WI: Earlier Telescopes?

Jerry Kraus

Banned
If you read that passage beyond just the sentence that includes the highlighted phrase, I would be very surprised that you'd be so certain of your position. It can be a bit dense, because that book includes plenty of actions by those in the Eastern Churches (and Emperors' attempts to force Popes to go along with eastern positions), but I'll note some of the passages from your own citation, regarding the decisions of the Popes (that is, the Bishops of Rome):
"It is true that the power to bind and to loose had been delegated only as to things on earth, and so Gelasius I decided, saying that the Church had no authority to determine as to the condition of those who had already passed away, and in 495, a Roman synod confirmed his decision emphatically."
"Leo I in 432 had already taken the same position, alleging that, for the dead, God had already passed His judgment, which the Church could not subsequently modify."

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/anathema
The entire point of excommunication is as an encouragement to repentance, and the dead can't repent.

Also, your appeal to modern positions is groundless, given that you're basing the only remotely cogent argument you've made on a book from 1883.

Words have meanings, and excommunication, anathematization, deeming something heretical, and others mean different things. Particularly in a Church with a millennia-long history of jurisprudence.



Seriously? You’re citing wikipedia as your source, on the validity of the phrasing ‘effectively excommunicated.’ Also, this is not a philosopher friend, but a professor of philosophy who has little to no connection to me. You citing wikipedia to trump his thoroughly resourced assessment is less than convincing, to put it mildly.

As to the point of the Condemnations of Paris specifically, I'd again ask you to listen to the podcast episode where Professor Adamson discusses this exact topic.


John Wycliffe and the first English Bible....................5 - Philadelphians
philadelphians.50megs.com/purified1.html
He had been declared a notorious heretic, posthumously, excommunicated, posthumously, his memory condemned, and the vile act of destroying his earthly remains had been ordered. Who was this man, and why was he so hated? What crime so heinous could he possibly have been guilty of, that more than four decades ...
List of people excommunicated by the Catholic Church is a censure
https://www.johnlearn.com/.../list-of-people-excommunicated-by-the-catholic-church-is-...
... the son of Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. James II of Aragon usurping thereby a papal fief was excommunicated in 1296 for the same reason. Pietro Colonna and Jacopo Colonna were excommunicated in the bull by Pope Boniface VIII. John Wycliffe was excommunicated posthumouslyby the Council of Constance.
Reading the Bible Again and Seeing It for the First Time: Volume ...
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1524577588
Donald W. Haynes - 2017 - ‎Religion
John Wycliffe (c. 1330–84), professor at Oxford, was the first to translate the Bible from Latin into English. He used the Langton chapter divisions. He died a natural death in 1384 but was later declared a heretic and excommunicated posthumously. Bible verses were first developed by a Jewish rabbi named Nathan in CE ...
[PDF]No more sons - Christian Study Library
www.christianstudylibrary.org/.../20150832%20-%20L%20Charles%20Jackson%20-...
John Wycliffe died, he was in good standing and was buried on holy ground. However, after his death, he was excommunicated posthumously, and his bones were exhumed. After his remains were unearthed they were burned as those of a heretic. Old Testament literature taught that the land was the location where God ...
Pastor Ed Rice.... Another Email To Me. - Page 5 - Open Mic ...
www.phatmass.com › Discussion › Open Mic
"The Catholic Church" from it's conception as an Imperial State Church in 330 AD, has been such an instrument of hell that John Wycliffe and I don't consider it as ... He had been declared a notorious heretic, posthumously, excommunicated, posthumously, his memory condemned, and the vile act of destroying his earthly ...
[PDF]Learning to Speak Roman Catholic - Good Samaritan Baptist Church
www.gsbaptistchurch.com/gsbc/spkcath.pdf
John Wycliffe (1320-1384) wrote, “The Church is the totality of those who are ...... of whom, And to whom,. With what words, At what time. Where, To what intent,. With what circumstances,. Considering what goeth before And what followeth.” John Wycliffe. 37 ...... heretic, posthumously, excommunicated, posthumously, his. 88 ...
[PDF]2291Kb - Warwick WRAP - University of Warwick
wrap.warwick.ac.uk/82158/1/WRAP_Theses_Marquis_2016.pdf
figures—John Wycliffe, Erasmus, and Martin Luther—held dramatically different views on penance, but their ...... John Wycliffe was born in mid-1320s Northern England, just over a century after the. Fourth Lateran's attempt at a ..... Regardless, he was excommunicated posthumously, and his bones were exhumed and ...
 
