The Most Modern View on the Dark Ages :-)
am...@hotmail.com
when :-) placed at the end so I'm starting with it]
Common Perceptions
--------------------------------
There are numerous obsolete perceptions related to the Dark Ages (or
rather Völkerwanderung) :
(a) The Dark Ages being, by definition, a time of inadequate
illumination, there was a traditional point of view that this shortage
of light resulted in a considerable decline in a volume of written
documentation and (Petrarch making a lot of fuss of it) quality of a
pottery. However, it was recently found that the contemporaries
managed to do very well in both areas even in the regions where there
was no light of any kind. As a result, the modern historians tend to
consider this period as just another form of a business as usual.
Anyway, there is no doubt that some other important forms of the
intellectual activities, like arranging for big-scale killing and
looting operations were going on without any serious interruption.
(b) Some are describing this period as a time of 'chaos', meaning that
"any 'seemingly' insignificant event had the potential to trigger a
chain reaction that will change the whole system". To a certain
degree, this is true. For example, one of the centries on a crumbling
Roman defensive perimeter spat over the wall and ocassionally hit a
Visigoth who (by whatever reason) took it personally, climbed over the
wall and started an invasion that resulted in the fall of the Western
Roman Empire. Surely, this could not happen when the wall was
maintained properly.
(c) A traditional (Western) point of view was that the Dark Ages were
the time when law and order became non-existant. Actually, people just
got fed up with the cumbersome legalistic system and switched to a
simplified one which speed up the whole judicial process and helped to
get rid of (at least temporarily) the numerous lawyers.
The Leadership, 'black swans', nation building, etc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
If anything, the Dark Ages had been a time of a strong leadership. Not
only each and every group of the migrating people but practically
every tiny village had its own Fearless Leader.
The Leaders, especially the Fearless Ones, had been extremely
important at these times (especially in the areas where street lights
were malfunctioning). To qualify as a Fearless Leader a person had (a)
to be fearless and (b) to be able to lead their people. Importance of
these qualities explained in the old Hunnish battle song [1]:
"Once, during the battle a missile hit the King and tore off his
majestic posteriors. What a shame for the King: he can't jump on his
horse and charge the enemy! King can't led his people! Understandably,
there was a coup. In three days, for a common good, we changed the
King and within a month we had been riding into a new war. But
suddenly our new King had been shot in the head. However, being
headless did not prevent him from leading us into the new battles!"
Of course, there was nothing substantially new in the existence of the
Fearless Leaders: the Romans had them for centuries. However, most of
the Fearless Leaders of the Good Old Times were from the 'old boys
club' of the Roman or Romanized elite. Some of the people who were
trying to uphold the 'traditional Roman Values' claimed the Fearless
Leaders of a new generation a practical impossibility, described them
(Australia not being discovered yet) as 'the black swans' [2] and
tried to pretend that they do not REALLY exist. In general, it worked
to everybody's satisfaction: the looters met very little of opposition
and the looted pretended that looting did not happen. The smartest
Fearless Leaders even created so-called 'double standard' states: the
Romans pretended that they are still ruled by their old institutions
while the invaders pretended that they are not even around (as long as
their right to loot at will had not been disputed). The states were a
great success until they had been destroyed by the evil Byzantians
(according to one theory, Justinian got himself a little bit
inhebriated and, while in this sorry condition, mistook them for a
revolution).
As was correctly pointed out (by Paul), Napoleon, Attila and other
prominent Fearless Leaders of the Dark Ages did not really care about
nation building and, as a result, none of them left 'Jeffersonian
Democracy' or even reasonably developed capitalism [3]. Out of all
these birds of the feather, Attila came closest to building the
democratic state because he was drunk most of the time [4].
Unfortunately, he bought some cheap booze from Russia [5] and died on
his wedding night. This was an end of the early attempts to build a
democratic society outside the Roman Empire [6]. A new attempt had not
been made until the time of Charlemagne who, according to the 'Song of
Roland' invited 1,000 people on his council [7].
The Warfare
------------------
There are very few things known for certain about the Dark Ages'
warfare because, to keep recepies of their success secret, the
migrating 'barbarians' [8] had been systematically killing everybody
who tried to write a manual on their fighting methods. There are the
few things which we know more or less for sure:
(a) The Roman infantry drill was already abandoned but Prussian one
was not introduced yet.
(b) The Franks before Charles Martel [9] fought by throwing into their
opponents the franciscas (and when they had been running out of the
battleaxes, whatever was available) and were afraid of the horses,
which accounted for the early Arab successes. It also must be noted
that throwing battleaxes into other contemporaries' heads was not very
effective due to a high bouncing rate. Alledgedly [10], Charles Martel
abolished franciscas in the favor of 'kick in the stomach' type of
weapons (which would damage the vital parts) AND figured out how to
put Franks on a horseback [11]. As a result, he defeated invading
Arabs [12] and everybody else who happened to be nearby. His success
was extended by Charlemagne who, by exploiting natural advantage of
cognac [13] over kirschwasser, extended Frankish Empire to the modern
Germany and some other areas. Only invention of schnapps put end to
the Frankish rule in Germany.
(c) The Visigoths had been, for a while, rather successful in a
biological/chemical warfare: they mostly destroyed most of the Roman
plumbing and would definitely win the war if, absolutely ocassionally,
they were not defeated by the Byzantians.
(d) The Huns won their battles by riding around the enemy and shouting
hysterically while some of them had been stealing other people's
property. They lost at the Catalaun Fields because Attila (being
totally drunk at this time) placed them in the center, thus depraving
them of an ability to use their usual tactics. Nonwithstanding this
setback, they contributed greately to the Italian (and not only
Italian) culture by helping to found Venice.
(e) The Vandals were mostly known for their vandalism: after their
visit the Romans spent years picking up the trash.
(f) The Magyars were pretty much like the Hunns but they had been
wearing cute uniforms copied by most of the european militaries.
(g) The Scandinavians (of various origin but especially the Danes) are
considerably better known thanks to the numerous movies: they had been
blond, tall, often berserk, formed a shield wall even when they needed
to piss, had really fance ornaments copied from those designed for the
LOtR. With the qualifications like these, it is small wonder that they
were able to terrorize everybody else for centuries. According to A.K.
Tolstoy, they had been the 1st people who tried (without a noticeable
success) to bring some order into Russia.
(h) It was a common practice for a Fearless Leader to expose himself
on a battlefield (IIRC, it was William Black who pointed out to this
important fact). The last Fearless Leader who did so was Mel Wallace.
Afrter his death this practice ceased due to the political
considerations (William was a little big vague on this).
(i) Some circumstantial evidience extracted from 'The Song of Roland'
shows that hitting Frankish noble on the head with almost any kind of
a weapon was, in general, counterproductive [14].
Socialized Medicine
-----------------------------
There was, more or less, none. Probably due to instigation of the
American economists.
_______________________________________________
[1] My Archaic Hunnish may be a little bit rusty and my ability to
translate poetry into English is limited, to put it mildly.
[2] As was explained by Paul, 'the black swan' is something that comes
seemingly from nowhere and then leaves its mark. For example, a really
big bird flying in the skies and suddenly shitting on your head (until
Ausralia was discovered, it was a common european belief that black
swan, being a legendary creature, shits in REALLY big quantities). Or
Attila suddenly appearing in the area.
[3] Some Brittish historians expressed an opinion that this was a
result of interference from the 'american economists' (a vaguely
identified evil international entity bent on building 'wild
capitalism' all around the world).
[4] A necessary pre-requisite for the task.
[5] This was a period of 'wild capitalism' in what passed for the Dark
Ages Russia so some brands of a national drink were deadly. See, for
example, http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Bootlegged_Russian_vodka_caused_mas_10312006.html
[6] With a passage of time, the legacy of the great Roman democracy-
builders like Caligulla and Nero had been either lost or hopelessly
distorted.
[7] By some reason, which is not completely clear, all of them
gathered under a tree. Discussion was, IIRC, about admitting Spain
into EU and there was a heated disput if Spain should be looted before
or after this act. Count Roland came with an interesting (but by some
reason not fully appreciated idea) of looting BOTH before and after
and was killed soon afterwards by ETA (or by the Islamic terrorists).
[8] Originally, meant 'undocumented foreigner'; usually with a limited
knowledge of the Latin (the language commonly spoken in the Latin
America).
[9] Person who started production of Martell's cognac.
[10] As was correctly pointed out by Paul, none of us was present at
this time (even Paul himself) so we can't tell for sure what exactly
was going on and how.
[11] After drinking enough of Martell, they did not really care.
[12] Being, undersandably, sober, the Muslims lacked Frankish elan
and, on the top of it, their leader was alledgedly killed in a luggage-
related brawl in Charles De Gaulle Airport.
[13] Due to the consolidation of power he also had in his disposal
Courvoisier, Remy Martin and Hennessy.
[14] It did not work on a number of the lesser figures but whe
Charlemagne himself was hit on the head, the opponent's sword cut
through helmet and hairs and stuck in a VERY thick bone of C's skull.
On the top of all this, The God sent Archangel Gabriel to check
personally on C's conditions. Being a little bit uncertain about his
mission, Gabriel asked: "Doctor Livingston, I presume? How are you
doing?". After this, reinvigorated Charlemagne kicked <whatever> out
of his opponent. Interestingly enough, kicking on the head WAS much
more effective on the Franks' opponents, which probably contributed to
the eventual success of Reconquista.
erilar
--
Mary Loomer Oliver (aka Erilar)
You can't reason with someone whose first line of argument is
that reason doesn't count. --Isaac Asimov
Erilar's Cave Annex: http://www.chibardun.net/~erilarlo
bernardZ
> (a) The Dark Ages being, by definition, a time of inadequate
> illumination, there was a traditional point of view that this shortage
> of light resulted in a considerable decline in a volume of written
> documentation
>
I think there has been too much emphasis here on this aspect of the dark
ages.
Certainly during this period much knowledge and skills were lost in the
West.
Paul J Gans
Name some.
--
--- Paul J. Gans
am...@hotmail.com
> <snip - this is very good, I congraulate you on it!
>
> > (a) The Dark Ages being, by definition, a time of inadequate
> > illumination, there was a traditional point of view that this shortage
> > of light resulted in a considerable decline in a volume of written
> > documentation
>
> I think there has been too much emphasis here on this aspect of the dark
> ages.
Of course: with the darkness around they could not even tell for sure
if the documents had been missing.
>
> Certainly during this period much knowledge and skills were lost in the
> West.
But the other skills had been acquired. Some of them had been probably
more useful than the old ones.
am...@hotmail.com
Ability to make the bad copies of the Greek statues (something in
which the Romans excelled)
Michael Kuettner
"Paul J Gans" schrieb :
- Sticking peacock-feathers down your throat for vomiting so that you can
eat more at a banquet
- Using lead in cooking pots
- Using arsene for cosmetica
- Building saddles without stirups
- Enslaving other nations to feed your "lumpenproletariat"
- The tactics of burnt earth
- The Fine Art of Decimation
I could go on ...
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
Felix Reuthner
>> Certainly during this period much knowledge and skills were lost in the
>> West.
>
>
> Name some.
Maybe not so much a question of knowledge and skills, but of trade and
logistics: The ability to build large and durable structures (palaces,
aqueducts, roads) took a sharp dive.
And how long did it take until anyone could field armies as large,
trained and well equiped as the legions again?
Felix
am...@hotmail.com
Thanks Michael, this is a very good list and I did not put in a
chapter about the 'lost skills', which is a glaring omission. Can you,
please, expand on your list so that it can be incorporated into 'The
Most Modern...'? :-)
James Hogg
>[It looks like a growing number of people are routinely confused
>when :-) placed at the end so I'm starting with it]
This was rather learned and illuminating. Very witty for someone
whose first language obviously isn't English.
James Hogg
am...@hotmail.com
> On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 13:31:27 -0800 (PST), a...@hotmail.com wrote:
> >[It looks like a growing number of people are routinely confused
> >when :-) placed at the end so I'm starting with it]
>
> This was rather learned and illuminating.
You mean putting ":-)" at the beginning or the rest of it? :-)
>Very witty for someone
> whose first language obviously isn't English.
It is most obviously not. :-)
Paul J Gans
I do think that the art of crucifixion also was lost.
So was the God-Emperor.
Paul J Gans
Agreed. But those were, to a large measure, functions of
the size of the Empire. A tribe of 50,000 people could
hardly field 20 Legions. Similarly, the surplus of the
Empire wasn't available after the collapse.
bernardZ
How about Roman medicine.
The Roman legions had probably the best doctors that Europe had till the
19th centuries.
You might find this interesting
D. Spencer Hines
to Rome. <g>
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
"bernardZ" <Bern...@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.21e8b1b4bd075417989728@news...
am...@hotmail.com
> Michael Kuettner <mik...@eunet.at> wrote:
> >"Paul J Gans" schrieb :
> >>><snip - this is very good, I congraulate you on it!
>
> >>>> (a) The Dark Ages being, by definition, a time of inadequate
> >>>> illumination, there was a traditional point of view that this shortage
> >>>> of light resulted in a considerable decline in a volume of written
> >>>> documentation
>
> >>>I think there has been too much emphasis here on this aspect of the dark
> >>>ages.
>
> >>>Certainly during this period much knowledge and skills were lost in the
> >>>West.
>
> >> Name some.
>
> >That's easy !
> >- Sticking peacock-feathers down your throat for vomiting so that you can
> >eat more at a banquet
> >- Using lead in cooking pots
> >- Using arsene for cosmetica
> >- Building saddles without stirups
> >- Enslaving other nations to feed your "lumpenproletariat"
> >- The tactics of burnt earth
> >- The Fine Art of Decimation
> >I could go on ...
>
> I do think that the art of crucifixion also was lost.
Well, it was replaced by the art of impaling, which, was
technologically simpler (you, being in technology, should appreciate
this consideration): you did not have to go through the exertions of
getting 2 massive pieces of wood, nailing them together and then doing
more hammering or doing a lot of work with a rope while executioned
had to wait patiently for all this preliminary job to be done which
should be extremely annoying for him (at least in the terms of a
wasted time).
With impaling you needed a signle piece of wood (with much lower
requirements toward size and quality of a wood) that could be easily
sharpened with any handy instrument (sword, batteaxe) and 'putting
things together' was done with the minimal delays: just shove
sharpened end of a stake where it belonged and do some pushing or
pulling. If you wanted to be really nice (and minimize effort), you
just have to apply a little bit of a lubrication.
In the terms of a pure entertainment the new technology was not a bit
inferior to a new one and it allowed a big scale implementation (like
one done by Vlad Tepesh) without requiring big numbers of well-trained
professionals.
> So was the God-Emperor.
Ah, but this is a typical Western misapprehension: God-Emperor
survived in the Eastern Empire and later this legacy was picked up
without missing a heartbeat by the Ottoman Sultans and the Tzars of
Russia.
James Hogg
<pan...@excelsior.com> wrote:
>Roman doctors are still most excellent -- as I discovered on a recent trip
>to Rome. <g>
I can imagine what the <g> stands for in this context.
