Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Reverse Engineering: c. 800

These same Greek envoys brought with them every kind of organ, as well as other instruments of various kinds. All of these were secretly inspected by the workmen of the most wise Charles, and then exactly reproduced.
--From Two Lives of Charlemagne--

Teachers are helpful, but all you really need is a good example and some motivation.

3 comments:

chickelit said...

So do we credit the Franks with preserving certain Hellenic technology?

What exactly?

Jason (the commenter) said...

What exactly?

I would guess exactly nothing. The next part of the texts says that the copies were eventually destroyed. The author didn't go into detail, but he alluded to something bad happening. I can only guess a military disaster.

However, we probably can credit the Franks with keeping the Moslems out of Europe, with keeping the Pope strong (and later able to act as a check upon absolute rulers), and with helping to preserve the classical tradition.

Julia Ionov said...

I agree with every word you said. What's the use of good teachers if you yourself don't know what to do to improve yourself? If you're not helping yourself?
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