The Scientific Revolution and Feudalism

The Scientific Revolution

During the Middle Ages, Christian thought saw the divine intervention in the world as total and, therefore, as the proximate cause of any phenomenon. For example, rain was explained by the will of God and not by the condensation of clouds. In exchange for humans, God had created the world, but could also establish cause and effect in which his intervention was unnecessary.

Concerns about finding explanations for the root causes of phenomena brought a renewed interest in understanding the place of Earth within the universe. Up to that time, a geocentric interpretation predominated, meaning that the Earth was considered to be motionless in the center of the universe and all the stars revolved around it. In 1543, the astronomer Nicolas Copernicus argued that it was the sun that was at the center of the planetary system. He also postulated that the Earth revolved once a day on its axis and performed a translation movement around the sun after a year. This explanation led to the heliocentric theory, which was later refined and distributed by Kepler and Galileo Galilei.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Galileo Galilei returned to Copernicus's theory, asserting that the Earth was round and revolved around the sun, basing his claims on observations made through the telescope. The Church was afraid of this opinion that questioned its vision of the world and, therefore, threatened him with death. To avoid dying in the bonfire like many others, Galileo had to deny what he believed: that the Earth was motionless and was the center of the universe. The research that laid the groundwork for the construction of a new type of knowledge and science that were consolidated in later centuries were those of Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) on human anatomy and those of Girolamo Fracastoro, who revolutionized the medicine of the time with the concept of infection.

Feudalism

Feudalism was an economic, political, religious, and social system that emerged in Europe. Its main features were that kings were losing political power to the great lords. These lords, owners of large extensions of land, lived in castles where they housed their surroundings and the peasants who became their vassals. This created a relationship between the lord and the farmer: the landowner had to provide housing, shelter, and food in exchange for the farmer accompanying him to war and paying tribute.

Politically, Europe was divided into several kingdoms, the majority ruled by a king or monarch who had different powers. Following the invasions of foreign peoples and internal strife, the power of these kings diminished, and many of the powers they previously held, such as tax collection and the organization of armies, fell into the hands of lords who possessed walled castles.

As feudal lords needed money for exotic products, they began to demand tribute (taxes) in money from farmers who worked on their land. These farmers were forced to go to markets to sell their products, which favored the development of trade.