Lucretius

There were of course some ,possibly many , deliberate acts of destruction and censorship.
I doubt that anyone can honestly contradict that this is a fact .
How much under some sort of central control is debatable,as in certain areas more "pagan" literature survived than in others .
That is a terrible thing naturally but ,I know I keep going on about this, the ignorance of what was being lost to unintentional acts such as allowing manuscripts to rot is almost as bad ,a sign of a society that does not care for knowledge or literature for its' own sake but only cares for it if it can somehow be justified as a "Glorification of (the Christian) God" .

Lógos Sokratikós

Your post, Amadeo:

Simply, a superb post.

Extacto.

Exacto.

Centrally important. Man is not a worm: Christian humanism. We owe so much to it. The rest is history... After this comes the age of revolutions, modern science, human rights, secularity...

:thumbs: :thumbs: :thumbs:

Lucretius

But why would you not want to have at least the option of deciding to read such literature, history etc and have the ability to make up your own mind how good ,bad or indifferent it was.
That seems to be far better than relying on the "editorial abilities" of some medieval priest or monk as to what you may or may not have access to hundreds of years later .

Ray Moscow

Actually, I rather like reading the hermetic and mystical stuff.

My concern -- similar to that expressed by others -- is that if theologically or politically "objectionable" works were purposefully destroyed (which probably occurred), or even just were allowed to rot away by neglect -- much valuable literature probably suffered the same fate.

And what is not "valuable" to me may well be priceless to others, sooner or later.

James Hannam

Neglect yes. But that was as true in the classical era and every other one as for the Christian era. We also know that pagans deliberately destroyed stuff they didn't like. My point is that you can't point the finger at Christians. All you can say is that some people at some point in time did not spend time copying out by hand some stuff that you and not them might find interesting.

Almost everything written by almost every civilisation before printing has been lost. The fact that some classical literature has been preserved is because Christians copied it. I think we should be grateful.

If you want an example of deliberate Christian destruction of literature, you can get in from what happened to Mayan manuscripts in the sixteenth century. In that case, a Christian priest is guilty as charged. But to make accusations, I'm afraid you need evidence. Assuming the worst of Christians just because they were Christians (which is effectively what is going on here) is not acceptable to my mind.

Best wishes

James

Roger Pearse

I agree. But that's showbiz.

99% of ancient literature is lost. Which 99% it was is largely down to chance. Works by major writers had a better chance. Works written specifically to insult those who did all the copying had a worse one. Works that 'must' survive, such as the Hortensius of Cicero -- familiar to every reader of Augustine's Confessions do not survive. Long chunks of Petronius do.

I'd like the option to read those books sitting under the sands of Egypt, unread for lack of money and time to go and look for them.

I don't believe that monks in the dark ages had any such agenda, or any means to carry it out if they had. When you're up to your arse in vikings, worrying about posterity tends to be a luxury.

It's a mistake to think in these centralised terms. Think of people, largely cut off from one another, going about their lives. What they did was determined by their immediate needs, not by ideology.

Being human beings, they were quite willing to destroy the works of their enemies. Living in an illiterate age, they couldn't tell what these were, and it didn't matter anyway. All these issues really come to a head in the early 16th century once the Spanish Inquisition sees what printing is achieving to spread Lutheranism and decides to put a stop to it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

I would prefer to see the evidence before accepting or rejecting these statements. I doubt it, myself.

The tendency is to find ourselves thinking like a man in the age of printing. If I owned a manuscript and didn't like what it said, what good did it do to burn it? There was always another. When every reader was a writer, what's the point?

Yes, people ordered such things sometimes. But no, it probably wasn't effective.

The real reason for losses is the destruction of the society that produced it. The Christians preserved far more than anyone could reasonably expect, considering their narrow needs. But this wasn't really a conscious process either.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Sarpedon

Its a presumption, based on certain evidence. The arches in question were not in Rome itself, but in one of the roman colonies in France (come to think of it, it might very well be Nimes, but I'm not exactly sure) Which would make sense, because france became the center of gothic architecture using this arch.

How do I know the reasons were aesthetic? For the same reason I conclude that romans didn't really trust concrete: They never used concrete for foundations, only above ground walls, and covered with stone when possible. It is the same with egyptians with vaulted granaries yet beamed temples: the temple building culture was conservative, while the utilitarian builders were more open to innovation. Likewise, the classical manual of architecture, that of Vitruvius, sets forth certain orthodox rules of design. Pointed arches are not included. Conservatism in art and architecture are characteristics of the classical period. The Romanesque period of the 'dark' ages was a comparative cornocopia of innovation. The early gothic period that followed it as well, before the style became the conservative style in the late gothic period.

So, perhaps there are two possibilities rather than the one I presented before: 1. The principle of the pointed arch was known but considered unaesthetic by the conservative public building culture.
2. The pointed arch was a local innovation in Roman colonies of southern france, which came to prominence once the conservative arbiters of fashion were overthrown and slain.

Roger Pearse

As I understand it, the Dark Ages serf owes his existence to the taxation policies of the Later Roman Empire. To service its army and huge bureaucracy, ever higher taxes were raised. These fell most heavily on the lower and middle classes, who could not avoid them.

The great landowners on their private estates, on the other hand, could and did, and so grew ever more wealthy while everyone else was impoverished. Any tax rebates given by the government affected only these great landowners, and did not apply to others, as Ammianus Marcellinus has Julian tell us.

Nor did taxes decrease as income did. Even the devastated provinces of Gaul when AM wrote were being assessed for taxation. In addition, the bureaucrats liked to levy additional ad-hoc taxes, no doubt because they profited from them. When the emperor Julian refused to raise such, saying that he was merely glad that the cities could pay the normal taxes considering the state that they were in, his officials drew up orders to make a levy and brought them to him for signature again, trying to force him to sign them.

The legislation of Diocletian tied many classes of artisans to their jobs, and to the job that their parents had held.

Faced with all these evils, the ordinary folk, pestered by rapacity that knew no limit, entered into arrangements with their local 'big man', and, in return for handing over their property and agreeing to serve him, would be protected from the tax-gatherers. From this serfdom grew, I am told.

I don't have the details of the ancient sources for this, so treat it with circumspection. The immense wealth of late Roman landowners is attested everywhere, including in the Fathers; the misery of everyone else likewise. The tax-exemptions on the clergy granted by Constantine were one reason why many sought to become clergymen in this period.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Amaleq13

Could you please explain what you mean by "much less advanced" here?