0:00:03 > 0:00:09The colour of their skin differed from all mortals of our habitable world.
0:00:09 > 0:00:13For the whole surface of their skin was tinged with green.
0:00:17 > 0:00:24To the early medieval mind, the world could appear mysterious, even enchanted.
0:00:28 > 0:00:30What should you believe about the dog heads?
0:00:30 > 0:00:33Are they descended from Adam's stock?
0:00:33 > 0:00:36Or do they have the soul of animals?
0:00:38 > 0:00:44Behind the wonder was a faith that the world was divinely ordered.
0:00:45 > 0:00:51Every creature in the world is a book or a mirror for us.
0:00:52 > 0:00:58But in time, that faith would be shaken by an extraordinary cultural revolution.
0:00:58 > 0:01:02A revolution in the way we think,
0:01:02 > 0:01:06in the way we analyse the physical world.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10And in our experience of other continents and cultures.
0:01:17 > 0:01:19The sum of European knowledge
0:01:19 > 0:01:21and the Christian belief it was based on,
0:01:21 > 0:01:23the way we understand the world,
0:01:23 > 0:01:25how it was made and when it came into being,
0:01:25 > 0:01:28was about to be transformed.
0:01:47 > 0:01:51The world between the 9th and 15th centuries.
0:01:51 > 0:01:56Supposedly a period of superstition and ignorance.
0:01:59 > 0:02:04Where ideas are stifled by the dead hand of religion.
0:02:11 > 0:02:16The intellectual landscape of the Middle Ages is certainly unfamiliar, even strange.
0:02:16 > 0:02:20From furious debates about arcane points of theology,
0:02:20 > 0:02:24to reported sightings of people with the heads of dogs.
0:02:24 > 0:02:28But behind all this strangeness lies a world of passionate enquiry.
0:02:28 > 0:02:34There's scholarship, science, intellectual exploration and sophisticated logic.
0:02:42 > 0:02:47The world experienced by medieval men and women was very different from our own.
0:02:47 > 0:02:51Events that might be called supernatural
0:02:51 > 0:02:54occur frequently in medieval records.
0:02:57 > 0:03:02At the end of the 12th century, Ralph, the respected abbot of the monastery of Coggeshall,
0:03:02 > 0:03:10recorded an extraordinary story involving the capture of a wild man who lived in the sea.
0:03:12 > 0:03:17It happened that the fishermen there, fishing out in the sea, caught
0:03:17 > 0:03:21a wild man in their nets. They brought him to the castle as a wonder.
0:03:21 > 0:03:27He was naked and presented a human appearance in every part of his body.
0:03:27 > 0:03:31When taken to church, he showed no signs of reverence or belief,
0:03:31 > 0:03:35however often he saw holy things.
0:03:35 > 0:03:43He did not wish to utter a word, even when hung by the feet and subject to dire and frequent torture.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46MOANING
0:03:46 > 0:03:50What's striking to us today about this strange and rather sad tale
0:03:50 > 0:03:54is that the abbot is less concerned to determine whether the story is true...
0:03:54 > 0:03:59than to work out exactly what category of creature this might be.
0:03:59 > 0:04:03Was he a mortal man, he asked, or some fish in human form?
0:04:03 > 0:04:07Or a wicked spirit lurking in the body of a drowned man?
0:04:07 > 0:04:09HOWLING
0:04:12 > 0:04:16The wild man eventually escaped back to the sea.
0:04:16 > 0:04:19His tormentors, and Ralph of Coggeshall,
0:04:19 > 0:04:27are left wondering what kind of creature this was, and were there others like him sharing their world?
0:04:29 > 0:04:35Medieval records are brimful of stories of sightings of strange creatures.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45She had come from an underground world where the inhabitants
0:04:45 > 0:04:52were as green as grass and never saw the sun, but were lit by a twilight glow.
0:04:59 > 0:05:05During the reign of Henry II, a servant called Richard from North Sunderland met with three young men
0:05:05 > 0:05:10dressed in green on green horses, who carried him off to a lofty mansion.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13Here they ate oaten bread and drank milk.
0:05:15 > 0:05:19These stories were not regarded as folklore,
0:05:19 > 0:05:23but as reported, substantiated facts.
0:05:23 > 0:05:31The chronicler, Gervase of Tilbury, in the 12th century, reported hundreds of such sightings.
0:05:31 > 0:05:39One concerned the congregation of a Norfolk church, who saw an anchor hanging from the sky.
0:05:39 > 0:05:41The anchor was caught on a tombstone.
0:05:44 > 0:05:47Attached to it, and leading up into the clouds, was a heavy chain.
0:05:47 > 0:05:51All of a sudden, a sailor appeared from the cloud
0:05:51 > 0:05:56climbing down the chain hand by hand, using the same technique as we do.
0:05:57 > 0:06:01He was seized by the churchgoers.
0:06:01 > 0:06:07The other world sailor suffocated by the moistness of our denser air and died in their grasp.
0:06:07 > 0:06:09CROWD CHATTER
0:06:11 > 0:06:18He was human enough to sail a ship, but could breathe only the air above the clouds.
0:06:18 > 0:06:20What kind of being was he?
0:06:26 > 0:06:29Confounded by the sheer number of such discoveries,
0:06:29 > 0:06:33medieval thinkers turned to the most authoritative guides they had -
0:06:33 > 0:06:36the Bible and the teachings of the Church.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43According to medieval thinking, all living things belonged
0:06:43 > 0:06:49to one of three categories - animals, humans and spirit beings.
0:06:49 > 0:06:53That is, angels and demons.
0:06:53 > 0:06:58The creatures described by Gervase of Tilbury appear to defy all three categories.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11If the beings who appeared on our doorstep seemed strange,
0:07:11 > 0:07:16the world beyond the shores of Britain were stranger still.
0:07:16 > 0:07:22A sense of just how enchanted it was can be found amongst the treasures of Hereford Cathedral.
0:07:28 > 0:07:32This is the Hereford Mappa Mundi, which means map of the world.
0:07:32 > 0:07:37It was produced around about 1300 and it's one of the oldest, biggest and most elaborate depictions
0:07:37 > 0:07:41of the physical earth to have survived from the Middle Ages.
0:07:41 > 0:07:45It was made from the skin of a single calf.
