Facts about the Islamic Golden Age (2)

This is the second in a series of articles correcting various claims made about the Islamic Golden Age. See the first article in this series for the context. This article addresses claims about which Greek and Roman texts were available to Western scholars during the Middle Ages.

It is claimed that European scholars lost nearly all the Greek and Latin scientific texts after the fall of the Roman empire. Alison Abbott, Senior European Correspondent for the scientific journal Nature claims that by the fifteenth century “Many Arabic works had by then been translated into Latin, but the sources themselves were neglected”. [1]

In reality, the Greek sources of those Arabic translations were not neglected. Most of the Greek knowledge which was preserved, was preserved independently of the Muslim world. Even without the help of the Muslim scholars, our knowledge of Greek mathematics and science would be virtually the same as it is now.

It is true that when the Roman Empire collapsed, Western European scholars found their access to Greek classical writings severely limited. This was caused firstly by the rise of Latin as the lingua franca of the West, so that knowledge of Greek became scarce, and Greek texts could not be read. However, it was not because the classical texts themselves were destroyed, or because they were no longer being copied.

One reason for their lack of availability was the viking raids which burned monasteries, destroying their precious libraries. [2] Historians Reynolds and Wilson explain “The stocks of classical books in Britain had been devastated by the Viking raids and other disorders of the ninth century and recovery was slow”. [3]

Another reason was the lack of Greek literacy in Western Europe, which had been replaced by Latin. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains that the Greek texts “were “lost” not in the sense that the texts were simply unavailable but in the sense that very few people could read them, since they were written in the wrong language”. [4]

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article continues by explaining that even though there was a scarcity of primary Greek philosophical texts in the West, knowledge of Greek philosophy had also been preserved in Christian philosophical commentaries on Plato and Aristotle, written by theologians such as Tertullian, Victorinus, Ambrose, Themistius, Ammonius, Simplicius of Cilicia, Boethius, and John Philoponus. Consequently, the article comments “it is also important to recognize that the medievals knew a good deal about Greek philosophy anyway”. [5]

Similarly, historian of philosophy Frederick Copleston wrote that modern research into the transmission of the Greek classics has shown “it can no longer be said that the mediaevals had no real knowledge of Aristotle”. [6]

Historian of philsophy Cristina D’Ancona says “At the end of the fifth century and during the sixth, within a Christian environment both in Alexandria and in Athens, the Neoplatonic schools continued to comment upon Aristotle and Plato”. [7]

Although scientific progress in Western Europe was delayed by a combination of the destruction of libraries, a lack of classical sources, and widespread illiteracy (especially of Greek), study of the Greek classical literature was carefully fostered within the Christian church, and the monasteries in particular proved to be essential to the preservation and study of Greek philosophical and proto-scientific commentary.

Physicist John Freely observed that “the development of the monastic movement not only increased literacy, but it produced the first European scientists, who would lay the foundations for the emergence of modern science”. [8]

In England, classical studies continued to flourish under the patronage of church leaders. Freely relates that the English bishop Benedict Biscop (seventh century), made five trips to Rome in order to collect Greek classical texts for monastic libraries in England, where they could be preserved and studied. As a result of Benedict’s efforts, the library of his abbey became famous in Europe for its collection of classical literature. [9]

Freely also describes how Benedict brought other scholars to England, to help foster the preservation and study of the Greek classics, such as Theodore of Tarsus (a Greek), and Hadrian the African (a Berber from North Africa). [10]

Theodore and Hadrian were highly influential on the development of the English academic tradition. Freely wrote that they “founded a monastic school in Canterbury that began what has been called the golden age of Anglo-Saxon scholarship”. The eighth century Anglo-Saxon historian Bede wrote that their school “attracted a large number of students, into whose minds they poured the waters of wholesome knowledge day by day””. [11]

Arguably their most influential contribution was the teaching of Greek, in addition to arithmetic and physical science. According to the historian Bede, some of their students could speak Greek and Latin with native level fluency. [12]

Bede himself was a competent scholar who made several scientific contributions of his own, such as explaining how the earth’s spherical shape resulted in the differing length of daylight throughout the year. Remarkably, Bede also deduced the effect of the moon on tides, attributing it to a force exerted by the moon itself. Speaking of the tidal rise and fall of the sea, he wrote “It is as if it were dragged forwards against its will by certain exhalations of the Moon, and when her power ceases, it is poured back again into his proper measure”. [13

This was a remarkable conclusion given the fact that the concept of gravity was still centuries in the future. Bede’s observations on the causal effect of the moon on the tides was in fact far ahead of all his peers. Muslim contributions to the understanding of the tides were not made until a century later, when Persian astrologer Abu Ma’shar made independent observations on the relationship of the moon and the tides. However, although his work did not become available to Western scholars until the twelfth century, and his view that the tides were caused by the properties of the moon’s light (which he incorrectly believed was generated by the moon and heated the earth’s seas), was wrong. Also in the twelfth century, the Spanish Arab astronomer al Bitruji suggested an alternative explanation of the tides, which was likewise wrong, attributing them to the movement of the heavens.

