barbitu8 said:
However, the premise which was actually under discussion was different, to wit:
which is a completely different statement. As domina pointed out, while othe Greek thinkers knew of Aristarchus, they rejected his theory. Given that Plutarch mentioned him, I would suspect that late medieval scholars were also aware of his theory, and like their Greek predecessors, rejected it.
I think you are going to have to show me a parade of cites to support this fatuous generalization. The church was the leading instrument and advocate of social change in many spheres, despite its overwhelming conservatism.
A good start, jmullaney, would be to read John Baldwin’s The Scholastic Culture of the Middle Ages. It is short, sweet, and extremely informative.
When do you mean? When did people in the Middle Ages stop speaking Latin or when did former Romans stop speaking Latin? Big difference.
MR
I’ll check it out. (Good thing I live within reasonable distance from the Harvard Co-op. I think my local Barnes & Nobles is exclusively selling Harry Potter these days)
My knowledge of history now reaches back to about 1200, with a big gap back at least to Nero and Caesar Augustus, Claudius, etc.
The impression this thread’s OP gives is that Christianity was somehow a big deal from 500-1200. But I’ve read elsewhere, admittedly from a somewhat biased site, that prior to St. Francis the Catholic Church was *practically[ /i] Unitarian Universalist. People worshipped Christ in the same fashion some people today worship crystals.
I think that is an overgeneralization. But, let me paint you the bleakest picture and you can fill in gaps where applicable based on your own learning.
All the masses were in (church) Latin and for the most part, no one spoke Latin except for the very wealthy and the clergy. The average person could go to church everyday of his or her life and never hear what the Gospel actually said, theoretically. Or at least only the parts the clergy found value in sharing, perhaps.
It is not until the rise of a middle class in the 1200s that the apple cart got upset by people who were raised in the middle class, learned the Gospels for themselves, but had enough of a connection to the poor that they deseminated what was in them.
How accurate is that, do you think? And if that was the situation prior to Francis, how far back does it go?
Well, Catholic masses were in Latin until the 1960s, but that didn’t mean that people didn’t have any idea what Christianity was until then. People in the early middle ages learned about their religion from their parents, friends, clergy, plays, etc. The bible wasn’t seen as the center of Christianity…Christian tradition was.
Latin was the official language of the Polish and Magyar aristocracies until the late 19th century. As a language it had had downright immense staying power.
As to jmullaney’s assertion that the medieval Catholic Church was like the Unitarian Universalist Church…well…I would say he is right in spirit but wrong in terminology.
Like Captain Amazing said, worship was not based on scripture or theology but on tradition. Local parish priests were often poorly educated and tended to conduct their pastoral duties by the seats of their pants, as it were.
The most important point to be made is that doctrine was extremely undefined. Christian spirituality had undergone profound changes by the 12th century and was still extremly fluid. As a whole, the Catholic Church was inclusive, permitting all sorts of alternative worship and manifold kinds of religious orders. The spiritual and institutional creativity of the Catholic Church was positively astounding. They were unlike the Unitarians in that they were not inclusive by doctrine, but were inclusive because there was little true orthodox doctrine to begin with. Theological battles raged for centuries as doctrines were slowly defined, refined, and circulated.
However, in the 13th century, much of this creativity ended. I do not think that St. Francis played a pivotal role in this change, but he was the founder of the last religions order sanctioned by Second Lateran in 1215. The door closed on creativity in the beginning of the 13th century.
Why this occurred is extremely complicated. Let me add another book to your reading list, jmullaney. It’s called The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Western Europe, 950-1250, by R.I. Moore. It’s also relatively short, and available in a cheap paperback form. Moore addresses the rapid change from an atmosphere of tolerance for alternative religious beliefs (and even alternative lifestyles) to an atmosphere of repression and persecution.
It’s really good reading, and I hope you enjoy it!