0:07:45 > 0:07:49The head would have been here, the tail here, the forelegs.
0:07:49 > 0:07:54And what it shows is the three continents known to medieval geography.
0:07:54 > 0:07:56East was at the top.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59Here was Asia,
0:07:59 > 0:08:01Africa and Europe.
0:08:01 > 0:08:06And in the centre, symbolically, was the City of Jerusalem.
0:08:09 > 0:08:15Many towns and cities, rivers and seas are accurately marked.
0:08:17 > 0:08:22Here, the Red Sea has been given a very literal interpretation.
0:08:25 > 0:08:31But understanding the geography of the world was not the sole point of such maps.
0:08:36 > 0:08:40This map was certainly not designed to get you from A to B.
0:08:40 > 0:08:44But it does show how people at the time pictured the earth
0:08:44 > 0:08:47on the basis of the information available to them.
0:08:47 > 0:08:49It's covered with drawings.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52Some of them rather familiar.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56Russia is represented by a bear.
0:08:56 > 0:09:00Norway by a man on skis.
0:09:00 > 0:09:04The map is labelled as a history, or story,
0:09:04 > 0:09:08and it does seem to depict time as well as space.
0:09:08 > 0:09:13Above Jerusalem, the crucifixion is taking place.
0:09:13 > 0:09:17Out here we have the Golden Fleece.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20And at the top Adam and Eve are being expelled
0:09:20 > 0:09:22from the Garden of Eden.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28Above them we see the future.
0:09:28 > 0:09:30The Last Judgment.
0:09:30 > 0:09:34The souls here are being received by God the Father.
0:09:34 > 0:09:38While the damned are being led off to the mouth of hell.
0:09:39 > 0:09:43The observable world and the world of divine revelation,
0:09:43 > 0:09:48the natural and the supernatural coexist quite comfortably.
0:09:51 > 0:09:55In Europe, many well-known cities are represented,
0:09:55 > 0:10:00including the most important - Rome, Paris, St Andrews.
0:10:00 > 0:10:06But as one moves further away from Europe, the world becomes stranger and there are stranger creatures.
0:10:06 > 0:10:08Mermaids.
0:10:09 > 0:10:12Unicorns.
0:10:12 > 0:10:14Men with their faces in their chests.
0:10:18 > 0:10:22The monopods - Creatures with one giant foot,
0:10:22 > 0:10:26that when they lay backwards, they could use as an umbrella.
0:10:26 > 0:10:29HOWLING
0:10:29 > 0:10:34The further away we get from the familiar world around us,
0:10:34 > 0:10:38the more exotic and fantastic creatures become.
0:10:42 > 0:10:44HOWLING
0:10:53 > 0:10:57This was not just some fanciful imagining by the map's creator.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01These creatures were known to have lived in far off lands.
0:11:01 > 0:11:05And they presented the medieval thinker with some really pressing questions.
0:11:05 > 0:11:10What kind of creature were they, and how should you deal with them?
0:11:10 > 0:11:12BLEATING
0:11:17 > 0:11:23Somewhere on the fringes of the world lived a race of dog-headed men.
0:11:23 > 0:11:27Such creatures appear quite frequently in medieval texts and illustrations.
0:11:31 > 0:11:37These beings appeared to be human in most respects, except that they had the heads of dogs.
0:11:37 > 0:11:42The question was, did they have the souls of humans?
0:11:44 > 0:11:46This was a practical concern for missionaries.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50If they encountered dog-heads, should they preach to them or not?
0:11:50 > 0:11:56After all, it made no sense to preach to animals, but it was every Christian's duty
0:11:56 > 0:11:59to convert human souls to Christ,
0:11:59 > 0:12:04however bizarre the body in which that human soul was encased.
0:12:06 > 0:12:13Just such a question puzzled a young missionary in the 9th century as he prepared for a trip to Scandinavia.
0:12:13 > 0:12:19He sought the advice of a leading scholar of the time, named Ratramnus.
0:12:19 > 0:12:22What should you believe about the dog-heads?
0:12:22 > 0:12:29Are they descended from Adam's stock, or do they have the soul of animals?
0:12:29 > 0:12:31Ratramnus's advice is very revealing.
0:12:31 > 0:12:36First he asserts that if the dog-heads are descended from Adam they are certainly human.
0:12:36 > 0:12:41Admittedly, the shape of their heads and their barking are against them.
0:12:41 > 0:12:45But nevertheless, they show many crucial human attributes.
0:12:48 > 0:12:50They lived in villages.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54They farmed the land and kept domesticated animals.
0:12:54 > 0:12:58Moreover, the fact that the dog-heads cover their genitalia
0:12:58 > 0:13:00is a sign of their decency,
0:13:00 > 0:13:05which in turn means they have the power of judging between the decent and the indecent.
0:13:07 > 0:13:12For the scholar Ratramnus, this is a powerful point.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15I do not see how this could be
0:13:15 > 0:13:19if they had an animal and not a rational soul.
0:13:19 > 0:13:24For no-one can blush at indecency unless they have a certain recognition of decency.
0:13:24 > 0:13:29A group of moral, rational beings living in a society bound by laws,
0:13:29 > 0:13:33this is humanity, not mere animality.
0:13:35 > 0:13:41Therefore, he concludes, dog-heads were in essence human beings.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45Some reportedly adopted Christianity.
0:13:45 > 0:13:48One even became a saint.
0:13:48 > 0:13:54According to some, St Christopher, the patron saint of travellers, was one such creature.
0:13:57 > 0:14:02There were of course no eyewitness accounts of these creatures and they were never seen in Britain.
0:14:02 > 0:14:08It is in fact the very nature of a dog-head always to be somewhere else.
0:14:10 > 0:14:14It's easy to poke fun at this earnest philosophising
0:14:14 > 0:14:21about such bizarre creatures as dog-heads and fish-men and people who come down from the sky.
0:14:21 > 0:14:26But such debates were pursued with keen logic and an impressive spirit of dedication.
0:14:26 > 0:14:30Logic and observation were the tools whereby things were made to find
0:14:30 > 0:14:34their place in a world view that was intensely religious.
0:14:34 > 0:14:36And the fit was not always a neat one.
