A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, by Barbara Tuchman

For all the explanations, the earth and its phenomena were full of mysteries: what happens to fire when it goes out? Why are there different colors of skin among men? Why do the suns rays darken a man's skin but bleach white linen? How can the earth, which is weighty, be suspended in air? How do souls make their way to the next world? Where lies the soul? What causes madness? Medieval people felt surrounded by puzzles, yet because God was there they were willing to acknowledge that causes are hidden, that man cannot know why all things are as they are; "they are as God pleases."

That did not silence the one unending question: why does God allow evil, illness, and poverty? Why did He not make man incapable of sin? Why did He not assure him of Paradise? The answer, never wholly satisfying, was that God owed the Devil his scope. According to St. Augustine, the fount of authority, all men were under the Devil's power by virtue of original sin; hence the necessity of the Church and salvation.

Questions of human behavior found answers in the book of Sidrach, supposedly a descendant of Noah to whom God gave the gift of universal knowledge, eventually compiled into a book by several masters of Toledo. What language does a deaf-mute hear in his heart? Answer: that of Adam, namely Hebrew. Which is worst: murder, robbery, or assault? None of these; sodomy is the worst. Will wars ever end? Never, until the earth becomes Paradise. The origin of war, according to its 14th century codifier Honore Bonet, lay in Lucifer's war against God, "hence it is no great marvel if in this world there arise wars and battles since these existed first in heaven."

Education, so far as it would have reached Enguerrand, was based on the seven "liberal arts": Grammar, the foundation of science; Logic, which differentiates the true from the false; Rhetoric, the source of law; Arithmetic, the foundation of order because "without numbers there is nothing"; Geometry, the science of measurement; Astronomy, the most noble of the sciences because it is connected with Divinity and Theology; and lastly Music. Medicine, though not one of the liberal arts, was analogous to Music because its object was the harmony of the human body.

History was finite and contained within comprehensible limits. It began with the Creation and was scheduled to end in a not indefinitely remote future with the Second Coming, which was the hope of afflicted mankind, followed by the Day of Judgment. Within that span, man was not subject to social or moral progress because his goal was the next world, not betterment in this. In this world he was assigned to ceaseless struggle against himself in which he might achieve individual progress and even victory, but collective betterment would only come in the final union with God.

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, by Barbara Tuchman