MR
I apologize in advance for picking on sqweels, but the post seemed to crystalize one of my pet peeves that seems to be shared by a number of discussants on this thread. That is that there is some connection between literacy and the ability for a society to innovate technologically. Moreover, an understanding of a heliocentric solar system, I don’t feel, should serve in any way as a litmus test for determining how technologically advanced a society is. I think that Europe between the sixth and twelfth centuries was quite a dynamic place when it came to technological advancements.
The Early Middle Ages, after all, saw enormous increases in crop yields as a result of better technology in the form of the heavy plow. Seafaring technology, similarly, made enormous strides over the same period with Northern Europeans building ships at the practical limits of wood technology by the end of the period in question. In engineering, the cathedrals of Europe (which were admittedly not built in what many consider the “Dark Ages”) testify to the architectural knowledge that was developed during the centuries of the early Medieval period. In fact, as early as 792, Charlemagne attempted to build a canal linking the Rhine and Danube river systems, a feat not successfully completed until this century. Although it was a failure, it nevertheless illustrates the ability of the Medieval mind to imagine possibilities.
All of these advancements were made by illiterates who would have seen little point in debating whether the sun revolved around the earth of vice versa.
If there was an area in which the church tried to stand in the way of technological progress, it was in the area of organizational technology, specifically finance. I believe that it was not until trade routes within as well as outside of Europe were established (or re-established) that Europe was finally able to exit the Middle Ages and enter the modern period. In order for that to happen though, merchants, borrowing technologies from the Islamic world and elsewhere, and developing systems of their own at the same time, had to break or circumvent the Church’s prohibitions against usury. That took quite a while, though, and required a level of MATHEMATICAL literacy that was beyond the most basic.
To expand on Maeglin’s post, I just wanted to add that we really don’t know that much about the religious lives of the early medieval peasant. One thing that is rather shocking about the early medieval period is how little we actually know. The only work I know of that deals with the matter of peasant beliefs at all would be Gregory the Great’s book, the name of which I cannot remember. (The one that dealt with the concept of being a good priest, and conversion. Pastor Liberalis?) By and large, though, we simply don’t know and can’t know what your average peasant in 600 AD thought about the world around him. It was not a matter of great interest to the people that wrote things down. I am always suspicious of anything that gives to many details about the mental framework of people that didn’t write anything down and were not written about.
However, it is certainly a mistake to think of “the church” in the early Middle Ages as the overwhelming institution it was to become; during the period of Norse invasions your local bishopric and monestary were firmly in the hands of whatever local thug-lord bothered to protect it. The papacy was in shambles, a token passed around by the top two or three families in Rome, and although the theory of papal primacy was being hammered out (mostly as a tool for local bishops to use when negotiating with local thug-lords, but I digress) it was far from a reality.
If I can add to the book list: A man named Brian Tierney has written an excellent survey book of the Middle Ages, called, I believe The Rise Of the Middle Ages (those historians and thier wacky names!). If you want to go to an earlier period, Peter Brown’s The World of Late Antiquity, is simply one of the best, most readable works of history written in the last few decades. It gives a very good picture of what the world that birthed the middle ages looked like.
[shameless namedrop]I met Peter Brown! Shook his hand![/shameless namedrop]
Manda Jo, you met Peter Brown? Shit, I couldn’t get an appointment when I wanted to visit Princeton! What was he like?
I also agree with your suggestion of Brian Tierney. Thoroughly good book.
MR
Maeglin,
I met Peter Brown at a small, intimate reception of about 50 people, which is still as close as I am likely to come to greatness. Here in Alabama, of all places, the local university has a fantastic, albeit small, Latin department. (They still use Wheelock, for one) This manifests itself in the Society For Ancient Languages. ( http://www.uah.edu/student_life/organizations/SAL/index.html ) They have a convivium every year, and about three years ago they managed to land Peter Brown as the speaker. To my eternal, retroactive, disappointment, this was before I had studied much medieval history–I knew he was a great man, but I didn’t know how great. My overall impression was that he was very personable, very intelligent (duh) and while not at all arrogant, very comfortable comparing himself to Gibbon. (The after dinner speech he gave was on Gibbon). He has a stutter, which dosen’t matter, of cousrse, but which dosen’t come across in his writing. It certainly didnt interfere with one of the most interesting after dinner speeches I have ever heard.
