scholarly journals Questioning Nature in Late Middle Ages. A History of Method, Praxis and Innovation

Medievalia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-29
Author(s):  
Giovanni Patriarca ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Cultural Framework ◽  
European Science ◽  
Transformative Action ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common

This essay traces the interconnections between method, praxis and innovation with their epistemological consequences at the end of the Middle Ages. In the wake of scholastic natural philosophy, this vibrant process marks a milestone in the history of science. During the Thirteenth and Fourteenth centuries a profound transformation takes place in the way of observing nature through a meticulous data collection, experiments and subsequent analysis. In this cultural framework, the Franciscans analyze the realities of the world with an extremely original pragmatic dynamism. This approach gives priority to a practical sense of thinking through a transformative action which opens the doors to a pioneering scientific method and contributes to a long series of innovations. A positive result is an advanced didactics—especially developed by Buridan, Oresme and their followers —that will have a great impact on a continental level, changing the common ground of European science.

For the Benefit of Students: Memory and Anatomical Learning at Bologna in the Fourteenth to Early Sixteenth Centuries

2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-150
Author(s):  
Kira L Robison
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
University Medicine ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
History Of Anatomy

Abstract The anatomical textbook in the late Middle Ages was one part of a greater pedagogical process that involved students’ seeing, hearing, reading, and eventually knowing information about the human body. By examining the role of the anatomical textbook and accompanying bodily images in anatomical learning, this article illuminates the complexity and self-consciousness of anatomical education in the medieval university, as professors focused on ways to enhance student memory of the material. Traditionally, the history of anatomy has been heavily influenced by the anatomical Renaissance of the late-sixteenth century, highlighting a focus on innovative medical knowledge and the scientific method. However, if we engage a pedagogical lens when looking at these medieval authors, it becomes quickly obvious that the whole point of university medicine was not to explore unknown boundaries and discover new ideas of medicine, but rather to communicate the current and established body of knowledge to those not familiar with it.

Alexander of Aphrodisias and his Doctrine of the Soul 1400 Years of Lasting Significance

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eckhard Kessler
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Philosophy Of Nature ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Alexander Of Aphrodisias ◽  
History Of ◽  
Shed Light

AbstractThis piece of work intends to shed light on Alexander of Aphrodisias from the second-century Aristotle commentator through the history of Aristotelian psychology up to the sixteenth century's clandestine prompter of the new philosophy of nature. In the millennium after his death the head of the Peripatetic school in Athens served as the authority on Aristotle in the Neo-Platonic school, survived the Arabic centuries of philosophy as Averroes' exemplary exponent of the mortality of the soul and as such was not considered worthy of translation by the Latin Scholastics. This attitude changed only in the Late Middle Ages, when the resistance against Averroes grew fierce and Alexander emerged as the only Aristotelian alternative to him. In 1495 his account of Aristotle's psychology was translated and published and the underlying principles of a natural philosophy, based on sense perception and exempt from metaphysics, became accessible. The prompt reception and widespread endorsement of Alexander's teaching testify to his impact throughout the sixteenth century.

scholarly journals Introductory Reflections on Scholastic Economic Thought

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-92
Author(s):  
Giovanni Patriarca
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
History Of ◽  
Shared Norms ◽  
The Ideal

This essay provides a general overview of the development of economic theories in Thirteenth and Fourteenth centuries in the light of the latest studies and offers new perspectives for future investigations. Scholasticism is a milestone in the history of Western philosophy as well as its contribution to scientific method and innovation. At the end of the Middle Ages, the ideal of shared norms and values clashes with the tensions of commercial transformation. In this historical framework – characterized not only by an unprecedented international trade and new financial institutions but also by a sort of proto-empiricism – the philosophical speculation tries to find a unitary “way of knowledge” between the legitimacy of individual interests and the primacy of general principles. This interdisciplinary effort is based on the innovative interpretation of theology, (natural) philosophy, Roman and Canon law such as local customary rules applied to the emergent economic issues.