I’m sure an internet forum quoting an email by a guy calling the Catholic Church ‘an instrument of hell’ is a reliable source.

It really looks like all you’re doing is spending a little bit of time searching for your relevant phrases, and then posting the links to whatever you hit.

Anyway, just because there’s a lot of protestants with websites or email accounts that don’t understand Catholic Canon Law, doesn’t make their interpretations accurate.
 

Zachariah

Banned
Anyway, back to the topic at hand, how about an even earlier development of glass lenses, and of telescopes? For instance, what if Ibn Sahl had managed to gain sponsorship for his ideas, having discovered the law of refraction and designed the first curved mirrors and lenses back in 984? The Buwayhid amir Sharaf al-Dawla had a keen interest in astronomy, and had an observatory built in Baghdad in 988CE, employing several astronomers; however, he immediately embarked on a campaign against the Kurds and died on the battlefield within the year. So, what if Sharaf al-Dawla had survived, either by emerging victorious in this campaign or by simply not embarking upon it himself, and continued to give the observatory he'd established, along with the foremost astronomers, physicists and mathematicians in Baghdad, his patronage for several more years, as opposed to only surviving long enough to do so for roughly 9 months as IOTL? Couldn't prototypes of Ibn Sahl's proposed anaclastic lenses, parabolic mirrors, ellipsoidal mirrors and biconvex lenses have been created and tested in that time, resulting in the invention of both the first eyeglasses and telescopes, 300 and 600 years earlier than IOTL respectively?
 
You see, military science is based largely on convention, just like anything else. And, bear in mind, warfare in the middle ages was very limited and stylized in scope - largely open pageantry on broad plains, arranged well in advance, by wealthy feudal aristocrats on both sides who had no interest, or resources for that matter, whatsoever, for long, drawn out campaigns. They really weren't doing a lot of "scouting" or "spying", that wasn't what it was really about. Just crude demonstrations of superior valour, more or less. Indeed, I think they were still sometimes resolving wars by single armed combat between opposing sovereigns, at the time!

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

Gods...

Right, let's start out with the very most basic of medieval campaigns - totally pageantry-free - the chevauchée. Rather than meeting by prior arrangements, what you did was take your light cavalry forces into the lands of your enemy and burn the farms, kill the peasantry and freemen, avoiding open conflict against larger forces. The result of this is to reduce incomes, to starve the area, and indeed to force an enemy force out of the garrisons to be confronted in force.

At Mirebeau, King John devastated the Lusignan-Breton force, having successfully avoided being committed to battle by his opponents. The destruction of the forces supporting Arthur of Brittany resulted in King Philip having to withdraw to look to his defences, ending that particular campaign against John. This was not 'ritual combat'. He had not 'arranged' to meet for a bit of a dust-up. For months, he'd used the strength of his garrisoned castles to avoid combat, but moved out when he decided necessary, attacking with surprise at one part of the enemy, rather than allowing himself to be confronted by both, or confronted not on his terms.

In 1217, Louis of France had committed to holding England, John had died and William Marshal ruled what was left of England. He had to force a confrontation. The city of Lincoln had fallen, the Roman walls held by French soldiers, who in turn were besieging the citadel of Lincoln Castle. This was no formalised clash. The Bishop of Winchester scouted the walls, and found one of the gates blocked by rubble but unmanned. Undetected, the Royalists cleared the gate, and the Marshal (aged 72) stormed the city on horseback, crossbowmen taking to the rooftops as they drove the French into the square before the cathedral where Marshal and Count Thomas de Perche fought, the latter falling slain.

