High Middle Ages

==Science==
{{main|Science in the Middle Ages|Medieval medicine of Western Europe}}
{{further|List of medieval European scientists}}
[[File:Culture of Europe in 1250.png|thumb|270px|A map of medieval universities and major monasteries with library in 1250]]
Philosophical and scientific teaching of the [[Early Middle Ages]] was based upon few copies and commentaries of ancient Greek texts that remained in Western Europe after the collapse of the [[Western Roman Empire]]. Most of them were studied only in Latin as knowledge of Greek was very limited.

This scenario changed during the [[Renaissance of the 12th century]]. The intellectual revitalization of Europe started with the birth of [[Medieval university|medieval universities]]. The increased contact with the Islamic world in [[Al-Andalus|Spain]] and [[History of Islam in southern Italy|Sicily]] during the [[Reconquista]], and the Byzantine world and Muslim [[Levant]] during the [[Crusades]], allowed Europeans access to scientific Arabic and Greek texts, including the works of [[Aristotle]], [[Ibn al-Haytham|Alhazen]], and [[Averroes]]. The European universities aided materially in the [[Latin translations of the 12th century|translation and propagation of these texts]] and started a new infrastructure which was needed for [[science|scientific]] communities.
[[File:Hugh specs.jpg|frame|right|Detail of a portrait of Hugh de Provence (wearing [[spectacles]]), painted by [[Tommaso da Modena]] in 1352]]

At the beginning of the 13th century there were reasonably accurate Latin translations of the main works of almost all the intellectually crucial ancient authors,<ref>Franklin, J., [http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/renaissance.html "The Renaissance myth"], Quadrant 26 (11) (Nov, 1982), 51-60. (Retrieved on-line at 06-07-2007)</ref> allowing a sound transfer of scientific ideas via both the universities and the monasteries. By then, the natural science contained in these texts began to be extended by notable [[scholastics]] such as [[Robert Grosseteste]], [[Roger Bacon]], [[Albertus Magnus]] and [[Duns Scotus]]. Precursors of the modern [[scientific method]] can be seen already in Grosseteste's emphasis on mathematics as a way to understand nature, and in the empirical approach admired by Bacon, particularly in his ''[[Opus Majus]]''.

===Technology===
{{main|Medieval technology|Artes mechanicae}}

During the 12th and 13th century in Europe there was a radical change in the rate of new inventions, innovations in the ways of managing traditional means of production, and economic growth. In less than a century there were more inventions developed and applied usefully than in the previous thousand years of human history all over the globe. The period saw major [[technology|technological]] advances, including the adoption or invention of [[windmill]]s, [[watermill]]s, [[printing]] (though not yet with movable type), [[gunpowder]], the [[astrolabe]], [[glasses]], [[scissors]] of the modern shape, a better [[clock]], and greatly improved ships. The latter two advances made possible the dawn of the [[Age of Discovery]]. These inventions were influenced by foreign culture and society.

[[Alfred W. Crosby]] described some of this technological revolution in ''The Measure of Reality: Quantification in Western Europe, 1250-1600'' and other major historians of technology have also noted it.
[[File:WorldShips1460.jpg|thumb|Ships of the world in 1460, according to the [[Fra Mauro map]].]]
* The earliest written record of a [[windmill]] is from [[Yorkshire]], England, dated 1185.
* [[Paper]] manufacture began in Italy around 1270.
* The [[spinning wheel]] was brought to Europe (probably from India) in the 13th century.
* The [[magnetic compass]] aided navigation, first reaching Europe some time in the late 12th century.
* Eye [[glasses]] were invented in Italy in the late 1280s.
* The [[astrolabe]] returned to Europe via Islamic Spain.
* [[Fibonacci]] introduces [[Hindu-Arabic numerals]] to Europe with his book ''[[Liber Abaci]]'' in 1202.
* The West's oldest known depiction of a stern-mounted [[rudder]] can be found on church carvings dating to around 1180.