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Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus · 06-19-2004, 01:59 PM

WHAT INVENTIONS AND/OR DISCOVERIES IN YOUR MIND CHANGED HISTORY, TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION THAT I MUST LIMIT ALL THE IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES/INVENTIONS TO 5 SO PLEASE COMMENT ON SOME ADDITIONAL ONES YOU FEEL SHOULD BE ADDED. 
 
Now to clear up any confusion on selections 
 
First, the automobile and airplane I chose to leave in one catagory because of the changes in transportation and warfare it caused. 
 
Then, the discoveries of the industrial revolution would include coal and steel. 
 
Finally, the telephone-internet-computer I had to all squeeze into one choice. The telephone and internet revolutionized communication so they were an obvious choice, and the computer was one of the most important inventions because of its cappacity to improve speed of getting things done. The computer int he 20th century was like the printing press in the 15th century. 
 
 
<FORM method=post action="http://p200.ezboard.com/fromanarmytalkfrm2.processVote?topicID=875.topic"><table border=0 cellpadding=3 cellspacing=0 width="55%"><tbody><tr><td><input type="radio" name="choice" value="1">15th century- printing press</td></tr><tr><td><input type="radio" name="choice" value="2">20th century- automobile/airplane</td></tr><tr><td><input type="radio" name="choice" value="3">19th century- electricity</td></tr><tr><td><input type="radio" name="choice" value="4">18th-19th century- discoveries of industrial revolution</td></tr><tr><td><input type="radio" name="choice" value="5">19th-20th century- telephone/internet/computer</td></tr></tbody></table><input type=submit value="Vote"></form><a HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/fromanarmytalkfrm2.showMessage?topicID=875.topic&pollResults=on>Show results</A> THERE IS NO VICTORY WITHOUT DEFEAT, AND THERE IS NO DEFEAT WITHOUT VICTORY

Goffredo · 06-19-2004, 04:12 PM

Well limiting ourselves to this limited list there is no doubt in my mind. The printing press wins hands down. 
 
The ease with which information could get OUT and AROUND, beyond the reach of proximate control and breaching provinciality, ultimately made all the others more probable. 
 
I mean MAYBE the other inventions, or similar ones, could have occurred inside the small, exclusive, self-referential and static aristocatic societies, amoung the bright lucky few that knew how to read and write before the print press spread the word. Maybe.... but then maybe NOT! Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=goffredo>goffredo</A> at: 6/20/04 3:40 pm

**Robert Vermaat** · 06-20-2004, 06:48 AM

Yep, printing press it is. The rest has to do with scale, but the press was at the basis of 'em all. Maybe if you had offered the choice of the invention of script or the wheel I'd gone for these, but post-renaissance, it's the press. 
 
Valete, 
Valerius/Robert

06-21-2004, 09:22 PM

Printing Press. And yes I'm biased cause I'm an Artist! So there 
 
But seriously, I do think the Press was a most important invention, opening hidden doors in the ways of literacy, knowledge and spreading of information of all types. First starting with religion (the Bible), but then seeing the advances in both literary works and illustrations, it opened the way for all peoples to afford and enjoy and enrich themselves with all manners of subjects and interests. 
 
I think the printing press/movable type in Europe had about the same kind of impact and suddent success that cellphones, internet, and PDA's have today, that's of course a generalized analogy, but you get the idea -ANDY aka "Roman Dude" Svaviter in Modo, Fortiter in Re 
 
www.higgins.org

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus · 06-22-2004, 04:07 PM

The reason I neglected to use the invention/discovery of the script and the wheel is that it would have counted out too many inventions, being that the basis for them would have been through the script or the wheel. THERE IS NO VICTORY WITHOUT DEFEAT, AND THERE IS NO DEFEAT WITHOUT VICTORY

Thiudareiks Flavius · 06-23-2004, 02:31 AM

Robert wrote: 
 
Quote:<hr> ... post-renaissance, it's the press.<hr> 
 
"Post-Renaissance"? Invented in 1450 AD, as a result of medieval market forces which had been trying to tackle the cheap/mass production of books by other means for centuries, responding to a growing medieval non-clerical literate class of readers (and consumers) and a result of the late medieval tendancy towards mechanisation, the printing press is a decidely and definitely a medieval invention by every possible definition. 
 
Unless, of course, you subscribe to the (il)logic of shifting the dates of the so-called "Renaissance" around so it encompasses any medieval development that can't be reconciled with a so-called "dark age". I've seen people claim Chaucer and even Dante as Renaissance poets and argue that Giotto was "really" a "Renaissance artist. 
 
Don't get me wrong - most Renaissance architecture and nearly all Renaissance art was truly revolutionary and excellent. But let's give the Middle Ages their due, please. They suffer from that out-dated and erroneous "dark age" myth enough already. 
Cheers, Tim O'Neill / Thiudareiks Flavius 
 
Visit 'Clades Variana' - Home of the Varus Film Project 
 
Help create the film of Publius Quinctilius Varus' lost legions. 
 
