to run its affairs, was more comfortable with "scientific" thinking, and rejected excessive intrusions of religious belief.
  • Governments found they could legitimize themselves by supporting secular culture and learning [and be independent of the Church!!]. This led to the foundation of academies of science (very elitist) and eventually (after the French Revolution) to the reorganization of universities and a refocusing of attention on law and science.
  • This trend was reinforced by the discovering of Roman law and of scientific treatises (even of the twit Aristotle) of the Greco-Roman period. Such materials were secular in character and, by virtue of their antiquity provided an alternative to church authority.

Europe did not become "liberal" in our sense of the word

• Some areas (predominantly those with maritime and commercial establishments, Netherlands, Venice) were more receptive to new ideas than were others (where agriculture dominated and feudalism persisted); scholars like Vesalius moved to where they were valued and their controversial research tolerated.
• Invention of the printing press gave new meaning to "open/public, sustained self-conscious reflection“.

Higher Education:

• Many universities were established, but they remained very underfunded and very much under the control of clerics, both protestant and catholic (more in next class).
• Tho there were some exceptions (Padua in the Veneto had both Galileo and Vesalius as professors, and with the Netherlands was a center of publishing), most universities remained under the control of theologians of all faiths.
• But there was competition...

The Jesuits, the Counter-reformation and Academies

• Science sponsored by the Church was supported primarily in the new Jesuit stations [like the Collegio Romano and on this square in Rome]. Jesuits educated for secular success of students, and not necessarily to perpetuate the priestly caste.
• Note the role of Jesuits in education between 1550 and 1615. Wherever the Jesuits went both in Europe and to the East, they stressed education and astronomy. But the end of the17th Cent the court astronomer of China was a Jesuit.