Careless of you to cop a dose in Rome. Does it still hurt to pee?
James
Paul J Gans
>How about Roman medicine.
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambroise_Par%C3%A9
As far as I know, Roman medicine continued to be practiced in the
east.
In the west, the problem was the church. It dictated what could
be studied. There is a difference between knowlege being "lost"
and knowlege being "ignored".
For instance, we have many creationists in the US today. Does
that mean that knowlege of biology has been "lost"?
D. Spencer Hines
DSH
"Renia" <re...@DELETEotenet.gr> wrote in message
news:fllpuk$4pp$1...@mouse.otenet.gr...
> Paul J Gans wrote:
>> John Briggs <john.b...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>
>>>The problem with the Anglo-Saxon invasion is that there was overwhelming
>>>replacement of place-names, and complete replacement of the language. On
>>>our current understanding, that can only happen with almost complete
>>>population change. The situation is more extreme than that in North
>>>America and Australia, for example.
>>
>> We go round and round on this. The archeological evidence
>> indicates no sudden cultural shift, no massive destruction,
>> etc.
>
> So how come archaeologists are continually digging 6 feet under to
> excavate destroyed Roman Britain? It seems you know very little about
> archaeology in Britain, Paul.
D. Spencer Hines
believes/believed in God The Creator is a dreaded "Creationist".
So this means Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Bill
Clinton, George Walker Bush and his father George Herbert Walker Bush, Joe
Lieberman, Chuck Schumer, John Edwards, Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer,
Nancy Pelosi, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Frank Thompson and Harry Reid
are/were all dreaded, moronic "Creationists" in Pogue Gans's Loony Talmudic
Atheist World.
He completely fails to understand that one may believe in God The Creator
and still be quite comfortable with Charles Darwin, et alii, and
Evolutionary Theory.
Yes, that is Pogue Gans's continuing idiocy -- gaily flaunted on USENET for
well over a decade now.
Providing Great Entertainment to us all -- daily.
How Sweet It Is!
Who woulda thunk a college professor of chemistry could be so dumb and
cunniculan-pygan?
One need not even be an Evangelical Christian to believe in God The Creator.
Vide supra pro sapientia.
Hell, not only does Pogue Gans not have the KNOWLEDGE -- he can't even SPELL
KNOWLEDGE.
Vide infra pro risibus.
So, who's the moron?
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
Veni, Vidi, Calcitravi Asinum
-----------------Cordon Sanitaire---------------------------------
"Paul J Gans" <ga...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:fllp9o$spv$1...@reader2.panix.com...
> As far as I know, Roman medicine continued to be practiced in the
> east.
>
> In the west, the problem was the church. It dictated what could
> be studied. There is a difference between knowlege [sic] being "lost"
> and knowlege [sic] being "ignored".
>
> For instance, we have many creationists in the US today. Does that mean
> that knowlege [sic] of biology has been "lost"?
Eugene Griessel
>
I think you have proved yourself to be the moron beyond all reasonable
doubt. And 99% of Usenet agrees with that. Anyone who is as petty,
childish, vindictive and stupid as you, has just got to be a moron.
Eugene L Griessel
Time is the best teacher; unfortunately, it kills all its students.
- I usually post only from Sci.Military.Naval -
Charlie Wilkes
<pan...@excelsior.com> wrote:
>Keep in mind that for Pogue Gans The Talmudic Atheist anyone who
>believes/believed in God The Creator is a dreaded "Creationist".
>
>So this means Mike Huckabee,
I see that Huckabee had quite a victory in Iowa yesterday.
Charlie
Felix Reuthner
builds with dressed stones anymore a whole lot of skills (masonry,
architecture...) can easily be forgotten within a generation. It's not
like these skills can be easily picked up by reading a book or two, and
that would only be possible if someone bothered to write the books in
the first place.
Case in point: The Romans used concrete (or something very much like
concrete), which later was not done for over a thousand years until
1756, if Wikipedia can be trusted.
So, it's probably safe to say that using concrete was indeed a lost skill.
J A
> He completely fails to understand that one may believe in God The Creator
> and still be quite comfortable with Charles Darwin, et alii, and
> Evolutionary Theory.
Not if they take the bible seriously.
It doesn't supply information about the world that a supreme being
would've known, only stuff humans would have known or thought a few
thousand years ago. Apparently, god didn't know about dinosaurs,
microbes, evolution, etc.
Also, god's word in the bible lacks moral guidance - in leaving out
rules against rape, pedophilia, child abuse, slavery etc.
If religious people were right about a God existing that they can
communicate with, then they should be able make God appear or at least
communicate with mankind in a way it was irrefutable.
> Yes, that is Pogue Gans's continuing idiocy -- gaily flaunted on USENET for
> well over a decade now.
Why don't you enlarge on what you think this creator god is, and how
you know it.
> Providing Great Entertainment to us all -- daily.
>
> How Sweet It Is!
Indeed...
Michael Kuettner
<am...@hotmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:ecf19358-4111-45b0...@l6g2000prm.googlegroups.com...
------------------------------------------
I'll try my best ;-)
Paul has already added the sad loss of the crucifix and God-Emperor.
Then there's the loss of ruining good earth by not applying the rotating crop
system,
exemption from taxes for the super-rich, killing people for fun in the circus,
WRITING IN ALL-CAPS;-), etc, etc.
I'll look a little in my books at the weekend and see to bring all those lost
things in some oreder ;-)
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
D. Spencer Hines
Renia Simmonds, the Brit expatriatrix in Athens, responds with one of her
familiar vulgar, unladylike responses.
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
"Renia" <re...@DELETEotenet.gr> wrote in message
news:flmobk$h11$1...@mouse.otenet.gr...
> Michael Kuettner wrote:
>> Nobody needs to do anything about the virus.
>> All they need to do is to stick needles in the patient and feed him
>> fluids.
>
> There is absolutely no need to be so fucking rude. I was merely repeating
> what the British Health Service had told the British People.
Renia
> news:flmobk$h11$1...@mouse.otenet.gr...
>
>
>>Michael Kuettner wrote:
>
>
>>>Nobody needs to do anything about the virus.
>>>All they need to do is to stick needles in the patient and feed him
>>>fluids.
>>
>>There is absolutely no need to be so fucking rude. I was merely repeating
>>what the British Health Service had told the British People.
D. Spencer Hines wrote:
> Hilarious!
>
> Renia Simmonds, the Brit expatriatrix in Athens, responds with one of
her
> familiar vulgar, unladylike responses.
>
> DSH
>
> Lux et Veritas et Libertas
Indeed. I apologise to the group.
Happy New Year to you all.
It would be easier not to respond to those two trolling soulmates, D
Spencer Hines and Michael Kuettner, but it is now my New Year's
Resolution not to visit here again.
Michael Kuettner
"Felix Reuthner" schrieb :
> So if the skills were not lost, they were at least disused. If nobody builds
> with dressed stones anymore a whole lot of skills (masonry, architecture...)
> can easily be forgotten within a generation. It's not like these skills can be
> easily picked up by reading a book or two, and that would only be possible if
> someone bothered to write the books in the first place.
Hmm - how do you explain the early castles then ?
Yes, those were built from wodd - _until_ siege-warfare became more
sophisticated.
Then suddenly, stone was all the rage. Not rough boulders, but well-made walls.
They re-learned in one generation, then, hm ? ...
Look at churches from 500 to Cluny, for another example of "lost craftmanship".
The implosion of central imperial power didn't turn off the lights in Europe.
There was no money (read : no ressources) for large projects, but still there
was an on-going process of combining Roman ideas with Germanic ideas.
> Case in point: The Romans used concrete (or something very much like
> concrete), which later was not done for over a thousand years until 1756, if
> Wikipedia can be trusted.
Portullano .
And no, Wiki can't be trusted. The Portullano even dried under water.
That's how the Romans built Ostia, eg (or other harbours).
> So, it's probably safe to say that using concrete was indeed a lost skill.
Yabbut, who needed it ? Concrete isn't very useful for building in Europe;
it's cheap, OK. But it requires much more heating than wooden buildings.
The same goes for Roman stone-buildings : Fucking cold.
Bricks ? Might be OK in Italy, but the secret of _two_ walls was
an invention of the "Dark Ages", too.
Let's take a closer look :
Writing was kept and refined. That's the important thing.
Otherwise : Some things (which could not have been kept without
a large centralized state), were "lost". Other things emerged or were
invented -
Stirup, rotating crops, water-mills, etc.
Of course, no new aquaeducts were built. Neither insulae (apartment blocks).
Why ? No need for them.
OTOH, Roman roads were kept intact where needed. The road over the Brenner
is one prime example.
Let's get to the basics of that argument :
Where the Roman times better than the following times ?
Not really, unless you were aristocracy.
Were the later times better ?
Not really (see above).
What's the difference, then ?
Different times ... ;-)
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
The Perfidious Alban
wrote:
Zat scs ?
If so, Mr Kuettner at least has a sense of humour.
He is welcome to drop in anytime.
As to yourself and DSH (someone whom you appear to be unable
to ignore and, in replying, thereby continue his unrequested and
unwanted presence in our little corner of Usenet) . . .
I wish you both 'Goodbye' and have a good year.
Paul J Gans
Not really. What was lost was "hydraulic cement" that can
harden under water. That required a certain form of pumice
available only, IIRC, from the enivrons of Mt. Etna. The
secret was rediscovered and the stuff is now known as "Portland
Cement". It is today the most common ingredient in concrete.
However, cement is fairly easy to make. One "burns" limestone
and keeps the result dry. Adding fine sand and water (in the
right proportions) allow the mixture to bond together.
The chemistry is relatively simple. "Burned lime" is calcium
carbonate heated until carbon dioxide is driven off. The
result is calcium oxide otherwise known as "quicklime". The
addition of water allows the calcium carbonate to reform.
The problem is that this is a very exothermic process and much
heat is released. Thus trying to pour large areas is not simple
as the result, due to the heating and uneven "curing" of the
concrete, is not very strong or stable.
Portland cement will set even though very wet. Thus if it
is used, excess water to absorb the heat can be used.
It is strongly doubted if the "secret" was lost. What was
lost was access to the proper raw materials. I believe that
it continued to be used in the Western Empire.
D. Spencer Hines
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
> Renia <re...@deleteotenet.gr> wrote:
>>It strikes me that many of today's younger historians are simply out to
>>prove how much smarter they are than the historians of yesteryear and are
>>out simply to debunk as much as they can. Many of them are trained in
>>Social Science, which DOES comprise a new (and useless) historical
>>methodology, because it is the invented methodology of a non-subject among
>>those who are not up to the rigours of historical methodology.
bernardZ
> bernardZ <Bern...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >In article <flj4vu$5fl$2...@reader2.panix.com>, ga...@panix.com says...
> >> bernardZ <Bern...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >> ><snip - this is very good, I congraulate you on it!
> >>
> >> >> (a) The Dark Ages being, by definition, a time of inadequate
> >> >> illumination, there was a traditional point of view that this shortage
> >> >> of light resulted in a considerable decline in a volume of written
> >> >> documentation
> >> >>
> >>
> >> >I think there has been too much emphasis here on this aspect of the dark
> >> >ages.
> >>
> >>
> >> >Certainly during this period much knowledge and skills were lost in the
> >> >West.
> >>
> >>
> >> Name some.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
> >How about Roman medicine.
>
> >The Roman legions had probably the best doctors that Europe had till the
> >19th centuries.
>
> >You might find this interesting
>
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambroise_Par%C3%A9
>
> As far as I know, Roman medicine continued to be practiced in the
> east.
>
I have just started a book on a similar topic "Justinian's flea by W
Rosen", I suspect that I may be able to answer that better but my
understanding is that even in the East it was not as good in the 600 CE
as in the later Roman Era.
However there were other fields for example horse carriages. Much of
what they knew had to be rediscovered.
In Europe with the decline in glass and many techniques were forgotten.
Plus there are other fields like art eg when the Italians in the 1400s
dug up Roman sculpture they were amazed at the quality. Never had they
seen anything as good. It caused a major movement in sculpture in that
era.
> In the west, the problem was the church. It dictated what could
> be studied. There is a difference between knowlege being "lost"
> and knowlege being "ignored".
>
Since I am only talking of that area, I suspect that this it not an
issue.
> For instance, we have many creationists in the US today. Does
> that mean that knowlege of biology has been "lost"?
>
>
If the creationist took over and kept a strangle hold for about 800
years would knowledge of biology be lost?
a.spencer3
If creationists kept procreating for 800 years, at least some biological
knowledge would be retained ...........
Surreyman
J A
> Scríobh J A <jantero...@hotmail.com>:
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Jan 4, 11:05 am, "D. Spencer Hines" <pant...@excelsior.com> wrote:
>
> >> He completely fails to understand that one may believe in God The Creator
> >> and still be quite comfortable with Charles Darwin, et alii, and
> >> Evolutionary Theory.
>
> >Not if they take the bible seriously.
>
> >It doesn't supply information about the world that a supreme being
> >would've known, only stuff humans would have known or thought a few
> >thousand years ago. Apparently, god didn't know about dinosaurs,
> >microbes, evolution, etc.
>
> >Also, god's word in the bible lacks moral guidance - in leaving out
> >rules against rape, pedophilia, child abuse, slavery etc.
>
> "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every
> woman that hath known man by lying with him.
> But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with
> him, keep alive for yourselves." - Numbers 31:17-18
Well, yes, but he's addressing those issues in terms of war. Yahweh is
a big fan of genocide, stealing other peoples' lands, enslaving and
raping the defenseless.
But I was initially refering to those issues in an ordinary civil
context. Yahweh was also ok with fathers selling their daughters into
sexual slavery.
We should have god's law concerning that engraved in every courthouse
wall - we'd be a better nation.... how sweet it would be...
Paul J Gans
I strongly suggest that tastes change. The medievals, especially
the early ones, did not go in for random sculpture. What was done
was done to glorify God. Making the image too beautiful would be
bragging on the part of the artist. (You have noted that early
and many later medieval art works are NOT signed.)
However, it can be argued that the Italians in 1400 were consciously
copying earlier classical works.
Another example: what will folks make of modern art 1000 years from
now? Will they speak of forgotten techniques?
>
>> In the west, the problem was the church. It dictated what could
>> be studied. There is a difference between knowlege being "lost"
>> and knowlege being "ignored".
>>
>Since I am only talking of that area, I suspect that this it not an
>issue.
It was a big issue in the west. Entire types of literature vanished.
What was written were saint's lives and books of theology. Works
on natural history, secular biography, etc., vanished.
It is only after 1000 AD that we start to see some of this come back
as in Abbot Suger's life of Charles the Fat.
>> For instance, we have many creationists in the US today. Does
>> that mean that knowlege of biology has been "lost"?
>>
>>
>If the creationist took over and kept a strangle hold for about 800
>years would knowledge of biology be lost?
Probably not. Unless all the books were burnt along with those
who read them.