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**Robert Vermaat** · 06-23-2004, 11:28 AM

Hi Tim 
 
Quote:<hr>[..] the printing press is a decidely and definitely a medieval invention by every possible definition.<hr> 
I disagree. The printing press belongs to a milieu in which there was the ability to spread information and ideas. |Depending on the region and the time, this belongs far better in a Renaissance (or after) environment than in Medieval times. The time was just not right then, and the Church would have stifled it. 
 
Quote:<hr>Unless, of course, you subscribe to the (il)logic of shifting the dates of the so-called "Renaissance" around <hr> 
No illogic here, Tim. As a rule in history and archaeology, the period which we can 'Renaissance' (or 'Bronze Age' for that matter) depends on artefacts and writing and so on, and is different for each region. Therefore it is accepted that the Renaissance started earlier in Italy than it did in England. 
 
Valete, 
Valerius/Robert (historian)

Thiudareiks Flavius · 06-24-2004, 08:35 AM

Robert wrote: 
 
Quote:<hr> ... the printing press is a decidely and definitely a medieval invention by every possible definition. 
 
I disagree. The printing press belongs to a milieu in which there was the ability to spread information and ideas.<hr> 
 
You mean like the spread of ideas of all kinds via the vast network of scholarship provided by the medieval Church, reaching from Greenland in the west well into the Far East? Or the cross-fertilisation of ideas provided by another of Medieval Europe's gifts to the world - the university - which explored concepts and information far beyond the confines of Church doctrine? Or the spread of ideas in the medieval secular world which created a large literate lay audience, a thriving book trade and a potential market that Gutenberg sought to tap into with his invention? 
 
Information and ideas, via books and institutions of learning, and their free exchange, were a key aspect of medieval culture - a culture which revered learning, treasured books and created some of Western cultures most enduring intellectual traditions and institutions. It was this culture that demanded a way to mass produce books. It was in response to this demand that Gutenberg experimented with and invented his press. 
 
Quote:<hr>Depending on the region and the time, this belongs far better in a Renaissance (or after) environment than in Medieval times.<hr> 
 
See above. The printing press was a response to a long-standing medieval tradition of learning, dissemination of ideas and reverence for books. It was this tradition which created Gutenberg's market. It was this tradition which had driven earlier, less-successful, medieval attempts to mass produce books to meet this demand. 
 
Quote:<hr>The time was just not right then, and the Church would have stifled it.<hr> 
 
Whenever I have these discussions about the myth that the Middle Ages were a 'dark age' where the Church controlled all information and "stifled" technology, I ask people to give me examples of technology that was "stifled" by the Church. To date, no-one has been able to. Gutenberg was a Catholic, operated his business in a Catholic country and his first book was a Bible. Far from "stifling" his invention and its sonsequences, they were embraced by the Church. Churchmen and religious scholars were not just his first customers, they were his main customers. 
 
And this would have been every bit as much the case if he'd invented it in the Fourteenth, Thirteenth, Twelfth or Eleventh Centuries. Of all the many important technical inventions of the Middle Ages (windmills, eye glasses, clocks etc) most were either (i) invented by Churchmen or (ii) propagated and embraced by them. The demand for a cheaper and easier way to copy books had been around for centuries. When Gutenberg found a way to do it, both it and its products were eagerly embraced by the Church. 
 
Quote:<hr>Unless, of course, you subscribe to the (il)logic of shifting the dates of the so-called "Renaissance" around. 
 
No illogic here, Tim. As a rule in history and archaeology, the period which we can 'Renaissance' (or 'Bronze Age' for that matter) depends on artefacts and writing and so on, and is different for each region. Therefore it is accepted that the Renaissance started earlier in Italy than it did in England.<hr> 
 
So printing presses are a "Renaissance" artefact because it represents a "Renaissance" idea (dissemination of information) which is not a "Medieval" idea? So when medieval scholars were trying to mass produce books in the Thirteenth Century, or were travelling to Sicily and Spain to seek out lost ancient knowledge in the Twelfth Century, does this make these periods "the Renaissance" as well? Or was it only in the locality of these activities? Was there an aura of "Renaissancehood" which surrounded a medieval scholar who was disseminating ideas at a certain distance, while the rest of Europe around him was "Medieval"? Is the invention of eye glasses to prolong a scholar's working life to help him disseminate ideas make that a "Renaissance" invention as well? How far back can this rubbery definition of "Renaissance" be stretched exactly? 
Cheers, 
Tim O'Neill / Thiudareiks Flavius 
 
Visit 'Clades Variana' - Home of the Varus Film Project 
 
Help create the film of Publius Quinctilius Varus' lost legions. 
 
