Africans ruled and educated Europeans from 700 to 1492

[Harmonious Emptiness]

This is the bitter irony of modern day mythologies of racial superiority which are so deceptive to billions of people.

 

 

From 700 CE to 1492 CE, black Africans were re-civilizing Europe, teaching them science, math, medicine, hygiene, and much more, bringing them up from the destitution that followed the fall of Rome.

 

 

link

 

"The intellectual achievements of the Moors in Spain had a lasting effect; education was universal in Moorish Spain, while in Christian Europe, 99 percent of the population was illiterate, and even kings could neither read nor write. At a time when Europe had only two universities, the Moors had seventeen, located in Almeria, Cordova, Granada, Juen, Malaga, Seville, and Toledo.

In the 10th and 11th centuries, public libraries in Europe were non-existent, while Moorish Spain could boast of more than 70, including one in Cordova that housed hundreds of thousands of manuscripts. Universities in Paris and Oxford were established after visits by scholars to Moorish Spain.

It was this system of education, taken to Europe by the Moors, that seeded the European Renaissance and brought the continent out of the 1,000 years of intellectual and physical gloom of the Middle Ages."

 

 

Look at any paintings of Moors. At least 95% of the Moors in these paintings would be considered Black in today's North America.

 

So please, any time you get some notion about racial superiority or inferiority, remember - Europeans were the ones learning maths and sciences from AFRICANS between 700 and 1400. Africans were the one's digging Europeans out of their social ditch.

 

There is no reason to create social lines based on race. We are all capable of immensely great achievements and so much more so when we work together in harmony.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Harmonious Emptiness

[Aeran]

While I agree with your general sentiment (that we should look past racial prejudice), your historical account is a vast oversimplification, to say the least.

[Marblehead]

Hi HE,

 

I have to challenge the title of this thread as I believe it is misleading.

 

It were the Arabs who did this. Yes, those you are speaking of were a mixture of Africans as well as Middle Eastern and Asian, especially India. But not just Africans.

 

Yes, they were dark-skinned people. That is why most Spanish are dark-skinned people.

 

I do agree with you in that while Europe was living in its "dark ages" under control of the Catholic Church the rest of the world was moving forward and it were the Arabs who were at the front.

 

But we must also remember that the main purpose of the Arabs was to dominate the world with its religion, not with its advances in science and technology. That came as a result of their conquering other lands for religious purposes.

 

But then, even the Arab world reached its peak and began to crumble. And it still has not, IMO, recovered from that crumbling.

[Apech]

Hi HE,

 

I have to challenge the title of this thread as I believe it is misleading.

 

It were the Arabs who did this. Yes, those you are speaking of were a mixture of Africans as well as Middle Eastern and Asian, especially India. But not just Africans.

 

Yes, they were dark-skinned people. That is why most Spanish are dark-skinned people.

 

I do agree with you in that while Europe was living in its "dark ages" under control of the Catholic Church the rest of the world was moving forward and it were the Arabs who were at the front.

 

But we must also remember that the main purpose of the Arabs was to dominate the world with its religion, not with its advances in science and technology. That came as a result of their conquering other lands for religious purposes.

 

But then, even the Arab world reached its peak and began to crumble. And it still has not, IMO, recovered from that crumbling.

 

Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Algeria and so on are African. The Ancient Egyptian culture came from Saharan Africa.

 

All humans came from Africa. Skin colour is an adaptation to levels of sunlight.

[Marblehead]

Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Algeria and so on are African. The Ancient Egyptian culture came from Saharan Africa.

 

All humans came from Africa. Skin colour is an adaptation to levels of sunlight.

I don't deny any of that but what I said above still stands.

[ralis]

Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Algeria and so on are African. The Ancient Egyptian culture came from Saharan Africa.

 

All humans came from Africa. Skin colour is an adaptation to levels of sunlight.

 

We said! Many still cling to racial differences in spite of all humans being descended from an African female some 200k years ago.

[thelerner]

Thing is European culture didn't have a lot to crow about from 700's to 1300's. It was probably eclipsed by China, Arabia and South America too.

[skydog]

freedom is a dancer

Edited March 26, 2014 by skydog

[GrandmasterP]

Risible as a conclusion but tag on the word ' Discuss' and it might just keep a bunch of first year humanities undergrads occupied for an hour with little much required by way of input from their tutor beyond the occasional wise nod.

 

I prefer

"What is it like to be a bat? Discuss and support your input with appropriate online references."