David Starr
I saw a ruined medaeval castle in England once. It had had a hard life
and was weathered down to a nub, not much bigger than an ordinary house.
However, the walls were poured concrete, a fairly coarse aggragate
with a lot of fist sized stones and gravel in it. The visible outside
face had traces of a cut stone facing that have been applied for looks,
but the bulk of the walls were poured concrete.
--
David J. Starr
John Kane
> Felix Reuthner <s...@reuthner.net> wrote:
> >So if the skills were not lost, they were at least disused. If nobody
> >builds with dressed stones anymore a whole lot of skills (masonry,
> >architecture...) can easily be forgotten within a generation. It's not
> >like these skills can be easily picked up by reading a book or two, and
> >that would only be possible if someone bothered to write the books in
> >the first place.
> >Case in point: The Romans used concrete (or something very much like
> >concrete), which later was not done for over a thousand years until
> >1756, if Wikipedia can be trusted.
> >So, it's probably safe to say that using concrete was indeed a lost skill.
>
> Not really. What was lost was "hydraulic cement" that can
> harden under water. That required a certain form of pumice
> available only, IIRC, from the enivrons of Mt. Etna.
I belive it was is available from a number of sources, unfortunately
I cannot remember the actual sources as my information is from a
presentation by the local historical society + Univ History dept a
year ago. IIRC there were 4-5 places idenified including somewhere
around Naples and northern Greece.
The presentation was very interesting and included some pictures of
the presenter and a couple of associates doing some cement work in the
harbour at Taranto[1], and getting some core samples in Naples harbour
and just outside the Rome airport. This last apparently was raided by
the Carbinieri within 5 minutes of them starting to set up the drill--
apparently a bit too much like a home made rocket launcher.
John Kane, Kingston ON Canada
1. They later realised that the person who gave permission for this
was NOT the port admiral and began to worry about building something
just across the bay from a major Italian navel base.
John Kane
> bernardZ <Berna...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >In article <flj4vu$5f...@reader2.panix.com>, g...@panix.com says...
> >> bernardZ <Berna...@nospam.com> wrote:
> >> ><snip - this is very good, I congraulate you on it!
>
> >> >> (a) The Dark Ages being, by definition, a time of inadequate
> >> >> illumination, there was a traditional point of view that this shortage
> >> >> of light resulted in a considerable decline in a volume of written
> >> >> documentation
>
> >> >I think there has been too much emphasis here on this aspect of the dark
> >> >ages.
>
> >> >Certainly during this period much knowledge and skills were lost in the
> >> >West.
>
> >> Name some.
>
> >How about Roman medicine.
> >The Roman legions had probably the best doctors that Europe had till the
> >19th centuries.
> >You might find this interesting
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambroise_Par%C3%A9
>
> As far as I know, Roman medicine continued to be practiced in the
> east.
>
> In the west, the problem was the church. It dictated what could
> be studied. There is a difference between knowlege being "lost"
> and knowlege being "ignored".
>
> For instance, we have many creationists in the US today. Does
> that mean that knowlege of biology has been "lost"?
They're working on it. :( I understand the market for leechs is
excellent at the moment but North America has to import them from the
UK.
Paul J Gans
Almost. Mortar, the brother of concrete was often used in many
ways.
The development of double walls was mentioned before. The space
between them was usually filled with rubble (stone fragments, pebbles,
etc., mixed with some mortar. I suspect that is what you saw.
bernardZ
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Yes they would be forgotten.
I suspect there is much to learn before you can make massive sculptures.
I presume most artist start off with a small sculpture and slowly work
their way up. If a society does not make such sculptures, then the
knowledge to make them will be lost.
> >
>
> >> In the west, the problem was the church. It dictated what could
> >> be studied. There is a difference between knowlege being "lost"
> >> and knowlege being "ignored".
> >>
>
> >Since I am only talking of that area, I suspect that this it not an
> >issue.
>
> It was a big issue in the west. Entire types of literature vanished.
> What was written were saint's lives and books of theology. Works
> on natural history, secular biography, etc., vanished.
>
> It is only after 1000 AD that we start to see some of this come back
> as in Abbot Suger's life of Charles the Fat.
>
Agreed. In the West the knowledge is no longer there.
> >> For instance, we have many creationists in the US today. Does
> >> that mean that knowlege of biology has been "lost"?
> >>
> >>
>
> >If the creationist took over and kept a strangle hold for about 800
> >years would knowledge of biology be lost?
>
> Probably not. Unless all the books were burnt along with those
> who read them.
>
>
After 800 years even if the books were not burnt deliberately almost all
would be lost.
Andrew Swallow
Andrew Swallow
Larry Swain
> bernardZ <Bern...@nospam.com> wrote:
>
>>In article <flj4vu$5fl$2...@reader2.panix.com>, ga...@panix.com says...
>>
>>>bernardZ <Bern...@nospam.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>><snip - this is very good, I congraulate you on it!
>>>
>>>>>(a) The Dark Ages being, by definition, a time of inadequate
>>>>>illumination, there was a traditional point of view that this shortage
>>>>>of light resulted in a considerable decline in a volume of written
>>>>>documentation
>>>>>
>>>
>>>>I think there has been too much emphasis here on this aspect of the dark
>>>>ages.
>>>
>>>
>>>>Certainly during this period much knowledge and skills were lost in the
>>>>West.
>>>
>>>
>>>Name some.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
>>How about Roman medicine.
>
>
>>The Roman legions had probably the best doctors that Europe had till the
>>19th centuries.
>
>
>>You might find this interesting
>
>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambroise_Par%C3%A9
>
>
> As far as I know, Roman medicine continued to be practiced in the
> east.
>
> In the west, the problem was the church.
Have to disagree with you there Paul. The church had no problem with
the study of medicine, and even if it did, in the early centuries, there
wasn't anything the church could do about it. Individual churchmen
might have, but the church wasn't the monolithic "super power" that it
became post Gregory VII and gang.
It dictated what could
> be studied.
Yes and no. No in the sense that there was no set curriculum by Rome or
the church, and there was no central authority. Yes in the sense that
education was largely in the hands of churchmen. Their interests were
largely theological, but not exclusively so as there are many surprising
gems.
>There is a difference between knowlege being "lost"
> and knowlege being "ignored".
True, and there was some of each. Medically speaking, there was a great
deal lost. Little was ignored from what I know. Medical history is not
my forte and I can only really say anything about Anglo-Saxon period
manuscripts. But there are ninth century Latin copies of Roman medical
treatises, and the tenth century Bald's Leechbook among other Old
English medical texts. At least for the 9th and 10th century, they seem
to be on a par with Arab Spain in terms of medical knowledge.
Much was lost because most doctors didn't have medical books or didn't
write things down. A good deal of medical training, esp in the army,
was done by training, not through texts. When the army left, or legions
were killed off, that oral knowledge was lost. Many manuscripts were of
course lost due to not being copied as much as to war and other causes.
So when we get to the 7th and subsequent periods, their knowledge was
based on what survived and on their own ancient folk medicine. Thus in
some texts you have a surprising mixture of medical expertise that we
still use in the modern period mixed with "cures" made from horse shit
and urine rubbed into one's eye.
The Muslim kingdoms, particularly in Baghdad, were amazing in that they
preserved many more Latin and Greek manuscripts, Persian mss, plus
imported some from India and China, translated them into Arabic and so
compiled the knowledge not just of the Romans but several other advanced
empires. So when the West meets them in the Crusade period, the Arabs
have advanced leaps and bounds and eventually some of their knowledge is
reintroduced to the West.
Anyway, that's the short form....
D. Spencer Hines
DSH
---------------------------------------------------------
"Larry Swain" <gi...@poetic.com> wrote in message
news:joKdne2JxsHYpRza...@rcn.net...
> Paul J Gans wrote:
>>
>> As far as I know, Roman medicine continued to be practiced in the
>> east.
>>
>> In the west, the problem was the church.
>
> Have to disagree with you there Paul. The church had no problem with
> the study of medicine, and even if it did, in the early centuries, there
> wasn't anything the church could do about it. Individual churchmen
> might have, but the church wasn't the monolithic "super power" that it
> became post Gregory VII and gang.
>
> It dictated what could be studied.
> Yes and no. No in the sense that there was no set curriculum by Rome or
> the church, and there was no central authority. Yes in the sense that
> education was largely in the hands of churchmen. Their interests were
> largely theological, but not exclusively so as there are many surprising
> gems.
>
> >There is a difference between knowlege [sic] being "lost"
>> and knowlege [sic] being "ignored".
Paul J Gans
>In article <flodh8$3qp$4...@reader2.panix.com>, ga...@panix.com says...
>> >Plus there are other fields like art eg when the Italians in the 1400s
>> >dug up Roman sculpture they were amazed at the quality. Never had they
>> >seen anything as good. It caused a major movement in sculpture in that
>> >era.
>>
>> I strongly suggest that tastes change. The medievals, especially
>> the early ones, did not go in for random sculpture. What was done
>> was done to glorify God. Making the image too beautiful would be
>> bragging on the part of the artist. (You have noted that early
>> and many later medieval art works are NOT signed.)
>>
>> However, it can be argued that the Italians in 1400 were consciously
>> copying earlier classical works.
>>
>> Another example: what will folks make of modern art 1000 years from
>> now? Will they speak of forgotten techniques?
>Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
>Yes they would be forgotten.
But that would clearly be wrong, wouldn't it? We know very well
how to make classical sculpture. And we can do it in many materials.
It just isn't very fashionable right now.
>I suspect there is much to learn before you can make massive sculptures.
>I presume most artist start off with a small sculpture and slowly work
>their way up. If a society does not make such sculptures, then the
>knowledge to make them will be lost.
But you miss my point. Today they are out of style. Very few
if any produced in the 20th century will be found in the 30th.
Will they conclude that we did not know how to make them?
But we have NOT forgotten how to make them. It is just that the
literal rendering of the semi-nude human body is not very salable
right now.
>> >> In the west, the problem was the church. It dictated what could
>> >> be studied. There is a difference between knowlege being "lost"
>> >> and knowlege being "ignored".
>> >>
>>
>> >Since I am only talking of that area, I suspect that this it not an
>> >issue.
>>
>> It was a big issue in the west. Entire types of literature vanished.
>> What was written were saint's lives and books of theology. Works
>> on natural history, secular biography, etc., vanished.
>>
>> It is only after 1000 AD that we start to see some of this come back
>> as in Abbot Suger's life of Charles the Fat.
>>
>Agreed. In the West the knowledge is no longer there.
Wrong. It *is* there. Roman writers were read. There was, as
we would say, no "market" for it. Indeed, one might go to Hell
for doing it. So it wasn't done.
>> >> For instance, we have many creationists in the US today. Does
>> >> that mean that knowlege of biology has been "lost"?
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>> >If the creationist took over and kept a strangle hold for about 800
>> >years would knowledge of biology be lost?
>>
>> Probably not. Unless all the books were burnt along with those
>> who read them.
>After 800 years even if the books were not burnt deliberately almost all
>would be lost.
Well then, you begin to understand the problem of defining what was
and was not known in medieval times in terms of surviving material.
Paul J Gans
Slavery. Torture. Slaughter of entire towns for the sins of
the few. And the absolute submission of women to men.
It is true some would like to see those days return. It tells
us a lot about them.
bernardz
> >would be lost.
>
> Well then, you begin to understand the problem of defining what was
> and was not known in medieval times in terms of surviving material.
>
Professor I don't deny that you know far more on this subject then me
but I am aware of this problem.
Paul J Gans
Yup. And too long to answer in detail. But first, surgery was already
excellent and continued to be so, including the fixing of skull fractures
and the removal of cateracts. But it was in the end limited by the
prohibition of dissection of corpses. It was also a low-class occupation
and so no great status was given to it.
Medicine was practiced in two general forms. One was folk medicine
which was rather practical. What worked was used. Local materials
had to be used and the names of the local materials are often
confusing to us.
However, none of this was written down until late in the medieval
period. And so one region might be unaware of something known in
another.
Scholastic medicine was something else. This was medical theory
that sought to understand the mechanism of disease. Here there
were losses compared to the Greeks, who had a more open view of
it all.
The medieval notion of medical theory did not change in any notable
way until the rise of the medical school at Salerno. It brought
together the writings of the Greeks with the experimentation of
the Arabs and the experience of the Jews.
But medieval medicine was hobbled by theocratic interpretations
of illness which prevented any rational attempts at cures.
Finally, towards the end of the medieval period, dissections
were once more allowed (or at least tolerated) and medical
writings, as you note, were allowed.
The largest problem was that medicine was at best palliative.
There were essentially no cures for any disease. One got better
or one did not. It is strange to think of a world without
either vaccines or antibiotics like penicillin, but we humans
lived like that for almost all of our time on earth.
Charlie Wilkes
Don't you think the fractured polity had a lot to do with the lack of a
"market" for both literature and science? Classical scholarship was
preserved -- tucked away in monastaries -- but it was of little use
in a scattered, impoverished society that lacked the institutional
framework to promote higher education or make use of advanced engineering
techniques.
I have been studying your comments, and I think you are performing
intellectual contortions to make the case that early medieval society was
more advanced than the evidence suggests.
For example, I don't believe that artists did not want to make
anything too beautiful because it would be seen as bragging. The other
day you mentioned the Lindisfarne Gospels from the 8th Century. During Roman times (or during late medieval
times), an artist of that caliber would have been commissioned to
create art for public buildings, or perhaps for wealthy connoisseurs, and
he would have been well paid. But in the 700s, society had devolved into
small political units, people had all they could do to feed themselves,
and there were no artistic commissions to be had.
Charlie
D. Spencer Hines
Pogue Gans is as ignorant about Christianity as he is about Theology, Darwin
& Evolutionary Theory.
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
"Paul J Gans" <ga...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:flrvol$49r$3...@reader2.panix.com...
> In soc.history.medieval Andrew Swallow <am.sw...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>>> But I was initially refering to those issues in an ordinary civil
>>> context. Yahweh was also ok with fathers selling their daughters into
>>> sexual slavery. [sop]
>>>
>>> We should have god's law concerning that engraved in every courthouse
>>> wall - we'd be a better nation.... how sweet it would be... [sop]
>>>
>>And God was also happy with polygamy. [sop]
J A
> Nothing to do with Jesus Christ....
LOL.
In the christian fantasy, jesus is the son of yahweh.
Nowadays, people often worship and pray to jesus instead of yahweh and
use idols like crosses and statuary.
These things are condemned in yahweh's Commandments. Presumably,
people who break these Commandments are going to hell.
> Pogue Gans is as ignorant about Christianity as he is about Theology, Darwin
> & Evolutionary Theory.
>
> DSH
>
> Lux et Veritas et Libertas
>
> "Paul J Gans" <g...@panix.com> wrote in messagenews:flrvol$49r$3...@reader2.panix.com...
