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
- 📝 Are there registers of the scores and participation in ancient Olympic games?
- 📝 How did melee soldiers in the front rank of a formation fight without getting tired?
- 📝 Has the US army ever fought an urban battle?
- 📝 Did countries use insurance to compensate for their economic losses after the Black Death/Spanish flu/Asian flu?
- 📝 Was Textile Armour More Effective at Stopping Arrows than Mail?
- 📝 What was Nazi Germany's end goal?
- 📝 How has mother/ child mortality evolved from pre industrial era?
- 📝 Did starvation or malnutrition occur in indigenous American societies?
- 📝 Why wasn't there French irredentism or pan-fransicm?
- 📝 Why is it called the War of Knives?
- 📝 Are there any communist countries that were model high functioning societies?
- 📝 Were there any Frankish/French kings who probably had no extramarital sexual relations?
- 📝 Will Hegelian or Dialectical historiography regain any relevance into the contemporary historical discourse?
- 📝 Law enforcement vs KKK
- 📝 What was the tactical benefit of using flamethrowers as weapons?
- 📝 Did Admiral Ghormley have access to intellegence reports on Japanese movements prior to the Battle of Savo Island?
- 📝 Why did Paul von Hindenburg wrongly call Adolf Hitler "Bohemian corporal"?
- 📝 Hitler's Religion or Atheism
- 📝 Why were the Istein and Schliengen enclaves transferred from Switzerland to Baden?
- 📝 What is the source of this quote about hope and POWs?
- 📝 Why did the ancient Romans kill deer so often?
- 📝 How could Stutthof's inmates reach Palmnicken?
- 📝 What does the eighth samurai crest / symbol in this picture signify?
- 📝 When and where, exactly, did the concept of a male god eating grapes orginate?
- 📝 How much cheaper were flintlocks than wheellocks?
- 📝 What was the source of "presidium" as used by the Soviets?
- 📝 Significance of division of Caledonia by Northumbrian Advance
- 📝 Was the concept of a solar eclipse familiar to most people in northwest Europe in the 17th century?
- 📝 How was the Roman Empire officially referred to by contemporaries throughout the 1st to 6th centuries AD?
- 📝 How much contact did Sub-Saharan Africa actually have with the rest of the world since the beginning of civilization?
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?