CITIES AND TOWN The medieval city.pdf

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Series Foreword
the medieval city in the flight from the dangers or difficulties found in
the country, whether economic, physically threatening, or cultural. Identifying
the attraction of the city in its urbanitas, its “urbanity,” or the way
of living in a city, Pounds discusses first its origins in prehistoric and classical
Greek urban revolutions. During the Middle Ages, the city grew
primarily between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, remaining essentially
the same until the Industrial Revolution. Pounds provides chapters
on the medieval city’s planning, in terms of streets and structures;
life in the medieval city; the roles of the Church and the city government
in its operation; the development of crafts and trade in the city;
and the issues of urban health, wealth, and welfare. Concluding with
the role of the city in history, Pounds suggests that the value of the city
depended upon its balance of social classes, its need for trade and profit
to satisfy personal desires through the accumulation of wealth and its
consequent economic power, its political power as a representative body
within the kingdom, and its social role in the rise of literacy and education
and in nationalism. Indeed, the concept of a middle class, a bourgeoisie,
derives from the city—from the bourg, or “borough.” According
to Pounds, the rise of modern civilization would not have taken place
without the growth of the city in the Middle Ages and its concomitant
artistic and cultural contribution.
Medieval Science and Technology, by Elspeth Whitney, examines science
and technology from the early Middle Ages to 1500 within the context
of the classical learning that so influenced it. She looks at institutional
history, both early and late, and what was taught in the medieval schools
and, later, the universities (both of which were overseen by the Catholic
Church). Her discussion of Aristotelian natural philosophy illustrates its
impact on the medieval scientific worldview. She presents chapters on
the exact sciences, meaning mathematics, astronomy, cosmology, astrology,
statics, kinematics, dynamics, and optics; the biological and earth
sciences, meaning chemistry and alchemy, medicine, zoology, botany, geology
and meteorology, and geography; and technology. In an interpretive
conclusion, Whitney demonstrates the impact of medieval science
on the preconditions and structure that permitted the emergence of the
modern world. Most especially, technology transformed an agricultural
society into a more commercial and engine-driven society: waterpower
and inventions like the blast furnace and horizontal loom turned iron
working and cloth making into manufacturing operations. The invention