Give them 40 minutes clicking around the net then convene.

That one can keep them at pointless busy work for a full three-hour session, including break; whilst I complete the day's crossword.

:-)

Edited March 26, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[thelerner]

well so much of history is a bunch of crap written by people who won warsa and want to sound superior

 

did you know that in school today children are taught the idea that "osama bin laden" hijacked a plane and flew some planes into a couple of uildings, anything else is seen as offensive to teach..

 

personally in view of that, most wars have large amounts of untruth

 

including in my opinion world war 1 and 2

 

huge amounts of lies and deception

in view of that i take most of "history" with a grain of salt

What school? Can you give an example of any history book in the U.S that says that? Or are you just making it up cause it fits your prejudice? Our history books may be 'colored' by pop culture, by they aren't that inaccurate.

 

All in all, I disagree. There is a school grade level of history that is nationalistic and 'written by the winners' and filled with P.C myths, but as you progress beyond that you get closer to the true story. By college and above you can find a depth and truth through detective work, contemporary diaries; research beyond the easy sources and get a grasp of what really happened.

 

A great historian sifts through self garbage, even or I should say especially when its contemporary. They're archaeologists digging through history for the clues to find the truth. By and large I think they succeed.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Hi HE,

 

I have to challenge the title of this thread as I believe it is misleading.

 

It were the Arabs who did this. Yes, those you are speaking of were a mixture of Africans as well as Middle Eastern and Asian, especially India. But not just Africans.

 

Yes, they were dark-skinned people. That is why most Spanish are dark-skinned people.

 

I do agree with you in that while Europe was living in its "dark ages" under control of the Catholic Church the rest of the world was moving forward and it were the Arabs who were at the front.

 

But we must also remember that the main purpose of the Arabs was to dominate the world with its religion, not with its advances in science and technology. That came as a result of their conquering other lands for religious purposes.

 

But then, even the Arab world reached its peak and began to crumble. And it still has not, IMO, recovered from that crumbling.

 

People want to act like just because they were Muslim they weren't Black.

 

Just google "Spanish painting Moor image" and you will see that they were Black. Any one of these people would be seen as Black in today's world. It was the black Africans who were taking over Europe, and it was the same who was educating them. The image of white people saving the rest of the races is a terrible irony.

 

Are black Cubans not Black because they speak Spanish? Of course they're still Black. It's exactly the same thing with Moors in Europe. They were Africans and of African descent just like all Black people today in the diaspora.

 

 

[skydog]

What school? Can you give an example of any history book in the U.S that says that? Or are you just making it up cause it fits your prejudice? Our history books may be 'colored' by pop culture, by they aren't that inaccurate.

 

All in all, I disagree. There is a school grade level of history that is nationalistic and 'written by the winners' and filled with P.C myths, but as you progress beyond that you get closer to the true story. By college and above you can find a depth and truth through detective work, contemporary diaries; research beyond the easy sources and get a grasp of what really happened.

 

A great historian sifts through self garbage, even or I should say especially when its contemporary. They're archaeologists digging through history for the clues to find the truth. By and large I think they succeed.

ok

Edited March 26, 2014 by skydog

[skydog]

ok

Edited March 26, 2014 by skydog

[Marblehead]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoorsHi HE,

 

I'm not arguing that the North Africans are not a mixture of peoples including Black Africans. But there culture and especially religion was Middle Eastern. And yes, many of them look more Black African but many of them look Persian.

 

Spanish Cubans deny any relationship with Black Cubans. I know this as a result from speaking with Spanish Cubans here in Florida.

 

All I am doing is trying to clarify because many, when hearing the word "African" see only Black. Most North Africans are not Black, they are shades of brown.

 

When I was in Spain for one month vacation I never saw a "Black" Spanard, they were mostly shades of brown. This is because the "races" (please excuse the word) had already mixed by the time I was there (in the mid 1960s).

 

So if you say "Africa ruled ..." and anyone reading it would think of Africa as being south of the Sahara then the statement would be totally false. It were the Arabic cultured peoples who "Ruled ...". And yes, many of them were Black Africans.

