The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science
The monk Bede, writing in the year 731, knew that the Earth was round, that seasons changed with latitude and that tides swung with the moon’s phases.
Max Adams • The King in the North
Mass production of books ended the Church’s monopoly on Scripture and information, wider book availability increased literacy, more people could contribute thoughts on important subjects, and it threatened the church’s monopoly on theology and information.
James Dale Davidson • The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State
This paradox of comprehension was articulated explicitly by a great physicist of an earlier age: “Sir Isaac Newton, when asked what he thought of the infatuations of the people, answered that he could calculate the motions of erratic bodies, but not the madness of a multitude” (quoted from The Church of England Quarterly Review, 1850).