I will admit, the fact that he was Peter Brown sorta made him seem a little unapproachable. In conviviums since I have had little problem sidleing up to august speakers and chatting away (Ian Wood, Jeff Tatum, and Denis Feeny, to continue the name dropping), but the fear of saying something stupid to Peter Brown was a bit of a damper. (It could also be that I have gained more confidence since then). The extent of my conversation with him was something like “That was a wonderful speech” “Thank you”
I hate to go and on like this, but the meeting Peter Brown story is not one I get to air very often–you would be amazed at how many people fail to be impressed!
Well I am impressed, even though I prefer Moreland & Fleischer to Wheelock. 
When I considered applying to study with him, I talked to several of his students. Given his age, he does not exactly take an active role in their study, nor does he promote them aggressively. His letter of recommendation is basically boilerplate. So I decided that it probably wasn’t worth it, despite his sheer genius as a scholar.
MR
It is a sad truth that the best scholors are not always the best teachers.
I am not familiar with Moreland & Fleischer; when I say “still use Wheelock”, what I really mean is that thy “haven’t sucimbed to the pressure to use some high-school style text full of lots of pictures and 'culture” and lacking in anything written by actual Romans." I have a friend who teached Latin in LSU from such a text, and she says that it takes them a year to cover what Gerberding’s class covers in a semester. Our grad students tend to be a pleasant surprise for thier advisors.
Lest I mislead you, I am not a Latin scholor myself, though I fancy myself to be a sort of historian. My husband is the one that bulled through the Latin sequence, and many of our friends are nerds of the best sort.
Moreland & Fleischer is hard core. Terse. Inaccessible. Monolithic.
It’s a wonderful textbook, especially after you’ve finished the class. Latin is one of my major areas, so I’ve at least worked with several textbooks. Columbia, where I went to school, just switched to Wheelock to the chagrin of virtually all of the instructors. Only a matter of time before they revert to M&F…
I had heard that Peter Brown was a better teacher before age and infirmity set in. I can’t say that I blame him for being remiss in his dynamic teaching responsibilities. I’ll just go back and read his biography in St. Augustine which he wrote at the age where I was struggling through a senior thesis in college. 
MR
If you don’t like Wheelock, check out Ecce Romani. It is becoming the standard in a lot of places where Latic is hte “easy” forign language. Or Athenaze for the Greek. Very serious disadvantage for those that hope to go on with thier Latin–you are doomed to flounder if you go off to grad school thinking that 2 years of Ecce Romani means you know any Latin.
Sorry to drag up this gently fading thread, but a friend of mine had a question about a Captain Amazing post:
The question was, “What about heliocentrism goes against the Bible?” Now I know what some flat-earthers would say, but I don’t know what Galileo said. And Captain Amazing isn’t available by email. So does anybody know?
Various passages in the Old Testament use a frame of reference that is terracentric. Genesis describes the sun and the moon as being “set in the sky” and in Judges, God stops the sun in the sky to prolong the day long enough for the Israelites to triumph over their enemies without allowing the enemies to retreat under the cover of darkness.
There is no theological insistence that the sun orbited the Earth, it was simply the way people thought of that phenomenon. This was reinforced in the entire Greek-influenced world when the Ptolemaic calculations provided a way to calculate dates and astral events even though it was based on the idea that the Earth was the center of it all.
As the Church inherited the culture in which it flourished, this understanding came to be seen as a theological reality as well as a physical reality.
In an attempt to not hijack this thread further, I’ll call attention to the following version of the fight between Galileo and the Church:
The Galileo Affair