 

Here is a fairly good Wiki article with pictures regarding the Moors:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors

[Aeran]

This strikes me as tangentially relevant to the direction this convo is going in:

 

http://www.strangenotions.com/gods-philosophers/

 

 

 

The Dark Age Myth: An Atheist Reviews “God’s Philosophers”

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by Tim O'Neill
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My interest in Medieval science was substantially sparked by one book. Way back in 1991, when I was an impoverished and often starving post-graduate student at the University of Tasmania, I found a copy of Robert T. Gunther's Astrolabes of the World - 598 folio pages of meticulously catalogued Islamic, Medieval and Renaissance astrolabes with photos, diagrams, star lists and a wealth of other information. I found it, appropriately and not coincidentally, in Michael Sprod's Astrolabe Books - up the stairs in one of the beautiful old sandstone warehouses that line Salamanca Place on Hobart's waterfront. Unfortunately the book cost $200, which at that stage was the equivalent to what I lived on for a month. But Michael was used to selling books to poverty-stricken students, so I went without lunch, put down a deposit of $10 and came back weekly for several months to pay off as much as I could afford and eventually got to take it home, wrapped in brown paper in a way that only Hobart bookshops seem to bother with anymore. There are few pleasures greater than finally getting your hands on a book you've been wanting to own and read for a long time.

I had another experience of that particular pleasure when I received my copy of James Hannam's God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science a couple of weeks ago. For years I've been toying with the idea of creating a website on Medieval science and technology to bring the recent research on the subject to a more general audience and to counter the biased myths about it being a Dark Age of irrational superstition. Thankfully I can now cross that off my to do list, because Hannam's superb book has done the job for me and in fine style.

The Christian Dark Age and Other Hysterical Myths

One of the occupational hazards of being an atheist and secular humanist who hangs around on discussion boards is to encounter a staggering level of historical illiteracy. I like to console myself that many of the people on such boards have come to their atheism via the study of science and so, even if they are quite learned in things like geology and biology, usually have a grasp of history stunted at about high school level. I generally do this because the alternative is to admit that the average person's grasp of history and how history is studied is so utterly feeble as to be totally depressing.

So, alongside the regular airings of the hoary old myth that the Bible was collated at the Council of Nicea, the tedious internet-based "Jesus never existed!" nonsense, or otherwise intelligent people spouting pseudo historical claims that would make even Dan Brown snort in derision, the myth that the Catholic Church caused the Dark Ages and the Medieval Period was a scientific wasteland is regularly wheeled, creaking, into the sunlight for another trundle around the arena.

The myth goes that the Greeks and Romans were wise and rational types who loved science and were on the brink of doing all kinds of marvelous things (inventing full-scale steam engines is one example that is usually, rather fancifully, invoked) until Christianity came along. Christianity then banned all learning and rational thought and ushered in the Dark Ages. Then an iron-fisted theocracy, backed by a Gestapo-style Inquisition, prevented any science or questioning inquiry from happening until Leonardo da Vinci invented intelligence and the wondrous Renaissance saved us all from Medieval darkness.

The online manifestations of this curiously quaint but seemingly indefatigable idea range from the touchingly clumsy to the utterly shocking, but it remains one of those things that "everybody knows" and permeates modern culture. A recent episode of Family Guy had Stewie and Brian enter a futuristic alternative world where, it was explained, things were so advanced because Christianity didn't destroy learning, usher in the Dark Ages and stifle science. The writers didn't see the need to explain what Stewie meant - they assumed everyone understood.

About once every 3-4 months on forums like RichardDawkins.net we get some discussion where someone invokes the old "Conflict Thesis". That evolves into the usual ritual kicking of the Middle Ages as a benighted intellectual wasteland where humanity was shackled to superstition and oppressed by cackling minions of the Evil Old Catholic Church. The hoary standards are brought out on cue. Giordiano Bruno is presented as a wise and noble martyr for science instead of the irritating mystical New Age kook he actually was. Hypatia is presented as another such martyr and the mythical Christian destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria is spoken of in hushed tones, despite both these ideas being totally untrue. The Galileo Affair is ushered in as evidence of a brave scientist standing up to the unscientific obscurantism of the Church, despite that case being as much about science as it was about Scripture.

And, almost without fail, someone digs up a graphic (see below), which I have come to dub "The Most Wrong Thing On the Internet Ever", and to flourish it triumphantly as though it is proof of something other than the fact that most people are utterly ignorant of history and unable to see that something called "Scientific Advancement" can't be measured, let alone plotted on a graph.