0:14:39 > 0:14:41THUNDER CRACKS
0:14:42 > 0:14:48For much of the Middle Ages, people believed things that today might strike us as paradoxical.
0:14:50 > 0:14:55To the medieval mind, an event could be both natural AND supernatural.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00The great Ecclesiastic, Hrabanus Maurus,
0:15:00 > 0:15:05recorded how people reacted to an eclipse in the 9th century.
0:15:06 > 0:15:10I saw people shooting spears and arrows at the moon,
0:15:10 > 0:15:13or scattering the fires from their hearths into the air.
0:15:13 > 0:15:16I heard the bellowing of warlike horns.
0:15:16 > 0:15:20The moon, the people said, was being attacked by monsters,
0:15:20 > 0:15:24and unless they brought help, the monsters would devour her.
0:15:26 > 0:15:31But it wasn't only the ignorant who reacted in this way.
0:15:32 > 0:15:36Amongst scholars, too, it was widely believed that eclipses meant something.
0:15:36 > 0:15:40They signified divine intervention of some kind.
0:15:40 > 0:15:45In fact, a common medieval term for an eclipse was "signum" - a sign.
0:15:51 > 0:15:56It would be wrong to regard the interpretation of eclipses as divine signs,
0:15:56 > 0:15:59as stemming from ignorance of their physical causes.
0:15:59 > 0:16:04Here is Isidore of Seville, the great encyclopaedist of the early Middle Ages.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07He knew exactly what was happening.
0:16:09 > 0:16:11The moon suffers an eclipse
0:16:11 > 0:16:15if the shadow of the earth comes between it and the sun.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23The sun suffers an eclipse when the new moon is in line with the sun
0:16:23 > 0:16:25and obstructs and obscures it.
0:16:27 > 0:16:30He was, of course, right.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38So were eclipses divine messages or natural phenomena?
0:16:38 > 0:16:39They were both.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42The two explanations could coexist.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45HORSES BRAY AND CARTS CLATTER
0:16:51 > 0:16:56In 1218, Oliver of Paderbon, a chronicler at the time, described
0:16:56 > 0:17:01how troops on the march saw a favourable sign in the night sky.
0:17:03 > 0:17:09Soon after we arrived, there was an almost total eclipse of the moon.
0:17:09 > 0:17:14This often happens from natural causes at the time of the full moon.
0:17:14 > 0:17:19Nevertheless, since the Lord says, there shall be signs in the sun
0:17:19 > 0:17:24and in the moon, we interpreted this eclipse as unfavourable to the enemy.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32The eclipse was interpreted as a sign from God,
0:17:32 > 0:17:36even though its natural cause was also recognised.
0:17:39 > 0:17:44The ability to understand perfectly well the physical processes of an event like an eclipse,
0:17:44 > 0:17:50while remaining convinced of its religious significance, is a classic feature of medieval thinking.
0:17:50 > 0:17:55What has been called "The Disenchantment of the World" was only just beginning.
0:17:55 > 0:18:00Physical laws and divine agency were yet to quarrel.
0:18:07 > 0:18:09In the medieval world view,
0:18:09 > 0:18:13the desire to understand burned with a moral intensity.
0:18:16 > 0:18:21In the early Middle Ages, the quest for knowledge was largely confined
0:18:21 > 0:18:24within the walls of the great monasteries and cathedrals.
0:18:27 > 0:18:32Learning stayed in the hands of monks and priests, quite literally.
0:18:37 > 0:18:41Medieval Europe was a manuscript culture, which means that for a text
0:18:41 > 0:18:45to exist at all, it had to be copied out by hand.
0:18:48 > 0:18:54And for it to exist in more than one copy, it had to be copied out again.
0:18:54 > 0:18:56And again.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03It was a slow and laborious business.
0:19:03 > 0:19:08Occasionally, a small voice of protest can be heard from the margins.
0:19:08 > 0:19:12Here ends the second part of the Summa Theologica.
0:19:12 > 0:19:17Very long, very verbose and very tedious to write out.
0:19:17 > 0:19:22Thank God. Thank God and again, thank God.
0:19:27 > 0:19:33Books were consequently extremely valuable and highly treasured.
0:19:33 > 0:19:34If they travelled at all,
0:19:34 > 0:19:38it was usually from one monastery to another. And if they got lost?
0:19:38 > 0:19:44Well, at least one medieval librarian was not going to be happy.
0:19:46 > 0:19:51For him that steals this book or borrows it and does not return it,
0:19:51 > 0:19:55let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him.
0:19:55 > 0:19:59Let him be struck with palsy and all his limbs blasted.
0:19:59 > 0:20:04Let him languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy.
0:20:04 > 0:20:08And when at last he goes to his final punishment,
0:20:08 > 0:20:11let the flames of hell consume him for ever.
0:20:18 > 0:20:20Books were rare, precious.
0:20:20 > 0:20:22Available only to the few.
0:20:22 > 0:20:27At the beginning of the Middle Ages, learning was locked away in the hands of monks and priests.
0:20:27 > 0:20:30They were the interpreters of the world.
0:20:33 > 0:20:39Learning was not something to be disseminated, so much as jealously controlled.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42For knowledge existed not for its own sake,
0:20:42 > 0:20:45but as part of the search for religious truth.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51In the Library of Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge
0:20:51 > 0:20:56are medieval manuscripts which describe animals and nature.
0:20:59 > 0:21:04What we have here are medieval accounts of the natural world.
0:21:06 > 0:21:09A world of animals, a world of birds,
0:21:09 > 0:21:12a world of fish.
0:21:12 > 0:21:14Systematically arranged
0:21:14 > 0:21:18and often beautifully and lavishly illustrated.
0:21:18 > 0:21:20They're called bestiaries.
0:21:20 > 0:21:26And they give us an insight into how people in the Middle Ages responded to the natural world around them.
0:21:29 > 0:21:32Medieval thinkers cared less about what an animal looked like,
0:21:32 > 0:21:36or where it lived, than about what its nature and character
0:21:36 > 0:21:39could tell us about God's plan for mankind.
0:21:41 > 0:21:43Take the story of the beaver.
0:21:43 > 0:21:47The beaver, the bestiary tells us, is hunted for its testicles.
0:21:47 > 0:21:51It does indeed secrete valuable musk in that region.