Skipping 213 years later to the infamous 1415 Battle of Agincourt, we see little change. It remained a game of deception, with parts of the armies being destroyed in detail. The French cavalry committed to smashing the English lines, but instead met withering longbow fire before being lured into the knee-deep mud where their horses couldn't make headway and their full plate made movement near-impossible on foot, with the result that the English footmen massacred them - also resulting in spooked horses running down the French heavy infantry.

These were not about ritual or dick-waving. The battles were organised by the thrust, parry and riposte of scouting and skirmishing as each side sought to choose the field of battle that was to their advantage. Crécy in 1346 was the same, with the English forces arraying themselves on a steep slope, with ground soaked by a rainstorm. The resulting French charge was routed in a hail of arrows.

Poiters in 1356 saw the French king leave behind ~20,000 infantrymen to try and use his cavalry to force a battle. This did see some conversation between the two sides, with some attempt at a truce being denied. The English forces had high ground and better vantage points, and the removal of the baggage train from the field deceived the French into believing the English were retreating. The resulting massed cavalry charge was shattered, and the infantry repulsed with heavy casualties. A further advance by the French was met with a frontal charge by the English cavalry while the English reserve - a mounted one - outflanked and swept into the rear of the French lines from the east.

Please now present me with a series of these supposed valorous cock-measuring sessions of pageantry and monarch vs monarch single combat over a period of two centuries... or that warfare was stylized, and not a case of innovations in combat to kill more of the enemy.

Murano, the Venetian glassworks, had a source of iron free sand which you need for clear glass.

Where are the deposits of the quartz-silica sands needed for clear glass? Or how do you refine normal sand?
 
Last edited:
Where are the deposits of the quartz-silica sands needed for clear glass? Or how do you refine normal sand?
They're not common. Venice had a supply under their exclusive control, and no I don't know where it was located.

Corning Glass in NY gets its sand from a special deposit in ??? Western Michigan??? I remember it was a fair distance, i don't remember the precise location.
 

Jerry Kraus

Banned
Anyway, back to the topic at hand, how about an even earlier development of glass lenses, and of telescopes? For instance, what if Ibn Sahl had managed to gain sponsorship for his ideas, having discovered the law of refraction and designed the first curved mirrors and lenses back in 984? The Buwayhid amir Sharaf al-Dawla had a keen interest in astronomy, and had an observatory built in Baghdad in 988CE, employing several astronomers; however, he immediately embarked on a campaign against the Kurds and died on the battlefield within the year. So, what if Sharaf al-Dawla had survived, either by emerging victorious in this campaign or by simply not embarking upon it himself, and continued to give the observatory he'd established, along with the foremost astronomers, physicists and mathematicians in Baghdad, his patronage for several more years, as opposed to only surviving long enough to do so for roughly 9 months as IOTL? Couldn't prototypes of Ibn Sahl's proposed anaclastic lenses, parabolic mirrors, ellipsoidal mirrors and biconvex lenses have been created and tested in that time, resulting in the invention of both the first eyeglasses and telescopes, 300 and 600 years earlier than IOTL respectively?

Actually, I think an earlier telescope would likely have done a lot better in the Arab World, than in the Christian World. Islam was, actually, quite a tolerant religion up until the time of the Crusades, much more tolerant than Christianity, actually. Naturally, the Crusaders made the Muslims a trifle more paranoid! Also, we have a greater likelihood of telescopes being made available to the Chinese, with their immense resources and impressive tradition in science and engineering.