It's not hard to kick this nonsense to pieces, especially since the people presenting it know next to nothing about history and have simply picked up these strange ideas from websites and popular books. The assertions collapse as soon as you hit them with hard evidence. I love to totally stump these propagators by asking them to present me with the name of one - just one - scientist burned, persecuted, or oppressed for their science in the Middle Ages. They always fail to come up with any. They usually try to crowbar Galileo back into the Middle Ages, which is amusing considering he was a contemporary of Descartes. When asked why they have failed to produce any such scientists given the Church was apparently so busily oppressing them, they often resort to claiming that the Evil Old Church did such a good job of oppression that everyone was too scared to practice science. By the time I produce a laundry list of Medieval scientists - like Albertus Magnus, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, John Peckham, Duns Scotus, Thomas Bradwardine, Walter Burley, William Heytesbury, Richard Swineshead, John Dumbleton, Richard of Wallingford, Nicholas Oresme, Jean Buridan and Nicholas of Cusa - and ask why these men were happily pursuing science in the Middle Ages without molestation from the Church, my opponents usually scratch their heads in puzzlement at what just went wrong.

The Origin of the Myths

How the myths that led to the creation of "The Most Wrong Thing On the Internet Ever" is well documented in several recent books on the the history of science. But Hannam wisely tackles it in the opening pages of his book, since it would be likely to form the basis for many general readers to be suspicious of the idea of a Medieval foundation for modern science. A festering melange of Enlightenment bigotry, Protestant papism-bashing, French anti-clericism, and Classicist snobbery have all combined to make the Medieval period a by-word for backwardness, superstition and primitivism, and the opposite of everything the average person associates with science and reason.

Hannam sketches how polemicists like Thomas Huxley, John William Draper, and Andrew Dickson White, all with their own anti-Christian axes to grind, managed to shape the still current idea that the Middle Ages was devoid of science and reason. And how it was not until real historians bothered to question the polemicists through the work of early pioneers in the field like Pierre Duhem, Lynn Thorndike, and the author of my astrolabe book, Robert T. Gunther, that the distortions of the axe-grinders began to be corrected by proper, unbiased research. That work has now been completed by the current crop of modern historians of science like David C. Lindberg, Ronald Numbers, and Edward Grant.

In the academic sphere, at least, the "Conflict Thesis" of a historical war between science and theology has been long since overturned. It is very odd that so many of my fellow atheists cling so desperately to a long-dead position that was only ever upheld by amateur Nineteenth Century polemicists and not the careful research of recent, objective, peer-reviewed historians. This is strange behavior for people who like to label themselves "rationalists".

Speaking of rationalism, the critical factor that the myths obscure is precisely how rational intellectual inquiry in the Middle Ages was. While writers like Charles Freeman continue to lumber along, claiming that Christianity killed the use of reason, the fact is that thanks to Clement of Alexandria and Augustine's encouragement of the use of pagan philosophy, and Boethius' translations of works of logic by Aristotle and others, rational inquiry was one intellectual jewel that survived the catastrophic collapse of the Western Roman Empire and was preserved through the so-called Dark Ages. Edward Grant's superb God and Reason in the Middle Ages details this with characteristic vigor, but Hannam gives a good summary of this key element in his first four chapters.

What makes Hannam's version of the story more accessible than Grant's is the way he tells it though the lives of key people of the time - Gerbert of Aurillac, Anselm, Abelard, William of Conches, Adelard of Bath etc. Some reviewers of Hannam's book seem to have found this approach a little distracting, since the sheer volume of names and mini-biographies could make it feel like we are learning a small amount about a vast number of people. But given the breadth of Hannam's subject, this is fairly inevitable and the semi-biographical approach is certainly more accessible than a stodgy abstract analysis of the evolution of Medieval thought.

Hannam also gives an excellent precis of the Twelfth Century Renaissance which, contrary to popular perception and to "the Myth", was the real period in which ancient learning flooded back into western Europe. Far from being resisted by the Church, it was churchmen who sought this knowledge out among the Muslims and Jews of Spain and Sicily. And far from being resisted or banned by the Church, it was embraced and formed the basis of the syllabus in that other great Medieval contribution to the world: the universities that were starting to appear across Christendom.

God and Reason

The enshrining of reason at the heart of inquiry, combined with the influx of "new" Greek and Arabic learning, launched a veritable explosion of intellectual activity in Europe from the Twelfth Century onwards. It was as though the sudden stimulus of new perspectives and new ways of looking at the world fell on the fertile soil of a Europe that was, for the first time in centuries, relatively peaceful, prosperous, outward-looking, and genuinely curious.

