Was late-medieval French education recalcitrant to math?
score:6
Medieval scholarship was essentially a "great books" endeavor, where paragons of intellect were held to have the last word on many subjects (consider Aristotle for natural science or Galen for medicine). For mathematics, the Quadruvium included Arithmetic and Geometry (heck, that was two out of four), where Nicomachus and Euclid were the 'paragons' for mathematical sciences (Moslem works of mathematics entered into the west starting in the 12th century, such as Al-Khwarizmis's book on algebra, the 12th century was a period of increased work on mathematics. Certainly, before that, computation itself was highly impeded by the atrocious Roman number system. :)
Euclid's Elements include both sections on geometry and number theory and this is very close to the modern sense of mathematics, which consists of axiomitizing abstract objects and deriving their properties through rigorous proofs. Nicomachus is typical of medieval scholarship in that he considered arithmetic from an almost numerological viewpoint, instead of that of practical computation. Awesomely enough, he also wrote one of the early texts on music theory.
EDIT: I was perusing the book "The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages" by H. Rashdall -pdf here - and he throws out the comment (pp 442-443) that mathematics were studied in Univ. Paris in the 1300s, however (italics added for emphasis):
Such books were Euclid (the first six books), the Almagestum of Ptolemy,
the de Sphaera of the Englishman Johannes de Sacrobosco,the Perspectiva Communis (i.e. Optics) of another Englishman, John of Pisa (written in 1280). Instruction in Algebra and Arithmetic is also mentioned in general terms. At the same time the mere fact that the Mathematical books are passed over with such scant courtesy by the reforming Cardinarls seems to show what there are other grounds for supposing, namely, the Mathematics were more seriously cultivated in Oxford and some of the German Universities than at Paris.
The faculty at U. Paris did not seem to be as interested in the Trivium and Quadrivium that at other places, either.
Another point of view is that mathematics might have been weaker (for idiosyncratic reasons?) at the Univ. level in France in late Medieval times, but there was also a parallel system of 'abacus' schools (for merchants) and quite a bit of elementary and grammar school education available, which may be where much of the (basic) mathematical learning took place. Some of this appears in David Sheffler's article Late Medieval Education: Continuity and Change, History Compass (2010, pp. 1067-1082).
Upvote:0
Not 100% certain, but I suspect a solution along these lines:
1. There seems to have been a "war" in France between the algorists and abacists, with counting-boards or -tables still being used perhaps all the way up to the French Revolution
2. France of François 1er (and yes, dammit, I'm a hundred years out of date, my apologies...) was also highly "competitive" with Italy, jealous of its Imperial Roman ancestry
3. Italy was most definitely leading the way in that most practical of mathematics, accounting.
So French math teachers may well have felt their methods were lagging behind and hence of little or lesser worth.
Comments welcome.
Upvote:1
"Late medieval" (as the OP defines it up to "…; Briasson; 1737") French education was not "recalcitrant" to math. France produced a noted mathematician, Rene Descartes in the seventeenth century, and later, Joseph Louis Lagrange in the eighteenth.
What may be true is that French mathematics education was "relativized" by other, more pressing concerns such as theology. For instance, of France's "Three Estates," the first estate is the clergy. The nobility is "only" second, and the people, third.
Upvote:4
I would not say that education in the Middle Age was "recalcitrant" to mathematics. (There was a general decline of education in Europe, but this was a decline in everything, nothing special about math). Arithmetic and astronomy were taught. The Church needed astronomy (not astrology!) for calendar purposes at least. This was called "Computus", computation of the date of Easter. Same happened in other cultures (Islamic, Chinese. One of the Seven Noble Arts of Confucius, an analog of European trivium and quadrium, was mathematics. Very non-trivial astronomical computations were practiced in India too.)
More post
- 📝 Is the enforcement of Hijab wearing for Muslim women a recent occurrence?
- 📝 Need help identifying 2 old coins? Struck coins, one with two standing human figures facing each other
- 📝 Why did Vice President Bush hide when a reporter asked this question?
- 📝 Why was it necessary to maintain a balance of power between the Slave and Free states?
