Revision Of Historical View Of Middle Ages

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28397, 2 October 1957, Page 7

Revision Of Historical View Of Middle Ages

“The Middle Ages of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were not the gloomy millennium of oppression, suspicion and ignorance they were believed to be by earlier historians," said Mr J. J. Saunders, senior lecturer in history at Canterbury University College, to the Canterbury' Historical Association’s meeting last evening. Mr Saunders was speaking on “Islam and the Renaissance.”

“Every age interprets the past in the light of its previous experience,” said Mr Saunders. “Now, in 1957, we can assess the full achievements of the Middle Ages. “The real revival of knowledge began not in the fifteenth century but was a gradual development from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The period known as the Renaissance was the stimulation given to Western culture by the greater knowledge of the Islamic countries coming into closer contact with the West.”

With the gradual decay of feudalism from the eleventh century, came the growing need for trained professional men to aid the rapidly developing trades and commerce, said Mr Saunders. Lawyers were needed to advise traders; doctors were needed to attend the growing middle classes able to afford their fees; and theologians were needed to counter the dangerous heresies arising among the people. Islamic Advance The Islamic countries had advanced their medical and scientific knowledge from that of the early Greeks to a high level, and the closest Islamic country to the West was Spain, he said. A constant flow of students in search of knowledge crossed the Pyrenees to the Spanish universities in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. “With the capture of Toledo University by the Spanish Christians came the translation of Islamic manuscripts into Latin. The later invention of printing in the fifteenth century spread this knowledge over Europe, and new universities began to spring up,

each tending to specialise in one of the faculties of medicine, arts, law, or theology. “An over-exaggeration of the stimulus given to the natural sciences was the advent of alchemy and astrology. This was caused by the Arabian sciences not quite freeing themselves from the taint of magic,” Mr Saunders said. The Islamic countries did not interest themselves in the early Greek literature as they had their own forms of poetry and writing. Their philosophies were founded on the oneness of church and State, and the Koran was regarded as the basis of knowledge. Humanist "Revival” The humanist so-called “revival of letters” ignored the discoveries of the previous 300 years and gave the impression of the dark ages, Mr Saunders said. The first new approach to the Middle Ages was the collection by the romantics of medieval ballads and tales as a rebellion to the classicism of the humanists. The Gothic revival ran on into Victorian times, and resulted in the building of sham castles, and so-called Gothic architecture, he said.

“Only in the last 30 years has the historical view changed from that of the long darkness of the Middle Ages bursting forth into Humanist day.” Mr Saunders said.