Reply #161: Yet the East managed to preserve [View All]

[okasha]

the classical knowledge that the Arabs would later reintroduce to the west; mathematics went forward; so did engineering/mechanics--some of it large scale (Hagia Sophia) some of it small and rather spectacular, like the mechanical birds--and medicine. Then there was Greek fire, which represented the application of both chemistry and physics to warfare. Most of this occurred later than the period you mention, and none of it was squelched by the church.

The difference, of course, is that the East managed to fend off the invading tribes of the Migration Era, whereas the west was overrun. Invasions of western Europe persisted over six or seven centuries and pretty much disrupted what the region could string together of civilization. There were actually only two or three centuries between the last of the Viking raids and the first stirrings of the renaissance. Once the raids stopped, Western Europe got itself back together fairly rapidly.