>
>
>
> > In soc.history.medieval Andrew Swallow <am.swal...@btinternet.com> wrote:
> >>> But I was initially refering to those issues in an ordinary civil
> >>> context. Yahweh was also ok with fathers selling their daughters into
> >>> sexual slavery. [sop]
>
> >>> We should have god's law concerning that engraved in every courthouse
> >>> wall - we'd be a better nation.... how sweet it would be... [sop]
>
> >>And God was also happy with polygamy. [sop]
>
> > Slavery. Torture. Slaughter of entire towns for the sins of
> > the few. And the absolute submission of women to men.
>
> > It is true some would like to see those days return. It tells
> > us a lot about them.
>
> > --
> > --- Paul J. Gans- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
bernardZ
charlie...@users.easynews.com says...
> Don't you think the fractured polity had a lot to do with the lack of a
> "market" for both literature and science? Classical scholarship was
> preserved -- tucked away in monastaries -- but it was of little use
> in a scattered, impoverished society that lacked the institutional
> framework to promote higher education or make use of advanced engineering
> techniques.
>
I find it hard to believe that advanced engineering can be put into a
book and kept. This takes not only knowledge but also experience.
Paul J Gans
Yes, but it wasn't a fractured polity as such. It was the lack
of (a) the need (as they saw it) for monumental public works,
and (b) the money to pay for them if they did see the need.
There is no doubt that post-Roman times were culturally different
than Roman times. It is the value judgement on those times that
I object to.
>I have been studying your comments, and I think you are performing
>intellectual contortions to make the case that early medieval society was
>more advanced than the evidence suggests.
"Advanced" involves a value judgement. Historians prefer not to
use value judgements, even if it is almost impossible to avoid them
totally.
>For example, I don't believe that artists did not want to make
>anything too beautiful because it would be seen as bragging. The other
>day you mentioned the Lindisfarne Gospels from the 8th Century. During Roman times (or during late medieval
>times), an artist of that caliber would have been commissioned to
>create art for public buildings, or perhaps for wealthy connoisseurs, and
>he would have been well paid. But in the 700s, society had devolved into
>small political units, people had all they could do to feed themselves,
>and there were no artistic commissions to be had.
If by "devovled" you mean "broken up into", then I agree. But I
think the important point about the fantastically beautiful Lindesfarne
Gospels is that the ability to produce such works was NOT lost. And
at the time they were done, producing a copy of the Gospels was the
exact moral equivalent of having your work incorporated into a giant
public building.
Values had changed. Now one glorified God, not man.
By the way, the artist (I believe we do know their names) did not
just simply produce that work out of thin air. I think we can surmise
that there were loads of similar smaller productions in which artists
learned their craft. Those are now lost. Indeed, it is a bit of
a miracle that the Lindesfarne Gospels survived.
There is a similar story about the Book of Kells. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells
whose survival was again a miracle. The fact that these examples
exist show that the artistry that produced them was alive and well
during the "dark ages".
I think you will agree that this is a fascinating subject. And I
think you will agree that it is impossible to make hard and fast
conclusions from the evidence available.
Paul J Gans
I almost agree. But the medieval way of preserving technical knowlege
was oral. This later became more formalized in guilds.
As an example I believe Larry Swain used earlier, when wooden castles
proved inadeqate, stone castles appeared. Not small stone huts followed
by stone houses followed by stone houses with outer walls -- but the
wholet thing all at once.
The same thing happened with cathedrals. All at once masons were able
to build eight to ten story (in our terms) buildings out of stone.
It seems to me that knowlege of these things was preserved to a degree.
Some remained in Roman books on architecture. The rest was that huge
store of oral knowlege handed down from master to journeyman to apprentice.
Sadly, those (mostly clerics) who wrote about things in the first half
of the Middle Ages had zero interest in mundane things such as architecture.
They cared only for God, His glorification, and the salvation of mankind.
The rest was trivial.
So no record was kept.
Anyone today ever make soap at home? Knowlege of how to do so was
so common even into the 1920s that it was hardly ever written down.
Charlie Wilkes
A third missing ingredient was the political infrastructure. A
tribe of 10,000 people was not up to the task of building a stone
coliseum... especially if they were intermittently at war with other
tribes.
>
> There is no doubt that post-Roman times were culturally different than
> Roman times. It is the value judgement on those times that I object to.
>
>>I have been studying your comments, and I think you are performing
>>intellectual contortions to make the case that early medieval society
>>was more advanced than the evidence suggests.
>
> "Advanced" involves a value judgement. Historians prefer not to use
> value judgements, even if it is almost impossible to avoid them totally.
>
>>For example, I don't believe that artists did not want to make anything
>>too beautiful because it would be seen as bragging. The other day you
>>mentioned the Lindisfarne Gospels from the 8th Century. During Roman
>>times (or during late medieval times), an artist of that caliber would
>>have been commissioned to create art for public buildings, or perhaps
>>for wealthy connoisseurs, and he would have been well paid. But in the
>>700s, society had devolved into small political units, people had all
>>they could do to feed themselves, and there were no artistic commissions
>>to be had.
>
> If by "devovled" you mean "broken up into", then I agree. But I think
> the important point about the fantastically beautiful Lindesfarne
> Gospels is that the ability to produce such works was NOT lost. And at
> the time they were done, producing a copy of the Gospels was the exact
> moral equivalent of having your work incorporated into a giant public
> building.
It may have been the moral equivalent, but it was not the social or
remunerative equivalent. How many people were able to view and
appreciate the Lindisfarne Gospels? I'll bet it was very few.
>
> Values had changed. Now one glorified God, not man.
>
> By the way, the artist (I believe we do know their names) did not just
> simply produce that work out of thin air. I think we can surmise that
> there were loads of similar smaller productions in which artists learned
> their craft. Those are now lost. Indeed, it is a bit of a miracle that
> the Lindesfarne Gospels survived.
>
> There is a similar story about the Book of Kells. See
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells
>
> whose survival was again a miracle. The fact that these examples exist
> show that the artistry that produced them was alive and well during the
> "dark ages".
>
> I think you will agree that this is a fascinating subject. And I think
> you will agree that it is impossible to make hard and fast conclusions
> from the evidence available.
It seems reasonable to draw some conclusions about what social conditions
were like in all probability, if not with the degree of certainty implied
by the phrase "hard and fast." An artistic subculture existed behind
monastery walls, so artists of rare talent had a career path. But the
very nature of this career path suggests that art was not an important
part of public life. And the reasons are obvious -- few people had the
education or leisure time to care about art, and the security situation
was such that only a fool would put anything beautiful or valuable on
public display.
I do not fault medieval people for the circumstances in which they found
themselves. Charlemagne apparently was illiterate until late in his life,
even though he was born into a ruling family. That in itself reflects the
sorry condition of European culture. And yet who stands taller than
Charlemagne as a statesman or a patron of higher learning? Rebuilding
civilization after the Roman collapse was a dreary task that took many
centuries. I don't think one defames the people who performed that task
by acknowledging that they labored under abysmal conditions.
Charlie
Soren Larsen
> On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:13:01 +0000, Paul J Gans wrote:
>
>
> It seems reasonable to draw some conclusions about what social
> conditions were like in all probability,
Certainly
The average height of west europeans grew in the migration age
compared to roman times despite the climatic pessimum.
> if not with the degree of
> certainty implied by the phrase "hard and fast." An artistic
> subculture existed behind monastery walls, so artists of rare talent
> had a career path.
And outside.
Have you seen the dark age christian basilicas of Rome like
St Maria in Trastevere, founded in 4th c with some 7th
century mosaics?
http://picasaweb.google.com/steve46814/ItalyRome/photo#5090954045722058946
Or St Prassede with the St Zeno's chapel normally
reffered to as 'The garden of Paradise" 9th c
http://www.davidsanger.com/images/italy/S4-501-4087.prassede.y.jpg
And they could build too. Here is St Sabina 5th c
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Santa_Sabina.JPG
> But the very nature of this career path suggests
> that art was not an important part of public life.
The barbaria ruffian buried at Sutton Hoo obviously had little
concept of displaying it.
And the pagan barbarians living outside christendom all
wore wolfskins:
http://www.historiska.se/template/RelatedImagePopup.aspx?parent=21084&image=21090
and were armed with clubs
http://s63.photobucket.com/albums/h142/wagnijo/?action=view¤t=Swordhandle1.jpg
> And the reasons
> are obvious -- few people had the education or leisure time to care
> about art, and the security situation was such that only a fool would
> put anything beautiful or valuable on public display.
I think it is time to bring out good old Salvian
Salvian 5th century:
"In what respects can our customs be preferred to those of the Goths and
Vandals, or even compared with them? And first, to speak of affection and
mutual charity (which, our Lord teaches, is the chief virtue, saying, "By
this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to
another "), almost all barbarians, at least those who are of one race and
kin, love each other, while the Romans persecute each other. For what
citizen does not envy his fellow citizen ? What citizen shows to his
neighbor full charity?
[The Romans oppress each other with exactions] nay, not each other : it
would be quite tolerable, if each suffered what he inflicted. It is worse
than that ; for the many are oppressed by the few, who regard public
exactions as their own peculiar right, who carry on private traffic under
tile guise of collecting the taxes. And this is done not only by nobles, but
by men of lowest rank; not by judges only, but by judges' subordinates. For
where is the city even the town or village which has not as many tyrants
as it has curials ? . . . What place is there, therefore, as I have said,
where the substance of widows and orphans, nay even of the saints, is not
devoured by the chief citizens? . . .
None but the great is secure from the devastations of these plundering
brigands, except those who arw themselves robbers.
[Nay, the state has fallen upon such evil days that a man cannot be safe
unless he is wicked] Even those in a position to protest against the
iniquity which they see about them dare not speak lest they make matters
worse than before. So the poor are despoiled, the widows sigh, the orphans
are oppressed, until many of them, born of families not obscure, and
liberally educated, flee to our enemies that they may no longer suffer the
oppression of public persecution. They doubtless seek Roman humanity among
the barbarians, because they cannot bear barbarian inhumanity among the
Romans. And although they differ from the people to Whom they flee in manner
and in language; although they are unlike as regards the fetid odor of the
barbarians' bodies and garments, yet they would rather endure a foreign
civilization among the barbarians than cruel injustice among the Romans."
Sure Salvian had a christian agenda among the romans but....................
>
> I do not fault medieval people for the circumstances in which they
> found themselves. Charlemagne apparently was illiterate until late
> in his life, even though he was born into a ruling family. That in
> itself reflects the sorry condition of European culture.
I find him rather preferable to some illiterate soldier emperor,
.
I even find him preferable to say Justin 1 the illiterate
>And yet who
> stands taller than Charlemagne as a statesman or a patron of higher
> learning? Rebuilding civilization after the Roman collapse was a
> dreary task that took many centuries. I don't think one defames the
> people who performed that task by acknowledging that they labored
> under abysmal conditions.
Certainly, _but_so_did_the_romans_.
Soren Larsen
--
History is not what it used to be.
Larry Swain
>
>>>In the west, the problem was the church. It dictated what could
>>>be studied. There is a difference between knowlege being "lost"
>>>and knowlege being "ignored".
>>>
>
>
>>Since I am only talking of that area, I suspect that this it not an
>>issue.
>
>
> It was a big issue in the west. Entire types of literature vanished.
I wonder what you have in mind here.......
And of course, entire types of literature were invented.
> What was written were saint's lives and books of theology.
And a lot more than that!
>Works on natural history, secular biography, etc., vanished.
There weren't that many authors on natural history in Roman literature
either, Pliny's Natural History being far and away the most influential
and widely known. But anyway, Isidore? computus studies? farming
manuals? these seem all dependent on natural history. As for
biography, Einhard? Asser? to name two well known examples.
erilar
Charlie Wilkes <charlie...@users.easynews.com> wrote:
> How many people were able to view and
> appreciate the Lindisfarne Gospels? I'll bet it was very few.
But it was not conceived of as a "public work" like a coliseum or
cathedral.
--
Mary Loomer Oliver (aka Erilar)
You can't reason with someone whose first line of argument is
that reason doesn't count. --Isaac Asimov
Erilar's Cave Annex: http://www.chibardun.net/~erilarlo
Paul J Gans
>On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:13:01 +0000, Paul J Gans wrote:
[extreme trimming]
>> Yes, but it wasn't a fractured polity as such. It was the lack
>> of (a) the need (as they saw it) for monumental public works,
>> and (b) the money to pay for them if they did see the need.
>A third missing ingredient was the political infrastructure. A
>tribe of 10,000 people was not up to the task of building a stone
>coliseum... especially if they were intermittently at war with other
>tribes.
Exactly. More: why would they want to build a coliseum?
>> If by "devovled" you mean "broken up into", then I agree. But I think
>> the important point about the fantastically beautiful Lindesfarne
>> Gospels is that the ability to produce such works was NOT lost. And at
>> the time they were done, producing a copy of the Gospels was the exact
>> moral equivalent of having your work incorporated into a giant public
>> building.
>It may have been the moral equivalent, but it was not the social or
>remunerative equivalent. How many people were able to view and
>appreciate the Lindisfarne Gospels? I'll bet it was very few.
I don't understand. In the Middle Ages, people were not equal,
they knew they were not equal, and God didn't want them to be
equal.
Earth was organized on heavenly principles. There was God,
surrounded by angels, cherubim, etc, etc. Around them were
the saints. There were no common folks to be seen.
Same thing on earth. The king was surrounded by his peers
who were surrounded by their retainers. The peasants were
at work.
What would be the point of showing peasants the Gospels? In
fact, the most sacred of the rituals, the transmutation of the
host, was done behind a screen, not in the open as is done today.
It was a priestly secret. It was enough for the common folks to
know that it happened.
>> I think you will agree that this is a fascinating subject. And I think
>> you will agree that it is impossible to make hard and fast conclusions
>> from the evidence available.
>It seems reasonable to draw some conclusions about what social conditions
>were like in all probability, if not with the degree of certainty implied
>by the phrase "hard and fast." An artistic subculture existed behind
>monastery walls, so artists of rare talent had a career path. But the
>very nature of this career path suggests that art was not an important
>part of public life. And the reasons are obvious -- few people had the
>education or leisure time to care about art, and the security situation
>was such that only a fool would put anything beautiful or valuable on
>public display.
Of course we can draw conclusions. They have been drawn. You
can find books on everyday life in England, etc.
But you have the rest of it a bit wrong. It was not a career path
for artists. The artists were drawn from the brothers of the
monastery. Besides, the art was not for the appreciation of anybody,
and certainly not the laity. It was for the glorification of God
and that alone.
I believe that the central fact of the Middle Ages, certainly
the early Middle Ages, is that the presence of God in the real
world. This world was transitory. It was the antechamber for
Heaven. The entire point of life was to test your soul to see
if it was worthy of heaven. Nothing here in this life counted
for anything. All was vanity, one of the deadly sins. The most
certain way to heaven, though not guaranteed, was the monastic
life.
Think of everything through this prism. The peasant was told to
ignore the hardships of his life. It would help him get to heaven.
And the rich man was reminded about the camel and the eye of the
needle.
