Text 25832, 65 rader
Skriven 2006-12-15 18:31:44 av Mimi Gallandt (1:123/789.0)
  Kommentar till text 25827 av John Hull (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: Muslems
===============
John Hull -> VERN HUMPHREY wrote:
 JH> VERN HUMPHREY -> JOHN HULL wrote:

(some snippage)

 JH>>> And, since books were so labor intensive, only the Church and royalty
 VH>> had
 JH>>> access to them.  That left the common folk uneducated and
 JH> illiterate for
 JH>>> hundreds of years until the first printing presses made replicating a
 VH>> book
 JH>>> cheap.  The Church kept them that way.  It was a far cry from the
 VH>> Roman empi
 JH>>> when most Romans were able to read, even many of the slaves.

 VH>> John, the common folk had ALWAYS been uneducated and illiterate.
 JH> Making
 VH>> a book was a whole year's work for a highly-trained man -- and poor
 VH>> people had NEVER been able to afford them.

 VH>> The vast majority of Roman Citizens under the Republica were not
 JH> classed
 VH>> ("Capitae censae") -- they couldn't afford to buy swords and shields.
 VH>> And there were no public schools.

 VH>> After the "fall" of the Roman Empire, the Church christianized the
 VH>> barbarians, restrained their barbaric tendencies, and brought learning
 VH>> back to the world.

 JH> Sure thing, Vern.  I guess that's why the French king gave the pagan
 JH> Northmen land in Normandy (that's how they became 'Normans') because it
 JH> was easier to stop their pillaging of monasteries and seacoast towns by
 JH> giving them land than fighting them.  And I guess that's why William, no
 JH> friend of the church (to be sure, he allied himself for political
 JH> reasons, not religious ones), invaded England and did his best to wipe
 JH> out Saxon nobility and centers of learning, all with the approval of the
 JH> Church.

 JH> As for bringing back learning, what a joke!  Only royalty and churchmen
 JH> got any formal education, peasants got spit.  Women at all levels were
 JH> locked out of the system.  Early scientists were hounded, persecuted,
 JH> and even executed for heresy for trying to advance the knowledge base,
 JH> all with the approval and participation of the church.

 JH> I won't even go into the Crusades.  You forget I have no axe to grind
 JH> here.  It took Europe nearly a thousand years to get back to the level
 JH> of civilization, in general, that the Romans enjoyed, and most of that
 JH> was because of intransigence of the clergy in Rome.

IIRC someone told me that Muslims saved many texts, too and how much more
learning would there have been earlier if the library at Alexandria hadn't
burned?

-- 
L'Chaim

Mimi

In the beginning
the Word already was.

mimigalATcoxDOTnet

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