European culture, architecture and literature

For people of the Middle Ages time was a succession of days, nights and the seasons, and customs were strictly kept. Average lifespans were short: people over 40 were often counted as old and many children died. As towns and trade grew, chances to learn about the world widened, and the Crusades also opened a window on the world for Europeans. The Venetian merchant Marco Polo described in “The Book of Marco Polo” what he saw in the Far East and China in 1271–1295. From the 12th century the first higher schools, universities, opened in big towns: in Bologna and Paris, then Oxford, Cambridge and Naples. Teachers, the magisters, ran a university, scholars (students) came from many lands, and the name of the Sorbonne, one of the oldest colleges of Paris, later passed to the whole university. Books were first copied by monks; from the 12th century workshops in towns produced them, from the 14th century paper came into wide use, and in the mid-15th century (about 1440–1450) the German Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press with movable type. Roger Bacon, a professor at Oxford (13th century), stressed the importance of observation and experiment in science. Astrology and alchemy were also widespread: alchemists sought the “philosopher’s stone” that would turn any metal into gold, and their searches led to new chemical substances and apparatus.