A description of the structure and operation of the medieval universities is essential because of the importance of these institutions for the development of Western science. The universities had emerged as a result of the transformation of society and intellectual life that had occurred in Western Europe by the twelfth century.

The highly feudalized Europe of the seventh and eighth centuries was drastically altered by the eleventh century. During the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, political conditions improved dramatically, due in no small measure to French-speaking feudal lords who brought reasonably stable governments to Normandy, England, Italy, Sicily, Spain, and Portugal. The vigor of a revitalized Europe is also evidenced by the reconquest of Spain, which was well underway by the end of the eleventh century.

With the establishment of greater security, Europe's economy revived, and the standard of living rose for all segments of society. This was occasioned by significant agricultural improvements, most notably the advent of the heavy plough, to which the horse was now harnessed instead of the ox. This substitution was made possible by the introduction of the nailed horseshoe and the collar harness, which together made horses far more effective agricultural engines than oxen. No less significant was the replacement of the two-field system of crop rotation with the three-field system, which also allowed for a major increase in food production.

Aristotle's natural books formed the basis of natural philosophy in the universities, and the way in which medieval scholars understood the structure and operation of the cosmos must be sought in those books. By his use of assumptions, demonstrated principles, and seemingly self-evident principles, Aristotle imposed a strong sense of order and coherence on an otherwise bewildering world. Aristotle's medieval disciples, who formed the class of natural philosophers during the late Middle Ages, would eventually extend Aristotle's principles to activities and problems beyond anything that the philosopher himself had considered.

Aristotle was convinced that the world he sought to understand was eternal, without beginning or end. He regarded the eternity of the world as far less problematic than any assumption of a cosmic beginning that also implied a future end to the world. It was better to postulate eternity than be forced into an explanation that required an infinite regress of causal beginnings. The idea that matter could have a beginning seemed impossible to the ancient Greeks, for if one were to arrive at some alleged pristine matter, it would inevitably lead to the question of what caused it, and so on. Without a beginning, however, the world could not have been created, and thus Aristotle's ideas about the eternity of the world set him in opposition to the theologians of the great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

During the first four centuries of Christianity, the Roman Empire was a geographical colossus, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to Persia in the east, and from Britain in the north to regions south of the Mediterranean Sea. Within this Greco-Roman world, Christianity was born and disseminated. Its birth and early development occurred in a period of vast religious change and economic upheaval. For the first two hundred years of its existence, Christianity was no more visible and noticeable than many other of the numerous mystery religions and cults that had proven attractive to people at all levels of society. The sense of comfort that pagans derived from their belief in the traditional Homeric and Roman gods of the state religions was disappearing. The new cults – for example, Isis, Mithras, Cybele, and Sol Invictus (Unconquered Sun), as well as Gnosticism and Christianity – that were replacing the traditional deities not only borrowed ideas and rituals from one another but also came to share a few basic beliefs. The world was evil and would eventually pass away. Humans, sinful by nature, could achieve never-ending bliss only if they turned away from the things of this world and cultivated those of the eternal spiritual realm. Along with practicing varying degrees of asceticism, many of the cults believed in a redeemer god who would die in order to bring eternal life after death to his faithful followers.

Because Aristotelian natural philosophy is the major emphasis in this volume, our discussion of it must necessarily encompass Aristotle's natural books (libri naturales), as described in chapter 3, and the medieval commentaries and questions on those works. The natural books of Aristotle were far from a thorough, well-rounded, coherent, and systematic description and analysis of the physical world. But in those treatises, a wealth of topics and ideas were included, and a remarkable breadth of coverage. The natural books were the best available guides for the study of the universe, which is why they served as the fundamental texts for natural philosophy in the universities of the Middle Ages. It was that natural philosophy that functioned as the world view of the Middle Ages, a world view that was embodied in a special kind of literature – the questions literature – that was peculiar to the Latin Middle Ages and to the medieval university.

THE QUESTIONS LITERATURE OF THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

The questio, or question, was the most widely and regularly used format for natural philosophy. As we saw in chapter 3, it grew out of the commentary, but it was structurally akin to the oral disputation that was such a prominent feature of medieval university education. It was actually a teaching master's written version of the questions that he presented orally in his classroom lectures.

Who created modern oenology? In his published discourse for the centenary (1980) of the Station agronomique de Bordeaux, Emile Peynaud included a photograph iconistically labeled “Professeur Jean Ribéreau-Gayon, le fondateur de l'oenologie moderne”. A summary of Ribéreau-Gayon's brilliant achievements in oenology during his long career in Bordeaux makes a convincing case. When did oenology come to Bordeaux? One obvious and solid answer is that it came in the 1870s with the arrival (1875) and rooting of Ulysse Gayon in the viticultural and university communities of the Bordelais. The paternity of Pasteur, Gayon's own oenological work, his organization of laboratories, his promotion of physiological chemistry, his forging of connections with viticulture and “agro-industry”, along with a modest acquiescence in late veneration of himself by a large number of disciple-admirers – all make the answer a reasonable one. The accompanying temptation to label this series of events as the arrival of modern oenology in Bordeaux is nearly irresistible, even if heuristic confusion is introduced by the concept of modernity.

Another reasonable approach is to postpone the arrival of modern oenology in Bordeaux until after World War I, when Jean Ribéreau-Gayon and his associate, Emile Peynaud, appear as the two major stars in the Bordelais oenological firmament. We may add a contextual judgment to Peynaud's statement on the revolutionary impact of Ribéreau-Gayon's work and methods: an institutional transformation took place in the subject when the two oenologists joined the faculty of sciences.