Still, I think we still have the problem of no clear application or use for the instrument. Bear in mind, the very idea and concept of "inventing" is to some extent a Renaissance innovation -- apart from a few notable exceptions, like the Greek Archimedes. As I've said, the fact that its applications are obvious now, and were obvious in the seventeenth century in Europe, does not mean that they would be obvious centuries earlier. Indeed, the total suppression of new technologies is not unknown historically -- take seventeenth and eighteenth century Japan, for example.
 

Jerry Kraus

Banned
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

Gods...

Right, let's start out with the very most basic of medieval campaigns - totally pageantry-free - the chevauchée. Rather than meeting by prior arrangements, what you did was take your light cavalry forces into the lands of your enemy and burn the farms, kill the peasantry and freemen, avoiding open conflict against larger forces. The result of this is to reduce incomes, to starve the area, and indeed to force an enemy force out of the garrisons to be confronted in force.

At Mirebeau, King John devastated the Lusignan-Breton force, having successfully avoided being committed to battle by his opponents. The destruction of the forces supporting Arthur of Brittany resulted in King Philip having to withdraw to look to his defences, ending that particular campaign against John. This was not 'ritual combat'. He had not 'arranged' to meet for a bit of a dust-up. For months, he'd used the strength of his garrisoned castles to avoid combat, but moved out when he decided necessary, attacking with surprise at one part of the enemy, rather than allowing himself to be confronted by both, or confronted not on his terms.

In 1217, Louis of France had committed to holding England, John had died and William Marshal ruled what was left of England. He had to force a confrontation. The city of Lincoln had fallen, the Roman walls held by French soldiers, who in turn were besieging the citadel of Lincoln Castle. This was no formalised clash. The Bishop of Winchester scouted the walls, and found one of the gates blocked by rubble but unmanned. Undetected, the Royalists cleared the gate, and the Marshal (aged 72) stormed the city on horseback, crossbowmen taking to the rooftops as they drove the French into the square before the cathedral where Marshal and Count Thomas de Perche fought, the latter falling slain.

Skipping 213 years later to the infamous 1415 Battle of Agincourt, we see little change. It remained a game of deception, with parts of the armies being destroyed in detail. The French cavalry committed to smashing the English lines, but instead met withering longbow fire before being lured into the knee-deep mud where their horses couldn't make headway and their full plate made movement near-impossible on foot, with the result that the English footmen massacred them - also resulting in spooked horses running down the French heavy infantry.

These were not about ritual or dick-waving. The battles were organised by the thrust, parry and riposte of scouting and skirmishing as each side sought to choose the field of battle that was to their advantage. Crécy in 1346 was the same, with the English forces arraying themselves on a steep slope, with ground soaked by a rainstorm. The resulting French charge was routed in a hail of arrows.

Poiters in 1356 saw the French king leave behind ~20,000 infantrymen to try and use his cavalry to force a battle. This did see some conversation between the two sides, with some attempt at a truce being denied. The English forces had high ground and better vantage points, and the removal of the baggage train from the field deceived the French into believing the English were retreating. The resulting massed cavalry charge was shattered, and the infantry repulsed with heavy casualties. A further advance by the French was met with a frontal charge by the English cavalry while the English reserve - a mounted one - outflanked and swept into the rear of the French lines from the east.

Please now present me with a series of these supposed valorous cock-measuring sessions of pageantry and monarch vs monarch single combat over a period of two centuries... or that warfare was stylized, and not a case of innovations in combat to kill more of the enemy.



Where are the deposits of the quartz-silica sands needed for clear glass? Or how do you refine normal sand?


Nevertheless, medieval warfare was highly disorganized compared to earlier and later periods in Europe. What's the point of spying on something that's totally chaotic, it doesn't give you any information. And, again, while it's perfectly obvious to us, now, that a "spyglass" would have applications on a battlefield, in a world that had never seen one before, it wouldn't have been. At least not immediately. And, particularly in the confused military environment of the Middle Ages. Eventually, over a period of centuries they would probably have caught on, of course.
 
