The Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science

I recently spent a very pleasant week reading a wonderful book called The Light Ages, by Seb Falk. The reason it took a week to read it is that I read it very slowly. I savored every paragraph and did not want it to end. It was engrossing and fascinating. And now especially during the Age of COVID-19, it was a wonderful escape. While I was reading the book I was transported back to London of the Middle Ages where Falk follows a “geek” monk, named John Westwyk, through his exploration of astronomical tables and observational instruments leading to a refinement of the astrolabe. The astrolabe is an instrument that we have all heard of, or most of us have, but we really had no idea how it worked or what it did. This book tells us that and it also illuminates the development of astronomy; the book is a powerful statement on the development of scientific principles and methods. It lifts the veil on the so-called Dark Ages (hence the title The Light Ages!).As an added bonus, Seb Falk provides a riveting narrative illustrating the development of counting methods (yes, on your fingers in a way you never imagined), instrument making, mathematics especially spherical trigonometry (don’t gag, he makes it fun!), medicine, food preparation, natural history, the manner of living wherein one can feel the cold biting into your numbed fingers in the scriptoria, and the change over from Roman numerals to Hindu-Arabic decimal system. Make the most of the time that COVID-19 has given us to take a trip back in time and see how we got to our present state of knowledge and learn how people lived!

Admittedly, I am a history/science nerd. I took a couple of courses specifically on medieval history while earning my undergraduate degree in history. I have become a big fan of Startalk and Neil DeGrasse Tyson and am spending a lot of reading time in the realm of science. Neil interviewed the author of this book on a Startalk webcast and after that, I just had to purchase the book. While the read is a little bit plodding in places, it is never anything but fascinating - at least to a history/science nerd like me. I am learning and that was my goal in buying this book.

A good introductory overview of science in the middle ages. Improvements across geography and fields of study are included, though with a particular emphasis on England and astronomy/astrology. The contributions of classical and Islamic scientists and philosophers is well-discussed. Notable highlights include readable directions for using an astrolabe and how to perform mathematical calculations on your fingers.The book is designed to be read all the way through, with chapters only vaguely divided by subject matter. The narrative wanders freely from topic to topic (for better or worse), with one chapter including commentary on crusades, compasses, and physicians. For that reason, it wouldn't serve well as a reference material, though the lengthy index might alleviate that somewhat.Another unfortunate drawback is the poor quality of the book construction; despite being a hardcover and buying directly from Amazon, the book block of my copy had come almost completely unmoored from the spine (via one of the endpages) by the time I finished reading it, something that has never happened to any other book I've owned. :(

Excellent storytelling as well as fascinating facts about that time period. I felt like I learned a lot and enjoyed the process. Highly recommend.

I think the author wanted to show the dark ages were not as dark as we thought. That in fact, a fair amount of "science" was being conducted and human knowledge was increasing. The problem, from my perspective is, his approach is primarily Eurocentric and based on monastic (i.e. religious) accomplishments. The author does mention the vast knowledge that came from the east, primarily from the Arabs; which included Persian, Indian and Chinese advancements, as well as ancient sources lost to the west. How, and how much of this knowledge, came through monastic activity is not clear.

I was fancinated by the book to discover how the natural scientists of the 14th century developed methodologies to compute very complex algorithms. Even very efficient basic arithmetic lgorithms that we have all but forgotten. We tend to be chroncentric. Nothing of any value was developed before our time. The author dispels us of that notion.

A great picture and history of science, focusing on an era of history that is usually treated dismissively when we think of people's body of knowledge aand how people of that time thought and tried to understand the world.

The book is full of facts and interesting information.

Gave as gift to partner. She loved it and won’t stop quoting/sharing the info with me. Interesting book which seems to really show we have progressed but not that much and that humans have often researched together.

It addresses all the nonsense believed about medieval learning quite successfully!I only spotted one mistake. In chapter 6. the author claims that the role of the moon for the tides was correctly understood by the population but neglected by the scholars.This is wrong, because Aquinus explained the power of the moon over the tides in a letter to a german knight called "De operationibus occultis naturae".

Excellent book, well researched. Fascinating to read. Highly recommended.

testo estremamente interessante utilissimo per chiunque desideri approfondire l'argomento, va letto con attenzione ceto la sua lettura è un pò pesante ma lo sforzo è ben ripagato.

This is an exceptional achievement for a first book, featuring some great research. It quite properly challenges the increasingly untenable notion that the Middle Ages was a period of ignorance, superstition and darkness. Of course, it is not hard to find examples of these in the medicine, technology and religious belief of the period, but the same can be said of any age including our own and, as the author points out, intolerance of religious and political belief (including burning of witches) worsened in the early modern period.The main focus is on the extraordinary life of John of Westwyck, monk, astronomer and astrologer (the distinction was much less clear then) and general polymath, who appears in the records intermittently, with the author making a highly plausible stab at filling in the gaps. Well documented are his brief education at Oxford (I was surprised how many monks were allowed to study there, even if they did not study for the full seven years) , research and duties at St. Alban’s (the richest monastery in England), his brief foray into military life as part of the Monk’s crusade and his time at Tynemouth in the wild north; monks were sometimes sent there as a punishment, but John may have welcomed the opportunity to think more deeply there.The story encompasses many aspects of Medieval life beside monasticism. It touches on medicine, philosophy, meteorology and agriculture, all of which were dependent to some extent on the clock, the calendar, seasons and, as they thought, the movement of the heavenly bodies.The book is engagingly written and well paced. It does not blind with Science, but stretches and challenges those of us who are laymen in scientific terms. I have paid the book the rare compliment of a re-reading in order to get my head round the technical aspects of the Albion. Overall, the author shows that the Middle Ages were a period of intense intellectual ferment and contributed hugely to the later, much more written about, Scientific Revolution.The book is handsomely produced and very reasonable priced.