History Primary Source Exercise
accc123
PrimarySourceExerciseUnitFour2019.pptxPrimary Source Exercise – Unit Four
To complete successfully this unit’s exercise, you will need to read carefully Chapters Nine and Ten in your textbook, and watch the films assigned for this unit, especially the two segments of Islam: Empire of Faith. This week’s unit focuses on science and medicine in the medieval world, and in particular in the Latin West and in the Dar-al-Islam, or the Islamic world.
Primary Source Exercise – Unit Four
"13th century anatomical illustration from a text in Latin". Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:13th_century_anatomical_illustration_-_sharp.jpg#mediaviewer/File:13th_century_anatomical_illustration _-_sh
This illustration is from a medieval medical text in Latin. The text and illustrations would have been based primarily on those of Galen, the great Hellenistic Greek physician.
Primary Source Exercise – Unit Four
During the period between 900 and 1250 CE, the Islamic world flourished. In large part due to technological changes in agriculture, and the growth of trade that allowed crops from various parts of the world in which Muslim merchants traded to be carried to new places, food supplies improved and the population and economy grew. During this period, the Islamic world was much wealthier, more populated, and more scientifically and technologically advanced than the West.
Primary Source Exercise – Unit Four
"Dome of Rock, Temple Mount, Jerusalem" by idobi - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dome_of_Rock,_Temple_Mount,_Jerusalem.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Dome_of_Rock,_Temple_Mount,_ Jerusalem.jpg Islamic Architecture (competed in 691 CE)
Primary Source Exercise – Unit Four
The West took centuries to catch up with the Islam world, in part because Latin Christendom, far more than Greek (Byzantine) Christendom, suffered from the collapse of Roman institutions in the 5th century CE. The West also was subject to waves of invasions from the Huns and the Vikings, and the collapse of the old Silk Road that had linked Rome to China. In many ways, Western Europe became a “backwater” in Eurasia compared to the much more vibrant economies and societies of East, South, and Southwest Asia.
Primary Source Exercise – Unit Four
Beginning after 1000 CE, however, Europe too began to benefit from a milder climate, the cessation of invasions, agricultural innovations that began to improve yields (such as the iron plough and water and windmills, and improved crop rotation). The European population began to rise and cities revived, although Europe remained less densely populated and poorer than the Islamic world until the advent of the 18th century.
Primary Source Exercise – Unit Four
Aerial view of Chartres Cathedral in Chartres, France - Photo by CHICUREL Arnaud/hemis
The images on the next slide of architectural plans of Chartres Cathedral, built between 1145 and 1220 CE.
The agricultural surplus and growing population in Western Europe led to a revival of manufacturing and trade, especially of cloth, to meet the rising demand of a larger and wealthier population. Towns such as Chartres used some of the wealth the cloth manufacturing provided to build great cathedrals that became focal points for urban life and a source of pride to the citzenry.
Primary Source Exercise – Unit Four
Primary Source Exercise – Unit Four
Bay 39 - The Life of St Nicholas (III)
Return to the Chartres index page
Panel 02 - Signature panel (Merchant/apothecary)
http:// www.medievalart.org.uk/chartres/039_pages/Chartres_Bay039_Panel02.htm
Here we have a stained glass window in Chartres, no doubt donated by the apothecary’s guild, showing an apothecary at work.
All the guilds in the city – butchers, vintners, cloth makers and others – contributed to the cathedral and sponsored windows showcasing their profession.
Primary Source Exercise – Unit Four
Despite the ongoing tensions between Muslims and Christians, tensions that turned violent with the outbreak of the Crusades, that began in 1095 when Pope Urban II proclaimed the first Crusade, commerce and cultural exchange continued to take place between Muslims and Christians along the Silk Roads, where trade revived in the Middle Ages.
In terms of their intellectual history – the history of science and scholarship in their societies – Islam and Christianity shared not only a foundation in the Torah, or Old Testament, which both received from the Hebrews and which both religions shared with Judaism, but also in the classical world. Muslims were heirs to Greco-Roman culture, and shared with the Christians the same struggle to integrate the pagan, yet intellectually advanced, legacy of art and philosophical thought – moral, natural, and political – into their own cultures.
Primary Source Exercise – Unit Four
For this unit’s primary source exercise, you have two readings. One is from the famous Islamic scholar Ibn Rushd (Averroës), 1126-1198 CE. The other is from Adelard of Bath (1080-1152), thus roughly Ibn Rushd’s contemporary. Adelard lived in England. Choose one, and answer the questions about that reading in the following slide.
Primary Source Exercise – Unit Four
Use one of these links to find out more about Ibn Rushd:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/ibnrushd/
https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Averroes
Use one of these links to find out more about Adelard of Bath:
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Adelard.html
https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelard_of_Bath
Primary Source Exercise – Unit Four
Prompt One: Ibn Rushd
People unfamiliar with Islamic culture and history often assume that all Muslims are fundamentalists who reject reason and science as a way of understanding the natural and human world. In this reading, we see Ibn Rushd addressing the relationship between reason and revelation.
First, IDENTIFY IBN RUSHD (who was he, when did he live, and where?).
Then answer the following questions:
What does Ibn Rushd say about the relationship between reason and revelation?
Why does he think it is necessary to discuss this issue at all? What had happened in the Islamic world to make this a pressing issue for scholars like Ibn Rushd?
Does Ibn Rushd privilege one way of viewing the world over the other?
Does this reading suggest that Muslims believed it was possible to remain faithful Muslims and still use reason to study the natural and human worlds? In other words, does Ibn Rushd think that reason and revelation, religion and philosophy, are compatible? Why or why not?
Primary Source Exercise – Unit Four
Prompt Two: Adelard of Bath
First, IDENTIFY Adelard of Bath (who was he, when and where did he live?)
Then answer the following questions:
What does this reading suggest about the sources of knowledge available to a scholar in the Latin West such as Adelard about natural philosophy and medicine? Where did such knowledge come from in Latin West?
What was happening in the Latin West in Adelard’s day that made the issue of whether or not it was acceptable for good Christians to study these sources of knowledge such a pressing issue that Adelard felt it necessary to write the treatise from which your reading is excerpted?
Does Adelard’s Christian faith prevent him from accessing knowledge from these sources? Does he believe other Christians should be able to use these sources of knowledge?
How does Adelard view the relationship between religion and philosophy, between reason and revelation? Are they compatible? Why, or why not.