So to evaluate the Middle Ages, you must always keep this in the
back of your mind.
>I do not fault medieval people for the circumstances in which they found
>themselves. Charlemagne apparently was illiterate until late in his life,
>even though he was born into a ruling family. That in itself reflects the
>sorry condition of European culture. And yet who stands taller than
>Charlemagne as a statesman or a patron of higher learning? Rebuilding
>civilization after the Roman collapse was a dreary task that took many
>centuries. I don't think one defames the people who performed that task
>by acknowledging that they labored under abysmal conditions.
Wasn't dreary at all. Until the late 13th century, Europe was
not heavily populated. People lived (relatively) well. Life
was tough, but it was tough in Roman times as well.
Paul J Gans
Biographies they might have been. So are Saint's lives. They
are written to show how God worked in the world.
D. Spencer Hines
The term is TRANSUBSTANTIATION of the host.
Vide infra pro sapientia.
DSH
Lux et Veritas et Libertas
Deus Vult
"Paul J Gans" <ga...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:flumvk$t6v$1...@reader2.panix.com...
> In fact, the most sacred of the rituals, the transmutation [sic] of the
> host, was done behind a screen, not in the open as is done today.
> It was a priestly secret. It was enough for the common folks to
> know that it happened.
------------------------------------------------
The L. form occurs as a current term, c 1070, in St. Peter Damian _Expos.
Canonis Missæ_ §7 ‘Quando profertur ipsum pronomen [‘Hoc’], nondum est
transsubstantiatio’. (Migne Patrologia CXLV. 883.)]
OED Second Edition
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Merriam-Webster 11th Collegiate Edition
Main Entry:tran-sub-stan-ti-a-tion
Function:noun
Date:14th century
1 : an act or instance of transubstantiating or being transubstantiated
2 : the miraculous change by which according to Roman Catholic and Eastern
Orthodox dogma the eucharistic elements at their consecration become the
body and blood of Christ while keeping only the appearances of bread and
wine.
J A
> He can't even get the Mediaeval Religious Terminology right.
>
> The term is TRANSUBSTANTIATION of the host.
... even Nicolette saw through that bit of sophistry...
Remember - while there is no Commandment against canabalism, it is
considered very bad form.
Chowing down on a false god as a way of worshipping him, will only
antagonize yahweh.
Charlie Wilkes
> Charlie Wilkes wrote:
>> On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:13:01 +0000, Paul J Gans wrote:
>>
>
>>
>> It seems reasonable to draw some conclusions about what social
>> conditions were like in all probability,
>
> Certainly
>
> The average height of west europeans grew in the migration age
> compared to roman times despite the climatic pessimum.
Has it been established that the Franks enjoyed overall better nutrition,
or is it a subject of debate, with some arguing that genetic factors
accounted for the larger stature of Franks vs. Romans?
>
>> if not with the degree of
>> certainty implied by the phrase "hard and fast." An artistic
>> subculture existed behind monastery walls, so artists of rare talent
>> had a career path.
>
> And outside.
>
> Have you seen the dark age christian basilicas of Rome like St Maria in
> Trastevere, founded in 4th c with some 7th century mosaics?
>
> http://picasaweb.google.com/steve46814/ItalyRome/photo#5090954045722058946
>
> Or St Prassede with the St Zeno's chapel normally
> reffered to as 'The garden of Paradise" 9th c
>
> http://www.davidsanger.com/images/italy/S4-501-4087.prassede.y.jpg
>
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Santa_Prassede_-_Mosaic,_Chapel_of_San_Zeno.JPG/800px-Santa_Prassede_-_Mosaic,_Chapel_of_San_Zeno.JPG
>
> And they could build too. Here is St Sabina 5th c
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Santa_Sabina.JPG
>
Weren't all of these buildings more or less constructed with columns and
other materials scavenged from pagan temples?
>
>
>> But the very nature of this career path suggests that art was not an
>> important part of public life.
>
> The barbaria ruffian buried at Sutton Hoo obviously had little concept
> of displaying it.
>
> http://www.heorot.dk/sutton%20hoo%20shoulder%20clasp%20-%20boars%20-%20garnets%20&%20millifiore%20glass.jpg
>
> And the pagan barbarians living outside christendom all wore wolfskins:
>
> http://www.historiska.se/template/RelatedImagePopup.aspx?parent=21084&image=21090
>
> and were armed with clubs
>
> http://s63.photobucket.com/albums/h142/wagnijo/?action=view¤t=Swordhandle1.jpg
These are beautiful articles, but they are of a personal nature. Rich
people have always had nice things.
This is a catalog of human baseness as it always has and will exist,
without reference to specific events or conditions.
>
>
>> I do not fault medieval people for the circumstances in which they
>> found themselves. Charlemagne apparently was illiterate until late in
>> his life, even though he was born into a ruling family. That in itself
>> reflects the sorry condition of European culture.
>
> I find him rather preferable to some illiterate soldier emperor, .
> I even find him preferable to say Justin 1 the illiterate
>
>>And yet who
>> stands taller than Charlemagne as a statesman or a patron of higher
>> learning? Rebuilding civilization after the Roman collapse was a
>> dreary task that took many centuries. I don't think one defames the
>> people who performed that task by acknowledging that they labored under
>> abysmal conditions.
>
> Certainly, _but_so_did_the_romans_.
Did they? Or did they have too much ease, which made them too soft to
maintain and defend what they had built?
Charlie
Charlie Wilkes
> Charlie Wilkes <charlie...@users.easynews.com> wrote:
>>On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:13:01 +0000, Paul J Gans wrote:
>
> [extreme trimming]
>
>>> Yes, but it wasn't a fractured polity as such. It was the lack
>>> of (a) the need (as they saw it) for monumental public works,
>>> and (b) the money to pay for them if they did see the need.
>
>>A third missing ingredient was the political infrastructure. A
>>tribe of 10,000 people was not up to the task of building a stone
>>coliseum... especially if they were intermittently at war with other
>>tribes.
>
> Exactly. More: why would they want to build a coliseum?
They wouldn't. My only point is that the infrastructure of a small,
isolated society is by necessity more limited in scale than is that of a
cosmopolitan society.
>
>>> If by "devovled" you mean "broken up into", then I agree. But I think
>>> the important point about the fantastically beautiful Lindesfarne
>>> Gospels is that the ability to produce such works was NOT lost. And
>>> at the time they were done, producing a copy of the Gospels was the
>>> exact moral equivalent of having your work incorporated into a giant
>>> public building.
>
>>It may have been the moral equivalent, but it was not the social or
>>remunerative equivalent. How many people were able to view and
>>appreciate the Lindisfarne Gospels? I'll bet it was very few.
>
> I don't understand. In the Middle Ages, people were not equal, they
> knew they were not equal, and God didn't want them to be equal.
But in Roman times even the humblest of people could feel themselves to be
part of a magnificent social enterprise, as reflected in public works and
public art. In the later medieval period, great cathedrals afforded a
similar inclusiveness, and so did great castles under some circumstances.
Even those who never saw them heard about them from others who had. But
for several centuries after the fall of Rome, society was too fractured and
unstable to undertake great works, except, as Soren has pointed out, in
Rome, where pillars and stonework were available for scavenging.
>
> Earth was organized on heavenly principles. There was God, surrounded
> by angels, cherubim, etc, etc. Around them were the saints. There were
> no common folks to be seen.
>
> Same thing on earth. The king was surrounded by his peers who were
> surrounded by their retainers. The peasants were at work.
>
> What would be the point of showing peasants the Gospels? In fact, the
> most sacred of the rituals, the transmutation of the host, was done
> behind a screen, not in the open as is done today. It was a priestly
> secret. It was enough for the common folks to know that it happened.
>
Sure. Christianity is a fine tool for keeping people in line in the face
of great misery and injustice. The more elaborate the rituals, the greater
their power.
I suppose. My understanding of these subjects has been shaped by the
books at my fingertips, most of which are quite old and have been handed
down to me by family members. Certainly if I were studying dinosaurs from
books of the same era, I would have a very flawed understanding of what
they were like. Maybe history is the same, a scientific subject in
which knowledge becomes progressively more accurate as time goes on.
Charlie
Uwe Müller
"Charlie Wilkes" <charlie...@users.easynews.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:3pEgj.200710$DQ1....@fe03.news.easynews.com...
> On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:42:12 +0100, Soren Larsen wrote:
>
>> Charlie Wilkes wrote:
>>> On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:13:01 +0000, Paul J Gans wrote:
>>>
>>
>>>
>>> It seems reasonable to draw some conclusions about what social
>>> conditions were like in all probability,
>>
>> Certainly
>>
>> The average height of west europeans grew in the migration age
>> compared to roman times despite the climatic pessimum.
>
> Has it been established that the Franks enjoyed overall better nutrition,
> or is it a subject of debate, with some arguing that genetic factors
> accounted for the larger stature of Franks vs. Romans?
As the roman diet was high on carbohydrates and low on meat and dairy
products, the difference in body height may be attributed to effects apart
from genetic or cultural differences.
But the important point is, which criteria do we select to compare?
Was the canal, that Charlemagne had ordered to be dug to secure supplies for
the Awar wars, paralleld by any roman canals? No, instead the Romans let the
irrigation systems of the Etruscans fall into disrepair.
Analysis of Alamannic grave yards has shown, that they regularly employed
some antibacteriological agens for healing, afaik unkown to the Romans. Does
that make them superior?
Neolithic surgeons had a higher quota of succes for skull operations than we
have today, does that make them superior?
Gaul was superior to Rome in chariot building.
Germans were superior in iron technology.
Since the appearance of 'nice things' in burials is the basis for the
identification of 'rich people', this is quite beside the point. Burial
custioms that amass and preserve those 'nice things' (Roman) will give you a
different picture, than burial customs, that have the body and the grave
goods put on a pyre.
But the difference lies in burial customs, not in quality of culture of the
living.
Could you then prop up you arguments with references to specific events and
conditions?
>>
>>
>>> I do not fault medieval people for the circumstances in which they
>>> found themselves. Charlemagne apparently was illiterate until late in
>>> his life, even though he was born into a ruling family. That in itself
>>> reflects the sorry condition of European culture.
>>
>> I find him rather preferable to some illiterate soldier emperor, .
>> I even find him preferable to say Justin 1 the illiterate
>>
>>>And yet who
>>> stands taller than Charlemagne as a statesman or a patron of higher
>>> learning? Rebuilding civilization after the Roman collapse was a
>>> dreary task that took many centuries. I don't think one defames the
>>> people who performed that task by acknowledging that they labored under
>>> abysmal conditions.
>>
>> Certainly, _but_so_did_the_romans_.
>
> Did they? Or did they have too much ease, which made them too soft to
> maintain and defend what they had built?
Rome had to adapt to specific situations, as Charlemagne had. But those
situations weren't the same. Do the solutions adopted by them tell us more
about the problems they encountered, or about some quality of culture they
build or inherited?
have fun
Uwe Mueller
James Hogg
> He can't even get the Mediaeval Religious Terminology right.
>
> The term is TRANSUBSTANTIATION of the host.
In using the word "transmutation" Professor Gans is following the
Orthodox Eucharist.
I quote:
Here the Priest bows profoundly and proceeds with the holiest
part of the Eucharist, in which the Holy Spirit is besought to
descend and transmute the elements into the very Body and
Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ:
THE GREAT AND HOLY EPIKLESIS
or
INVOCATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
And we beseech thee, O Lord, to
send down thy Spirit upon
these offerings, that he would
make this bread the precious
Body of thy Christ, and that
which is in this cup the precious
Blood of thy Son our Lord Jesus
Christ, transmuting them by thy Holy Spirit
James
John Briggs
Science is progressive without being cumulative.
--
John Briggs
Soren Larsen
> On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:42:12 +0100, Soren Larsen wrote:
>
>> Charlie Wilkes wrote:
>>> On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:13:01 +0000, Paul J Gans wrote:
>>>
>>
>>>
>>> It seems reasonable to draw some conclusions about what social
>>> conditions were like in all probability,
>>
>> Certainly
>>
>> The average height of west europeans grew in the migration age
>> compared to roman times despite the climatic pessimum.
>
> Has it been established that the Franks enjoyed overall better
> nutrition, or is it a subject of debate, with some arguing that
> genetic factors accounted for the larger stature of Franks vs. Romans?
It would seem so. More meat and dairy products in the northern diet,
and germanics living on southern diets tended to be smaller than their
northern
counterparts.
http://www.meteohistory.org/2005historyofmeteorology2/11koepke_baten.pdf
"Migrants from the Mediterranean to Central Europe (especially Roman
soldiers and officers, as well as administrative staff) turned out to be 4
cm shorter than the rest of the population. But skeletons that could
beidentified as "Germanic migrants" were not significantly different from
Eastern Europeans. Also not statistically significant, but economically
meaningful was their coefficient in the "Mediterranean" regression: Germanic
migrants, who died in the Mediterranean region, were 1.63 cm taller."
But then germanic agriculture was not an option in southern Europe
and roman agriculture was not that great an idea in northern Europe
>
>>
>>> if not with the degree of
>>> certainty implied by the phrase "hard and fast." An artistic
>>> subculture existed behind monastery walls, so artists of rare talent
>>> had a career path.
>>
>> And outside.
>>
>> Have you seen the dark age christian basilicas of Rome like St Maria
>> in Trastevere, founded in 4th c with some 7th century mosaics?
>>
>> http://picasaweb.google.com/steve46814/ItalyRome/photo#5090954045722058946
>>
>> Or St Prassede with the St Zeno's chapel normally
>> reffered to as 'The garden of Paradise" 9th c
>>
>> http://www.davidsanger.com/images/italy/S4-501-4087.prassede.y.jpg
>>
>> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Santa_Prassede_-_Mosaic,_Chapel_of_San_Zeno.JPG/800px-Santa_Prassede_-_Mosaic,_Chapel_of_San_Zeno.JPG
>>
>> And they could build too. Here is St Sabina 5th c
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Santa_Sabina.JPG
>>
> Weren't all of these buildings more or less constructed with columns
> and other materials scavenged from pagan temples?
Columns almost certainly, but then the City of Rome was shrinking and
there was a lot of building materials around.
Why waste it?
Anyway did they not randomly stack stone upon stone surpricingly
ending up with basilicas - which were a direct development from earlier
roman administrative buildings.
They knew exactly what they were building!
>>
>>
>>> But the very nature of this career path suggests that art was not an
>>> important part of public life.
>>
>> The barbaria ruffian buried at Sutton Hoo obviously had little
>> concept of displaying it.
>>
>> http://www.heorot.dk/sutton%20hoo%20shoulder%20clasp%20-%20boars%20-%20garnets%20&%20millifiore%20glass.jpg
>>
>> And the pagan barbarians living outside christendom all wore
>> wolfskins:
>>
>> http://www.historiska.se/template/RelatedImagePopup.aspx?parent=21084&image=21090
>>
>> and were armed with clubs
>>
>> http://s63.photobucket.com/albums/h142/wagnijo/?action=view¤t=Swordhandle1.jpg
>
> These are beautiful articles, but they are of a personal nature. Rich
> people have always had nice things.
