The Dark Ages and the Light of Science

So, we've discussed the infrastructure and societal changes that would have made the Dark Ages not so dark by themselves. However, there were also scientific developments that need to be allowed for, and some of them are virtually vital to science today.

[A quick note on the Greeks: It needs to be realized at some point that, although the Greeks had made major discoveries, these discoveries were usually hidden away by the discoverer; rather than dispersing the information as scientists do today, it would most likely have been seen as hubris to do so back then, and as hubris was something to be avoided, the information would have disappeared with maybe a shrug of the shoulders and a "that's cool." As far as I can tell, it wasn't until the Middle Ages that this attitude changed, as monks and nobles started compiling information at the orders of the local rulers, possibly to avoid the waste caused by replication of efforts, noting that a discovery here helped one there, or just to compile the information. This formal order eventually changed to an informal one, creating the scientific sharing we know now.]

In medicine, the biggest limitation was not the Catholic Church, but disease. As disease was usually fatal and germ theory was centuries in the future, even doctors died from infections. As even bathing was suspect, making washing up the exception, and that meant that disease had a very nice vector. This is why there was a moratorium on dealing with dead bodies; it had died from something, and so staying away from it was probably a good idea. This was formalized when most of the dead bodies were available due to some very nasty diseases. Nonetheless, doctors did perform autopsies, and mapped out the various systems of the bodies, even if they had to be very sneaky about it. These anatomical charts would eventually be released; however, because they lacked knowledge of how they worked, and some systems were invisible to the naked eye, they wouldn't lead to any major advances for a few centuries.

However, what advances did happen in medicine came from chemistry. As chemists figured out why certain plants cured the way they did, they able to create more effective ways of dealing with diseases and other ailments. Also, there were a number of advances in how to distill, extract, and test the chemicals to determine what the chemist was dealing with.

There were also advances in surgery, childbirthing, and veterinary sciences, partially because of the forbidden autopsies, but also because people started realizing that those areas had actual import. Although most of this was still relatively simple compared to what we have and do today, they were still major advances over what was going on. Astronomy slowly became an actual science, but otherwise slowed up, and physics was just getting off the ground.

In technology, there were still trying to figure out how things worked. Most of the obvious changes came in engineering as weapon designs became more complicated and weapons themselves increased in quality; note the evolution of the crossbow and its deadliness. Building also became a little more advanced, as did carpentry in general; compare the thatched huts of the farmer to the towns. Admittedly all of this was comparative baby steps, but you need a firm grasp of the basics before you can really start having fun. More to the point, it was all of this experimenting in the so-called Dark Ages; you can argue that advancement was slow-paced, but the point is that there was advancement, and without the basics established in the Dark Ages, we would not have been able to advance as far as we have today.

In short, a quip meant by Voltaire to be insulting was taken far too seriously.