What has the Middle Ages left us in the way of heitage?

Question

What kind of heritage has the Middle Ages left us? In the way of Science, ecnomy etc.

Answer 1

Anix could not be more mistaken. There are a lot of stereotypes about the Middle Ages as a backward time, but it's largely the creation of later folk looking back (and arrogantly failing to recognize that many of their OWN opportunities & accomplishments were made possible by foundations laid in the Middle Ages). I confess I once shared many of these prejudices, till I started to read about the period.

Note, for starters, that modern scholars of the era do NOT accept the popular "Dark Ages" view.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages

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The contributions of the Middle Ages are CONSIDERABLE. After a period of confusion with the collapse of the Roman Empire, rulers and church leaders began to 'turn things around' and gradually move forward.

Here is something of a summary (follow the links for more details).

LEARNING (foundations of modern SCIENCE)
From at least the 8th century Carolingian empire -- a literary revival, development of improved methods of writing (Carolingian minuscules), and copying and studying of documents from the Later Roman Empire.
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/carolingian_empire.html

The study and learning preserved in early church schools and monasteries was by 1100 developing into the UNIVERSITY system, where inquiry and the foundations of modern science were laid. In short, it was precisely the CHURCH, esp. its clergy, that preserved and expanded knowledge during these centuries. (And in the early centuries of the "Modern Era" the groundbreakers in science tended, whether Catholic or Protestant, to be more devout than the average person.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_university
Rodney Stark, *For the Glory of God* (Ch 1-2).
Stark, "False Conflict", http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.17713/article_detail.asp
"The Rise of the Universities"
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/universities.html

Note then that the church, whatever its failings was NOT all about "suppressing knowledge". Rather, it was through devout church people and groups that knowledge was preserved and EXPANDED.


FINE ARTS
Art & architecture - Merovingian (beginning in the 5th century!), Carolingian, Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals, castles. The 8th Carollingian revival brought improvements in writing techniques, revival of literature and technical writing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_architecture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merovingian_art_and_architecture
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/carolingian_empire.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_art
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanesque_architecture


TECHNOLOGY
Some major advances, esp. in the technology of:
a) agriculture -esp the heavy plow (and a series of related inventions -horseshoes, horse collar, tandem harnessing),
and crop rotation
b) navigation (including the magnetic compass), enabling the "Age of Discovery",
c) warfare -- gunpowder
d) 'information' -- the printing press!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology
(lists inventions... from 5th to 14th c)
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/peasants.html =Improvements in Agricultural Technology
*Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages*, by Frances & Joseph Gies


ECONOMY - BANKING & URBAN CENTERS (trade, etc)
(12th to 13th century) The foundations of the modern system of investment, including stock companies and "limited liability" (basis of wealth-producing sytems, including modern capitalism)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_market#History

"The Rise of Commerce and Towns" (ca. 1000)
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/towns.html

Gradual expansion of TRADE through the Middle Ages, esp in the 12th -13th century led to both economic growth as well as developments in other areas of learning as Europeans borrowed and adapted from the societies they contacted.


SOCIETY & GOVERNMENT
This period also saw the foundations of modern legal and political structures (e.g., Parliament) and ideas. Further, there was actually much progress AWAY from the highly stratified and slave-driven societies of the ancient world (an aspect oddly forgotten in many idealized portraits), the gradual growth of a sense of equality among people.
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/medieval_achievements.html

Answer 2

Although Kilroy is probably safe in answering: Visit your local library - I suspect his answer shows he doesn't know either. In short: the middle ages (or dark ages - with good reason) has left a legacy of how not to allow suppression by any religious group (the RC church of the Middle Ages) again to suppress knowledge, education and development. Ironically one cannot stifle man's brain nor his inventiveness, and that is the heritage of the MA: most of the industrial revolution sprang from this suppression of knowledge in the MA. Most of the invention which became realities in the later 17th century and beyond, started as "escapist ideas" in the MA, so be thankful in some ways for the MA. Without them acting as a stimulus, we probably would still be driving with horse carts, reading by candlelight and not chatting on the Internet!

Answer 3

church made sure common people will have to blindly trust holy men (priests) if they wanted to reach God's words... we still keep this and we still sometimes worship the person who society appointed as "right" for the job more than we worship God herself; another interesting fact, middle ages was the period in which women took the step back and were sentenced to being lower than men... sexist view that we still keep today, unfortunately

Answer 4

There is no way to simply answer that question. Just go to your local library and start reading then many books that they have on just that subject.

Answer 5

taxes keep us shear cropper its all the power fulls world who loan to you then taxes away

Answer 6

new styles of clothing, new architecture. new ways of thinking and doing things, new traditions.