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

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

(A lot about eyeglasses snipped)

Well done Vincenzo- certainly without my glasses, smithing would be
.....interesting ;-) Not to mention reading recipes.. Bring the book up with
you tomorrow- I would like to see the picture..... BUT!!!!!

Get to BED!!! I'd like to see you wander in sometime before midnight, and as
it is, with an early start, I think you invented SCA time!!!

;-)

Phlip

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....

----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin G. Diehl" <mdiehl at nac.net>
To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 1:45 AM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Eyeglasses [Was: Period vegetarianism, 'Lainie
looses her cool]


> 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)
>
> From the notes,
>
> Chapter 7
>
> 4. Quoted in Lynn White, Jr., "Cultural Climates and
> Technological Advance in the Middle Ages," Viator,
> vol. II, 1971, 174.
>
> Chapter 8
>
> 19. Thorndike, "History of Magic", page 441.
>
> [snip]
>
> Vincenzo
>
> --
> Martin G. Diehl
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