High middle Ages

The High Middle Ages was the period of European history in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries (AD 1000–1299). The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500.

The key historical trend of the High Middle Ages was the rapidly increasing population of Europe, which brought about great social and political change from the preceding era. By 1250 the robust population increase greatly benefited the economy, reaching levels it would not see again in some areas until the 19th century. This trend was checked in the Late Middle Ages by a series of calamities, notably the Black Death but also including numerous wars and economic stagnation.

From about the year 1000 onwards, Western Europe saw the last of the Barbarian invasions and became more politically organized. The Vikings had settled in the British Isles, France and elsewhere, whilst Norse Christian kingdoms were developing in their Scandinavian homelands. The Magyars had ceased their expansion in the 10th century, and by the year 1000, a Christian Kingdom of Hungary was recognized in central Europe. With the brief exception of the Mongol invasions, major barbarian incursions ceased.

Western Europe and the ascent of the great Italian city-states. The still-powerful Roman Church called armies from across Europe to a series of Crusades against the Seljuk Turks, who occupied the Holy Land. The rediscovery of the works of Aristotle led Thomas Aquinas and other thinkers to develop the philosophy of Scholasticism. In architecture, many of the most notable Gothic cathedrals were built or completed during this era.

Liber Abaci

In the Liber Abaci (1202), Fibonacci introduces the so-called modus Indorum (method of the Indians), today known as Arabic numerals (Sigler 2003; Grimm 1973). The book advocated numeration with the digits 0–9 and place value. The book showed the practical importance of the new numeral system, using lattice multiplication and Egyptian fractions, by applying it to commercial bookkeeping, conversion of weights and measures, the calculation of interest, money-changing, and other applications. The book was well received throughout educated Europe and had a profound impact on European thought.

Liber Abaci also posed, and solved, a problem involving the growth of a hypothetical population of rabbits based on idealized assumptions. The solution, generation by generation, was a sequence of numbers later known as Fibonacci numbers. The number sequence was known to Indian mathematicians as early as the 6th century, but it was Fibonacci's Liber Abaci that introduced it to the West.

Made By Leonardo of Pisa

Leonardo of Pisa (c. 1170 – c. 1250), also known as Leonardo Pisano, Leonardo Bonacci, Leonardo Fibonacci, or, most commonly, simply Fibonacci, was an Italian mathematician, considered by some "the most talented mathematician of the Middle Ages".

Fibonacci is best known to the modern world for:

* The spreading of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system in Europe, primarily through the publication in the early 13th century of his Book of Calculation, the Liber Abaci.

* A number sequence named after him known as the Fibonacci numbers, which he did not discover but used as an example in the Liber Abaci.

START OF PAPER USAGE DURING RENAISSANCE

The use of paper spread from China through the Islamic world, and entered production in Europe in the early 12th century. Mechanised production of paper in the early 19th century caused significant cultural changes worldwide, allowing for relatively cheap exchange of information in the form of letters, newspapers and books for the first time.

Paper is a versatile material with many uses. Whilst the most common is for writing and printing upon, it is also widely used as a packaging material, in many cleaning products, and in a number of industrial and construction processes, and occasionally as a food ingredient, particularly in Asian cultures.

Origin of Black Death

The origins of the plague are disputed among scholars. Some historians believe the pandemic began in China or Central Asia (one such location is Lake Issyk Kul) in the lungs of the bobac variety of marmot, spreading to fleas, to rats, and eventually to humans. In the late 1320s or 1330’s, and during the next years merchants and soldiers carried it over the caravan routes until in 1346 it reached the Crimea in South Eastern Europe. Other scholars believe the plague was endemic in that area. In either case, from Crimea the plague spread to Western Europe and North Africa during the 1340s. The total number of deaths worldwide is estimated at 75 million people, approximately 25–50 million of which occurred in Europe. The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population. It may have reduced the world's population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in 1400. The plague is thought to have returned every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until the 1700s. During this period, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe. On its return in 1603, the plague killed 38,000 Londoners Other notable 17th century outbreaks were the Italian Plague of 1629–1631, and the Great Plague of Seville (1647–1652), the Great Plague of London (1665–1666), and the Great Plague of Vienna (1679). There is some controversy over the identity of the disease, but in its virulent form, after the Great Plague of Marseille in 1720–1722, the Great Plague of 1738 (which hit eastern Europe), and the 1771 plague in Moscow, it seems to have disappeared from Europe in the 19th century. The 14th century eruption of the Black Death had a drastic effect on Europe's population, irrevocably changing the social structure. It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church, and resulted in widespread persecution of minorities such as Jews, foreigners, beggars, and lepers. The uncertainty of daily survival created a general mood of morbidity, influencing people to "live for the moment", as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron (1353).

