(June 22, 2015 at 10:15 am)Clueless Morgan Wrote: To what degree do you think the continued advancements in science and technology (whatever they were) in the Eastern Roman Empire had on the scientific revolution? (The Eastern empire, after all, never fell in the same way the Western empire did.) Or do you think we were in a state of a complete do-over when the scientific revolution really kicked off in the mid-sixteenth century?
Directly? Probably very little. Thanks to Theodosius the church was firmly established in the East and their attitudes to learning anything aside from their holy horseshit ( sound like modern muslims, don't they?) is well known. Further, and probably most importantly, the Eastern empire was under constant military pressure from various barbarian tribes, the Parthians and later the muslims until it finally fell in 1453. They did develop "Greek Fire" as a sort of naval flamethrower that was instrumental in defeating several muslims naval threats. Because of its location Constantinople could not be successfully besieged without control of the sea. Gunpowder seems to have come to a wall-shattering surprise to them, though.
