Greek philosopher Socrates, condemned to die by drinking hemlock, for the expression of his ideas against those of Athens' and corrupting the minds of the youth.
Following the Fall of Rome, it was the Catholic Church which gradually re-established scholarship in Western Europe. Monastic settlements were for centuries the only bastions of literacy, with Hibernian Monks among those who preserved the works Latin and Greek learning. The Church emerged in the Middle Ages as the unifying force in Europe and became the founder of its first universities, which were preceded by schools attached to monasteries and cathedrals, and generally staffed by clergymen. Convents too permitted a rare avenue for women to pursue scholarship. At this time, the Church acted as patron for some of Europe's most admired engineering achievements, in the form of Cathedral architecture; and through its internationalist outlook aided by Latin as a lingua franca, its well-integrated network of universities encouraged enquiry and produced a great variety of fine scholars and natural philosophers, including Robert Grosseteste, an early expositor of a systematic method of scientific experimentation and Saint Albert the Great, a pioneer of biological field research.
It has been common for clergymen-scholars to also work as scientists - among them Nicholaus Copernicus who placed the sun at the centre of the solar system; Gregor Mendel who observed the foundations of modern genetics; and mathematician Georges Lemaître who proposed the Big Bang Theory for the origins of the universe. Other great Catholic scientists include Roger Bacon, Nicholas Steno, Francesco Grimaldi, Giambattista Riccioli, Roger Boscovich and Athanasius Kircher. The Catholic legacy can be witnessed in the use of Latin in the scientific naming of animals and plants and in the worldwide use of the Gregorian Calendar, developed from astronomical observations funded by Pope Gregory XIII. Catholic missionaries like the Jesuits were at the vanguard of international scientific and cultural exchange as European influence extended through the Americas, Africa and Asia - in places like China they introduced modern astronomy and mathematical theory and translated local texts to be sent to Europe for study. |
