Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century

Money, Market Exchange, and the Emergence of Scientific Thought

Joel Kaye author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:12th Feb '98

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Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century cover

A brilliant study of proto-scientific thought, arguing that the transformation of the conceptual model of the natural world c.1260–1380 was strongly influenced by rapid monetisation in European society.This book provides perspectives on the ways in which scholastic natural philosophy anticipated and contributed to the emergence of scientific thought. Historians of medieval science have hesitated to step outside the sphere of intellectual culture in their search for factors influencing proto-scientific thought. This book searches for influences both within and beyond university culture, and argues that the transformation of the conceptual model of the natural world c.1260–1380 was strongly influenced by the contemporary rapid monetisation of European society. It analyses the impact of the monetised market place on the most characteristic concern of natural philosophy of the period: its preoccupation with measurement, gradation, and the quantification of qualities.

'Medievalists have neglected the history of ideas in our generation, but this study shows how it should be revived and practiced.' John W. Baldwin, The American Historical Review

  • Winner of John Nicholas Brown Prize.

ISBN: 9780521572767

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 17mm

Weight: 550g

286 pages