Will Europe go the way of Byzantium?

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='KizlarAgha' date='May 24 2005, 10:51 AM'] Look, I consider the height of world culture to be 12th and 13th century europe - that's my obsession.  However, at the time, Europe wasn't the height of scientific learning - Islam was.  You need to study the translation schools of Toledo, and the interchange of ideas between Christians and Muslims.  In fact, Thomas Aquinas once said in a paper that he needed to be precise lest "the Saracens laugh at us."

Islam was at the top of its game in the 12th and 13th century, superior in many ways to what europe had to offer.  As the 13th century progressed, we see a leveling of the playing field so to speak.  The 13th century really was an incredible period for European growth and development.  It is ironic that the fall of Akka coincided with the zenith of European power and splendor (or very nearly)

However, my point was that the seat of power never shifted to Europe from Byzantium.  They were never really one contiguous whole after about the 5th century.  A series of losses in warfare led to the fall of Constantinople due to the Byzantine empire's reliance on mercenary troops and its inability to exert effective control over its own provinces.  When Constantinople fell in 1453, the Sultan Mehmet II repopulated it and the city quickly became the most splendid in the world - again. [/quote]
The scientific achievments of Islam is one of the most overblown aspects of history. By the 13th century Europe was far ahead in metallurgy, had developed the horse collar, and made effective use of the screw for more than carrying water up. Little of " Islamic Science" was actually theirs most of it was simply greek and Roman learning which had been saved, further it was increasingly stagnent and traped in superstition. Medicine in the West was infact held back by arab medicine, long after the superstition of astrology was expelled from the other sciences in the West it held on in medicine because of it's promonant place in Arab text. Islamic science was never more than the leavings of Greece and Rome, and it never progressed, by the 13th century European science was far ahead in most areas.

Edited May 24, 2005 by Don John of Austria

[Guest Eremite]

[quote]"Europe will return to the Faith, or she will perish. The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith."

--Hilaire Belloc[/quote]