Association for Renaissance Martial Arts. James Franklin: The Renaissance Myth. James Franklin ( Quadrant 26 (11) (Nov. 1982), 51-60) (In Polish) THE HISTORY OF IDEAS is full of more tall stories than most other departments of history. Here are three which manage to combine initial implausibility with impregnability to refutation: that in the Middle Ages it was believed that the world was flat; that medieval philosophers debated as to how many angels could dance on the head of a pin; that Galileo revolutionised physics by dropping weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. None of these stories is true, and no competent historian has asserted any of them, but none shows any sign of disappearing from the public consciousness.
The first of these is easily refuted. The best known work of medieval thought, both in its own time and now, is Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica. Giotto's coretti: Arena Chapel, Padua. The walnut signifies Christ, the sweet kernel is His divine nature, the green and pulpy outer peel is His humanity, the wooden shell between is the Cross ... Church Hierarchy in the Late Middle Ages. This site is Dr. Knox's online course on the Late Middle Ages. This upper-division college course covers the history of Europe from 1300 to the beginning of the Reformation (1517), a period that is often called "the Renaissance. " This course concentrates on social, political and economic history, leaving the visual and literary arts to other disciplines on campus; it does, however, consider the Renaissance as a general cultural movement. It also looks at the demographic crises of the period, the Hundred Years War, the challenges to the Catholic Church, and the national histories of England, France, the Empire, and Italy.
While the site was designed specifically as an online course, it is open to everyone and anyone to read. Visitors will find the same information organized specifically for them in the Visitor Center, while my current students should go to the Classroom. Visitor Center Classroom Other courses by Knox History of Western Civilization to 1648 The Crusades The Reformation. The Meister Eckhart Site - Works by Meister Eckhart, study material, on-line resources.