0:21:51 > 0:21:56When the beaver sees the huntsmen coming, it cuts off its own testicles with its teeth,
0:21:56 > 0:22:01then waves its leg, showing the huntsman that it has nothing for him.
0:22:02 > 0:22:07In just this way, says the bestiary, we must cut away vice from ourselves,
0:22:07 > 0:22:12so that when the Devil comes after us, we can show him that we have nothing for him.
0:22:16 > 0:22:23The world had been created by God in the same way that a book is written by its author.
0:22:28 > 0:22:33The bestiary texts often begin with a large illustration
0:22:33 > 0:22:36of Adam giving names to the animals.
0:22:36 > 0:22:41They've assembled in a rather charming way to hear what they're going to be called.
0:22:41 > 0:22:44And it's very symbolic, because in the medieval period,
0:22:44 > 0:22:49the natural world was not viewed as something independent in its own right.
0:22:49 > 0:22:52It had been created for human beings.
0:22:56 > 0:23:00But whether the creatures are fabulous or realistic,
0:23:00 > 0:23:02whether the bird is a phoenix or a blackbird,
0:23:02 > 0:23:07the purpose of the bestiary was not really to act as a kind of field guide.
0:23:07 > 0:23:12Its purpose was to tell you what these creatures meant.
0:23:12 > 0:23:17They had a message for human beings, and the message was moral and spiritual.
0:23:20 > 0:23:23A similar warning against the wiles of the Devil
0:23:23 > 0:23:26can be found in the story of the whale,
0:23:26 > 0:23:31illustrated in this other bestiary in a rather spectacular drawing,
0:23:31 > 0:23:34in which we see the sailors
0:23:34 > 0:23:38that have come to what they think is an island in the sea.
0:23:38 > 0:23:42They land, they hammer in a stake to anchor their ship,
0:23:42 > 0:23:43they light a fire.
0:23:43 > 0:23:45What they haven't realised
0:23:45 > 0:23:49is that the island is in fact the hump of a giant whale,
0:23:49 > 0:23:53which is immediately to suck them down into the depths of the sea.
0:23:53 > 0:24:00That's a warning for us to be on our guard against the wiles of the Devil and his deceptions at all times.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08According to the philosopher Alan de Lille,
0:24:08 > 0:24:13every creature in the world is a book or a picture or a mirror for us.
0:24:19 > 0:24:24But this view of the earth as a sacred book was beginning to be undermined
0:24:24 > 0:24:27by changes taking place in the medieval world.
0:24:27 > 0:24:31The growth of towns all over Europe.
0:24:31 > 0:24:33The upheavals of war.
0:24:33 > 0:24:37The new horizons opened up by trade.
0:24:37 > 0:24:41The growing complexity of government and law.
0:24:44 > 0:24:49The bureaucracy required to run a medieval state was growing more sophisticated.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52Where were the lawyers and administrators to come from?
0:24:52 > 0:24:57A new class of man, educated in a different way, was needed.
0:25:02 > 0:25:07A background in biblical scholarship was no longer enough.
0:25:07 > 0:25:12Tutors began to congregate in Oxford in the mid-12th century.
0:25:12 > 0:25:17They offered teaching in law and other secular subjects in return for money,
0:25:17 > 0:25:20setting themselves up in rented rooms.
0:25:22 > 0:25:24This was a small revolution.
0:25:24 > 0:25:29You could now pursue a career in learning without being a monk or a priest.
0:25:31 > 0:25:36Young boys began to study, not necessarily to become closer to God,
0:25:36 > 0:25:38but to increase their chances in life.
0:25:40 > 0:25:44Hundreds of teenage boys living away from home in a strange place,
0:25:44 > 0:25:49renting rooms, buying food, going to the pub, interested in girls.
0:25:49 > 0:25:51In other words, a recipe for trouble.
0:25:56 > 0:26:01In 1209, the body of a local woman was discovered in Oxford.
0:26:01 > 0:26:05She was last seen drinking with a student in a nearby tavern.
0:26:15 > 0:26:19The suspect could not be found.
0:26:19 > 0:26:22In revenge, the student's three roommates
0:26:22 > 0:26:27were arrested by the town's authorities and were all hanged.
0:26:34 > 0:26:41Enraged by the injustice, almost the entire body of students and teachers upped and left.
0:26:41 > 0:26:43It was to be five years before they returned.
0:26:46 > 0:26:51In 1214, formal university regulations were drawn up.
0:26:51 > 0:26:53A Chancellor was appointed
0:26:53 > 0:26:57and a syllabus was introduced with exams at the end.
0:26:57 > 0:27:02The British university, as we know it today, was born.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05And as for the teachers who fled from Oxford?
0:27:09 > 0:27:12Many made their way to the City of Cambridge
0:27:12 > 0:27:15and established a rival university.
0:27:20 > 0:27:25The university is one of the great legacies of the medieval world.
0:27:25 > 0:27:30In time, rich patrons, even kings, endowed new colleges.
0:27:32 > 0:27:36The town of Cambridge was transformed from a crowded little river port
0:27:36 > 0:27:39into one of the wonders of the world.
0:27:42 > 0:27:46What was taught differed from the kind of learning
0:27:46 > 0:27:50that had been enclosed in the great monasteries of Europe.
0:27:50 > 0:27:54Science, philosophy, logic, mathematics...
0:27:58 > 0:28:01And with it, came a new kind of scholar.
0:28:01 > 0:28:04Men like Peter Abelard at the University of Paris,
0:28:04 > 0:28:08who saw himself as a warrior for truth.
0:28:11 > 0:28:15I preferred the weapons of logic to all the other teachings of philosophy
0:28:15 > 0:28:17and armed with these,
0:28:17 > 0:28:22I chose the conflicts of disputation instead of the trophies of war.
0:28:25 > 0:28:30His critical and analytical approach typifies the new intellectual style
0:28:30 > 0:28:33that arose in the 12th and 13th centuries.
0:28:33 > 0:28:36As he wrote, "By doubting we come to inquiring,
0:28:36 > 0:28:39"and by inquiring, we perceive the truth."
0:28:39 > 0:28:45This hunger for a different kind of understanding was to threaten the monastic monopoly of learning.
