[Sca-cooks] Eyeglasses [Was: Period vegetarianism, 'Lainie looses her cool]

[Martin G. Diehl]

Kirsten Houseknecht wrote:
>
> not being vegetarian. i can't say for certain ... but
> in my opinion i think it is like the glasses issue.
>
> i wear glasses.  they are NOT period.

Sorry.  Not True.

At Pennsic XXX, I offered 8 classes (4 topics, twice
each).  One of those was titled "Machines, Technology
and Change -- Ancient through Medieval."

Among the references I used for that class was "Medieval
Machine: the Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages",
by Jean Gimpel, 1976, pub. Penguin, ISBN 0-14-004514-7.

Although the book does not have a bibliography, there
are 225 notes which reference about 120 other
scholarly works.

On the subject of eyeglasses ...

In chapter 7, the author writes of "the spirit of
inventiveness"  ...

"The spirit of inventiveness that accompanied this
outlook was only possible because medieval society
believed in progress, a concept unknown by the
classical world.  Medieval men refused to be tied
down by tradition.  As Gilbert de Tournai wrote:
"Never will we find truth if we content ourselves
with what is already known . . . These things that
have been written before us are not laws but guides.
The truth is open to all, for it is not totally
possessed.  And Bernard, Master of the episcopal
school at Chartres from 1114 to 1118, said "We are
as dwarfs mounted on the shoulders of giants, so
that although we perceive many more things than
they, it is not because our vision is more piercing
or our stature higher, but because we are carried
and elevated higher thanks to their gigantic size."

... and on page 149,

"A sermon in 1306 given at Santa Maria Novella in
Florence by the Dominican Fra Giordano of Pisa sang
the praises of the recent invention of Eyeglasses.
Fra Giordano said:

	Not all of the arts have been found; we shall
	never see an end of finding them.  Every day
	one could discover a new art . . . . It is not
	twenty years since there was discovered the
	art of making spectacles which help one to see
	well, an art which is one of the best and most
	necessary in the world.  And that is such a
	short time ago that a new art which never
	before existed was invented . . . . I myself
	saw the man who discovered and practiced it
	and I talked with him.  [note 4 of chapter 7]

... then in chapter 8 ...

... beginning on page 183,

"A single name, roger Bacon (c. 1214 - 92), has
invariably been associated with the origins of
experimental science at Oxford University.  He was
thought to be a unique genius, a man on his own,
a man ahead of his time.  ... the last half-century
of research ny historians has demonstrated that
however remarkable Bacon was, and there is no
question of his genius, he was, in many ways only
a follower.  The man who was Bacon's Master was
Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175 - 1253).

...

He believed that it was impossible to understand
the physical world without mathematics, an opinion
based on his metaphysical conception of reality.  He
held light to be the first corporal form, believing
that the characteristic property of light was its
ability to propagate in straight lines in all
directions without loss of substance, and that in
this way light had generated the universe.

...

On these grounds, Grosseteste believed that the
study of optics was the key to understanding the
physical world.

The study of optics led Grosseteste to suggest the
use of lenses for the purpose of magnification:

	For this branch of Perspective thoroughly
	known shows us how to make things very far
	off seem very close at hand ... so that it
	is possible for us to read the smallest
	letters at an incredible distance, or ...
	(note 19 of chapter 7)

...

(additional commentary and references on the
development of magnifying lenses follows)

On page 184, a picture, "The earliest known
illustration of a reader wearing spectacles"

(no date given in the book, sorry)