Milan Cathedral
of fuel or proximity of water transport played an essential
role in promoting sites of production. By the 14th cen-
tury, the quality of steel was much improved.
The need for silver was particularly pressing at a time
when the European continent had to secure the greater
part of its supplies of this monetary metal internally.
There was early development of innovative techniques at
these metal production sites, not only for the technical
aspects of operation but also for the legal and economic
management of the works. There were silver mining oper-
ations at Trent, LANGUEDOC, Massa Marittima in TUSCANY,
and Iglau in BOHEMIA. Essential for the production of
sound coinage, these sites attracted enormous investments
that generated considerable fortunes. There was a mining
boom in the 15th century, particularly in central Europe,
and hardly any continental country remained uninvolved.
The boom was favored by a series of technical innovations
and encouraged by the demand for metal for coinage.
See alsoCOINAGE AND CURRENCY; GOLD TRADE AND
GOLD WORKING; WEAPONS AND WEAPONRY.
Further reading:Theophilius, The Various Arts, De
diversis artibus,ed. and trans. C. R. Dodwell (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1986); Leslie Aitchison, A History of
Metals(New York: Interscience, 1960); Janet Backhouse
and Leslie Webster, eds., The Making of England: Anglo-
Saxon Art and Culture, A.D. 600–900(Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1991).
Methodios SeeCYRIL ANDMETHODIOS.
Michael Scot (before 1200–d. ca. 1253)astrologer,
translator
Born in SCOTLANDin the late 12th century, Michael was
educated in ENGLANDand SPAIN, where he studied Arabic.
There he became acquainted with the Aristotelian trea-
tises on astronomy. In 1223 he traveled to ITA LY and
served in the papal court. There he won the favor of Pope
GREGORYIX, who recommended him unsuccessfully for
the archbishopric of CANTERBURY. Moving to PISA, he
became interested in mathematics. Michael eventually
joined the court of the emperor FREDERICKII and was
appointed, according to a tradition, as the emperor’s
astrologer. Besides translating from Arabic and Hebrew,
Michael did a study of volcanic activity on the Lipari
Islands. Roger BACONand ALBERTUSMAGNUSregarded
him as a charlatan. He died about 1253.
See alsoASTROLOGY.
Further reading:J. Ward Brown, An Enquiry into the
Life and Legend of Michael Scot(Edinburgh: D. Douglas,
1897); Charles Homer Haskins, The Renaissance of the
Twelfth Century (1927; reprint, New York: Meridian,
1957); Lynn Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental
Science.Vol. 2, The First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1925), 2.307–337;
Lynn Thorndike, Michael Scot(London: Nelson, 1965).
Middle Ages, concept of The expression “Middle
Ages” was based on the belittling concept of a middle
age between the glories of antiquity and modern times,
or initially the late 14th and early 15th centuries. It
acquired this name among Italian humanists, such as
PETRARCH, who sought to rediscover classical antiquity
in all its purity and authenticity and to eliminate the
later GOTHICfrivolous elaborations. Later scholars from
the 17th century onward readily adopted this terminol-
ogy and concept. In the early 19th century, the romantic
movement formed a more positive conception of the
Middle Ages, emphasizing genuine cultural innovations
and accomplishments, and perpetuated the idea, adding
to this the concept of the rebirth of culture in a RENAIS-
SANCEof the 15th and 16th centuries. Middle Ageswas
also a judgmental term that was widely adopted because
of a need to break up the past into comprehensible
chronological periods.
Further reading:David C. Douglas, English Scholars,
1600–1730, 2d ed. (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode,
1951); Wallace K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical
Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1948); Barbara G. Keller, The Middle
Ages Reconsidered: Attitudes in France from the Eighteenth
Century through the Romantic Movement (New York: P.
Lang, 1994); Donald R. Kelley, History and the Disciplines:
The Reclassification of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe
(Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 1997);
Donald R. Kelley, ed., Versions of History from Antiquity to
the Enlightenment (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1991).Midrash SeeBIBLE;JEWS ANDJUDAISM.Milan (Milano) Milan is a city in the Po Valley in
northern Italy in LOMBARDYwhose position made it the
natural center of a network of communication routes by
land, lake, and river between the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian
Seas and between the Po Valley and the transalpine
provinces. From 290 to 291, after the reorganization of
the empire under DIOCLETIAN, Milan, along with its sta-
tus as the seat of a vicariate, became the center of the
government of the West and the site where the edict of
toleration of Christianity was issued by CONSTANTINEand
Licinius (ca. 250–324) in 313. Milan further became a
religious capital, especially during the episcopate of
AMBROSE, who firmly opposed any secular political inter-
ference in the religious sphere and exercised undisputed
preeminence over nearly all the other churches of north-
ern ITA LY.CRISIS AND DECLINE
In 402, after an incursion of ALARIC’s VISIGOTHSinto Italy,
the seat of the imperial court was moved to the more
easily defendable RAVENNA. This led to a period of