0:28:49 > 0:28:54Upheaval in the wider world accelerated this intellectual shift.
0:28:54 > 0:28:57Christian Europe was on the offensive.
0:28:57 > 0:29:02Its knights conquering lands all around the Mediterranean.
0:29:10 > 0:29:12In the 11th and 12th centuries,
0:29:12 > 0:29:17the Christians of Spain were pushing south, seizing Muslim territory.
0:29:17 > 0:29:22In 1085, they conquered the great City of Toledo.
0:29:24 > 0:29:31This fortified city had been a great cultural centre of Islamic arts and science.
0:29:31 > 0:29:36It was a major prize for the Christian armies.
0:29:36 > 0:29:39Within its walls were wonderful libraries.
0:29:43 > 0:29:47They contained ancient Greek texts translated into Arabic,
0:29:47 > 0:29:51including the scientific works of the great philosopher, Aristotle,
0:29:51 > 0:29:54which had been unknown in the West until that time.
0:30:01 > 0:30:05Word of these discoveries began to spread across Europe,
0:30:05 > 0:30:09even reaching the ears of ordinary clerics in Britain.
0:30:21 > 0:30:24In 1170 or so, a Norfolk priest, Daniel of Morley,
0:30:24 > 0:30:29heard stories about the manuscripts that had been discovered in the libraries of Spain.
0:30:29 > 0:30:33Frustrated by what he saw as the limited intellectual world around him,
0:30:33 > 0:30:37he prepared to make the long journey to southern Europe.
0:30:42 > 0:30:45Daniel was impatient with the traditional learning
0:30:45 > 0:30:51that seemed devoted to minute annotations of texts of Roman law.
0:30:51 > 0:30:57What excited him was the advanced study of mathematics, geometry and astronomy.
0:31:00 > 0:31:04Scientific subjects were celebrated especially in Toledo.
0:31:04 > 0:31:08I hasten there to learn from the world's wisest philosophers.
0:31:10 > 0:31:14In Toledo, he found what he was looking for.
0:31:15 > 0:31:21Never before had Christian scholars had access to such a flood of new information.
0:31:24 > 0:31:30Men like Daniel of Morley helped start an intellectual revolution.
0:31:33 > 0:31:37In Daniel's baggage on his way back from Spain were scientific works
0:31:37 > 0:31:41by non-Christian authors like the great Muslim scientist, Abu Ma'shar,
0:31:41 > 0:31:44and by pre-Christian authors like Aristotle.
0:31:44 > 0:31:45As Daniel himself said,
0:31:45 > 0:31:49he was "returning to England with a valuable load of books."
0:31:54 > 0:31:58The journey from Toledo to Norfolk was just the latest part
0:31:58 > 0:32:02of an extraordinary intellectual voyage.
0:32:02 > 0:32:06Ideas travelling over centuries and across continents.
0:32:09 > 0:32:12Aristotle's Metaphysics.
0:32:12 > 0:32:13Aristotle's Physics.
0:32:13 > 0:32:17Aristotle's book on animals.
0:32:17 > 0:32:23These texts had undergone an amazing journey before they became available to the scholars of medieval Europe.
0:32:23 > 0:32:27Written originally in the 4th century BC, in Ancient Greece,
0:32:27 > 0:32:30they'd spread throughout the Greek world.
0:32:30 > 0:32:35Then, many centuries later with the rise of Islam and the spread of the Arab Empire,
0:32:35 > 0:32:40they'd become familiar to Muslim scholars who had translated them in to Arabic.
0:32:40 > 0:32:44They then spread throughout the Islamic world, including Spain.
0:32:44 > 0:32:49And there, in the 12th century, in this multi-cultural, multi-lingual society,
0:32:49 > 0:32:54scholars came from England, from Paris, from Italy, to seek them out
0:32:54 > 0:32:59and to translate them into Latin - the universal language of education in western Europe.
0:32:59 > 0:33:03And then, at last, these texts, after 1,500 years,
0:33:03 > 0:33:07could spread into the intellectual centres of the West.
0:33:07 > 0:33:10They were to cause a shock wave.
0:33:15 > 0:33:20Up until now, the foundations of medieval philosophy had been built
0:33:20 > 0:33:23upon the Bible and a thousand years of Christian teaching.
0:33:23 > 0:33:30God had created the world in seven days and had power over all things in it.
0:33:30 > 0:33:34The Greek philosophers started from completely different assumptions.
0:33:36 > 0:33:40The ideas of the classical Greek thinkers, such as Aristotle,
0:33:40 > 0:33:45written four centuries before Christ, obviously took no account of the idea of the Christian God.
0:33:50 > 0:33:54They debated human psychology with no reference to Christianity
0:33:54 > 0:33:59and of course, there was no biblical revelation, no creation in seven days.
0:33:59 > 0:34:05Instead, they argued that the universe had always existed and would always exist.
0:34:07 > 0:34:11The works of Aristotle, along with the other Greek and Arabic thinkers,
0:34:11 > 0:34:16presented the Christian west with something entirely new.
0:34:16 > 0:34:21A rational, systematic analysis of the universe based on principles that were non-Christian.
0:34:21 > 0:34:25A picture of the world based on nature and reason alone.
0:34:25 > 0:34:30The response of the Church authorities could have been predicted.
0:34:32 > 0:34:36The books of Aristotle on natural philosophy
0:34:36 > 0:34:41and the commentaries on them, shall not be read at Paris,
0:34:41 > 0:34:45in public or in private, under pain of excommunication.
0:34:54 > 0:34:57MONKS CHANT
0:35:07 > 0:35:11Worse still, if there are natural laws that govern the universe,
0:35:11 > 0:35:15that would seem to imply that God is their prisoner.
0:35:15 > 0:35:19To some, such thinking seemed nothing short of heresy.
0:35:19 > 0:35:22CHANTING
0:35:25 > 0:35:29Religious belief seemed to be on a collision course
0:35:29 > 0:35:32with rational theories about the nature of the world.
0:35:35 > 0:35:41It would take a remarkable Dominican friar to reconcile the apparently irreconcilable.
0:35:48 > 0:35:52Thomas Aquinas came from an aristocratic family in southern Italy.
0:35:52 > 0:35:57He was a studious boy and his family seem to have had quite specific ambitions for him.
