This is a powerful and a thrilling narrative history revealing the roots of modern science in the medieval world. The adjective 'medieval' has become a synonym for brutality and uncivilized behavior. Yet without the work of medieval scholars there could have been no Galileo, no Newton and no Scientific Revolution. In "God's Philosophers", James Hannam debunks many of the myths about the Middle Ages, showing that medieval people did not think the earth is flat, nor did Columbus 'prove' that it is a sphere; the Inquisition burnt nobody for their science nor was Copernicus afraid of persecution; no Pope tried to ban human dissection or the number zero. "God's Philosophers" is a celebration of the forgotten scientific achievements of the Middle Ages - advances which were often made thanks to, rather than in spite of, the influence of Christianity and Islam. Decisive progress was also made in technology: spectacles and the mechanical clock, for instance, were both invented in thirteenth-century Europe. Charting an epic journey through six centuries of history, "God's Philosophers" brings back to light the discoveries of neglected geniuses like John Buridan, Nicole Oresme and Thomas Bradwardine, as well as putting into context the contributions of more familiar figures like Roger Bacon, William of Ockham and Saint Thomas Aquinas.
Introduction: The Truth about Science in the Middle Ages
Chapter 1. After the Fall of Rome: Progress in the Early Middle Ages
Chapter 2. The Mathematical Pope
Chapter 4. The Twelfth-Century Renaissance
Chapter 6. How Pagan Science was Christianised
Chapter 7. Bloody Failure: Magic and Medicine in the Middle Ages
Chapter 8. The Secret Arts of Alchemy and Astrology
Chapter 9. Roger Bacon and the Science of Light
Chapter 10. The Clockmaker: Richard of Wallingford
Chapter 11. The Merton Calculators
Chapter 12. The Apogee of Medieval Science
Chapter 14. Humanism and the Reformation
Chapter 15. The Polymaths of the Sixteenth Century
Chapter 16. The Workings of Man: Medicine and Anatomy
Chapter 17. Humanist Astronomy and Nicolaus Copernicus
Chapter 18. Reforming the Heavens
Chapter 19. Galileo and Giordano Bruno
Chapter 20. Galileo and the New Astronomy
Chapter 21. The Trial and Triumph of Galileo
Conclusion: A Scientific Revolution?
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
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