Of course they were owned by someone - but their primary function
was _to be seen by other people_.
Just like the romans had their stuff made for display.
In wich he compare the barbarians favourably to the romans!
I doubt the "barbarians" were that much better than the romans, but
it strikes me as a shining example of double standards to condemn only
the "barbarian" states for those vices, when we know they flourished
uninhibited in the roman world.
>>
>>
>>> I do not fault medieval people for the circumstances in which they
>>> found themselves. Charlemagne apparently was illiterate until late
>>> in his life, even though he was born into a ruling family. That in
>>> itself reflects the sorry condition of European culture.
>>
>> I find him rather preferable to some illiterate soldier emperor, .
>> I even find him preferable to say Justin 1 the illiterate
>>
>>> And yet who
>>> stands taller than Charlemagne as a statesman or a patron of higher
>>> learning? Rebuilding civilization after the Roman collapse was a
>>> dreary task that took many centuries. I don't think one defames the
>>> people who performed that task by acknowledging that they labored
>>> under abysmal conditions.
>>
>> Certainly, _but_so_did_the_romans_.
>
> Did they? Or did they have too much ease, which made them too soft to
> maintain and defend what they had built?
Hmm
Which of the the two west european origin _myths_ do you subscribe to?
a) The northern barbarians overran civilisation, almost wiping out the
classic
roman culture in the proces, and left Europe in darkness for centuries.
b) The rise of the northern barbarians was a necessary revitalisation of the
decadent roman world, paving the way for new heights in the centuries to
come.
Paul J Gans
>On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 02:25:57 +0000, Paul J Gans wrote:
>> Charlie Wilkes <charlie...@users.easynews.com> wrote:
>>>On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:13:01 +0000, Paul J Gans wrote:
>>
>> [extreme trimming]
>>
>>>> Yes, but it wasn't a fractured polity as such. It was the lack
>>>> of (a) the need (as they saw it) for monumental public works,
>>>> and (b) the money to pay for them if they did see the need.
>>
>>>A third missing ingredient was the political infrastructure. A
>>>tribe of 10,000 people was not up to the task of building a stone
>>>coliseum... especially if they were intermittently at war with other
>>>tribes.
>>
>> Exactly. More: why would they want to build a coliseum?
>They wouldn't. My only point is that the infrastructure of a small,
>isolated society is by necessity more limited in scale than is that of a
>cosmopolitan society.
That has exactly been my point. It makes comparisons of, for example,
Frankish lifestyle to Roman lifestyle very difficult.
>>
>>>> If by "devovled" you mean "broken up into", then I agree. But I think
>>>> the important point about the fantastically beautiful Lindesfarne
>>>> Gospels is that the ability to produce such works was NOT lost. And
>>>> at the time they were done, producing a copy of the Gospels was the
>>>> exact moral equivalent of having your work incorporated into a giant
>>>> public building.
>>
>>>It may have been the moral equivalent, but it was not the social or
>>>remunerative equivalent. How many people were able to view and
>>>appreciate the Lindisfarne Gospels? I'll bet it was very few.
>>
>> I don't understand. In the Middle Ages, people were not equal, they
>> knew they were not equal, and God didn't want them to be equal.
>But in Roman times even the humblest of people could feel themselves to be
>part of a magnificent social enterprise, as reflected in public works and
>public art.
I'd question that. Rome was, to a major extent, a slave society.
To what degree did slaves "enjoy" the pubic works and public art.
By the way, those public items were done to glorify the state, the
donor, etc. That idea died with the Empire-wide adoption of
Christianity.
>In the later medieval period, great cathedrals afforded a
>similar inclusiveness, and so did great castles under some circumstances.
>Even those who never saw them heard about them from others who had. But
>for several centuries after the fall of Rome, society was too fractured and
>unstable to undertake great works, except, as Soren has pointed out, in
>Rome, where pillars and stonework were available for scavenging.
In post-Roman times, those in charge cared only that those who served
did their job. There was art. But it expressed itself in other ways.
Goldworking and silversmithing was highly developed. And you could
wear it. Who could wear a building?
You seem to be articulate, intelligent, and willing to argue your
points. The library is your friend. So is Google, if used wisely.
It takes time to assimilate all the new material. But I think that
you will find that over time your views will change. I doubt that
you would agree with everything I say, or Larry says or whoever.
That doesn't matter. Nobody says that we are right on everything.
We almost certainly aren't.
Paul J Gans
>Science is progressive without being cumulative.
If I understand what you wrote, then I must strongly
disagree. Science is very cumulative. What we do
today is based on experiments and observations hundreds
of years old.
Paul J Gans
>It would seem so. More meat and dairy products in the northern diet,
>and germanics living on southern diets tended to be smaller than their
>northern
>counterparts.
>http://www.meteohistory.org/2005historyofmeteorology2/11koepke_baten.pdf
>"Migrants from the Mediterranean to Central Europe (especially Roman
>soldiers and officers, as well as administrative staff) turned out to be 4
>cm shorter than the rest of the population. But skeletons that could
>beidentified as "Germanic migrants" were not significantly different from
>Eastern Europeans. Also not statistically significant, but economically
>meaningful was their coefficient in the "Mediterranean" regression: Germanic
>migrants, who died in the Mediterranean region, were 1.63 cm taller."
>But then germanic agriculture was not an option in southern Europe
>and roman agriculture was not that great an idea in northern Europe
In my family, people born and raised in the Austrian Empire in small
villages where the diet was primarily carbohydrates were roughly about
1.5 to 1.6 m tall (5 feet). They came to America, moved to California,
and had sons who average 1.8 m tall (6 feet). That's one generation.
John Briggs
Definitely not. Scientific knowledge is not cumulative - in fact, whole
areas of science have ceased to be science: astrology, phrenology, etc.
Accumulated knowledge has to be re-interpreted - that is exactly what
Beilstein's Handbuch der organischen Chemie sought to do: re-interpret past
literature in the light of present-day knowledge (not an unproblematic
enterprise in itself).
The Phlogiston theory was not a dead end: considerable progress had occurred
under its sway, and the the knowledge obtained was re-interpreted according
to the oxygen theory.
(Phew! I managed to get through that without mentioning "paradigm"...)
--
John Briggs
Charlie Wilkes
Cavemen were better doctors than those trained in modern science, eh?
That ought to qualify for Ripley's Believe It or Not.
These arguments are reminiscent of the Margaret Mead school of
anthropology, in which the more primitive a society appears to be, the
more enlightened and advanced it truly is.
Well, I have mentioned Gildas, who does refer to specific events and
conditions, and I am assured that his writing is purely for rhetorical
effect and not to be trusted. I have mentioned the dearth of written
records compared with the Roman era and I am told they were
scrupulously kept, but sadly were all destroyed by those pesky
Vikings. I have mentioned the apparent loss of engineering skills
amongst the early medievals, as reflected in public works, and I am
informed that these skills were retained but were not needed. All in
all, I've done what I can to prop up my arguments, but it hasn't
gotten me much.
Charlie
Charlie Wilkes
<john.b...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>Charlie Wilkes wrote:
>>
>> I suppose. My understanding of these subjects has been shaped by the
>> books at my fingertips, most of which are quite old and have been
>> handed down to me by family members. Certainly if I were studying
>> dinosaurs from books of the same era, I would have a very flawed
>> understanding of what they were like. Maybe history is the same, a
>> scientific subject in which knowledge becomes progressively more accurate
>> as time goes on.
>
>Science is progressive without being cumulative.
???
That assertion strikes me as utterly unsupportable.
Charlie
John Briggs
Which may tell us something about you...
--
John Briggs
Charlie Wilkes
This is a very interesting report.
Sure, but he says very little about the barbarians and quite a bit
about the Romans, which leads me to think the comparison is a
rhetorical device.
>
>I doubt the "barbarians" were that much better than the romans, but
>it strikes me as a shining example of double standards to condemn only
>the "barbarian" states for those vices, when we know they flourished
>uninhibited in the roman world.
Vice flourishes in all societies because it is part of human nature.
The important question, in my mind at least, is not whether the Romans
were morally superior to the barbarians, but whether they had achieved
a degree of social and technological progress that was at least partly
undone by the events of the 5th Century. I think they had.
Metrics can be tricky. It occurs to me to wonder what a future
anthropologist might think if he exhumed the graves of British factory
workers from the early 19th Century. I suppose these remains would
show signs of poor nutrition, an alarming number of amputations, and
many early deaths. And surely the children of most undeveloped
countries enjoyed happier childhoods than those forced to work in
dangerous factories from the age of 6 or 7, sometimes physically
chained to their work stations. And yet, Britain was then the most
advanced nation in the world as measured by economic output and
technology. And the wealth produced by all those unhappy workers
eventually transformed the country into one that offers universal
public education, modern and accessible health care, and many other
social rewards that are broadly shared by the population.
>>>
>>>
>>>> I do not fault medieval people for the circumstances in which they
>>>> found themselves. Charlemagne apparently was illiterate until late
>>>> in his life, even though he was born into a ruling family. That in
>>>> itself reflects the sorry condition of European culture.
>>>
>>> I find him rather preferable to some illiterate soldier emperor, .
>>> I even find him preferable to say Justin 1 the illiterate
>>>
>>>> And yet who
>>>> stands taller than Charlemagne as a statesman or a patron of higher
>>>> learning? Rebuilding civilization after the Roman collapse was a
>>>> dreary task that took many centuries. I don't think one defames the
>>>> people who performed that task by acknowledging that they labored
>>>> under abysmal conditions.
>>>
>>> Certainly, _but_so_did_the_romans_.
>>
>> Did they? Or did they have too much ease, which made them too soft to
>> maintain and defend what they had built?
>
>Hmm
>
>Which of the the two west european origin _myths_ do you subscribe to?
>
>a) The northern barbarians overran civilisation, almost wiping out the
>classic
>roman culture in the proces, and left Europe in darkness for centuries.
>
>b) The rise of the northern barbarians was a necessary revitalisation of the
>decadent roman world, paving the way for new heights in the centuries to
>come.
>
>Soren Larsen
I would say these are not so much myths as they are opposing
perspectives, and both are valid. The Roman Empire was a slave state
that deteriorated into an unstable military dictatorship. The
barbarians were more egalitarian and more wholesome in many respects,
as reported by Tacitus in the 1st Century. So the stage was set for a
major social upheaval long before it happened, and the barbarians were
set to win. BUT, that doesn't mean the upheaval was not painful and
tumultuous, or that nothing of value was lost in the process.
Charlie
Charlie Wilkes
<john.b...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
What does it tell you about me?
Charlie
Larry Swain
> Larry Swain <gi...@poetic.com> wrote:
>
>>Paul J Gans wrote:
>>
>>>bernardZ <Bern...@nospam.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>bernardZ <Bern...@nospam.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>><snip - this is very good, I congraulate you on it!
>>>>>
>>>>>>>(a) The Dark Ages being, by definition, a time of inadequate
>>>>>>>illumination, there was a traditional point of view that this shortage
>>>>>>>of light resulted in a considerable decline in a volume of written
>>>>>>>documentation
>>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>I think there has been too much emphasis here on this aspect of the dark
>>>>>>ages.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Certainly during this period much knowledge and skills were lost in the
>>>>>>West.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Name some.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>How about Roman medicine.
>>>
>>>
>>>>The Roman legions had probably the best doctors that Europe had till the
>>>>19th centuries.
>>>
>>>
>>>>You might find this interesting
>>>
>>>
>>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambroise_Par%C3%A9
>>>
>>>
>>>As far as I know, Roman medicine continued to be practiced in the
>>>east.
>>>
>>>In the west, the problem was the church.
>
>
>>the study of medicine, and even if it did, in the early centuries, there
>>wasn't anything the church could do about it. Individual churchmen
>>might have, but the church wasn't the monolithic "super power" that it
>>became post Gregory VII and gang.
>
>
>
>> It dictated what could
>>
>>>be studied.
>
>
>>the church, and there was no central authority. Yes in the sense that
>>education was largely in the hands of churchmen. Their interests were
>>largely theological, but not exclusively so as there are many surprising
>>gems.
>
>
>>>There is a difference between knowlege being "lost"
>>>and knowlege being "ignored".
>
>
>>deal lost. Little was ignored from what I know. Medical history is not
>>my forte and I can only really say anything about Anglo-Saxon period
>>manuscripts. But there are ninth century Latin copies of Roman medical
>>treatises, and the tenth century Bald's Leechbook among other Old
>>English medical texts. At least for the 9th and 10th century, they seem
>>to be on a par with Arab Spain in terms of medical knowledge.
>
>
>>Much was lost because most doctors didn't have medical books or didn't
>>write things down. A good deal of medical training, esp in the army,
>>was done by training, not through texts. When the army left, or legions
>>were killed off, that oral knowledge was lost. Many manuscripts were of
>>course lost due to not being copied as much as to war and other causes.
>> So when we get to the 7th and subsequent periods, their knowledge was
>>based on what survived and on their own ancient folk medicine. Thus in
>>some texts you have a surprising mixture of medical expertise that we
>>still use in the modern period mixed with "cures" made from horse shit
>>and urine rubbed into one's eye.
>
>
>>The Muslim kingdoms, particularly in Baghdad, were amazing in that they
>>preserved many more Latin and Greek manuscripts, Persian mss, plus
>>imported some from India and China, translated them into Arabic and so
>>compiled the knowledge not just of the Romans but several other advanced
>>empires. So when the West meets them in the Crusade period, the Arabs
>>have advanced leaps and bounds and eventually some of their knowledge is
>>reintroduced to the West.
>
>
>>Anyway, that's the short form....
>
>
> Yup. And too long to answer in detail. But first, surgery was already
> excellent and continued to be so, including the fixing of skull fractures
> and the removal of cateracts. But it was in the end limited by the
> prohibition of dissection of corpses. It was also a low-class occupation
> and so no great status was given to it.
I was atttempting to restrict myself to discussion of the early period
since that was what was in view. I don't know of an early (pre 1100)
prohibition. At the same time, i don't know of any deliberate
dissection of human corpses either, not for study anyway.
\
Paul J Gans
Everybody knows that a paradigms is twenty cents.
If you know about Beilstein, then you know that chemistry is
cumulative.
Yes, ideas have been discarded. But modern science is built upon
an ancient base. We use Boyle's law, Hooke's law, and certainly
Newton. Dalton quantized matter. Carnot laid out the second
law of thermodynamics (1824, I believe), Maxwell the laws of
electromagnetism, etc., etc., etc.
The thing about science is that it is (eventually) self-correcting.
Wrong ideas are discarded.
I don't know how this can be thought of as anything but cumulative.
Paul J Gans
Don't be nasty. I think he's completely correct.
If by a cumulative activity you mean that each and every bit
that has ever been part of that activity is still part of that
activity, then nothing is cumulative and the term is useless.