0:35:57 > 0:36:01They thought it would be rather fine if he became Abbot
0:36:01 > 0:36:05of the nearby and fabulously wealthy monastery of Monte Cassino.
0:36:05 > 0:36:07But Thomas had other ideas.
0:36:07 > 0:36:11He was attracted by the newly founded Dominican Order,
0:36:11 > 0:36:14which promised poverty, preaching and teaching.
0:36:14 > 0:36:17His family were outraged at this wayward behaviour.
0:36:17 > 0:36:21They tried everything they could do to break his resolve.
0:36:21 > 0:36:25They even locked him up and sent seductive young women to visit him.
0:36:27 > 0:36:34But he persevered and set off as a Dominican to Paris, the heart of the intellectual life of western Europe.
0:36:37 > 0:36:41There, Aquinas encountered the ideas of Aristotle.
0:36:41 > 0:36:48He realised that the Church had either to accommodate Aristotle, or be overwhelmed by him.
0:36:48 > 0:36:53Human reasoning, Aquinas argued, derives from God.
0:36:53 > 0:36:57Christian revelation also derives from God.
0:36:57 > 0:37:00If human reason was used correctly,
0:37:00 > 0:37:04it could not contradict what God had revealed in the Bible.
0:37:04 > 0:37:09Had the universe always existed, or did it have a beginning?
0:37:09 > 0:37:15Aquinas argued that this could neither be proved nor disproved by reason alone.
0:37:15 > 0:37:18Aristotle had gone as far as possible with reason.
0:37:18 > 0:37:23Only divine revelation could give us the truth here.
0:37:23 > 0:37:27In his huge work, the Summa Theological,
0:37:27 > 0:37:33Aquinas laid out every conceivable argument between the two ways of thinking.
0:37:33 > 0:37:37Aquinas had pulled off a Herculean task of scholarship.
0:37:37 > 0:37:43So intense was the experience, it took a heavy toll on both mind and body.
0:37:45 > 0:37:48Compared to the great glory of God,
0:37:48 > 0:37:52my writing is like straw.
0:37:54 > 0:37:57He died, leaving the Summa unfinished.
0:38:01 > 0:38:03But his ideas lived on.
0:38:03 > 0:38:06The use of reason, based on Aristotle,
0:38:06 > 0:38:11to strengthen Christian thinking, came to be known as Scholasticism.
0:38:11 > 0:38:15No question was too difficult, or too obscure.
0:38:19 > 0:38:24Indeed, the period was to become so celebrated, or notorious, for intense theological inquiry,
0:38:24 > 0:38:29that medieval thinkers are often said to have wrestled with the burning question,
0:38:29 > 0:38:34"How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"
0:38:36 > 0:38:42In fact, this isn't a genuine piece of medieval head scratching,
0:38:42 > 0:38:45but a Victorian pastiche of it.
0:38:45 > 0:38:47But it's not without a grain of truth.
0:38:47 > 0:38:53Tomas Aquinas did speculate whether angels, who of course have no bodies in the usual sense,
0:38:53 > 0:39:00could occupy more than one space at the same time, or whether many of them could be in the same space.
0:39:03 > 0:39:08It's the medieval equivalent of the kind of question asked today
0:39:08 > 0:39:12in quantum physics - can something be in two places at once?
0:39:18 > 0:39:24But the point is this, if you know that angels exist because religious revelation tells you so,
0:39:24 > 0:39:29it makes sense to use your intellect and reason to ask what they are like.
0:39:29 > 0:39:32Where they can go, what they can do.
0:39:32 > 0:39:36In that sense, it's a perfectly rational question.
0:39:40 > 0:39:47Early medieval thinkers had marvelled at eclipses, fish people and men from the sky.
0:39:47 > 0:39:51Their later successors were more sophisticated.
0:39:53 > 0:39:57Their mastery of rational debate provided them with the tools
0:39:57 > 0:40:00to understand a flood of new information and knowledge
0:40:00 > 0:40:05that poured into western Europe during the 12th and 13th centuries.
0:40:12 > 0:40:18Contact with the Arab world brought more than an introduction to Aristotle.
0:40:20 > 0:40:23What the Muslims excelled in was science,
0:40:23 > 0:40:27and medieval intellectuals were dazzled by their learning.
0:40:29 > 0:40:33Arabic words suddenly appeared in scientific language.
0:40:37 > 0:40:42Algebra, alchemy - the earliest form of chemistry.
0:40:42 > 0:40:45Alcohol, as a laboratory substance,
0:40:45 > 0:40:49and the star names like Aldebaran and Algol.
0:40:49 > 0:40:53And perhaps the most significant import of all, Arabic numerals.
0:40:53 > 0:40:56If you try doing calculations with Roman numerals,
0:40:56 > 0:40:58you'll understand why.
0:41:09 > 0:41:13Knowledge had advanced perhaps a thousand years in just a century.
0:41:13 > 0:41:17The stage was set for a man who has been called
0:41:17 > 0:41:22the father of modern science - The Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon.
0:41:26 > 0:41:31Inspired by Muslim philosophers, Bacon grasped the importance
0:41:31 > 0:41:37of testing accepted arguments with controlled experiments.
0:41:37 > 0:41:43The strongest arguments prove nothing so long as the conclusions are not verified by experience.
0:41:48 > 0:41:53"All things must be verified by the path of experience," Roger Bacon wrote.
0:41:53 > 0:41:56"Experiments on a large scale with instruments are required."
0:41:56 > 0:42:01"Experimental science teaches how wonderful instruments can be made."
0:42:05 > 0:42:08Bacon was especially fascinated by light.
0:42:08 > 0:42:12Indeed, he thought that the light emitted by objects
0:42:12 > 0:42:15was the key to understanding the universe.
0:42:17 > 0:42:22Everything that has actual existence in the world of the elements,
0:42:22 > 0:42:24sends out rays in every direction.
0:42:26 > 0:42:30He questioned why a candle appeared to be upside down
0:42:30 > 0:42:32when observed through water.
0:42:33 > 0:42:37He recognised that a rainbow was not a physical object,
0:42:37 > 0:42:40but an effect of light on the eye.
0:42:45 > 0:42:51There are as many rainbows as there are observers.