This is not to say that more conservative and reactionary forces did not have misgivings about some of the new areas of inquiry, especially in relation to how philosophy and speculation about the natural world and the cosmos could affect accepted theology. Hannam is careful not to pretend that there was no resistance to the flowering of the new thinking and inquiry but, unlike the perpetuators of "the Myth", he gives that resistance due consideration rather than pretending it was the whole story. In fact, the conservatives and reactionaries' efforts were usually rear-guard actions and were in almost every case totally unsuccessful in curtailing the inevitable flood of ideas that began to flow from the universities. Once it began, it was effectively unstoppable.

In fact, some of the efforts by the theologians to put some limits on what could and could not be accepted via the "new learning" actually had the effect of stimulating inquiry rather than constricting it. The "Condemnations of 1277" attempted to assert certain things that could not be stated as "philosophically true", particularly things that put limits on divine omnipotence. This had the interesting effect of making it clear that Aristotle had, actually, got some things badly wrong - something Thomas Aquinas emphasized in his famous and highly influential Summa Theologiae:

"The condemnations and Thomas's

Summa Theologiae

had created a framework within which natural philosophers could safely pursue their studies. The framework .... laid down the the principle that God had decreed laws of nature but was not bound by them. Finally, it stated that Aristotle was sometimes wrong. The world was not 'eternal according to reason' and 'finite according to faith'. It was not eternal, full stop. And if Aristotle could be wrong about something that he regarded as completely certainly certain, that threw his whole philosophy into question. The way was clear for the natural philosophers of the Middle Ages to move decisively beyond the achievements of the Greeks." (Hannam, pp. 104-105)

Which is precisely what they proceeded to do. Far from being a stagnant dark age, as the first half of the Medieval Period (500-1000 AD) certainly was, the period from 1000 to 1500 AD actually saw the most impressive flowering of scientific inquiry and discovery since the time of the ancient Greeks, far eclipsing the Roman and Hellenic Eras in every respect. With Occam and Duns Scotus taking the critical approach to Aristotle further than Aquinas' more cautious approach, the way was open for the Medieval scientists of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries to question, examine, and test the perspectives the translators of the Twelfth Century had given them, with remarkable effects:

>"

n the fourteenth century medieval thinkers began to notice that there was something seriously amiss with all aspects of Aristotle's natural philosophy, and not just those parts of it that directly contradicted the Christian faith. The time had come when medieval scholars could begin their own quest to advance knowledge .... striking out in new directions that neither the Greeks nor the Arabs ever explored. Their first breakthrough was to combine the two subjects of mathematics and physics in a way that had not been done before." (Hannam, p. 174)

The story of that breakthrough, and the remarkable Oxford scholars who achieved it and thus laid the foundations of true science - the "Merton Calculators" - probably deserves a book in itself. But Hannam's account certainly does them justice and forms a fascinating section of his work. The names of these pioneers of the scientific method - Thomas Bradwardine, Thomas Bradwardine, William Heytesbury, John Dumbleton and the delightfully named Richard Swineshead - deserve to be better known. Unfortunately, the obscuring shadow of "the Myth" means that they continue to be ignored or dismissed even in quite recent popular histories of science. Bradwardine's summary of the key insight these men uncovered is one of the great quotes of early science and deserves to be recognized as such:

"[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth ... whoever then has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start that he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom." (Quoted in Hannam, p. 176)

These men were not only the first to truly apply mathematics to physics but also developed logarithmic functions 300 years before John Napier, and the Mean Speed Theorem 200 years before Galileo. The fact that Napier and Galileo are credited with discovering things that Medieval scholars had already developed is yet another indication of how "the Myth" has warped our perceptions of the history of science.

Similarly, the physics and astronomy of Jean Buridan and Nicholas Oresme were radical and profound, but generally unknown to the average reader. Buridan was one of the first to compare the movements of the cosmos to those of another Medieval innovation - the clock. The image of a clockwork universe which was to serve scientists well into our own era began in the Middle Ages. And Oresme's speculations about a rotating Earth shows that Medieval scholars were happy to contemplate what were (to them) fairly outlandish ideas to see if they might work - Oresme found that this particular idea actually worked quite well. These men are hardly the products of a "dark age" and their careers are conspicuously free of any of the Inquisitors and threats of burning so fondly and luridly imagined by the fevered proponents of "the Myth".

Galileo, Inevitably

As mentioned above, no manifestation of "the Myth" is complete without the Galileo Affair being raised. The proponents of the idea that the Church stifled science and reason in the Middle Ages have to wheel him out, because without him they actually have absolutely zero examples of the Church persecuting anyone for anything to do with inquiries into the natural world. The common conception that Galileo was persecuted for being right about heliocentrism is a total oversimplification of a complex business, and one that ignores the fact that Galileo's main problem was not simply that his ideas disagreed with scriptural interpretation but also with the science of the time.