Renia
Isn't cumulative numerical, that is to say, the amount of something
grows in size?
Or are you using it in the legal sense, as in "cumulative evidence"?
(Same thing, really. The amount of evidence for/against a particular
case grows in size.)
I don't pretend to know a thing about science or chemistry. I'm just asking.
Eric Stevens
wrote:
I think I have to go along with John Briggs.
There are two problems with regarding science as cumulative.
First, the very definition of science has been subject to change over
the centuries. At about 1800 the vast majority of science was built
around the accumulation of observations and it was not until the mid
19th century that the observations began to be underpinned by major
structures of theory. Physics, closely followed by chemistry got away
to the best start but even then 'the experimental method' was confined
to a few corners. A 100 years later 'the experimental method' was king
and the rigorous philosophy of Karl Popper wrote the constitution.
Much 19th century science would not fit the mold designed by Popper so
must be excluded by present views of 'what is science'.
Even forgetting the philosophical side, whole branches have been
lopped from science. We have lost not just theories like cycles and
epicycles, or the phlogiston theory, but also large areas of what we
thought we knew such astrology and phrenology. Right now, what we
think we understand of human behaviour is undergoing enormous change
and the work of the witch doctors of the past, such as Freud and Jung,
is slowly being ejected from the scientific body of knowledge.
Certainly some knowledge and understanding is being accumulated but
much is also being rejected, even if the process takes a long time.
Not all shoulders are capable of being stood upon.
Eric Stevens
Inger E
"Eric Stevens" <eric.s...@sum.co.nz> skrev i meddelandet
news:06j8o3lde20vt2rit...@4ax.com...
Eric and Paul,
As I understand it you are discussing different views on science history.
Paul stand in most part of his lines correct. Yes the backpack, my word, of
science history is an accumulated history where the philosophic as well as
the analytic view goes back to the Ancient Greek passing among other Newton
on 'the road' back from today's scientists. Problem is that many of today's
scientists, scholars and others, aren't familiar with the rules of how to
analyse and prove what's reliable and what isn't. Some tries to devolope the
wheel once again :-)
Old questions and old conclusions of course always needs to be asked again
and new conclusions drawn due to new knowledge earned over time. That's not
the problem. The problem is that it's not an over-all 'natural' process to
have the bad conclusions and bad ideas filtered away.
Karl Popper in with all due deferences, but his theories lack one essential
part and that is that you can't say if a 'field' analysed is black or white
IF you haven't made 'test pits' in it. From a Theory of Science-view Popper
participated with a lot but lacked the full-view of analysing the 'Old'
Greeks had. This means that you can't lean on Popper, his theories ALWAYS
needs to be complemented with at least one other view IF the result gained
could be thought to be reliable at all.
More fields are grey from a scale of almost white to almost black then those
who are black or white. White can only be used for good analysed, tested
areas in science where you can prove that no dots exist at all. On the other
hand while you from Popper's theories can use one single dot to declare a
field as black, you also forgotten that anomalies do exist in nature as well
as in observations from any science field chosen.
Btw that's why I myself stands for an holistic-positivistic view.
Inger E
>
>
>
> Eric Stevens
Uwe Müller
You can compare the figure yourself, look them up. The most likely
explanation is, that they did not have to sterilize equipment for
trepanations, but used freshly furnished flint blades, that had been sterile
for well over 60 million years. Apart from that, the constitution of their
patients might have been better, as well as their immune system.
And if you can't keep the neolithic apart from cavemen, and skull operations
from medicine in general, you should try to get some basic education.
>
> These arguments are reminiscent of the Margaret Mead school of
> anthropology, in which the more primitive a society appears to be, the
> more enlightened and advanced it truly is.
Than get some infos about facts, before subscribing to ill founded opinions.
The superiority of gaulish chariots is well attested in roman sources, as is
the superiority of germanic iron..
Margaret Mead is right as far as any culture, that survives, is succesfull.
and that usually, those calling others primitive, are the ones that lack
civilisation.
So you have lots of excuses for demanding of others what you are not
prepared to do yourself. That is indeed a sign of very advanced behaviour,
surely not to be compared with primitive barbarians. You have been shown to
operate from false premises and a lack of knowledge. Instead of
re-considering you wallow in self pity.
> snip >
have fun
Uwe Mueller
Paul J Gans
I'd talk about "cumulative" that way. For me it also implies that
much older material is kept.
Paul J Gans
Early definitions of "scientia" are not under discussion here. We
are talking about modern science.
>At about 1800 the vast majority of science was built
>around the accumulation of observations
Exactly. And still is. Note the use of the term "accumulation".
>and it was not until the mid
>19th century that the observations began to be underpinned by major
>structures of theory. Physics, closely followed by chemistry got away
>to the best start but even then 'the experimental method' was confined
>to a few corners.
Wrong. Modern science is based upon experimentation. While it has
its roots even earlier, modern science began with the experiments of
the 17th century.
>A 100 years later 'the experimental method' was king
>and the rigorous philosophy of Karl Popper wrote the constitution.
Popper is much argued about. Science does not work in any
easily catagorized way.
>Much 19th century science would not fit the mold designed by Popper so
>must be excluded by present views of 'what is science'.
Wrong. Just exclude Popper and the problem goes away.
>Even forgetting the philosophical side,
Please do. It has nothing to do with science any more than the
spectator looking at a finished painting has to do with the
actual mechanics of painting.
>whole branches have been
>lopped from science.
I don't think so.
>We have lost not just theories like cycles and
>epicycles, or the phlogiston theory,
Theories change as more and more science is done. That is a
major part of the "cumulative" part of science. Cycles and
Epicycles gave way to celestial mechanics. Theory always changes.
Phlogiston was an attempt to explain combustion. Theories are
part of science, they are not science itself. The subject studied
by phlogiston is still with us. Only the theory has changed.
>but also large areas of what we
>thought we knew such astrology and phrenology.
Neither astrology nor phrenology were ever sciences. They were
never based on carefully gathered evidence and have never withstood
any experimental observation.
>Right now, what we
>think we understand of human behaviour is undergoing enormous change
>and the work of the witch doctors of the past, such as Freud and Jung,
>is slowly being ejected from the scientific body of knowledge.
I thought we were talking about the physical sciences. The "soft"
sciences such as sociology and psychology are a different problem
altogether.
>Certainly some knowledge and understanding is being accumulated but
>much is also being rejected, even if the process takes a long time.
>Not all shoulders are capable of being stood upon.
No knowlege has ever been rejected. That is why science is
cumulative. Theories have been rejected, but not experiment.
Sometimes experiments are retroactively found to have been
done wrongly. Those are legitimately rejected.
The analysis of what is and is not science and how science works
is a very complex subject. Both philosophers and psychologists
have attempted to deal with it, unsuccessfully.
Larry Swain
> On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 17:13:01 +0000, Paul J Gans wrote:
>
>
>>
>>>On Mon, 07 Jan 2008 01:35:56 +0000, Paul J Gans wrote:
>>
>>>>bernardZ <Bern...@nospam.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>Plus there are other fields like art eg when the Italians in the 1400s
>>>>>>>dug up Roman sculpture they were amazed at the quality. Never had they
>>>>>>>seen anything as good. It caused a major movement in sculpture in that
>>>>>>>era.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I strongly suggest that tastes change. The medievals, especially
>>>>>>the early ones, did not go in for random sculpture. What was done
>>>>>>was done to glorify God. Making the image too beautiful would be
>>>>>>bragging on the part of the artist. (You have noted that early
>>>>>>and many later medieval art works are NOT signed.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>However, it can be argued that the Italians in 1400 were consciously
>>>>>>copying earlier classical works.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Another example: what will folks make of modern art 1000 years from
>>>>>>now? Will they speak of forgotten techniques?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
>>>>
>>>>>Yes they would be forgotten.
>>>>
>>>>But that would clearly be wrong, wouldn't it? We know very well
>>>>how to make classical sculpture. And we can do it in many materials.
>>>>It just isn't very fashionable right now.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>I suspect there is much to learn before you can make massive sculptures.
>>>>>I presume most artist start off with a small sculpture and slowly work
>>>>>their way up. If a society does not make such sculptures, then the
>>>>>knowledge to make them will be lost.
>>>>
>>>>But you miss my point. Today they are out of style. Very few
>>>>if any produced in the 20th century will be found in the 30th.
>>>>Will they conclude that we did not know how to make them?
>>>>
>>>>But we have NOT forgotten how to make them. It is just that the
>>>>literal rendering of the semi-nude human body is not very salable
>>>>right now.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>>In the west, the problem was the church. It dictated what could
>>>>>>>>be studied. There is a difference between knowlege being "lost"
>>>>>>>>and knowlege being "ignored".
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>issue.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>It was a big issue in the west. Entire types of literature vanished.
>>>>>>What was written were saint's lives and books of theology. Works
>>>>>>on natural history, secular biography, etc., vanished.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>It is only after 1000 AD that we start to see some of this come back
>>>>>>as in Abbot Suger's life of Charles the Fat.
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Agreed. In the West the knowledge is no longer there.
>>>>
>>>>Wrong. It *is* there. Roman writers were read. There was, as
>>>>we would say, no "market" for it. Indeed, one might go to Hell
>>>>for doing it. So it wasn't done.
>>
>>>Don't you think the fractured polity had a lot to do with the lack of a
>>>"market" for both literature and science? Classical scholarship was
>>>preserved -- tucked away in monastaries -- but it was of little use
>>>in a scattered, impoverished society that lacked the institutional
>>>framework to promote higher education or make use of advanced engineering
>>>techniques.
>>
>>Yes, but it wasn't a fractured polity as such. It was the lack
>>of (a) the need (as they saw it) for monumental public works,
>>and (b) the money to pay for them if they did see the need.
>
>
> A third missing ingredient was the political infrastructure. A
> tribe of 10,000 people was not up to the task of building a stone
> coliseum... especially if they were intermittently at war with other
> tribes.
>
>>Roman times. It is the value judgement on those times that I object to.
>>
>>
>>>I have been studying your comments, and I think you are performing
>>>intellectual contortions to make the case that early medieval society
>>>was more advanced than the evidence suggests.
>>
>>"Advanced" involves a value judgement. Historians prefer not to use
>>value judgements, even if it is almost impossible to avoid them totally.
>>
>>
>>>For example, I don't believe that artists did not want to make anything
>>>too beautiful because it would be seen as bragging. The other day you
>>>mentioned the Lindisfarne Gospels from the 8th Century. During Roman
>>>times (or during late medieval times), an artist of that caliber would
>>>have been commissioned to create art for public buildings, or perhaps
>>>for wealthy connoisseurs, and he would have been well paid. But in the
>>>700s, society had devolved into small political units, people had all
>>>they could do to feed themselves, and there were no artistic commissions
>>>to be had.
>>
>>If by "devovled" you mean "broken up into", then I agree. But I think
>>the important point about the fantastically beautiful Lindesfarne
>>Gospels is that the ability to produce such works was NOT lost. And at
>>the time they were done, producing a copy of the Gospels was the exact
>>moral equivalent of having your work incorporated into a giant public
>>building.
>
>
> It may have been the moral equivalent, but it was not the social or
> remunerative equivalent. How many people were able to view and
> appreciate the Lindisfarne Gospels? I'll bet it was very few.
>
>>
>>By the way, the artist (I believe we do know their names) did not just
>>simply produce that work out of thin air. I think we can surmise that
>>there were loads of similar smaller productions in which artists learned
>>their craft. Those are now lost. Indeed, it is a bit of a miracle that
>>the Lindesfarne Gospels survived.
>>
>>There is a similar story about the Book of Kells. See
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells
>>
>>whose survival was again a miracle. The fact that these examples exist
>>show that the artistry that produced them was alive and well during the
>>"dark ages".
>>
>>I think you will agree that this is a fascinating subject. And I think
>>you will agree that it is impossible to make hard and fast conclusions
>>from the evidence available.
>
>
> by the phrase "hard and fast." An artistic subculture existed behind
> very nature of this career path suggests that art was not an important
> education or leisure time to care about art, and the security situation
> was such that only a fool would put anything beautiful or valuable on
> public display.
Or that public art in that sense was not part of Germanic culture as it
was in Roman where the wealthy sponsored such works. We do need to
remember in discussing things "lost" etc that we are dealing with
different cultures that are undergoing mutual processes of change and
absorbtion of one another.
>
> I do not fault medieval people for the circumstances in which they found
> themselves. Charlemagne apparently was illiterate until late in his life,
Depends on how you define "late". Not until he was adult certainly, and
of course literacy here means LITERACY IN LATIN, not whether he could
read: we have no idea whether he could read German in Latin letters or
read runes. He may. His concern that Germanic tales be written down
might be read to suggest that he did.
> even though he was born into a ruling family. That in itself reflects the
> sorry condition of European culture.
I disagree. I find Germanic culture just as rich and wealthy as Roman
culture and would certainly not call it "sorry" in any sense.
And yet who stands taller than
> Charlemagne as a statesman or a patron of higher learning? Rebuilding
> civilization after the Roman collapse was a dreary task that took many
> centuries.
Uh, no....there is a civilization, it just isn't purely Roman any
longer. Different rates and levels of Romanization determined the
quickness of assimilation of German and Roman traditions....the biggest
issue was PEACE. To maintain a high level of civilization over a wide
area like Europe you have to have peace, and from 378 to 1066 there was
precious little of that in Europe as a whole. There were periods, and
there we see things flourish, and then it is lost. The Northumbrians,
the Carolingians, Alfred...their descendants simply were not able to
sustain peace in the onslaught of new attacks and new enemies.
Larry Swain
>>
>>>bernardZ <Bern...@nospam.com> wrote:
>>>
>
>
>>>>>In the west, the problem was the church. It dictated what could
>>>>>be studied. There is a difference between knowlege being "lost"
>>>>>and knowlege being "ignored".
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Since I am only talking of that area, I suspect that this it not an
>>>>issue.
>>>
>>>
>>>It was a big issue in the west. Entire types of literature vanished.
>
>
>
>
>>And of course, entire types of literature were invented.
>
>
>>>What was written were saint's lives and books of theology.
>
>
>
>
>>>Works on natural history, secular biography, etc., vanished.
>
>
>>either, Pliny's Natural History being far and away the most influential
>>and widely known. But anyway, Isidore? computus studies? farming
>>manuals? these seem all dependent on natural history. As for
>>biography, Einhard? Asser? to name two well known examples.
>
>
> Biographies they might have been. So are Saint's lives. They
> are written to show how God worked in the world.
They were, Einhard modeled directly on Suetonius. I should have pointed
out that saint's lives are also a genre of literature developed and
honed in the Roman Empire and so are another example of survival.
Renia
I thought that was "accumulative".
erilar
Paul J Gans <ga...@panix.com> wrote:
> If you know about Beilstein, then you know that chemistry is
> cumulative.
