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Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen
And the terrible irony is that some of the western tradition's greatest preservers of knowledge and literature were these guys:
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CCIP
In fact, much of what we know about ancient Greek philosophy in particular comes from the preservation work of Islamic (and also Jewish) scholars. It wasn't a hot topic in much of medieval Europe.
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They might have done a good job in preserving ancient knowledge, but they did a terrible job in spreading the knowledge outside their own club.
Knowledge that is conserved but not shared is stale, dead knowledge.
Last but not least they actively prosecuted old knowledge (e.g. herbal healers outside of monasteries as witches) as well as new knowledge (e.g. Galilei as one of the most prominent examples)
Universities however are a two sided sword, many were found/influenced by the state and church - no big separation here. However imo they really started rolling when they got more autonomy and the church put less pressure and control on them.