Part 107 (2/2)

Medieval astronomers had generally accepted the Ptolemaic system. [19]

Some students before Copernicus had indeed suggested that the earth and planets might rotate about a central sun, but he first gave reasons for such a belief. The new theory met much opposition, not only in the universities, which clung to the time-honored Ptolemaic system, but also among theologians, who thought that it contradicted many statements in the Bible. Moreover, people could not easily reconcile themselves to the idea that the earth, instead of being the center of the universe, is only one member of the solar system, that it is, in fact, only a mere speck of cosmic dust.

GALILEO, 1564-1642 A.D.

An Italian scientist, Galileo, made one of the first telescopes--it was about as powerful as an opera gla.s.s--and turned it on the heavenly bodies with wonderful results. He found the sun moving unmistakably on its axis, Venus showing phases according to her position in relation to the sun, Jupiter accompanied by revolving moons, or satellites, and the Milky Way composed of a mult.i.tude of separate stars. Galileo rightly believed that these discoveries confirmed the theory of Copernicus.

KEPLER, 1571-1630 A.D.

Another man of genius, the German Kepler, worked out the mathematical laws which govern the movements of the planets. He made it clear that the planets revolve around sun in elliptical instead of circular orbits.

Kepler's investigations afterwards led to the discovery of the principle of gravitation.

VESALIUS, 1514-1564 A.D., AND HARVEY, 1578-1657 A.D.

Two other scientists did epochal work in a field far removed from astronomy. Vesalius, a Fleming, who studied in Italian medical schools, gave to the world the first careful description of the human body based on actual dissection. He was thus the founder of human anatomy. Harvey, an Englishman, after observing living animals, announced the discovery of the circulation of the blood. He thereby founded human physiology.

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Vesalius, Harvey, and their fellow workers built up the scientific method. In the Middle Ages students had mostly been satisfied to accept what Aristotle and other philosophers had said, without trying to prove their statements. [20] Kepler, for instance, was the first to disprove the Aristotelian idea that, as all perfect motion is circular, therefore the heavenly bodies must move in circular orbits.

Similarly, the world had to wait many centuries before Harvey showed Aristotle's error in supposing that the blood arose in the liver, went thence to the heart, and by the veins was conducted over the body. The new scientific method rested on observation and experiment. Students learned at length to take nothing for granted, to set aside all authority, and to go straight to nature for their facts. As Lord Bacon, [21] one of Shakespeare's contemporaries and a severe critic of the old scholasticism, declared, ”All depends on keeping the eye steadily fixed upon the facts of nature, and so receiving their images simply as they are, for G.o.d forbid that we should give out a dream of our own imagination for a pattern of the world.” Modern science, to which we owe so much, is a product of the Renaissance.

217. THE ECONOMIC RENAISSANCE

AN ECONOMIC CHANGE

Thus far the Renaissance has been studied as an intellectual and artistic movement, which did much to liberate the human mind and brought the Middle Ages to an end in literature, in art, and in science. It is necessary, however, to consider the Renaissance era from another point of view.

During this time an economic change of vast significance was taking place in rural life all over western Europe. We refer to the decline and ultimate extinction of medieval serfdom.

DECLINE OF SERFDOM

Serfdom imposed a burden only less heavy than the slavery which it had displaced. The serf, as has been shown, [22] might not leave the manor in which he was born, he might not sell his holdings of land, and, finally, he had to give up a large part of his time to work without pay for the lord of the manor. This system of forced labor was at once unprofitable to the lord and irksome to his serfs. After the revival of trade and industry in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had brought more money into circulation, [23] the lord discovered how much better it was to hire men to work for him, as he needed them, instead of depending on serfs who s.h.i.+rked their tasks as far as possible. The latter, in turn, were glad to pay the lord a fixed sum for the use of land, since now they could devote themselves entirely to its cultivation. Both parties gained by an arrangement which converted the manorial lord into a landlord and the serf into a free tenant-farmer paying rent.

THE ”BLACK DEATH”

The emanc.i.p.ation of the peasantry was hastened, strangely enough, as the result of perhaps the most terrible calamity that has ever afflicted mankind. About the middle of the fourteenth century a pestilence of Asiatic origin, now known to have been the bubonic plague, reached the West. [24] The ”Black Death” so called because among its symptoms were dark patches all over the body, moved steadily across Europe. The way for its ravages had been prepared by the unhealthful conditions of ventilation and drainage in towns and cities. After attacking Greece, Sicily, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, the plague entered England in 1349 A.D. and within less than two years swept away probably half the population of that country. The mortality elsewhere was enormous, one estimate setting it as high as twenty-five millions for all Europe.

EFFECTS OF THE ”BLACK DEATH”

The pestilence in England, as in other countries, caused a great scarcity of labor. For want of hands to bring in the harvest, crops rotted on the ground, while sheep and cattle, with no one to care for them, strayed through the deserted fields. The free peasants who survived demanded and received higher wages. Even the serfs, whose labor was now more valued, found themselves in a better position. The lord of a manor, in order to keep his laborers, would often allow them to subst.i.tute money payments for personal services. When the serfs got no concessions, they frequently took to flight and hired themselves to the highest bidder.

FIRST STATUTE OF LABORERS, 1351 A.D.

The governing cla.s.ses of England, who at this time were mainly landowners, believed that the workers were taking an unfair advantage of the situation. So in 1351 A.D. Parliament pa.s.sed a law fixing the maximum wage in different occupations and punis.h.i.+ng with imprisonment those who refused to accept work when it was offered to them. The fact that Parliament had to reenact this law thirteen times within the next century shows that it did not succeed in preventing a general rise of wages. It only exasperated the working cla.s.ses.

THE PEASANTS' REBELLION, 1381 A.D.

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