Gunpowder was widely adopted in Europe within half a century of its arrival in the region, even with its obvious defincies for the first few centuries in which it was used. No reason to think that telescopes would be any different. Unless we presume that the European militaries of the time were utterly ignorant of the importance of military intelligence.

Which they weren’t. Even if the more primative lenses of the era could only resolve a a blurry miscolored image of distant objects, simply being able to see basic movements at a greater distance is such an obvious advantage - no matter what era you’re fighting in - that they would be used. No matter how conservative or hidebound any society is, they’re always open to new ways to killing their enemies and preventing their enemies from killing them.
 

Jerry Kraus

Banned
Gunpowder was widely adopted in Europe within half a century of its arrival in the region, even with its obvious defincies for the first few centuries in which it was used. No reason to think that telescopes would be any different. Unless we presume that the European militaries of the time were utterly ignorant of the importance of military intelligence.


Which they weren’t. Even if the more primative lenses of the era could only resolve a a blurry miscolored image of distant objects, simply being able to see basic movements at a greater distance is such an obvious advantage - no matter what era you’re fighting in - that they would be used. No matter how conservative or hidebound any society is, they’re always open to new ways to killing their enemies and preventing their enemies from killing them.


No. You are, as usual, wrong. It wasn't until the eighteenth century that telescopes came into widespread naval and military use. And, that was with the existence of corrective lenses for over four hundred years already, all the developments in optics and the empirical developments in their creation and application over a period of centuries. So, it took a full century, after Galileo, before the telescope was used for much of anything, except astronomy, and, possibly the observation of ships coming into port, for insurance purposes.

The technology was already in use for the application at hand, in the case of gunpowder. That wasn't the case with the first telescopes invented in the seventeenth century, which is why it was over a century before they were widely used for naval or military applications. It was a related, but a distinct technological application that had to be adapted, conceived of and developed.

You don't seem to grasp that both the conception and development of technology require time and imagination, and, a great deal of trial and error. Why do you think technology progresses so slowly, to the present day, despite the claims of scientists and engineers to the contrary? Why do you think it's been three quarters of a century, and 100 billion dollars, yet no progress on controlled nuclear fusion? New technologies do not come out ready made, they have to be developed. And, there's no ready made manual to do that, I'm afraid. It's mostly just guesswork. No real "scientific method", at all, other than trial and error, combined with imagination.

Again, military applications of telescopes were NEVER conceived of, prior to its development in the seventeenth century. What better proof could there be that this application wasn't obvious?
 
Last edited:
No. You are, as usual, wrong. It wasn't until the eighteenth century that telescopes came into widespread naval and military use. And, that was with the existence of corrective lenses for over three hundred years already, all the developments in optics and the empirical developments in their creation and application over a period of centuries. So, it took a full century, after Galileo, before the telescope was used for much of anything, except astronomy, and, possibly the observation of ships coming into port, for insurance purposes.

You don't seem to grasp that both the conception and development of technology require time and imagination, and, a great deal of trial and error. Why do you think technology progresses so slowly, to the present day, despite the claims of scientists and engineers to the contrary? Why do you think it's been three quarters of a century, and 100 billion dollars, yet no progress on controlled nuclear fusion? New technologies do not come out ready made, they have to be developed. And, there's no ready made manual to do that, I'm afraid. It's mostly just guesswork. No real "scientific method", at all, other than trial and error, combined with imagination.

Again, military applications of telescopes were NEVER conceived of, prior to its development in the seventeenth century. What better proof could there be that this application wasn't obvious?

Citation needed for each of those statements regarding the history of military applications of the telescope. I will not address anything else presented in your post, except to register my disagreement wholeheartedly and request that you refrain from insulting me in your disputation of my points.

In particular, I do not see how the point that the military applications of a device that did not exist were not apparent is anything but circular reasoning. It is noteworthy that, the moment the telescope indisputably enters the historical record (Lippershey's patent in 1608), it was immediately considered as a tool of warfare.

