# Romans and the middle ages **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 20, 2013, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295 "2013-09-20T10:39:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/21 "2013-09-23T14:40:03Z")
> [@BMalion](#): > > What have the Romans ever done for us? > [@Maeglin](#): > > They went home. Romanus eunt domum (People called Romans, they go house) ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/22 "2013-09-23T14:57:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Winston Churchill > > [under Roman rule] well-to-do persons in Britain lived better than they ever did until late Victorian times. From the year 400 till the year 1900 no one had central heating and very few had hot baths. A wealthy British-Roman citizen building a country house regarded the hypocaust which warmed it as indispensable. For fifteen hundred years his descendants lived in the cold of unheated dwellings, mitigated by occasional roastings at gigantic wasteful fires. Even now a smaller proportion of the whole population dwells in centrally heated houses than in those ancient days. As for baths, they were completely lost till the middle of the nineteenth century. In all this long, bleak intervening gap cold and dirt clung to the most fortunate and highest in the land. Is this a joke? He’s seriously stating that no one took a bath until the 1850’s? I know wikipedia is quoting him, but I’m going to require more than that quote to believe that. Unless he’s not counting tin tubs and has a very personal definition of ‘rare’. ---
**Author:** ![jbaker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jbaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jbaker)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/23 "2013-09-23T18:37:44Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Is this a joke? He’s seriously stating that no one took a bath until the 1850’s? I know wikipedia is quoting him, but I’m going to require more than that quote to believe that. Unless he’s not counting tin tubs and has a very personal definition of ‘rare’. I read the quoted passage to refer to hot baths, not to tin tubs in which the water is unheated or the heat is obtained only by putting a bucket of water on a stove. I doubt if Churchill would have been taken in by Mencken’s bathtub hoax. ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/24 "2013-09-23T18:49:07Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > And there was at least one area where the Europeans surpassed Roman technology early on: the stirrup, which some argue completely changed the value of cavalry in battle. > > For more information on the stirrup than you would have thought possible, see the wiki articles on the [stirrup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirrup), particularly the [Great Stirrup Controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stirrup_Controversy): I have doubt that the stirrup was a great invention. I just have trouble believing it took so long to be invented. Ten minutes on a horse and it seems like the first and most logical thought is to have someplace to put your feet. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/25 "2013-09-23T18:50:29Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Is this a joke? He’s seriously stating that no one took a bath until the 1850’s? I know wikipedia is quoting him, but I’m going to require more than that quote to believe that. Unless he’s not counting tin tubs and has a very personal definition of ‘rare’. No, he’s not joking. But we do know a lot more about post-Roman Britain today than we did when Churchill wrote his history. Even in the height of Roman rule, not very many people had hypocausts in their houses anyway. He must mean something rather more 1%-ish than “well to do.” ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/26 "2013-09-23T18:59:31Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > …I cite [Legionary: The Roman Soldier’s (Unofficial) Manual by Philip Matyszak PhD.](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0500251517/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=3HA2AI6G11CEY&coliid=I25W70CBSKPIET) Good book! > [@BMalion](#): > > What have the Romans ever done for us? Watch it. Still a few crosses left. ---
**Author:** ![jbaker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jbaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jbaker)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/27 "2013-09-23T19:09:04Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Medieval Europe vastly outpaced Roman finance. Medieval Europe had public finance, a credit economy, and sophisticated legal institutions to support overseas commerce. But these were developments of the high middle ages. No knowledgeable person would dispute that by, say, 1350 medieval finance far exceeded Roman finance. What about in 850? That goes directly to the OP’s question: Was there some level of development that was lost, then later regained? ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/28 "2013-09-23T19:20:49Z")
> [@jbaker](#): > > But these were developments of the high middle ages. No knowledgeable person would dispute that by, say, 1350 medieval finance far exceeded Roman finance. What about in 850? That goes directly to the OP’s question: Was there some level of development that was lost, then later regained? I was responding to answers like, “not until Victorian times.” International commerce in the West in 850 was barely hanging on. ---