Bias in operation: I saw Beilstein and thought "castle". I guess this
refers to a person 8-)
--
Mary Loomer Oliver (aka Erilar)
You can't reason with someone whose first line of argument is
that reason doesn't count. --Isaac Asimov
Erilar's Cave Annex: http://www.chibardun.net/~erilarlo
Charlie Wilkes
Preferences
>
> I'd talk about "cumulative" that way. For me it also implies that much
> older material is kept.
>
This is a sub-thread in which erudition has flourished at the expense of
common sense. Obviously science is cumulative. This is evident in any
number of scientific applications. Consider the computers we use... chip-
makers don't have to re-invent the vacuum tube, then figure out how to
make it into a solid state transistor, and then figure out how to put
millions of them on a tiny chip. Instead they make use of scientific
know-how that has been accumulated, seeking ways to improve it.
Charlie
Charlie Wilkes
> Uh, no....there is a civilization, it just isn't purely Roman any
> longer. Different rates and levels of Romanization determined the
> quickness of assimilation of German and Roman traditions....the biggest
> issue was PEACE. To maintain a high level of civilization over a wide
> area like Europe you have to have peace, and from 378 to 1066 there was
> precious little of that in Europe as a whole.
You dispute my comments, but you end by affirming my main argument. When
the Roman order collapsed, it was followed by a long period of war and
chaos, which thwarted the advance of civilization.
Charlie
Renia
So, is Science "cumulative" or "accumulative"?
Larry Swain
>
>
> Well, I have mentioned Gildas, who does refer to specific events and
> conditions,
He refers to ONE specific event that modern history has not been able to
confirm or even find the place he mentions. Does he mention
"conditions"? Again, the conditions he mentions are unverifiable.
and I am assured that his writing is purely for rhetorical
> effect and not to be trusted.
That should be apparent from the genre of his writing! The problem with
older historians is that they paid no attention to the genre in which a
particular source was cast when mining it for historical information.
It has mislead many a historical reconstruction, this one not the least.
I have mentioned the dearth of written
> records compared with the Roman era and I am told they were
> scrupulously kept, but sadly were all destroyed by those pesky
> Vikings.
This is somewhat problematic and of course depends greatly on what area
we are talking about. If we look at Spain and Gaul, we actually have as
many if not more documents in the early middle ages from specifically
those geographical regions than we do in the ROman Empire from those
geographical regions. Britain's situation is similar. We have few
actual authors from Britain during the Roman period, Pelagius being one
of the more well known. But in the sub-Roman and early Medieval period,
we have a large number of texts...never as many as we'd like, naturally,
but a number nonetheless. Few of them though are historical in nature.
There's very little question that the Vikings had a huge impact on the
preservation of texts and manuscripts. To take one very important
example: Bede was one of the most influential writers of the early
Middle Ages, not just on the island of Britain, but throughout Europe.
But we have NO manuscripts of Bede that predate the Viking age that were
in England: those that survive did so because they were exported to the
continent BEFORE the advent of the Viking attacks. So any and all
copies are gone; its a miracle in fact that the Lindisfarne Gospels and
other materials from Lindisfarne survived at all considering how often
it was attacked.
I have mentioned the apparent loss of engineering skills
> amongst the early medievals, as reflected in public works, and I am
> informed that these skills were retained but were not needed.
Indeed, there was no notion of "public works", and the Germans built in
wood by and large. There is some evidence of stone churches and the
like, but they typically had wooden or thatch roofs, and were easily
burned by the Vikings. It wasn't until the Viking age that we really
begin to get stone buildings, stone roofs, and real stone defenses...and
we get them "all of a sudden" with no examples of "experimentation" and
rediscovery of methods. So if they forgot or those skills were "lost",
they were preserved and quickly learned.
All in
> all, I've done what I can to prop up my arguments, but it hasn't
> gotten me much.
True, but I'm not sure that those were good and solid props!
Charlie Wilkes
> So, is Science "cumulative" or "accumulative"?
Here is what my on-line dictionary returns when I type in each of these
words.
Accumulative Ac*cu"mu*la*tive, a.
Characterized by accumulation; serving to collect or amass;
cumulative; additional. -- Ac*cu"mu*la*tive*ly, adv. --
Ac*cu"mu*la*tive*ness, n.
[1913 Webster]
Cumulative Cu"mu*la*tive (k?"m?-l?-t?v), a. [Cf. F.
cumulatif.]
[1913 Webster]
1. Composed of parts in a heap; forming a mass; aggregated.
"As for knowledge which man receiveth by teaching, it is
cumulative, not original." --Bacon
[1913 Webster]
2. Augmenting, gaining, or giving force, by successive
additions; as, a cumulative argument, i. e., one whose
force increases as the statement proceeds.
[1913 Webster]
The argument . . . is in very truth not logical and
single, but moral and cumulative. --Trench.
[1913 Webster]
3. (Law)
(a) Tending to prove the same point to which other
evidence has been offered; -- said of evidence.
(b) Given by same testator to the same legatee; -- said of
a legacy. --Bouvier. --Wharton.
[1913 Webster]
Cumulative action that action of certain drugs, by
virtue of which they produce, when administered in small
doses repeated at considerable intervals, the same effect
as if given in a single large dose.
Cumulative poison, poison the action of which is
cumulative.
Cumulative vote Cumulative system of voting
(Politics), that system which allows to each voter as many
votes as there are persons to be voted for, and permits
him to accumulate these votes upon one person, or to
distribute them among the candidates as he pleases.
[1913 Webster]
-- From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English
v.0.48
Renia
Thank you.
It's possibly another example of us being divided by a common language.
In GB, to accumulate is to gather up or collect together. Cumulative is
more numerical, where one quantity is combined with another thing, to
make a new, whole quantity. It can also mean the same as accumulate, but
the latter word is usually used in that sense.
Eric Stevens
wrote:
--- snip ---
>>>The thing about science is that it is (eventually) self-correcting.
>>>Wrong ideas are discarded.
>>>
>>>I don't know how this can be thought of as anything but cumulative.
>
>>I think I have to go along with John Briggs.
>
>>There are two problems with regarding science as cumulative.
>
>>First, the very definition of science has been subject to change over
>>the centuries.
>
>Early definitions of "scientia" are not under discussion here. We
>are talking about modern science.
Have we got to the stage of arguing about definitions already? I
suspect that if we get that stratightened out we will find we are
insubstantial agreement after all. But I agree with you. I too thought
we were talking about modern science. But how modern is 'modern'? Do
we have to define that to get a resolution?
>
>>At about 1800 the vast majority of science was built
>>around the accumulation of observations
>
>Exactly. And still is. Note the use of the term "accumulation".
>
>>and it was not until the mid
>>19th century that the observations began to be underpinned by major
>>structures of theory. Physics, closely followed by chemistry got away
>>to the best start but even then 'the experimental method' was confined
>>to a few corners.
>
>Wrong. Modern science is based upon experimentation. While it has
>its roots even earlier, modern science began with the experiments of
>the 17th century.
Yes, with physics and chemistry.
>
>>A 100 years later 'the experimental method' was king
>>and the rigorous philosophy of Karl Popper wrote the constitution.
>
>Popper is much argued about. Science does not work in any
>easily catagorized way.
Which makes it very easy to argue about.
>
>>Much 19th century science would not fit the mold designed by Popper so
>>must be excluded by present views of 'what is science'.
>
>Wrong. Just exclude Popper and the problem goes away.
Yep, change the definition to change the problem.
>
>>Even forgetting the philosophical side,
>
>Please do. It has nothing to do with science ...
It has a great deal to do with 'what is science?' and without
answering that how can we know what we are talking about?
> ... any more than the
>spectator looking at a finished painting has to do with the
>actual mechanics of painting.
Surely you are not saying philospohers are mere spectators?
>
>
>>whole branches have been
>>lopped from science.
>
>I don't think so.
>
>>We have lost not just theories like cycles and
>>epicycles, or the phlogiston theory,
>
>Theories change as more and more science is done. That is a
>major part of the "cumulative" part of science. Cycles and
>Epicycles gave way to celestial mechanics. Theory always changes.
>
>Phlogiston was an attempt to explain combustion. Theories are
>part of science, they are not science itself. The subject studied
>by phlogiston is still with us. Only the theory has changed.
>
>>but also large areas of what we
>>thought we knew such astrology and phrenology.
>
>Neither astrology nor phrenology were ever sciences. They were
>never based on carefully gathered evidence and have never withstood
>any experimental observation.
But people thought they were sciences at the time. That's why my first
remarks were about the changes which have occurred to the definition
of science.
>
>>Right now, what we
>>think we understand of human behaviour is undergoing enormous change
>>and the work of the witch doctors of the past, such as Freud and Jung,
>>is slowly being ejected from the scientific body of knowledge.
>
>I thought we were talking about the physical sciences. The "soft"
>sciences such as sociology and psychology are a different problem
>altogether.
So here we go - arguing about definitions once again.
>
>>Certainly some knowledge and understanding is being accumulated but
>>much is also being rejected, even if the process takes a long time.
>>Not all shoulders are capable of being stood upon.
>
>No knowlege has ever been rejected. That is why science is
>cumulative. Theories have been rejected, but not experiment.
>Sometimes experiments are retroactively found to have been
>done wrongly. Those are legitimately rejected.
Definitions again. I agree that validated knowledge is not rejected
and therefore accumulates, (subject only to entropy). I agree that the
process of validation is science. But this does not of necessity make
knowledge 'science'.
>
>The analysis of what is and is not science and how science works
>is a very complex subject. Both philosophers and psychologists
>have attempted to deal with it, unsuccessfully.
And it would probably be better for all concerned if we stopped trying
to deal with the problem here. :-)
Something which is contributing to the present argument is our desire
to see the question in absolute and exclusive terms. John Briggs
originally wrote "Science is progressive without being cumulative" and
since then we have been arguing about it as though the two terms are
mutually exclusive. In fact science is both progressive and regressive
and while it accumulates it also rejects.
Eric Stevens
Charlie Wilkes
> Charlie Wilkes wrote:
>
>
>>
>> Well, I have mentioned Gildas, who does refer to specific events and
>> conditions,
>
> He refers to ONE specific event that modern history has not been able to
> confirm or even find the place he mentions. Does he mention
> "conditions"? Again, the conditions he mentions are unverifiable.
>
> and I am assured that his writing is purely for rhetorical
>> effect and not to be trusted.
>
> That should be apparent from the genre of his writing! The problem with
> older historians is that they paid no attention to the genre in which a
> particular source was cast when mining it for historical information. It
> has mislead many a historical reconstruction, this one not the least.
If historians have made too much of him, it might be because his account
is one of very few that are available. I can think of a couple of
obvious reasons why Gildas should not be entirely discredited. First,
the events he describes would have been almost within the living memory
of his time, one or two generations away at most, so he'd have exposed
himself to unnecessary criticism (and blunted the force of his rhetoric)
if he departed too far from what his contemporaries understood to be the
truth. Second, his main point is echoed by Bede, Nennius and the Anglo-
Saxon Chronicles, i.e., when the Romans withdrew their protection, the
Picts invaded.
>
> I have mentioned the dearth of written
>> records compared with the Roman era and I am told they were
>> scrupulously kept, but sadly were all destroyed by those pesky Vikings.
>
> This is somewhat problematic and of course depends greatly on what area
> we are talking about. If we look at Spain and Gaul, we actually have as
> many if not more documents in the early middle ages from specifically
> those geographical regions than we do in the ROman Empire from those
> geographical regions. Britain's situation is similar. We have few
> actual authors from Britain during the Roman period, Pelagius being one
> of the more well known. But in the sub-Roman and early Medieval period,
> we have a large number of texts...never as many as we'd like, naturally,
> but a number nonetheless. Few of them though are historical in nature.
>
> There's very little question that the Vikings had a huge impact on the
> preservation of texts and manuscripts. To take one very important
> example: Bede was one of the most influential writers of the early
> Middle Ages, not just on the island of Britain, but throughout Europe.
> But we have NO manuscripts of Bede that predate the Viking age that were
> in England: those that survive did so because they were exported to the
> continent BEFORE the advent of the Viking attacks. So any and all
> copies are gone; its a miracle in fact that the Lindisfarne Gospels and
> other materials from Lindisfarne survived at all considering how often
> it was attacked.
I suppose they were stashed away in a secret place when the Vikings
showed up, along with all the other valuables.
Again, as I pointed out in an earlier post, you are confirming my overall
view of the epoch... it was a time of incessant war, a time when
civilized people and institutions were under relentless pressure from
marauders like the Vikings. A few great men managed to hold the forces
of chaos at bay during their lifetimes, but it took hundreds of years to
establish European societies that were strong and cohesive enough to ward
off invaders and incubate the higher aspects of civilization.
> I have mentioned the apparent loss of engineering skills
>> amongst the early medievals, as reflected in public works, and I am
>> informed that these skills were retained but were not needed.
>
> Indeed, there was no notion of "public works", and the Germans built in
> wood by and large. There is some evidence of stone churches and the
> like, but they typically had wooden or thatch roofs, and were easily
> burned by the Vikings. It wasn't until the Viking age that we really
> begin to get stone buildings, stone roofs, and real stone defenses...and
> we get them "all of a sudden" with no examples of "experimentation" and
> rediscovery of methods. So if they forgot or those skills were "lost",
> they were preserved and quickly learned.
I chose the phrase "apparent loss" with some care, because I do not know
that all or even most technical knowledge was lost. Much of it seems to
have fallen into disuse. But certainly many examples from the Roman era
were available to be examined by people who wished to build with stone.
And then there was the east... somewhere I have a couple of books about
medieval architecture, but I think they are at my other residence. My
broad understanding is that engineering continued to develop in
Constantinople after the fall of the Western Empire, with some important
breakthroughs. For example, eastern architects figured out how to build
vast enclosures without centering, and also they improved the state of
the art with regard to fortifications. I wonder if Byzantine consultants
might have played a role in the designing the early stone castles and
fortresses of Western Europe. But I don't know that to be the case.
>
> All in
>> all, I've done what I can to prop up my arguments, but it hasn't gotten
>> me much.
>
> True, but I'm not sure that those were good and solid props!
I suppose not. But I do my best.
Charlie
Paul J Gans
Both.
The Highlander
> >On Jan 7, 8:27 pm, "D. Spencer Hines" <pant...@excelsior.com> wrote:
> > He can't even get the Mediaeval Religious Terminology right.
>
> > The term is TRANSUBSTANTIATION of the host.
>
> In using the word "transmutation" Professor Gans is following the
> Orthodox Eucharist.
>
> I quote:
>
> Here the Priest bows profoundly and proceeds with the holiest
> part of the Eucharist, in which the Holy Spirit is besought to
> descend and transmute the elements into the very Body and
> Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ:
>
> THE GREAT AND HOLY EPIKLESIS
> or
> INVOCATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
> And we beseech thee, O Lord, to
> send down thy Spirit upon
> these offerings, that he would
> make this bread the precious
> Body of thy Christ, and that
> which is in this cup the precious
> Blood of thy Son our Lord Jesus
> Christ, transmuting them by thy Holy Spirit
>
> James
So much for Hine's knowledge of religion.