Come to my [url=http://www.ancientworlds.net/member/Gunthigg/Thiudareiks" target="top]Stathigg[/url] in [url=http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/City/23413" target="top]Germania[/url] at the [url=http://www.ancientworlds.net/" target="top]Ancient Worlds[/url] community.

**Robert Vermaat** · 06-24-2004, 01:53 PM

Quote:<hr>Information and ideas, via books and institutions of learning, and their free exchange, were a key aspect of medieval culture <hr> 
I don't have a clue what you are talking about. This is not about calling the Medieval period a dark age or critisicing the Church. The medieval period stretches from about 500 to about 1500 (scholars like to disagree), but for the first centuries, maybe even the first millenium, medieval culture was not quite about free exchange of ideas, books and learning. Maybe the latter centuries of the Medieval period looked more like that, but most of the medieval period, regional strife, dynastic conflict, war and weapons were the key aspects of medieval culture. 
 
Quote:<hr>I ask people to give me examples of technology that was "stifled" by the Church. <hr> 
Oh, that's easy - how about medicine? The Church outlawed the study of the human body, and the excellent levels of medic knowledge as we find it in Roman times is completely lost for centuries because of the Church. 
 
Tim, this is not about windmills or that sort of technology, but about the freedom to study and publish ideas freely. Please don't tell me you think that the medieval church did not stifle that. They did it until quite recently. No, I'm not blackening the Church and churchmen, they did great things, but I think your concept of the Medieval period is somewhat based on unfounded ideas. 
Why did we only get access to Greek and Roman ideas and inventions through the Muslim world, who did keep and use this knowledge whereas it was gone, yes stifled! in the west? 
 
Of course Johannes Gutenberg (we like to think that Lourens Jansz. Koster was the first in 1446, Jan Brito van Doornik shortly after him, and only in 1450 Gutenberg surpassed them) was a Catholic, how else would this have been possible? 
But think about this - Gutenberg's Bible was in Latin. Why? Because the Church officially did not allow mass translations for laymen to use. 
 
In the 1380s, John Wycliffe produced dozens of English language manuscript copies of the scriptures. They were translated out of the Latin Vulgate, which was the only source text available to Wycliffe. The Pope was so infuriated by his teachings and his translation of the Bible into English, that 44 years after Wycliffe had died, he ordered the bones to be dug-up, crushed, and scattered in the river! One of WycliffeÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s followers, John Hus, actively promoted WycliffeÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s ideas: that people should be permitted to read the Bible in their own language, and they should oppose the tyranny of the Roman church that threatened anyone possessing a non-Latin Bible with execution. Hus was burned at the stake in 1415, with WycliffeÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s manuscript Bibles used as kindling for the fire. 
In 1525 and 1526, William Tyndale completed an English translation of the 1519 and 1522 editions of the Erasmus Greek New Testament. It is thought that some 6000 copies were made of Tyndale's Bible but were destroyed because of official opposition to it. They were burned as soon as the Bishop could confiscate them, but copies trickled through and actually ended up in the bedroom of King Henry VIII. The more the King and Bishop resisted its distribution, the more fascinated the public at large became. The church declared it contained thousands of errors as they torched hundreds of New Testaments confiscated by the clergy, while in fact, they burned them because they could find no errors at all. One risked death by burning if caught in mere possession of Tyndale's forbidden books. 
Only two copies are known today. 
 
The printing press was indeed invented when it was because of a demand of printed texts. But to the Church, and many worldly leaders as well, this was quite unwanted. Rebel ideas were spread as well throught he printing press - a bit like modern email and the internet bring 'unwanted' ideas to the people of oppressed countires. So please don't sell me that 'progressive medieval Church' stuff, for it is not correct. Universities were no lighting source of free learning either, because, like all the rest of society, the of course fell under the sway of King and Church. 
 
Btw, for the US citizens among us: the first Bible printed in America was in the native Algonquin Indian Language by John Eliot in 1663; the first English language Bible printed in America was a King James version by Robert Aitken in 1782! 
 
Quote:<hr>So printing presses are a "Renaissance" artefact because it represents a "Renaissance" idea (dissemination of information) which is not a "Medieval" idea?<hr> 
Nope, but this is not what I was talking about at all. No, Tim, I was talking about the accepted fact that periods are fluid, and that according to the agreed limits, such periods start earlier in one area, and later in others. No mystery there. 
Fyi, the Renaissance is a period which is defined by development in the arts, not scholarship, book producing or such. It was about new thought amongst painters, sculptors and musicians, and it started in Italy. If you don't believe me, I suggest you look it up in an encyclopedia. 
 
Valete, 
Valerius/Robert 
 
Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=vortigernstudies>Vortigern Studies</A> at: 6/24/04 4:14 pm

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