Contrary to the way the affair is usually depicted, the real sticking point was the fact that the scientific objections to heliocentrism at the time were still powerful enough to prevent its acceptance. Cardinal Bellarmine made it clear to Galileo in 1616 that if those scientific objections could be overcome then scripture could and would be reinterpreted. But while the objections still stood, the Church, understandably, was hardly going to overturn several centuries of exegesis for the sake of a flawed theory. Galileo agreed to only teach heliocentrism as a theoretical calculating device, then promptly turned around and, in typical style, taught it as fact. Thus his prosecution by the Inquistion in 1633.

Hannam gives the context for all this in suitable detail in a section of the book that also explains how the Humanism of the "Renaissance" led a new wave of scholars, who sought not only to idolize and emulate the ancients, but to turn their backs on the achievements of recent scholars like Duns Scotus, Bardwardine, Buridan, and Orseme. Thus many of their discoveries and advances were either ignored and forgotten (only to be rediscovered independently later) or scorned but quietly appropriated. The case for Galileo using the work of Medieval scholars without acknowledgement is fairly damning. In their eagerness to dump Medieval "dialectic" and ape the Greeks and Romans - which made the "Renaissance" a curiously conservative and rather retrograde movement in many ways - they discarded genuine developments and advancements by Medieval scholars. That a thinker of the calibre of Duns Scotus could become mainly known as the etymology of the word "dunce" is deeply ironic.

As good as the final part of the book is and as worthy as a fairly detailed analysis of the realities of the Galileo Affair clearly is, I must say the last four or five chapters of Hannam's book did feel as though they had bitten off a bit more than they could chew. I was able to follow his argument quite easily, but I am very familiar with the material and with the argument he is making. I suspect that those for whom this depiction of the "Renaissance," and the idea of Galileo as nothing more than a persecuted martyr to genius, might find that it gallops at too rapid a pace to really carry them along. Myths, after all, have a very weighty inertia.

At least one reviewer seems to have found the weight of that inertia too hard to resist, though perhaps she had some other baggage weighing her down. Nina Power, writing in New Humanist magazine, certainly seems to have had some trouble ditching the idea of the Church persecuting Medieval scientists:

Just because persecution wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and just because some thinkers weren’t always the nicest of people, doesn’t mean that interfering in their work and banning their ideas was justifiable then or is justifiable now."

Well, no-one said it was justifiable, and simply explaining how it came about and why it was not as extensive, or of the nature, that most people assume is not "justifying" it anyway - it is correcting a pseudo-historical misunderstanding. That said, Power does have something of a point when she notes "Hannam’s characterization of [Renaissance] thinkers as “incorrigible reactionaries” who “almost managed to destroy 300 years of progress in natural philosophy” is at odds with his more careful depiction of those that came before." This is not, however, because that characterization is wrong, but because the length and scope of the book really do not give him room to do this fairly complex and, to many, radical idea justice.

My only criticisms of the book are really quibbles. The sketch of the "agrarian revolution" of the Dark Ages described in Chapter One, which saw technology like the horse-collar and the mouldboard plough adopted and water and wind power harnessed to greatly increase production in previously unproductive parts of Europe is generally sound. But it does place too much emphasis on two elements in Lynn White's thesis in his seminal Medieval Technology and Social Change - the importance of the stirrup and the significance of the horse collar. As important and ground-breaking as White's thesis was in 1962, more recent analysis has found some of his central ideas dubious. The idea that the stirrup was as significant for the rise of shock-heavy cavalry as White claimed is now pretty much rejected by military historians. Also, his claims about how this cavalry itself caused the beginnings of the feudal system were dubious to begin with. Finally, the idea that Roman traction systems were as inefficient as White's sources make out has also been seriously questioned. Hannam seems to accept White's thesis wholesale, which is not really justified given it has been reassessed for over forty years now.

On a rather more personal note, as a humanist and atheist myself, there is a rather snippy little aside on page 212 where Hannam sneers that "non-believers have further muddied the waters by hijacking the word 'humanist' to mean a softer version of 'atheist'." Sorry, but just as not all humanists are atheists (as Hannam himself well knows) so not all atheists are humanists (as anyone hanging around on some of the more vitriolically anti-theist sites and forums will quickly realize). So there is no "non-believer" plot to "hijack" the word "humanist". Those of us who are humanists are humanists - end of story. And "atheism" does not need any "softening" anyway.