**Author:** ![jbaker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jbaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jbaker)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/29 "2013-09-23T19:40:09Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > I was responding to answers like, “not until Victorian times.” > > International commerce in the West in 850 was barely hanging on. Well, the practice of commerce was certainly at a depressed level in the dark ages. I don’t think that there was any particular loss of knowledge and skill from Roman times, though I’m prepared to have my ignorance fought. Rather, dark ages society was less conducive to trade than was Roman society. However, trade and finance never died out, either domestically or internationally. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/30 "2013-09-23T20:04:45Z")
> [@jbaker](#): > > Well, the practice of commerce was certainly at a depressed level in the dark ages. I don’t think that there was any particular loss of knowledge and skill from Roman times, though I’m prepared to have my ignorance fought. Rather, dark ages society was less conducive to trade than was Roman society. However, trade and finance never died out, either domestically or internationally. Sure there was. For instance, Ward-Perkins (in _The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization_) traces the decline and death of middle-market red slip ware pottery. The Romans were able to mass produce this stuff and it turned up everywhere in the empire. For a variety of reasons (many of which I think Ward-Perkins is not quite right about) demand for this ware disappeared, and the knowledge of how to produce pottery of this quality was lost altogether. Local pottery was inferior: it had more defects, was less aesthetically pleasing, and it broke more. Trade never died out, but that’s a pretty arbitrary standard. It was, in many cases, close enough to death to be considered dead. You can find a good argument about this in Michael McCormick’s _Origins of the European Economy_. He argues that trade died when the Roman state was no longer able to manage the _annona_, the annual grain tax. Collecting this tax required a vast organizational and naval infrastructure and detailed local knowledge. In other words, it kept boats in the water and people moving. When the state eroded and the tax could no longer be levied, it did not take long for trade (more or less) to disappear. These are both Western stories. Things in the East were quite different, but I do not imagine that is what the OP is talking about. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/31 "2013-09-23T20:07:37Z")
I shouldn’t respond because I cannot remember the book…but there was some scholar that did an industrial activity index and discovered that it wasn’t until about 1750 that industrial levels surpassed the Roman peak which was around 100AD. (In Europe that is) ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/32 "2013-09-23T21:21:24Z")
The Romans accomplished all kinds of great things, but… it’s not at all obvious to me that the Roman Empire was a hotbed of scientific and technological innovation. Who were the great Roman astronomers? Who were the great Roman physicians and what were the great cures they came up with? Who were the greatest Roman inventors and scientists? Who were the Roman Newtons, Watts, Morses, Edisons and Bells? Apart from concrete, what great scientific or technological breakthroughs did the Romans come up with? How was Marcus Aurelius’ Rome more scientifically, mathematically or technologically advanced than, say, Pericles’ Athens? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/33 "2013-09-23T21:40:21Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > The Romans accomplished all kinds of great things, but… it’s not at all obvious to me that the Roman Empire was a hotbed of scientific and technological innovation. What I’ve read is that Greece, or the Hellenic world more generally, was _way_ ahead of Rome in science, philosophy, etc. but the Romans were successful at applied engineering, with [Marcus Vitruvius Pollio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvius) being one of their most renowned technologists. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/34 "2013-09-23T21:42:45Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > What I’ve read is that Greece, or the Hellenic world more generally, was _way_ ahead of Rome in science, philosophy, etc. but the Romans were successful at applied engineering, with [Marcus Vitruvius Pollio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvius) being one of their most renowned technologists. That’s how it appears to me, too. The fall of the Western Empire was a big deal, but it’s not as if Rome had a large, thriving science scene that was lost when the “Dark Ages” came. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/35 "2013-09-23T22:14:39Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > That’s how it appears to me, too. > > The fall of the Western Empire was a big deal, but it’s not as if Rome had a large, thriving science scene that was lost when the “Dark Ages” came. What does any of this have to do with anything? Whether the Romans invented it, borrowed it, or created it themselves, major disruptions meant that people weren’t learning stuff that was previously considered important. It doesn’t matter that Aristotle was a Greek and not a Roman; the Romans knew Aristotle but syllogistic logic wasn’t rediscovered until the 12th century. Seriously, whether or not Rome produced Newtons couldn’t be less important. What matters is what they knew and how much less the people who came later had access to. If anything, given how much had been lost, it is amazing that people in the early middle ages knew as much as they did. Much of the Analytics of Aristotle was reconstructed by medieval scholars who didn’t come from the intellectual ferment of classical Athens. For those short on time, you could always just read the [wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_technology) on Roman technology. