Science, both as a practice and as a way of knowing the natural world, is of recent creation. For six centuries before the creation of science, nature was explored and discussed in Christian Europe within the discipline known as 'natural philosophy', a God-oriented discipline. The present book investigates the origin of two versions of 'natural philosophy', those created by two of the Orders of friars, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, in the early thirteenth century. It also argues that these natural philosophies were both created to help meet specific religio-political needs of the thirteenth-century Catholic Church. The famous medieval conflict between 'science' and 'religion' is in fact a construct of the nineteenth century. The medieval discipline of natural philosophy, by contrast, was one in which nature was explored in the cause of defending Roman Catholicism - fighting heresy and promoting lay spirituality. - [Publisher]

Includes discussion of the works of Albertus Magnus, Aristotle, Avicenna, Roger Bacon, Bartholomeus Anglicus, Alexander Neckam, Pliny, Augustine, Dominic, Francis, Thomas of Cantimpre, Vincent of Beauvais, and others.

298 p., illustrations, bibliography, index.

Language: English

ISBN: 1-85928-287-3; LCCN: 95047878; LC: B738N3F741996; DDC: 261.5'5'0902