Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia

The popular image of medieval science remains one of a "dark age," when scholasticism and the Catholic Church stifled the achievements of classical thought until the great cultural flowering of the Renaissance. Research in the last few decades has revealed a far different picture. As Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine demonstrates, the millennium from the fall of the Roman Empire to the flowering of the Renaissance was a period of great intellectual and practical achievement and innovation. In Europe, the Islamic world, South and East Asia, and the Americas, individuals built on earlier achievements and introduced sometimes radical refinements. Some of the individuals are still known today; many more are lost to history. Their achievements remain, however, and far from marking a reversal in human knowledge, laid the foundations for its modern development. They applied not only in well-known fields such as construction and transportation, but also in anesthetics, mechanics, optics, and math.