71
happily with their religions. In
the lands that had been part of
Alexander the Great’s empire, the
Greek legacy commanded more
respect than in Europe. Arabic and
Persian scholars preserved and
translated the works of the Classical
Greek philosophers, incorporating
their ideas into Islamic culture from
the 6th century onward.
As Islam spread eastward into
Asia and across north Africa and
into Spain, its influence began to be
felt in Europe. By the 12th century,
news of ideas and inventions from
the Islamic world were reaching as
far north as Britain, and European
scholars started to rediscover
Greek mathematics and philosophy
through Islamic sources. The works
of Aristotle in particular came as
something of a revelation, and they
sparked a resurgence of philosophicalthinking within the medieval
Christian Church. But whereas
Plato’s philosophy had been
comparatively easy to assimilate
into Christian thought, because it
provided rational justification for
belief in God and the immortal
human soul, Aristotle was treated
with suspicion by the Church
authorities. Nevertheless, Christian
philosophers including Roger
Bacon, Thomas Aquinas, Duns
Scotus, and William of Ockham
enthusiastically embraced the new
Aristotelianism and eventually
convinced the Church of its
compatibility with Christian faith.A new rationality
Along with the philosophy that
revitalized the Church, the Islamic
world also introduced a wealth of
technological and scientificknowledge to medieval Europe.
Aristotle’s scientific methods had
been refined to sophisticated levels
in Persia, and advances in chemistry,
physics, medicine, and particularly
astronomy undermined the authority
of the Church when they arrived
in Europe.
The re-introduction of Greek
thinking and the new ideas that led
to Europe’s Renaissance in the late
15th century sparked a change of
mood as people began to look more
toward reason rather than faith to
provide them with answers. There
was dissent even within the
Church, as humanists such as
Erasmus provoked the Reformation.
Philosophers themselves turned
their attention away from questions
of God and the immortal soul
toward the problems posed by
science and the natural world. ■THE MEDIEVAL WORLD
832
C.1014 –20 1492
1077–78 1453
1099
1347
1445
St. Anselm
writes the
Proslogion.Fall of the Byzantine
Empire, the eastern
remnant of the Roman
Empire, when its capital
Constantinople is captured
by the Ottoman Turks.Christian crusaders
capture the holy city
of Jerusalem.The Black Death
reaches Europe, killing
more than a third of the
continent’s population.Avicenna (Ibn Sina)
writes his Kitab al-Shifa
(The Book of Healing).Christopher
Columbus crosses
the Atlantic and
reaches the
West Indies.The “House of
Wisdom” is
established in
Baghdad, attracting
scholars from around
the world to share
and translate ideas.
Johannes Gutenberg
of Germany invents the
printing press, allowing
for a greater dissemination
of knowledge.