

The Pope Who Brought the Light of Science to the Dark Ages - absconditus
http://www.religiondispatches.org/books/rd10q/3878/everything_you_think_you_know_about_the_dark_ages_is_wrong

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huxley
If all you know about the "Dark Ages" came from your high school text books,
then yes, "Everything You Think You Know About the Dark Ages IS Wrong."

The book looks interesting, but isn't unique in challenging these assumptions
about the "Dark Ages".

As a popularizer of the Middle Ages, Monty Pythoner, Terry Jones is one of
many who have championed that period as a much more complex era than we were
taught:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2004/feb/08/highereducat...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2004/feb/08/highereducation.news)

If Abacus and the Cross looks interesting, you should also look for Terry's
book Medieval Lives.

~~~
sp332
Terry Jones also made a BBC TV miniseries with the same name:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2004/feb/08/highereducat...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2004/feb/08/highereducation.news)

He also has an excellent article on how overrated the Renaissance was!
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bristol/somerset/...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bristol/somerset/3507439.stm)

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absconditus
"A professor at a cathedral school for most of his career, Gerbert of Aurillac
was the first Christian known to teach math using the nine Arabic numerals and
zero. He devised an abacus, or counting board, that mimics the algorithms we
use today for adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. It has been
called the first counting device in Europe to function digitally—even the
first computer. In a chronology of computer history, Gerbert’s abacus is one
of only four innovations mentioned between 3000 BC and the invention of the
slide rule in 1622.

Like a modern scientist, Gerbert questioned authority. He experimented. To
learn which of two rules best calculated the area of an equilateral triangle,
he cut out square inches of parchment and measured the triangle with them. To
learn why organ pipes do not behave acoustically like strings, he built models
and devised an equation. (A modern physicist who checked his result calls it
ingenious, if labor-intensive.)"

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rmah
The Sumerians had the abacus (2700BC), the Greeks, the Romans, the Chinese,
etc, etc, etc. Why credit it to this Gerbert guy?

Reference: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abacus>

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pg
This is a bit too revisionist. There were a handful of men in dark age Europe
with a deep interest in scholarship: Alcuin, Bede, Gerbert. But they were
isolated individuals who imported ideas from the past and/or neighboring
territories.

In fact, I suspect the average person's mental picture of dark age Europe is
probably wrong in the direction of being too advanced rather than too
backward, because we take so much of present culture for granted.

~~~
Umalu
Chris Wickham's recent book "The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark
Ages 400-1000" shines a light on this oft misunderstood period, showing ways
in which it was darker and ways in which it was lighter.

~~~
pg
Thanks; I didn't know about that book, but I just ordered a copy.

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lukeschlather
This article seems appallingly Euro-centric for someone claiming to challenge
conventional wisdom about the dark ages. He makes passing reference to Baghdad
as an important center of learning, but still focuses on the Pope.

To my mind this is less "Everything you think you know about the dark ages is
wrong" and more that there were some occasional scientific luminaries in what
was otherwise pretty much an intellectual backwater. They're definitely worthy
of study, but it would be far better to remind people that the dark ages were
mostly dark in Europe, and looking to the Islamic empires as well as out to
China you see the centers of human progress, which contrary to the orthodox
Western historical narrative did continue unabated.

It's definitely nice to see some study of European science in the dark ages,
but I'd much rather hear more English-language writing about the Arabic
scientific community.

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ellyagg
> This article seems appallingly Euro-centric...

This is a silly criticism. The Dark Ages are by definition about Europe. If
you'd like to see more books about what was going on in Islamic empires and
China during the European Dark Ages, great, but that's not what this author's
imagination was captured by.

~~~
lukeschlather
The way history is taught in most US schools, The Dark Ages are about the
world. I would expect someone trying to overturn orthodoxy to start with that.
This subtly reinforces a worldview that paints Europe as central, when it was
not.

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Helianthus16
Sensationalist headlines are often a sign of poor writing/thinking.

There's no way _everything_ I think I know about the Dark Ages is wrong. Don't
insult my intelligence just because a smug title has a bit of snap to it.

Good thing it seems like the actual book has a more scholarly title.

