Europe Smells the Coffee

Near the end of the (Western) Roman Empire, the breakdown in trade brought about a new way of rural life - the self-sufficient manor. This was a herald of things to come. In fact, the manor was exactly what the Dark Ages called for. The wide and well-built Roman roads (not all of which led to Rome) were hardly traveled with the exception of a few pilgrims on their way to holy sites. There were no universities and there was little need for mathematics or, for that matter, any intellectual endeavor. The priests were generally the only ones who were literate and the only justification for any mathematical activities on their part was the calculation of the date of Easter, which unlike Christmas, depends on the lunar calendar.

The average peasant lived and died within fifty miles of his birthplace. Under the new order, feudalism, he was a slave to his lord and worked the latter's land in return for a tiny portion of it for sustenance. With several minor exceptions, there was little or no scholarship throughout Europe, though monks in the monasteries wrote and rewrote ancient manuscripts and studied the Bible and the works of Roman authors such as Boethius (480-524). Very few people could read, let alone write. The priests read Bible passages to them and the church provided the rituals, holidays, and all of the other components of the social structure of that age.

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