page_title: List of medieval European scientists
section_title: High Middle Ages
hierarchical_section_title: List of medieval European scientists / High Middle Ages
context_page_description: Scientific activity in medieval Europe was maintained by the activity of a number of significant scholars, active in a wide range of scientific disciplines and working in Greek, Latin, and Arabic-speaking cultures. This list provides a brief summary of their work.
context_section_description: Michael Psellos (ca. 1017-1078), was a Byzantine philosopher, politician and historian. He combined Platonic philosophy with Christian doctrine and initiated a renewal of Byzantine classical learning that later influenced the Italian Renaissance. He also made contributions to Byzantine culture, such of a reform of the university curriculum to emphasize the Greek classics, like the Homeric literature that, with Platonist thought, he understood as precursory to Christian revelation. He composed various treatises and poetry, on themes in theology, philosophy, grammar, law, medicine, mathematics, and the natural sciences.
  Constantine the African (c. 1020–1087), a Christian native of Carthage, is best known for his translating of ancient Greek and Roman medical texts from Arabic into Latin while working at the Schola Medica Salernitana in Salerno, Italy. Among the works he translated were those of Hippocrates and Galen.
  Arzachel (1028–1087), the foremost astronomer of the early second millennium, lived in Muslim Spain and greatly expanded the understanding and accuracy of planetary models and terrestrial measurements used for navigation. He developed key technologies including the equatorium and universal latitude-independent astrolabe.
  Avempace (died 1138), a famous physicist from Muslim Spain who had an important influence on later physicists such as Galileo. He was the first to theorize the concept of a reaction force for every force exerted.
  Adelard of Bath (c. 1080 – c. 1152) was a 12th-century English scholar, known for his work in astronomy, astrology, philosophy and mathematics.
  Avenzoar (1091–1161), from Muslim Spain, introduced an experimental method in surgery, employing animal testing in order to experiment with surgical procedures before applying them to human patients. He also performed the earliest dissections and postmortem autopsies on both humans as well as animals.
  Gerard of Cremona (c. 1114 – 1187) was an Italian translator working at the court of Castile in Toledo, Spain and was a prominent figure in the Toledo School of Translators for translating Ptolemy's Almagest as well as Euclid's Elements from Arabic to Latin.
  Robert Grosseteste (1168–1253), Bishop of Lincoln, was the central character of the English intellectual movement in the first half of the 13th century and is considered the founder of scientific thought in Oxford. He had a great interest in the natural world and wrote texts on the mathematical sciences of optics, astronomy and geometry. In his commentaries on Aristotle's scientific works, he affirmed that experiments should be used in order to verify a theory, testing its consequences.  Roger Bacon was influenced by his work on optics and astronomy.
  Albert the Great (1193–1280), Doctor Universalis, was one of the most prominent representatives of the philosophical tradition emerging from the Dominican Order. He is one of the thirty-three Saints of the Roman Catholic Church honored with the title of Doctor of the Church. He became famous for his vast knowledge and for his defence of the pacific coexistence between science and religion. Albert was an essential figure in introducing Greek and Islamic science into the medieval universities, although not without hesitation with regard to particular Aristotelian theses. In one of his most famous sayings he asserted: "Science does not consist in ratifying what others say, but of searching for the causes of phenomena." Thomas Aquinas was his most famous pupil.
  John of Sacrobosco (c. 1195 – c. 1256) was a scholar, monk, and astronomer (probably English, but possibly Irish or Scottish) who taught at the University of Paris and wrote an authoritative and influential mediaeval astronomy text, the Tractatus de Sphaera; the Algorismus, which introduced calculations with Hindu-Arabic numerals into the European university curriculum; the Compotus ecclesiasticis on Easter reckoning; and the Tractatus de quadrante on the construction and use of the astronomical quadrant.
  Jordanus de Nemore (late 12th, early 13th century) was one of the major pure mathematicia
caption: Roger Bacon
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