0:42:57 > 0:43:00He could even create a rainbow in his laboratory.
0:43:07 > 0:43:09He understood its geometry
0:43:09 > 0:43:14and calculated the maximum height it could appear in the sky.
0:43:15 > 0:43:19Slowly but surely, the world was being disenchanted,
0:43:19 > 0:43:25from a creation sustained by divine will, to one which followed its own natural laws.
0:43:30 > 0:43:34And human beings too, he thought, are governed by such laws.
0:43:42 > 0:43:45This was more than the Church was willing to accept.
0:43:45 > 0:43:50In 1277, his ideas were condemned as "suspect novelties"
0:43:50 > 0:43:52and he was imprisoned.
0:43:55 > 0:44:01Bacon dreamed of what would be possible in the modern world of science.
0:44:06 > 0:44:10Machines for navigation can be made without rowers.
0:44:10 > 0:44:14Carriages can be made that are moved without animals.
0:44:16 > 0:44:19Flying machines,
0:44:19 > 0:44:23and machines for walking in the sea - even to the bottom.
0:44:25 > 0:44:29Bacon's vision of a technological future clearly signals
0:44:29 > 0:44:34a radical shift that was to occur in our attitude to the physical world.
0:44:34 > 0:44:37From awed contemplation, to a sense of mastery.
0:44:37 > 0:44:41Slowly but surely, the world was being observed,
0:44:41 > 0:44:43analysed and measured.
0:44:51 > 0:44:54To measure events in the physical world
0:44:54 > 0:44:58called for a more sophisticated measurement of time itself.
0:44:59 > 0:45:01In the early Middle Ages,
0:45:01 > 0:45:05time was measured simply by irregular points in the day.
0:45:05 > 0:45:09Meals, church services, high and low tides.
0:45:11 > 0:45:17Accurate mechanical clocks were essential to standardise its measurement.
0:45:20 > 0:45:24Islamic technologies had demonstrated precision engineering.
0:45:24 > 0:45:28But as Robert the Englishman documented in 1271,
0:45:28 > 0:45:34in order to make a clock, an apparently insurmountable problem had to be resolved.
0:45:35 > 0:45:38Clockmakers are trying to make a wheel
0:45:38 > 0:45:42which will make one complete revolution in each day.
0:45:42 > 0:45:45But they cannot quite perfect their work.
0:45:50 > 0:45:53What prevented them perfecting their work
0:45:53 > 0:45:58was the absence of a device to allow the wheel to turn in precisely equal movements.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01In technical terms, an escapement.
0:46:06 > 0:46:10As the 13th century drew to a close, rich abbeys and cathedrals
0:46:10 > 0:46:14gave huge resources of money to the inventing of an accurate clock.
0:46:18 > 0:46:21This is the mechanism of the Wells Cathedral clock,
0:46:21 > 0:46:24now in the Science Museum in London.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28It's one of the oldest surviving mechanical clocks in the world.
0:46:28 > 0:46:31Although some parts of it are later, like the pendulum,
0:46:31 > 0:46:37added in the 17th century, the heart of it is over 700 years old.
0:46:37 > 0:46:41And it's a magnificent witness to the skill and ingenuity
0:46:41 > 0:46:43of the medieval clockmaker's art,
0:46:43 > 0:46:47solving all those problems outlined by Robert the Englishman.
0:46:52 > 0:46:57At first, mechanical clocks merely rang a bell every hour.
0:46:59 > 0:47:02But this clock, when in situ in Wells Cathedral,
0:47:02 > 0:47:07was given a face and some ingenious entertainment.
0:47:13 > 0:47:19Now hours, minutes, seconds, could be observed and standardised.
0:47:20 > 0:47:25Something as abstract as time itself could now be seen and measured.
0:47:25 > 0:47:28Clocks gave an entire new way of thinking.
0:47:28 > 0:47:31Things could go like clockwork.
0:47:35 > 0:47:40And in the long run, it meant that state bureaucracies could run more efficiently,
0:47:40 > 0:47:45and, in science, that rates of reactions could be measured.
0:47:54 > 0:47:59Medieval Europe was becoming a powerful centre of new science and technology.
0:47:59 > 0:48:04The great churches and cathedrals became more ambitious
0:48:04 > 0:48:06in their design and engineering,
0:48:06 > 0:48:09reaching higher and higher towards heaven.
0:48:10 > 0:48:14Warfare demanded deadlier, more advanced weaponry.
0:48:16 > 0:48:23And in Italy, the first semblance of a banking system was being set up to fund vigorous international trade.
0:48:34 > 0:48:39But there was a surprise in store for these sophisticated Europeans.
0:48:41 > 0:48:47An unimaginably advanced world was about to be opened up to them.
0:48:52 > 0:48:55Our understanding of the physical world in which we live,
0:48:55 > 0:48:58and also who we shared it with, was about to be radically transformed.
0:48:58 > 0:49:03And some of the most cherished notions of medieval knowledge would also be put to the test.
0:49:14 > 0:49:19The conquest of one third of the known world by Genghis Khan
0:49:19 > 0:49:23and his Mongol successors in the 13th century
0:49:23 > 0:49:25provided a unique opportunity.
0:49:30 > 0:49:33As the dust settled on the vast new empire,
0:49:33 > 0:49:35it provided a gateway to Asia.
0:49:35 > 0:49:40It was now possible to travel relatively securely from one end of Eurasia to the other,
0:49:40 > 0:49:43from western Europe to the heart of China.
0:49:47 > 0:49:53The great age of medieval world travel was about to begin.
0:49:53 > 0:49:59In 1253, a Franciscan friar, William of Rubruck, was amongst
0:49:59 > 0:50:03the first Europeans to reach the Mongol capital of Karakorum.
0:50:05 > 0:50:07We came among the Mongols
0:50:07 > 0:50:11and it truly seemed to me that I had entered another world.
0:50:13 > 0:50:18He hoped to meet the strange creatures described in the Hereford Mappa Mundi.
0:50:18 > 0:50:20The monopods and unicorns.
0:50:20 > 0:50:23But they were nowhere to be found.
0:50:26 > 0:50:31I asked about the monsters, or human monstrosities,
0:50:31 > 0:50:33of which the scholars speak.
