When knowledge “left the cloister”

 May 26, 2022

To follow the twisty Zen-koan solution of the post previous in a more settled vein, I quote Bertrand Russell from his History of Western Philosophy. The importance of the moment when Western knowledge “left the cloisters” of monasteries and the Church writ large, and re-entered the secular world, is perhaps one of the most important moments in intellectual history. Without it, there would still be a Dark Ages, and the world would be more cruel and barbarous. 

During the fifteenth century, various other causes were added to the decline of the papacy to produce a very rapid change, both political and cultural. Gunpowder strengthened central governments at the expense of the feudal nobility. In France and England, Louis XI and Edward IV allied themselves with the rich middle class, who helped them quell aristocratic anarchy. Italy, until the last years of the century, was fairly free from Northern armies, and advanced rapidly both in wealth and culture. The new culture was essentially pagan, admiring Greece and Rome, and despising the Middle Ages. Architecture and literary style were adapted to ancient models. When Constantinople, the last survival of antiquity, was captured by the Turks, Greek refugees in Italy were welcomed by humanists. Vasco da Gama and Columbus enlarged the world, and Copernicus enlarged the heavens. The Donation of Constantine was rejected as a fable, and overwhelmed with scholarly derision. By the help of the Byzantines, Plato came to be known, not only in Neoplatonic and Augustinian versions, but at first hand. This sublunary sphere, appeared no longer as a vale of tears, a place of painful pilgrimage to another world, but as affording opportunity for pagan delights, for fame and beauty and adventure. The long centuries of asceticism were forgotten in a riot of art and poetry and pleasure. Even in Italy, it is true, the Middle Ages did not die without a struggle; Savonarola and Leonardo were born in the same year. But in the main the old terrors had ceased to be terrifying, and the new liberty of the spirit was found intoxicating. The intoxication could not last, but for the moment it shut out fear. In this moment of joyful liberation the modern world was born. 

Bertrand Russell, The History of Western Philosophy, “The Eclipse of the Papacy”, p. 486-487

If knowledge was never secular, there would have been no Renaissance or Enlightenment, but because of it we have a measure of liberty, peace, and culture unknown to the medievals.