- 📝 Were the Chinese Warlords backed by other countries?
- 📝 Can the new testament be a valid historical record on the real life of Jesus?
- 📝 Why couldn't the Weimar Republic peg their currency to another one?
- 📝 What was the process to join the army in WW2 England?
- 📝 What did the word 'unconstitutional' mean to Americans prior to the Revolution?
- 📝 Did the fairy craze overlap the UFO one?
- 📝 Were there occasions when a sovereign country voluntarily joined another country?
- 📝 Has there been a recorded account of a cabin boy inspiring mutiny on board a ship?
- 📝 Did Romans piss into aqueducts as a joke?
- 📝 How deep would a Roman Marian cohort's battle line be, in a melee?
- 📝 Who are the "Two Parties" of the Protestants in the Treaty of Westphalia?
- 📝 Was Plato sold into slavery?
- 📝 Why did mass production have to wait until the Industrial Revolution?
- 📝 Did pirates really drink a lot of rum?
- 📝 Who are the three men standing and what are they holding at this University of Paris Doctors' Meeting?
- 📝 Why didn't the Allies attack Germany from the South?
- 📝 Where are the relics of Anthony the Great?
- 📝 How true is this observation concerning battle?
- 📝 Why do old kitchen stoves have circular openings in the upper surface?
- 📝 Did Google simply beat Microsoft to market?
- 📝 Why didn't China assist in the Vietnam War like they did in Korea?
- 📝 Why does this statue have five legs?
- 📝 Was the Empire style of fashion adopted in Russia?
- 📝 What proportion of the Arab population of Palestine pre-1948 came from families that lived there before 1880?
- 📝 How did the British Army unit size and structure in WWI change from 1915 to 1918?
- 📝 What do these hallmarks tell me about my fork and spoon set?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Was late-medieval French education recalcitrant to math?
- 📝 How thick was Late Medieval horse armor?
- 📝 Did medieval scholars believe the Earth was round?
- 📝 How did medieval manors handle population growth? Was there room for more fields to be ploughed?
- 📝 What kind of ink was used by medieval scribes in Iceland, given that there were no plant galls for iron-gall ink?
- 📝 Was frequent bathing for personal hygiene in medieval Europe common or not?
- 📝 Was mortality higher on French slave ships and if so, why?
- 📝 What was the process of early medieval urban development?
- 📝 What was life expectancy in early medieval Britain?
- 📝 How did commoners in late medieval to early modern Europe learn to read?
- 📝 What was a "census" (some sort of compensation) in early medieval Europe?
- 📝 What was the life expectancy of a Medieval European monarch?
- 📝 What education was required for a woman to become a teacher in pre-WWII Germany?
- 📝 How was the current month and day disseminated to the townspeople of Medieval Europe?
- 📝 How did slavery become permissible in the French West Indies when it was forbidden in France?
- 📝 Why was Northern Ireland mostly peaceful from the late 1920s to the mid 1960s?
- 📝 Was Buddha well known by western Romans in Late Antiquity?
- 📝 What was the "Brakteaten" medieval monetary system?
- 📝 Why did the Germans wait until it was too late to reinstate their unrestricted submarine warfare in WWI?
- 📝 Why are most late medieval fencing manuals German?
- 📝 Who was the oldest woman that we know of to give birth in the Medieval Europe?
- 📝 What was the legal process of raising a legion in late Republican Rome?
- 📝 How widespread was the consumption of rabbit meat by the poor in Medieval and Early-Modern Britain?
- 📝 Was Frederick II of Hohenstaufen really a medieval Dr. Mengele?
- 📝 How common was it for Americans to visit Europe in the late 19th century?
- 📝 Was there a massacre in the Algerian war calculated to provoke French reprisals?
- 📝 Was there a state in history where influence of sport fans on politics was greater than in medieval Byzantine Empire?
- 📝 What was the average size of French families during the Middle Ages?
- 📝 How and why buttermilk was added to English medieval butter?
- 📝 Who was the medieval author who addressed readers 1000 years in the future?