0:50:33 > 0:50:38They told me they had never seen such, which astonished me greatly, if it be true.
0:50:48 > 0:50:53On the contrary, it appeared that the people of the East
0:50:53 > 0:50:56thought that dog-heads lived in the West.
0:50:56 > 0:51:01Wherever the travellers went asking for them, they encountered people who said,
0:51:01 > 0:51:03"What? We thought they lived where YOU came from."
0:51:05 > 0:51:09Other Europeans soon followed to continue the quest.
0:51:09 > 0:51:12John de Marignolis was sent by the Pope.
0:51:13 > 0:51:17I was hunting for the monstrous races described in the old literature.
0:51:17 > 0:51:19The one-eyed people.
0:51:19 > 0:51:22The hermaphrodites and the dog-heads.
0:51:27 > 0:51:32It was becoming clear that the monsters lived just over the horizon.
0:51:32 > 0:51:37As the horizon was pushed back, so the myths receded.
0:51:38 > 0:51:42A long-standing puzzle of whether or not to preach to dog-heads
0:51:42 > 0:51:45or monopods was solved by the absence of those creatures.
0:51:48 > 0:51:52So what was out there beyond Europe?
0:51:52 > 0:51:54A world more extraordinary
0:51:54 > 0:51:57than anything the medieval mind had imagined.
0:52:00 > 0:52:04In 1270, the 17-year-old son of an Italian merchant
0:52:04 > 0:52:08left his native city of Venice for China.
0:52:08 > 0:52:12Marco Polo was not to return for 25 years.
0:52:13 > 0:52:18His epic odyssey brought him fame, lasting even to this day.
0:52:19 > 0:52:23On his return to Europe, he wrote a book describing his journeys.
0:52:23 > 0:52:25The Travels Of Marco Polo.
0:52:25 > 0:52:27It caused a sensation.
0:52:32 > 0:52:35It contained reports of stunning civilisations,
0:52:35 > 0:52:37far in advance of our own.
0:52:42 > 0:52:46Wild and dangerous landscapes unlike anything in Europe
0:52:46 > 0:52:50and tales of survival that beggared belief.
0:52:52 > 0:52:53The desert is so long
0:52:53 > 0:52:57that it would take a year to go from end to end.
0:52:57 > 0:53:01It consists entirely of mountains and sand and valleys.
0:53:01 > 0:53:03There is nothing at all to eat.
0:53:04 > 0:53:08Marco Polo's account of the palaces of the East
0:53:08 > 0:53:12described unimaginable wealth and power.
0:53:13 > 0:53:18The walls of the halls and chambers are all covered in gold and silver.
0:53:18 > 0:53:21The hall alone is so vast and so wide
0:53:21 > 0:53:26that a meal might well be served for more than 6,000 men.
0:53:27 > 0:53:31When he was on his deathbed, Marco Polo's friends came to him and said,
0:53:31 > 0:53:36"Now is your last chance to correct all those falsehoods you put in the book."
0:53:36 > 0:53:37He looked up at them and said,
0:53:37 > 0:53:41"I haven't told half of what I actually saw."
0:53:45 > 0:53:49Merchants and missionaries streamed into China.
0:53:49 > 0:53:53The Silk Road took travellers from the Mediterranean
0:53:53 > 0:53:59to the East China Sea, allowing exchange of ideas, goods and technology.
0:54:05 > 0:54:07Then all this came to a sudden end.
0:54:07 > 0:54:11With the collapse of the Mongols in 1368,
0:54:11 > 0:54:14the route to the East was closed.
0:54:17 > 0:54:21But the West was hungry to renew contact with the East,
0:54:21 > 0:54:25drawn to the riches and exotic places it knew existed there.
0:54:27 > 0:54:29Another route had to be found.
0:54:31 > 0:54:35One Italian sailor became obsessed with Marco Polo's book.
0:54:35 > 0:54:39He carried it around with him and he made little marginal notes on it.
0:54:41 > 0:54:44His name was Christopher Columbus.
0:54:46 > 0:54:49Columbus had studied maps like the Hereford Mappa Mundi.
0:54:50 > 0:54:52He'd read the Bible carefully,
0:54:52 > 0:54:55for hints about the geography of the earth.
0:54:55 > 0:54:58But he had a more radical idea.
0:54:59 > 0:55:04He was determined to seek the fabulous East by sailing West.
0:55:10 > 0:55:15Columbus' accidental discovery of America shrank the world.
0:55:15 > 0:55:20It was a watershed in the history of medieval Europe.
0:55:20 > 0:55:22The moment when new horizons opened,
0:55:22 > 0:55:27and the start of a new era in the meeting of cultures.
0:55:32 > 0:55:34Columbus' voyage of 1492,
0:55:34 > 0:55:38marked the beginning of the process of globalisation
0:55:38 > 0:55:43and European colonisation that has created the world we live in today.
0:55:43 > 0:55:48But when Columbus sailed the ocean, he did so with a very medieval mind.
0:56:00 > 0:56:05He thought he had reached the fabulous East described by Marco Polo.
0:56:05 > 0:56:10Like other travellers, he believed he would meet strange races.
0:56:10 > 0:56:13Cannibals, amazons, dog-heads.
0:56:15 > 0:56:17And in South America,
0:56:17 > 0:56:21he believed he had found the biblical Garden of Eden.
0:56:23 > 0:56:29I am firmly convinced that the earthly paradise truly lies here.
0:56:33 > 0:56:38Columbus' voyage to America marks the end of the medieval age
0:56:38 > 0:56:40and the birth of the modern one.
0:56:45 > 0:56:48A new period of discovery and expansion
0:56:48 > 0:56:51and conquest was about to begin.
0:56:51 > 0:56:55The disenchantment of the world was nearly complete.
0:57:04 > 0:57:09Early medieval men and women saw the earth as divinely created and ordered.
0:57:09 > 0:57:12Its workings were beyond their control.
0:57:12 > 0:57:16For their modern successors, armed with new technologies,
0:57:16 > 0:57:20from the compass to improved sailing ships, to gunpowder,
0:57:20 > 0:57:23it was a place to be mastered, exploited.
0:57:23 > 0:57:27In more ways than one, it was the discovery of a new world.
0:57:54 > 0:57:56Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:57:56 > 0:57:59E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk