84 Shank
cal rather than theoretical: the diffusion of agricultural improvements in
particular transformed the economy and the society.^2 Building on com-
pendia of late- Roman learning about nature, the scholars of this era like-
wise succeeded in extending their understanding beyond what they had
inherited. They clearly desired to know more. By the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, larger numbers of scholars built on these early efforts by trans-
lating and absorbing a massive library of natural- philosophical, medical,
astrological, and mathematical works primarily from the Arabic.
The thirteenth century marks a turning point in the histories of world
culture and of the scientifi c enterprise. The emerging universities institu-
tionalized learning, giving the teaching, study, and advancement of theo-
retical approaches to natural knowledge a permanent home. The ups and
downs of the intervening history notwithstanding, the partnership of the
scientifi c enterprise with the university still thrives today. The medieval
universities not only created a quasi- autonomous space for natural philos-
ophy and the mathematical sciences in the faculties of arts, but also insti-
tutionalized law, medicine, and theology. Masters in the last two faculties
often continued to develop the natural philosophy and the mathematical
and analytical tools of their earlier education.
The era also witnessed both an increasing specialization of the inquiry
into nature, and crossovers among specialties. In the early Middle Ages,
the object under consideration largely determined the type of inquiry to
which it belonged. Scholars in the later Middle Ages, however, would rec-
ognize that the same object of inquiry could be approached from several
points of view, with different questions and methods. The moon, for ex-
ample, fell under the purview of astronomy (motions and positions), nat-
ural philosophy (composition), optics (phases), and medicine (its relation
to times for bloodletting). The number of scientiae proliferated, and new
approaches found their way into, and between, established categories and
curricula. Thanks to the universities, these transformations in the study
of nature also found a home in the larger culture. The basic concepts, lan-
guage, and assumptions of natural philosophy, medicine, and the math-
ematical sciences became familiar among the growing literate elites that
the universities produced and also among the ones they served.LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE POSTCOLONIAL EARLY MIDDLE AGES
To understand the medieval achievement, it is crucial to appreciate an
oft- forgotten fact: at the height of the Roman Empire, the Latin language
provided limited access to Greek medicine, natural philosophy, and the