The demise of the quadrivium and the beginning of the Scientific Revolution: Boethius in the sixteenth century

Abstract

Abstract Narratives and analyses of the early stages of the phenomena known as the Scientific Revolution have tended by their nature to focus upon the formation of new patterns of thought, whether they be the ‘rise of experimental method’ or the rediscovery of Hermetic texts. The ‘quantification of nature’ appears on most such lists of fundamental innovations; and it is cenainly clear that during these years, mathematics and the uses of mathematics all underwent important and rapid change. Yet we also know that medieval scholars had discussed at length the cosmos' existence ‘in measure, number, and weight’; and several historians of science have sought to connect this medieval quantification with later scientific change. The medieval scholars, for their part, had recourse not only to that biblical phrase but also to other textual authorities, to the divisions of their curricula, and to their own classroom experience. In particular, they could refer to Boethius and his textbooks, staples since the eleventh century of the quadrivium, that mathematical portion of the liberal arts including arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. The quadrivium was not the only classification system or approach to mathematics in medieval Europe, but it was an important one, and one with a long life. That life effectively ended around 1600, owing not only to intellectual factors but also to institutional ones.