That aside, this is a marvelous book and a brilliant, readable, and accessible antidote to "the Myth". It should be on the Christmas wish-list of any Medievalist, science history buff, or anyone who has a misguided friend who still thinks the nights in the Middle Ages were lit by burning scientists.

[Stosh]

This is a bogus subject here. because,, to put up a vigorous refutation of some of the claims, and conclusions one would be censored and possibly subject to punitive action.

[skydog]

This is a bogus subject here. because,, to put up a vigorous refutation of some of the claims, and conclusions one would be censored and possibly subject to punitive action.

yh

Edited March 26, 2014 by skydog

[Aetherous]

Thing is European culture didn't have a lot to crow about from 700's to 1300's. It was probably eclipsed by China, Arabia and South America too.

 

The Norwegians (Vikings) were doing some impressive things at the time, and perhaps even before.

 

Also, I view reverse racism as being just as bad as regular old racism. The thread itself seems to cross the line from interesting historical tidbits, to black supremacy and white inferiority.

 

Edited March 26, 2014 by Aetherous

[Aeran]

Why do we have two threads on this same topic?

[GrandmasterP]

Apartheid?

[Marblehead]

Why do we have two threads on this same topic?

In case you miss one you might see the other. It increases the probability of a hit.

[Marblehead]

Apartheid?

Hehehe. No, I'm not going to say I like that post.

[gendao]

Actually, would it be more accurate to say that the Egyptians, Greeks, Arabs and Asians invaded, occupied, ruled and educated North Africans first?

 

A lot (or all?) of the civilizing STEM knowledge brought over to Spain by the Moors was not actually discovered by Black African Moors themselves...but ancient Egyptians ("Kemeticism"), Greeks (astrolabe), Babylonians (0 & other Arabic numbers), Chinese (compass, etc) from along the Silk Road, etc... This technology was transferred to them, and they simply transferred it to Europeans when conquering Spain.

According to Black scholars:

There are others who ignore the primary sources pertaining to the black population in the ancient world and maintain that almost all inhabitants of Africa were black. Two recent publications, Black Women in Antiquity and African Presence in Early Europe, both edited by Ivan Van Sertima, fall into this category. Although many of the writers in these two volumes at times use the terms "African" and "Africoid" loosely' these words are clearly used regularly as equivalents of Negroid types. Such an equivalency, though contradicted by the ancient evidence, is stated as follows by Chancellor Williams: " In ancient times 'African' and 'Ethiopian' were used interchangeably because both meant the same thing: a black." The word Afer (African), however, was generally employed by the Romans to designate populations of the coastal regions of North Africa west of Egypt (e.g. Numidians, Moors), of the Carthaginians and their allies, and of the inhabitants of the Roman province of Africa. "African," as an adjective, is applied only once to a clearly Negroid type--the detailed description of a black woman in a poem, the Moretum, written in dactylic hexameter. The use of Afer as a cognomen may also in another instance, because of additional evidence, have indicated Negroid extraction--in the name of the well-known Latin poet, Publius Terentius Afer. These usages however, are exceptions, and the only Greek or Latin word that commonly referred to an unquestionably Negroid type, it must be emphasized, was Aithiops (Aethiops), Ethiopian, literally a person with a burnt skin, a colored person--a word that described a variety of black or Negroid types characterized by combinations of dark or black skin, wooly or tightly coiled hair, thick lips, and flat or broad noses.

 

Another frequent misconception in some discussions of the populations of the ancient world is the assumption that words or expressions describing people as dark--or black--skinned were always in classical usage the equivalents of "Ethiopians" i.e. Negroes, or, in twentieth century usage, blacks. Greeks and Romans, well acquainted with their contemporaries, differentiated between the various gradations of color in Mediterranean populations and made it clear that only some of the black- or dark-skinned peoples, those coming from the south of Egypt and the southern fringes of northwest Africa, were Ethiopians, i.e. Negroes. Ethiopians, known as the blackest peoples on earth, became the yardstick by which classical authors measured the color of others. In first century AD, Manilius described Ethiopians as the blackest; Indians, less sunburnt; Egyptians, mildly dark; with Moors the lightest in this color scheme. In other words, to all these peoples--Ethiopians, Indians, Egyptians, and Moors--who were darker than the Greeks and Romans, classical authors applied color-words but it should be emphasized that in general the ancients described only one of these--Ethiopians--as unmistakably Negroid. To summarize this point, there is no justification to equate Egyptians, Moors or any other north Africans, with Ethiopians, even when a color-word is applied to them, unless details are given as to other physical traits such as color, hair, nose, or lips, or unless there is additional evidence to support an equivalence with Ethiopian.