scholarly journals Negotiating Trade: Merchant Manuals and Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Medieval Mediterranean

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-112
Author(s):  
Joseph F. Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Complex Character ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Common

This essay explores Italian mercantile perceptions of the non-western Mediterranean world during the late Middle Ages. In particular, it analyzes the corpus of merchant manuals known as pratiche della mercatura and argues that the intercultural and cross-confessional material included in these handbooks were vital components that helped facilitate trade across ethno-religious frontiers in the Arab-Turkic regions. This paper opens with an examination of the “traditional” manual genre, with particular emphasis on Francesco Pegolotti’s Libro di divisamenti di paesi (c. 1310-40). Pegolotti and other pratiche compilers proffered practical counsel on linguistic exchange, local folklore and customs, and resourceful intermediaries (dragomans) that could accommodate cultural assimilation for the trader abroad. The remainder of the essay builds on the fruitful historiographical shifts of recent years and identifies two additional manuals: Leonardo Frescobaldi’s Viaggio in Egitto(c. 1390) and Goro Dati’s Sfera(c. 1435). These texts, cascaded to a wide merchant audience, include striking language on the common theological underpinnings of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. These two authors, and specifically Dati, also highlight the complex character of the Italian merchant and reveal that economic self-interest helped construct common ground across major barriers of faith in the medieval Mediterranean.

scholarly journals The armour of the common soldier in the late middle ages. Harnischrödel as sources for the history of urban martial culture

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-24
Author(s):  
Regula Schmid
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Martial Culture

Abstract The designation Harnischrödel (rolls of armour) lumps together different kinds of urban inventories. They list the names of citizens and inhabitants together with the armour they owned, were compelled to acquire within their civic obligations, or were obliged to lend to able-bodied men. This contribution systematically introduces Harnischrödel of the 14th and 15th c. as important sources for the history of urban martial culture. On the basis of lists preserved in the archives of Swiss towns, it concentrates on information pertaining to the type and quality of an average urban soldier’s gear. Although the results of this analysis are only preliminary – at this point, it is not possible to produce methodologically sound statistics –, the value of the lists as sources is readily evident, as only a smattering of the once massive quantity of actual objects has survived down to the present time.

Forma Dat Esse

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 423-446
Author(s):  
Sylvain Roudaut
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Progressive Decline ◽  
De Trinitate ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Middle Ages

Abstract This paper offers an overview of the history of the axiom forma dat esse, which was commonly quoted during the Middle Ages to describe formal causality. The first part of the paper studies the origin of this principle, and recalls how the ambiguity of Boethius’s first formulation of it in the De Trinitate was variously interpreted by the members of the School of Chartres. Then, the paper examines the various declensions of the axiom that existed in the late Middle Ages, and shows how its evolution significantly follows the progressive decline of the Aristotelian model of formal causality.

The Contours of the Non-Lutheran Reformation in Germany, 1522–1546

2021 ◽  
Vol 101 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 167-174
Author(s):  
James M. Stayer
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
The Other ◽  
Alternative View ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
The Common

Abstract Among the common ways of portraying Reformation divides are the following categories: Magisterial vs Radical Reformations; or a “church type” vs a “sect type” of reform. This essay offers an alternative view. It underscores the differences between Lutherans and Anglicans on one side; and the Reformed, Anabaptists, and Schwenckfelders on the other. The Lutherans, like the Anglicans under Henry VIII, worshipped in altar-centered churches which were Roman Catholic in appearance. They presented themselves as reformers of Catholic errors of the late Middle Ages. By contrast, when the Reformed, Anabaptists, and Schwenckfelders met for worship, it was in unadorned Bible-centered meeting houses. The Anabaptists were targeted for martyrdom by the decree of the Holy Roman Empire of 1529 against Wiedertäufer (“rebaptists”). Contrary to the later memory that they practiced a theology of martyrdom, the preference of apprehended Anabaptists was to recant.

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