176 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



1426 is there a record of the refusal of a degree for poor scholarship, 

 and the victim then sought redress by legal proceedings, though 

 in vain. In most of the early universities logic, philosophy, and 

 theology were cultivated rather than even mathematical science. 



TRANSMISSION OF SCIENCE THROUGH MOORISH SPAIN. The 

 meagre rivulet of classical science derived directly from Greek 

 and Roman sources is now mingled with the current which found 

 its way through northern Africa and Spain under the Moors. 

 Boethius' rudimentary work was supplanted, and before 1400, 

 the first five books of Euclid were taught at many universities. 

 Ptolemy's Almagest was also translated from the Arabic into 

 Latin early in the twelfth century, probably with the use of 

 Arabic numerals. Near the close of the Moorish domination of 

 Spain, King Alfonso X of Castile (1223-1284) collected at Toledo 

 a body of Christian and Jewish scholars who under his direc- 

 tion prepared the celebrated Alfonsine Tables, using the new 

 Arabic numerals. These enjoyed a high reputation for three 

 centuries, though first printed in 1483. 



While we thus owe to the Arabs a considerable debt for pre- 

 serving for the use of later ages the precious heritage of Greek 

 learning, the revival of learning in the fourteenth century came 

 chiefly from other quarters and would probably have come in due 

 tune even if Arabic influences had not been at work. Yet it is 

 noteworthy that early in the twelfth century re-translations of the 

 Greek classics began to be made from the Arabic, and these may 

 well have supplied the very limited demand for them tolerated by 

 the church for the next hundred years. In spite of jealous ex- 

 clusiveness the learning of the great schools of Granada, Cordova, 

 and Seville gradually found its way to Paris, Oxford, and Cam- 

 bridge. 



During the course of the twelfth century a struggle had been going 

 on in the bosom of Islam between the Philosophers and the Theo- 

 logians. It was just at the moment when, through the favor of the 

 Caliph Al-Mansur, the Theologians had succeeded in crushing the 

 Philosophers, that the torch of Aristotelian thought was handed on to 

 Christendom. , 