Shomarka Keita, a biological anthropologist from Howard University, has claimed that populations in Carthage circa 200 BC and northern Algeria 1500 BC were very diverse. As a group, they plotted closest to the populations of Northern Egypt and intermediate to Northern Europeans and tropical Africans. Keita claimed that “the data supported the comments from ancient authors observed by classicists: everything from fair-skinned blonds to peoples who were dark-skinned ‘Ethiopian’ or part Ethiopian in appearance.” Modern evidence showed a similar diversity among present North Africans.

Now clearly, many of the invading Moors were Black African...but what societal roles did they primarily play and who else was in the mix, if so?

The Moors brought slavery back to the Iberian Peninsula (8th century). There were slaves of Slavic origin in Al-Andalus. They were supplied by Vikings/Varangians who captured them. Some were assigned to the Caliph's guard and over time acquired important posts in the his army. They became known as "saqaliba". They played an important role in the civil war within the Western Caliphate. Medieval reports describe long columns of slaves moving from northern Europe beyond the Carolingian Empire through the Rhône valley and over the Pyrenees to supply slave markets in Cordoba, Seville, and Grenada.

 

Christian slaves were reported in Asian countries from the earlies phases of the Caliphare. It is often not clear where they were obtained. In the early years it would have been from the Middle East which until the Arab conquest was largely Christian. Later as the Middle East was Imlamicized, Christians would have had to come mostly from Europe. Non-Muslim slaves were valued in Arab harems. They served as both harem girls, but also other roles such as gate-keeper, servant, odalisque, musician, dancer, and court dwarf). Non-Muslims were required for these roles because Islamic law did not allow Muslim boys to be castrated for such service. This was, however acceptable for Christians and other non-Muslims. the Caliph Al-Amin in Baghdad is reported to have owned approximately 7,000 black African eunuchs (who were completely emasculated) and 4,000 white eunuchs (who were castrated). [Lewis] The latter would have been mostly European Christians castrated as young boys. Of course many did not survive the operation.

Edited March 26, 2014 by vortex

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Actually, would it be more accurate to say that the Egyptians, Greeks, Arabs and Asians invaded, occupied, ruled and educated North Africans first?

 

A lot (or all?) of the civilizing STEM knowledge brought over to Spain by the Moors was not actually discovered by Black African Moors themselves...but ancient Egyptians ("Kemeticism"), Greeks (astrolabe), Babylonians (0 & other Arabic numbers), Chinese (compass, etc) from along the Silk Road, etc... This technology was transferred to them, and they simply transferred it to Europeans when conquering Spain.

 

Yes, I agree. And at least we can agree on this, it seems.

 

My point is that there is a common residing belief in the world today (especially amongst white people) that white people are somehow more intelligent and civilized than people of African descent because white people supposedly brought "European" culture and education to Africa. The fact of the matter is that this "European" culture was brought to Europe by Africans, who learned from other people (Arabs) who learned it from other people, who learned it from other people.

 

Yes, Rome and Greece had a fairly educated populace, but that culture was gone, and the level of education, hygiene, medicine, etc., that Europe now enjoys was a result of 700 years of Africans teaching it to them. For those 700 years, it was the Africans in Europe who had the most power, wealth, and education.

 

I'm not saying that one race is better than another. I'm saying that the prevailing racist notions that are so common in Europe make no sense when you look at the historical facts of African and European interactions.

 

People are still saying "no they weren't black Africans, they were Moroccan, etc. like Moroccans look today." Then how do explain that virtually every early painting depicting "Moors" shows BLACK PEOPLE? How can those two things possibly make any sense to you at the same time?

 

Why would Europeans only choose black people to paint when they wanted to show what Moors looked like in Europe? Because most of them were black.

 

 

 

(Excuse the second thread. The first one disappeared from my topic content so I assumed the link was forbidden and deleted.)

Edited March 27, 2014 by Harmonious Emptiness

[Harmonious Emptiness]

- For points of "no they weren't black they were dark skinned."

 

Also see the original Taoists at 6:30

 

Edited March 27, 2014 by Harmonious Emptiness