Renaissance of the 12th century

The Renaissance of the 12th century was a period of the High Middle Ages, which was marked by great changes of social, political and economic nature. This was accompanied by an rooted in philosophy and the sciences intellectual revival of Europe. These changes paved the way for the actual Renaissance in Italy began in the 14th century.

Conceptual history

The medievalist Charles Homer Haskins was the first historian who at length about a "renaissance " wrote, which began in 1070 and ushered in the High Middle Ages. In 1927 he wrote:

The Renaissance of the 12th century

Economy

In Northern Europe, was founded in the 12th century in connection with the founding of Lübeck, the Hanseatic League. Many cities within the Holy Roman Empire, such as Hamburg, Stettin, Bremen and Rostock, but also outside, such as Bruges and Danzig became Hanseatic cities. At the same time, the Germans began with the eastern settlement, emerged from the later Prussia and Silesia.

Science

The philosophical and scientific teachings of the early Middle Ages were essentially based on a few copies of ancient Greek texts, together with comments that were left after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in Western Europe. Europe had largely lost the connection to the knowledge of antiquity. This changed during the Renaissance of the 12th century. The increasing contact with the Islamic world in Andalusia and Sicily, as well as the Crusades and Reconquista on the one hand, with Byzantium on the other hand, gave the Europeans also have access to the works of Greek and Arabic philosophers and scientists like Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, Plotinus, Avicenna and others. The emergence of universities promoted the translation and dissemination of these texts.

Towards the beginning of the 13th century were a reasonably accurate Latin translations of the major works in front of almost all significant intellectual authors of antiquity. This came about as a reliable exchange of scientific ideas, which was done by both universities and monasteries. At this time extended scholastics such as Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus and Duns Scotus, the scientific knowledge of these texts. Big test use of mathematics as a way to understand the nature can already be considered as a precursor of scientific methodology.