Bede was correct in deducing that the moon was exerting some kind of attractive force at a distance, which caused the movement of the earth’s bodies of water. However, he was so far ahead of his time that this theory was not developed further until 1608, when the Flemish mathematician Simon Steven argued strongly for a model like Bede’s. The next year, in 1609, German astrologer and mathematician Johannes Kepler proposed a kind of gravitational power as an explanation for Bede’s mysterious attractive force. This was famously refined by Isaac Newton, who introduced a unified model of gravity which not only explained the moon’s effect on the tides, but the relationship of the sun, moon, and planets to each other.

Having been re-ignited in the seventh century, the Western academic tradition continued to develop without interruption, as the Greek philosophical texs were copied and studied by important scholars such as Alcuin of York in the eighth century, John Scotus in the ninth century, and Adelard of Bath in the twelfth century, all of whom made important contributions to the foundations of Western science.

Classical scholars Leighton Durham Reynolds and Nigel Guy Wilson describe this period as “The classical revival of the late eighth and early ninth centuries”, under the Frank king Charlemagne, during which time Greek texts were re-introduced to formal education programs in Western Europe. [14]

Reynolds and Wilson also describe how Charlemagne hired Alcuin of York “to take charge of his palace school and be his adviser on educational matters”. [15] It was Alcuin’s work which reintroduced the study of the Greek classics into the eighth century European educational curriculum.

So even though the availability of the Greek classical texts in Western Europe was extremely limited, neither the texts nor the knowledge of them was ever completely lost. Not only were they still studied, but gradual progress in scientific knowledge continued to be made.

In Eastern Europe, where Greek remained the lingua franca of the Byzantine Empire, the situation was far better, and almost all of the available Greek philosophical tradition was preserved. Peter Adamson, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Munich, writes “In the eastern part of the Roman Empire, the Greek-speaking Byzantines could continue to read Plato and Aristotle in the original”. [16]

In their review of the historical transmission of Greek texts, scholars Reynolds and Wilson note that from the ninth century onwards there was “a practically continuous tradition of classical studies in Byzantium”, during which time numerous classical Greek works were copied, studied, and used as textbooks. [17]

Professor of Ancient Philosophy Katerina Ierodiakonou likewise says that the Byzantine Christians “had access to most of the major ancient texts we still have”, adding that there are at least 1,000 Byzantine Greek copies of or commentaries on Aristotle, and over 260 copies of Plato’s dialogues. [18]

In fact historical evidence demonstrates that although some Greek texts were eventually transmitted from Muslims to Western Europeans, it was the European Christians in the East who were responsible for transmitting most Greek texts to the Muslims in the first place.

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[1] “Many Arabic works had by then been translated into Latin, but the sources themselves were neglected.”, Alison Abbott, “Rebuilding the Past,” News, Nature, 15 December 2004, https://www.nature.com/articles/432794a.

[2] “When King Alfred reflected on the decline of learning in the ninth century, he remembered ‘how, before everything was ransacked and burned, the churches throughout England stood filled with treasures and books’., Peter H Sawyer, The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 59.

[3] “The stocks of classical books in Britain had been devastated by the Viking raids and other disorders of the ninth century and recovery was slow.”, L. D Reynolds and N. G Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 108–109.

[4] “They were “lost” not in the sense that the texts were simply unavailable but in the sense that very few people could read them, since they were written in the wrong language. As the Western Roman Empire gradually disintegrated, the knowledge of Greek all but disappeared.”, Paul Vincent Spade et al., “Medieval Philosophy,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, Summer 2018. (Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2018), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/medieval-philosophy.

[5] “Still, while it is important to emphasize this absence of primary texts of Greek philosophy in the Latin Middle Ages, it is also important to recognize that the medievals knew a good deal about Greek philosophy anyway. They got their information from (1) some of the Latin patristic authors, like Tertullian, Ambrose, and Boethius, who wrote before the knowledge of Greek effectively disappeared in the West, and who often discuss classical Greek doctrines in some detail; and (2) certain Latin pagan authors such as Cicero and Seneca, who give us (and gave the medievals) a great deal of information about Greek philosophy.”, Paul Vincent Spade et al., “Medieval Philosophy,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, Summer 2018. (Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2018), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/medieval-philosophy.

[6] “As modern investigation has shown that translations from the Greek generally preceded translations from the Arabic, and that, even when the original translation from the Greek was incomplete, the Arabic-Latin version soon had to give place to a new and better translation from the Greek, it can no longer be said that the mediaevals had no real knowledge of Aristotle, but only a caricature of his doctrine, a picture distorted by the hand of Arabian philosophers.”, Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy (A&C Black, 1999), 207–208.

[7] “At the end of the fifth century and during the sixth, within a Christian environment both in Alexandria and in Athens, the Neoplatonic schools continued to comment upon Aristotle and Plato.”, Cristina D’Ancona, “Greek into Arabic: Neoplatonism in translation,” in The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, ed. Peter Adamson and Richard C Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005), 16.

