What did medieval people think stars and clouds were?

The medieval view of Earth and its place in the Universe is best expressed with this drawing by Bede: From Bede, [1] De natura rerum. [2] Source: Wikimedia Commons Or with this woodcut: Atlas holding up the known Universe as understood by Aristotl... read more

The ancient Greeks were very sophisticated in their fields of astrology, however in the early phases of history, stars and planets were often deemed Gods, and were the source of religious beliefs. In Medieval Europe however, astrology wasn’t a new practice, it wasn’t a mystery what clouds nor stars were. read more

Medieval people resorted to three classes of explanation, divine, natural and human. The first is obvious, when you don’t have a rational explanation you resort to the irrational, in this case a supernatural cause which they called God. There were different interpretations in the Eastern and Western Churches. read more

some as many as half.2 This essay will argue that as medieval medicine did not understand the pestilence, contemporaries acknowledged three main causes: divine, natural and human. Firstly, the divine view thought the pestilence was a punishment from God. read more