The Changing View of Man, The Cosmos and His Place

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Throughout the middle ages, people have viewed the cosmos as a basis for the social order here on Earth. The celestial layers were representations of the medieval society and the church. The hierarchy of the Kings and Pope over their subjects was justified by the hierarchy of the heavenly bodies; it was considered natural and no one questioned it because it has been like that for so long. Medieval life was centered on God, abiding by the doctrines of the Catholic Church, and the strengthening of faith.

Arts and literature in the medieval age featured divine and supernatural beings that promoted the power and influence of the church. Spiritual and religious themes were constantly the subject of paintings, sculptures, and literary works. However, the same artists who were commission by the church would later pave the way for change in the how society looked at the world around them and just about everything that was thought to be fixed and stable.

The long established order of the church and the medieval society will gradually crumble due to man’s growing curiosity and thirst for learning that started when the Europeans recovered the ancient texts of the Greeks from the Arabs. Suddenly, math and science were very important to the great scholars who were slowly braking away from Aristotelian thinking as they searched for actual proof and explanations on how the world operated. However, education back then was exclusive to the royal family and wealthy, so the only way ordinary people could gain access to learning was to become a priest or a member of the church. One of those men was Roger Bacon, a Franciscan Friar, who was a tireless campaigner for both mathematics and experimental science (Wertheim, ch.2, pg.50). He urged the...

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...uly understands what is actually written in the Bible.

In the Renaissance, society’s attention shifted from religious to secular. What had started as search for God by the Christian philosophers became something much more with their thirst for curiosity. Together with the arrival of the Greek manuscripts which held so much precious information, interest in Mathematics and Sciences skyrocketed. Much of this change was possible due to the perspective painters who gave people a whole new method of observing the world. People became more open and accepting to fresh ideas which led to new discoveries and technology. A broadened outlook enabled the European community to branch out from the ancient way of life which moved them forward. Literature, science along with the visual arts showcased humanistic values and individualism, collectively impacting the separate subjects.

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