Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe

by Stephen C. McCluskey

Historians have long recognized that the rebirth of science in twelfth-century Europe flowed from a search for ancient scientific texts. But this search presupposes knowledge and interest; we only seek what we know to be valuable. The emergence of scholarly interest after centuries of apparent stagnation seems paradoxical. This book resolves that seeming contradiction by describing four active traditions of early medieval astronomy: one divided the year by observing the Sun; another computed the date of Easter Full Moon; the third determined the time for monastic prayers by watching the course of the stars; and the classical tradition of geometrical astronomy provided a framework for the cosmos. Most of these astronomies were practical; they sustained the communities in which they flourished and reflected and reinforced the values of those communities. These astronomical traditions motivated the search for ancient learning that led to the Scientific Renaissance of the twelfth century.

Genres: History Of Science, Medieval

252 pages, Hardcover

First published January 13, 1998

Reviews

[Voijarisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book faces a very difficult challenge in that the period it proposes to cover, is an incredibly slow time for the subject. The result is that the book spends a great deal of time indirectly discussing the astronomy of the Greeks mostly by talking about what early medieval astronomers said about it. Universally, this is incomplete paraphrasings that reveal the medieval understanding of the universe was muddled at best. As such, those seeking some clarity on the subject will be disappointed because there's very little knowledge to be had from those that had so little.

Rather, medieval astronomy frequently focused on timekeeping as a practical subject. However, here the book feels underwhelming too as few of the details are explored. Those with a strong background in astronomy or stargazing may be able to predict the details, but they are largely glossed over in this book in favor of a seemingly endless list of anyone that mentioned anything about astronomy throughout the period covered.

The book seems about to hit an interesting stride right as it ends. As the Western world was introduced to the astrolabe, this required a more thorough understanding of spherical geometry and measurements which is what would lay the groundwork for the enlightenment a few hundred years later, but given this book is about early medieval history, it wraps this up hastily.

My opinion is that it is quite unfortunate this was made into a book in and of itself. It could have been largely paired down and partnered with a history of Greek astronomy and continued into the renaissance to make a much more important telling of astronomy. But devoting an entire treatise to a millennium of the Greek ideas being rehashed and degraded in retelling was not the read I was hoping for.