[8] “Progress would be glacially slow at first, for western Europe had only a few fragments of classical learning to start with and most of the population was illiterate. But in time, as we will see, the development of the monastic movement not only increased literacy, but it produced the first European scientists, who would lay the foundations for the emergence of modern science, a process that would begin far from the former centers of ancient Graeco-Roman culture.”, John Freely, Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe (New York, NY: Overlook Duckworth, 2013).

[9] “Saint Benedict Biscop (c. 628–690) was the founding abbot of the monasteries in Wearmouth and Jarrow on Tyne in Northumbria, for which he made five trips to Rome to bring back building materials, artisans, and books to stock their libraries.”, John Freely, Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe (New York, NY: Overlook Duckworth, 2013); “The library at Wearmouth became famous throughout medieval Europe, its most prized possession being the Codex Amiatinus, the earliest manuscript of the complete Bible in the Latin Vulgate version, the translation done by Saint Jerome.”, John Freely, Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe (New York, NY: Overlook Duckworth, 2013).

[10] “On his third trip to Rome Benedict returned with Theodore of Tarsus (602–690), a Greek from Asia Minor who had studied in Antioch and Constantinople before joining a monastery in Rome, where in 668 Pope Vitalianus (r. 757–768) appointed him as archbishop of Canterbury. Benedict also brought back the monk Hadrian the African, a Greek-speaking Berber from Tunisia who had twice turned down appointments to the archbishopric of Canterbury.”, John Freely, Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe (New York, NY: Overlook Duckworth, 2013).

[11] “Theodore and Hadrian founded a monastic school in Canterbury that began what has been called the golden age of Anglo-Saxon scholarship. According to the Venerable Bede, Theodore and Hadrian “attracted a large number of students, into whose minds they poured the waters of wholesome knowledge day by day. In addition to instructing them in the holy Scriptures, they also taught their pupils poetry, astronomy, and the calculation of the church calendar.… Never have there been such happy times as these since the English settled Britain.””, John Freely, Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe (New York, NY: Overlook Duckworth, 2013).

[12] “Theodore and Hadrian taught Greek and Latin as well as arithmetic and physical science. Bede says that in his own time, early in the eighth century, there were students of Theodore and Hadrian who spoke Greek and Latin as fluently as their own language.”, John Freely, Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe (New York, NY: Overlook Duckworth, 2013).

[13] “De temporum ratione presented the traditional view of the geocentric cosmos, explaining how the spherical earth influenced the changing length of daylight during the year, of how the appearance of the sickle moon at twilight was due to the motion of the sun and moon, and of how to relate the occurrence of the tides at a given place to phases of the moon. He discussed spring and neap tides and suggested that tidal action followed a nineteen-year cycle related to the motions of the sun and moon.”, John Freely, Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe (New York, NY: Overlook Duckworth, 2013).

[14] “The classical revival of the late eighth and early ninth centuries, without doubt the most momentous and critical stage in the transmission of the legacy of Rome, was played out against the background of a reconstituted empire which stretched from the Elbe to the Ebro, from Calais to Rome, welded together for a time into a political and spiritual whole by the commanding personality of an emperor who added to his military and material resources the blessing of Rome.”, L. D Reynolds and N. G Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 92.

[15] “When it came to creating an educated class out of next to nothing, the Anglo-Saxons were past masters, and it was a shrewd move on the part of Charles to turn to York, at this time the educational centre of England and indeed of Europe, and in 782 to invite Alcuin, the head of its school, to take charge of his palace school and be his adviser on educational matters.”, L. D Reynolds and N. G Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 93.

[16] “In the eastern part of the Roman Empire, the Greek-speaking Byzantines could continue to read Plato and Aristotle in the original.”, Peter Adamson, “Arabic Translators Did Far More than Just Preserve Greek Philosophy — Peter Adamson | Aeon Ideas,” Aeon, 4 November 2016, https://aeon.co/ideas/arabic-translators-did-far-more-than-just-preserve-greek-philosophy.

[17] “From this time onwards, as a result of the activity in Photius’ salon and in various schools, there is a practically continuous tradition of classical studies in Byzantium. Literary texts were copied regularly and more technical works, especially mathematical and medical, were much studied, not least because they were still in general the best textbooks available.”, L. D Reynolds and N. G Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 64.

[18] “They certainly had access to most of the major ancient texts we still have, and the continuity of the Greek language, of course, made it possible for them to study the ancients in the original. To take the obvious case of Plato’s and Aristotle’s works, at least a thousand Byzantine manuscripts have survived which either preserve Aristotle’s text, or in addition also comment on it; in Plato’s case there are more than 260 Byzantine manuscripts of his dialogues.”, Katerina Ierodiakonou, “Introduction,” in Byzantine Philosophy and Its Ancient Sources, ed. Katerina Ierodiakonou (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004), 9.