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2013, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/36 "2013-09-23T23:12:04Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Is this a joke? He’s seriously stating that no one took a bath until the 1850’s? No, he’s not. Note “very few” and “hot”. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/37 "2013-09-24T07:01:16Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > The Romans accomplished all kinds of great things, but… it’s not at all obvious to me that the Roman Empire was a hotbed of scientific and technological innovation. Roman society often worked against science & technology. You didn’t need it much when you had plenty of slaves. You couldn’t even use it, often – technology required putting expensive tools in the control of slaves, who had little incentive to take good care of it. (Often dis-incentive – ‘if this plow thing works, we’ll all end up as lion-food in the arena!’) [Much the same logic applied in the American South, thus they were technologically backward vs. the industrial North during the Civil War. (And largely remain so, even today).] And in a short-term outlook society like Rome, the basic research type of science is not valued much. On the other hand, technology that they could use was highly developed. Roads, for example. Rome haqd a smallish standing army for the size of the empire, and good roads were needed to get the troops to where they were needed, and the food to the cities. (And also for the roman trade & commerce.) So Rome had a system of well-maintained roads that was better than anything for the next 1000 years. Also, Roman methods of mass producing swords, shields, etc. were quite efficient. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/38 "2013-09-24T07:16:33Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Is this a joke? He’s seriously stating that no one took a bath until the 1850’s? I know wikipedia is quoting him, but I’m going to require more than that quote to believe that. Unless he’s not counting tin tubs and has a very personal definition of ‘rare’. Hot baths in fact survived the Roman empire throughout most of the middle ages. Eventually, they went out of fashion due to church concerns (public baths often doubled as brothels) and medical concern (staying in a bath came to be considered generally harmful for one’s health. Sometimes, doctors ordered baths, though). So, it’s one case where the Renaissance marked a regression. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/39 "2013-09-24T11:01:48Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Who were the great Roman astronomers? Well, Ptolemy. Sosigenes (the guy Julius Caesar used to redesign the calendar.) Theon of Alexandria. So, they were a few. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2013, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295/40 "2013-09-25T15:07:19Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > Hot baths in fact survived the Roman empire throughout most of the middle ages. Eventually, they went out of fashion due to church concerns (public baths often doubled as brothels) and medical concern (staying in a bath came to be considered generally harmful for one’s health. Sometimes, doctors ordered baths, though). > > So, it’s one case where the Renaissance marked a regression. Another issue would be _pax romana_. To have flowing baths, anywhere outside of Bath (the baths in that English city are built around a natural hot spring) required lots of flowing water. Rome was a large relatively peaceful empire internally, with decent economic activity and hence taxes. They could afford to build long aqueducts to provide running water. they did not worry about the next war with the town over the hill would cause someone to knock down their water supply. Similarly, the energy (wood or coal) to heat the water in baths was easier to obtain when there was the safe open countryside and decent trade. Get into a situation where the woods are full of theives and robbers and it may not be safe to cut firewood, the cities are small and poor, the priority is walls not aqueducts, water is hauled out of a hole a bucket at a time or from the (smelly, sewage-laden) river… Public works like bathhouses are too expensive to build… It’s no surprise that people don’t have the money to take hot bath or the desire to take cold ones. Plus, not only is there the railing aginst teh immorality of public baths, but - it seems the early Christians to some extent were influenced by the ascetics and hermits of the day. Excessive effort on or attention to the body - makeup and hairdo’s, ornamentation, even bathing - was considered the sin of vanity, too busy worrying about your worldly body instead of worshiping the Lord. Rashes and other afflictions of the flesh were welcomes suffering to help you focus on the hereafter instead. (Constrast this with the old Romans, or even the Jewish culture in the time of the Romans. From the ruins in places like the Essene settlement, or Masada, there are several ritual cleansing baths and “clean” seemed to be important - the opposite of what we find in the early or medieval Christian church. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/romans-and-the-middle-ages/669295.md?page=3)