THE SPREADING OF BLACK DEATH DISEASE

The plague disease, generally thought to be caused by Yersinia pestis, is enzootic (commonly present) in populations of ground rodents (most specifically, the bobac variety of marmot) in Central Asia, but it is not entirely clear where the 14th century pandemic started. The popular theory places the first cases in the steppes of Central Asia, although some speculate that it originated around northern India, and others, such as the historian Michael W. Dols, argue that the historical evidence concerning epidemics in the Mediterranean and specifically the Plague of Justinian point to a probability that the Black Death originated in Africa and spread to Central Asia, where it then became entrenched among the rodent population. Nevertheless, from Central Asia it was carried east and west along the Silk Road, by Mongol armies and traders making use of the opportunities of free passage within the Mongol Empire offered by the Pax Mongolica. It was reportedly first introduced to Europe at the trading city of Caffa in the Crimea in 1347. After a protracted siege, during which the Mongol army under Jani Beg was

suffering the disease, they catapulted the infected corpses over the city walls to infect the inhabitants. The Genoese traders fled, bringing the plague by ship into Sicily and the south of Europe, whence it spread. Whether or not this hypothesis is accurate, it is clear that several preexisting conditions such as war, famine, and weather contributed to the severity of the Black Death. In China, the thirteenth century Mongol conquest disrupted farming and trading, and led to widespread famine. The population dropped from approximately 120 to 60 million. The 14th century plague is estimated to have killed 1/3 of the population of China

Major Accomplishments

Of science during Renaissance

Scientific method — The scientific method, as systematic approach to theory and experimentation, developed during the Middle Ages due to the work of scholars such as Alhazen, Biruni, Bacon, and Robert Grosseteste, who produced a systemized process of scientific enquiry based upon observation, experimentation and verification of hypotheses

Biruni

Robert Grosseteste

Accomplishment of Science in health during renaissance

Modern surgery — Although the first known surgical text was written by Sushruta in antiquity, Medieval researchers, especially Abulcasis, developed the techniques and tools that led to modern surgical practices (e.g. double-edged scalpel, syringe, vaginal speculum, etc.).[22] The 1266 work Chirurgia, (Surgery), by Theodoric Borgognoni advocates antiseptic surgery, in opposition to the Arab belief in "laudable pus.

Discover by Theodoric Borgognoni

Theodoric Borgognoni, (1205-1296), also known as Teodorico de'Borgognoni, and Theodoric of Lucca, was an Italian who became one of the most significant surgeons of the medieval period. A Dominican friar and Bishop of Cervia, Borgognoni is considered responsible for introducing and promoting important medical advances including basic antiseptic practice in surgery and the use of anaesthetics.

Scientific revolution

During the Renaissance, Nicolaus Copernicus proposed a heliocentric model of the solar system. His work was defended, expanded upon, and corrected by Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler. Galileo innovated by using telescopes to enhance his observations.

Kepler was the first to devise a system that described correctly the details of the motion of the planets with the Sun at the center. However, Kepler did not succeed in formulating a theory behind the laws he wrote down. It was left to Newton's invention of celestial dynamics and his law of gravitation to finally explain the motions of the planets. Newton also developed the reflecting telescope.

Further discoveries paralleled the improvements in the size and quality of the telescope. More extensive star catalogues were produced by Lacaille. The astronomer William Herschel made a detailed catalog of nebulosity and clusters, and in 1781 discovered the planet

Uranus, the first new planet found. The distance to a star was first announced in 1838 when the parallax of 61 Cygni was measured by Friedrich Bessel.

During the nineteenth century, attention to the three body problem by Euler, Clairaut, and D'Alembert led to more accurate predictions about the motions of the Moon and planets. This work was further refined by Lagrange and Laplace, allowing the masses of the planets and moons to be estimated from their perturbations.

Renaissance of the 15th century

The 15th century saw the beginning of the cultural movement of the Renaissance. The rediscovery of Greek scientific texts, both ancient and medieval, was accelerated as the Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottoman Turks and many Byzantine scholars sought refuge in the West, particularly Italy. Also, the invention of printing was to have great effect on European society: the facilitated dissemination of the printed word democratized learning and allowed a faster propagation of new ideas.

But this initial period is usually seen as one of scientific backwardness.[citation needed] There were no new developments in physics or astronomy,[citation needed] and the reverence for classical sources further enshrined the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic views of the universe. Humanism stressed that nature came to be viewed as an animate spiritual creation that was not governed by laws or mathematics. At the same time philosophy lost much of its rigour as the rules of logic and deduction were seen as secondary to intuition and emotion.[citation needed]

It would not be until the Renaissance moved to Northern Europe that science would be revived, with such figures as Copernicus, Francis Bacon, and Descartes (though Descartes is often described as an early Enlightenment thinker, rather than a late Renaissance one).

Translators of The "Toledo School"

Among the early translators at Toledo were an Avendauth (who some have identified with Abraham ibn Daud), who translated Avicenna's encyclopedia, the Kitāb al-Shifa (The Book of Healing), in cooperation with Domingo Gundisalvo, Archdeacon of Cuéllar. Alfonso of Toledo's translations into Latin include Averroes' De separatione primi principii. John of Seville's translations included the works of al-Battani, Thabit ibn Qurra, Maslamah Ibn Ahmad al-Majriti, al-Farabi, Albumasar , al-Ghazali and Alfraganus; and Costa ben Luca's De differentia spiritus et anime.

The most productive of the Toledo translators was Gerard of Cremona, who translated 87 books, including Ptolemy's Almagest, many of the works of Aristotle, including his Posterior Analytics, Physics, On the Heavens and the World, On Generation and Corruption, and Meteorology, al-Khwarizmi's On Algebra and Almucabala, Archimedes' On the Measurement of the Circle,