Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/433

 THE MEDIEVAL REVIVAL OF LEARNING 383 While Abelard was attending the lectures of dialecticians and theologians in different parts of northern France, a con- temporary of his with a similar name, Adelard, Adelard of of Bath, in England, became dissatisfied with Bath. : math ; ', r 1 • 1 % rr -i ematics and the wordy war of sophisms and the affected natural elocution of rhetoric" prevalent in "the schools science of Gaul," and went to the Greeks and Saracens to acquire fuller knowledge. His especial interest was in natural science and mathematics. He was one of the first translators into Latin of the Arabic versions of Greek and Oriental science and philosophy. He translated the geometry of Euclid, and he also wrote a work entitled Questions about Nature, in which he set forth the views of his Arabian masters and per- haps some discoveries of his own. In this book he justifies the study of natural science against narrow religious preju- dice. He also scolds his nephew, with whom he is repre- sented as engaged in dialogue, for excessive trust in authori- ties and tells him that reason and experiment are the best methods of reaching the truth. In trying to answer the questions about plants, animals, and other things in nature which his nephew puts to him, Adelard often makes incor- rect statements, some of which sound ridiculous to us. But sometimes he displays surprisingly correct knowledge ; as in explaining how far a stone would fall if dropped into a hole running through the center of the earth, and why water will not readily flow out of a small aperture at the bottom of a vessel which is elsewhere tightly sealed. Roger, the Norman ruler of Sicily from 1130 to 11 54, who introduced the manufacture of silk in Palermo, was especially interested in geography. He collected R g er f all the Arabian books on the subject that he Sicily and the creojr- could find and eagerly questioned travelers who raphy of came to his court and took notes on their ac- nsl counts. Finally the Arabian traveler and geographer Edrisi was given the task of combining these materials into a great work on the geography of the world. Roger told him, "I want a description of the earth made after direct observa- tion, not after books," The result was a work finished in