In a letter dated from April 2, 1609, from Cardinal Bentivoglio in Brussels to the Papal Court in Rome:
... Count Maurice possessed an instrument with which he could see the most distant objects as clearly as if they were immediately before his eyes. The Marquis added that he believed the Count had procured this instrument in oder in time of war to reconnoitre from a distance, or observe places he might want to besiege, or sites of encampments, or enemy forces on teh march, or similar situations that might be turned to his advantage. Consequently, the Archduke and the Marquis himself were most desirous to obtain such an instrument...
http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/n...=3&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_VIEW&classic=YES

In the spirit of charity and honest debate in good will, I assume that you simply misunderstood the point that I was making, and, in re-reading my post, I can see how some lack of clarity could creep in to a quick reading (how appropriate, given the topic). Allow me to clarify the post to which you were responding: I do not mean to imply that the military application of lenses are so obvious that, upon the introduction of eyeglasses, 13th and 14th century engineers would quickly realize that you could use them for warfare. I mean to suggest that, per the original post in this thread, if we assume that someone else were to build a rudimentary telescope, from that point on, the military applications would be immediately obvious, regardless of the technical limitations of said telescope. Indeed, my proposition is that the most likely scenario is that the moment someone develops the technique of combining multiple lenses to magnify an image, their first thought will be for military uses.
 
Last edited:

Jerry Kraus

Banned
Citation needed for each of those statements regarding the history of military applications of the telescope. I will not address anything else presented in your post, except to register my disagreement wholeheartedly and request that you refrain from insulting me in your disputation of my points.

In particular, I do not see how the point that the military applications of a device that did not exist were not apparent is anything but circular reasoning. It is noteworthy that, the moment the telescope indisputably enters the historical record (Lippershey's patent in 1608), it was immediately considered as a tool of warfare.

In a letter dated from April 2, 1609, from Cardinal Bentivoglio in Brussels to the Papal Court in Rome:

http://adsbit.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/n...=3&data_type=GIF&type=SCREEN_VIEW&classic=YES

In the spirit of charity and honest debate in good will, I assume that you simply misunderstood the point that I was making, and, in re-reading my post, I can see how some lack of clarity could creep in to a quick reading (how appropriate, given the topic). Allow me to clarify the post to which you were responding: I do not mean to imply that the military application of lenses are so obvious that, upon the introduction of eyeglasses, 13th and 14th century engineers would quickly realize that you could use them for warfare. I mean to suggest that, per the original post in this thread, if we assume that someone else were to build a rudimentary telescope, from that point on, the military applications would be immediately obvious, regardless of the technical limitations of said telescope. Indeed, my proposition is that the most likely scenario is that the moment someone develops the technique of combining multiple lenses to magnify an image, their first thought will be for military uses.


My friend, I can produce citations, but, as you've demonstrated repeatedly, you'll simply dismiss them. You can google them as well as I can, I'm sure, it's pretty clear telescopes weren't used for military or naval application for more than a century, since effective portable telescopes took time to develop, you see. Yes, after more than three hundred years of experience with corrective lenses, it was possible to conceive of military applications for the telescope, but, that does not prove that they would have been equally obvious after just a few decades, even had said telescope been delivered Deus ex Machina, as you suggest.

However, possibly your suggestion is not merely the development of the telescope, per se, but, actually fully effective, portable telescopes that could be readily used on ships and in the field? These are a rather more sophisticated technology, but, if that is your suggestion, then possibly, you might be right! Because if their application was obvious enough from the nature of the technology developed, then, it might not have even taken fifty years to use them for this purpose. People might say --"Hey, I could just pick that thing up and use it immediately on a ship or during a battle! I wonder if that might be useful, eh?" And, by God, it would be!
 
