Book review screenshot:
In The Light Ages, Seb Falk weaves a richly textured tapestry of medieval science, and a surprising one to boot, revealing the efforts of John Westwyk (d. before 1401), a Benedictine monk. With narrative brio, the author pulls together diverse threads, covering topics from
simple arithmetic to spherical trigonometry; from astronomy and medicine to astrology, magic, and bestiaries; from transcultural knowledge production to the Crusades; from English
monastic life to the vibrant university culture of Oxford and the buzzing streets of London.
The story starts with a Middle English treatise, the Equatorie of the Planetis, which
describes the construction and use of an astronomical instrument called the equatorium. Falk
sees in its author, John Westwyk, “the perfect guide to the story of medieval science” (11),
and so we first follow this monk from his presumed birthplace of Westwick (also known
as Gorham) to the nearby abbey of St. Albans. He took his vows in the 1370s and may have
attended the University of Oxford—at least, his advanced astronomical learning suggests as
much. The first definitive record of his life is from about 1379, when Westwyk copied and
annotated two astronomical treatises by Richard of Wallingford. By 1380, Westwyk had left
the abbey for Tynemouth Priory, and he joined Henry Despenser’s crusade in Flanders in
1383. We have no further records until 1393, when he wrote the Equatorie in London. Falk
impressively masters the feat of reconstructing a captivating story from very few sources and
using it as a vehicle to transport us into the world of medieval science.
As we follow Westwyk through his life, Falk explains mathematical, scientific, and techni-
cal details of medieval science and instrument-making—be it the “Russian peasant method”
of multiplication, astronomical trajectories on a sphere, or the mechanical details of the
equatorium—with admirable clarity and always in their context, enlivening his account with
historical anecdotes. At the same time, we are asked to reflect on our own presuppositions
about “science,” and the subtitle of the North American edition, “The Surprising Story of
Medieval Science,” immediately reveals the book’s framing: medieval science is “surprising”
against the widespread belief that the Middle Ages were “dark ages” as far as scientific
knowledge is concerned. The author hopes his readers will come to recognize “the family
resemblances between the activities described in this book and their descendants in modern
science” even though “much has changed in motivations, methods and language” (9).
Falk elicits this recognition by attending throughout to the sequence in which he introduces
medieval science and to the reader’s probable reactions. At the beginning of the book, we see
that the medieval astronomical treatises and instruments dealt very satisfactorily with problems
of the period, whether in agriculture at the Westwick manor or monastic life at St. Albans; later,
we learn that a network of scholars from all over Europe and the Mediterranean had contrib-
uted to these theories and practices from antiquity through to Westwyk’s times. From both their
empirical content and their theoretical sophistication, therefore, readers can conclude for them-
selves that astronomy and astronomical instrument-making were plausibly “scientific”—
without needing the author to spell out necessary and sufficient conditions of “scientific”
or “science.” This allows Falk to make his case convincingly through first-order descriptions,
without having to introduce complicated second-order reflections about the analytic concepts
employed.
Yet there are some limitations to this strategy. For example, what about the “scientific”
status of astrology, magic, and bestiaries? Perhaps Falk believes that his readers will have
shed enough of their prejudices by the time they encounter such borderline cases to be more
generous about these sciences as well. However, such an approach risks neglecting the epis-
temological dimension of calling a historical theory or practice “scientific,” which after all is
not merely a matter of recognizing a family resemblance with today’s sciences, but also connotes what “scientific knowledge” is, or could have been. Indeed, when Falk says that “understanding the history of scientific ideas in their proper context” makes us “appreciate that science
does not progress in a constant straight line” (9), he himself seems to assume a much tighter connection between science simpliciter and medieval science than a mere family resemblance.
Drawing connections based on a historicized epistemological concept of scientific knowledge would have strengthened the author’s point, and thirteenth- and fourteenth-century philosophical discussions about scientia, which could have fitted neatly into Falk’s portrayal of uni-
versity learning in chapter 3, would have offered an excellent path in. Medieval philosophers explored epistemological problems in great depth (for example in their commentaries on Aristotle’s works), and historians of medieval philosophy have reconstructed some such medieval theories of knowledge. This might have made the “story of medieval science” even more “surprising,” first, because our recognition of medieval science as such could be based on more robust epistemological criteria, and second, because the resulting story could further historicize our existing intuitions on science and scientific knowledge. Nevertheless, Falk’s study is itself already a powerful contribution to rehabilitating a neglected episode in the history of science. Although the book primarily addresses a nonspecialist audience, it can certainly be recommended to medievalists and historians of science as well. Medievalists outside the history of science will find it an excellent introduction to the science of the period, while historians of science—especially those interested in medieval astronomy—will benefit greatly from Falk’s fascinating story, which also invites us to explore the Equatorie and its context in much more detail.
I've just stumbled across this 2023 review of #TheLightAges in "Speculum", one of the foremost medieval journals. Thanks to Dominic Dold for his careful reading & generous assessment.
doi.org/10.1086/722949