Last edited:
My friend, I can produce citations, but, as you've demonstrated repeatedly, you'll simply dismiss them. You can google them as well as I can, I'm sure, it's pretty clear telescopes weren't used for military or naval application for more than a century, since effective portable telescopes took time to develop, you see. Yes, after more than three hundred years of experience with corrective lenses, it was possible to conceive of military applications for the telescope, but, that does not prove that they would have been equally obvious after just a few decades, even had said telescope been delivered Deus ex Machina, as you suggest.

If there are any valid documents that back up any of statements made in your post, please provide them. The prior citations provided were riddled with problems that undermined their validity. Just because a half dozen sources that aren’t worth much are recognized as not being worth much does not mean that they are being dismissed without consideration.

Further, describing the proposition as a Deus Ex Machina is not accurate. Again, as I said, the suggestion is that once a refracting telescope is invented, the military use is obvious. Our own history bears this out: We can date the refracting telescope to October 1608 (though there are unverified earlier possibilities). By April 1609, the refracting telescope has already been used in a military capacity enough that it is being discussed in diplomatic communiques.
 

Jerry Kraus

Banned
The suggestion ignores that fact that optical devices had already been around, and were being developed and applied for over three hundred years prior to the development of the telescope. And, yes, the military application was obvious to the Dutch inventors who developed it, by the seventeenth century, since that's precisely what they developed it for!

As for citations, I'll tell you what, you provide some citations illustrating widespread application of telescopes to military and naval use in the seventeenth century, because I can't find any. Not until the eighteenth century. And, it's for a very simple reason. The telescope, although invented for military use, could not be used for that purpose, because it took another century to make them portable enough, stable enough and durable enough to be used on ships and during battles. Just for astronomy, for a century or so.
 
The suggestion ignores that fact that optical devices had already been around, and were being developed and applied for over three hundred years prior to the development of the telescope. And, yes, the military application was obvious to the Dutch inventors who developed it, by the seventeenth century, since that's precisely what they developed it for!

As for citations, I'll tell you what, you provide some citations illustrating widespread application of telescopes to military and naval use in the seventeenth century, because I can't find any. Not until the eighteenth century. And, it's for a very simple reason. The telescope, although invented for military use, could not be used for that purpose, because it took another century to make them portable enough, stable enough and durable enough to be used on ships and during battles. Just for astronomy, for a century or so.

I'm sorry, but this is getting pointlessly circular if you're going to ask me for more citations before you provide your own. There's no point in debating in good faith if it'll just lead to circular evasion like this, so I'll bow out of engaging you any further at all, like I was inclined to do earlier.
 
Any telescope, no matter how primitive, will reveal the Galilean Moons.
Objects that do not circle the Earth.
Something not accounted for in any of the classical cosmological models.
 
The mid-13th century English philosophers Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon knew how to make telescopes, and Occam's Razor suggests that they did actually do so, because Grosseteste's description of bringing distant objects close, and making close objects distant, sounds like someone actually playing with a real device - peering through one end and then the other. This just seems much more plausible than working it out theoretically. England was highly-advanced in optics at the time and invented eye-glasses as well - a fact reflected in Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose, where the English monk William of Baskerville arrives in Italy with a pair of glasses, and the locals are completely unfamiliar with them (they also play a part in the plot).

These developments were part of the English scientific Renaissance which also saw the independent invention of gunpowder and the gun - it's a myth that these came from the East, as a glance at the Millemete Manuscript will demonstrate. If the gun had really been invented in China, for example, it would have undergone some development as it spread across India, the Middle East and Europe, before arriving on the benighted shores of Blighty - whereas the gun depicted in the manuscript is as primitive as a gun can be: just a metal pot sitting on a trestle-table, and it has clearly just been invented. If the gun had been imported the English would have jumped from having no guns to having fairly sophisticated ones. As an analogy, when China started building aircraft they didn't have to go all the way back to Cayley and the Wright brothers and work their way forward: they started at a fairly advanced level.
 
I’d be more cautious asserting with such certainty the evolution of the gun. I’d also be cautious in basing much on an Umberto Eco novel.
 
Top