Communication is the essential foundation for a thriving civilization; it can take many forms like the verbal religious sermons that shepherded the Middle Ages and of course, the copious amounts of written text printed by the Gutenberg’s printing press. The dissemination of information in these forms had many influences, one of which was the Church.
According to Mr. Broedel, during the Middle Ages, if an individual was not a part of the clergy, they were more than likely illiterate (Broedel, n.d.). With the majority of the population not being able to read or write, verbal communication was key to the distribution of information. Unfortunately, this left the masses open to manipulation because knowledge was limited, information consisted of shared knowledge with in the community and experience(***). The Church frequently communicated news and events apart from the religious sermons (A Brief History of How People Communicated in the Middle Ages, n.d.). It also had a strong foothold in the evolving society, censorship and restriction of speech …show more content…
This invention enabled astronomers, geographers, and philosophers like Newton, Ptolemy, and Galileo the opportunity to record their thoughts and revolutionary discoveries in books (Ideas of Cosmology, n.d.). Readers could then develop their own opinions and, in some cases, they would be motivated to continue the cycle of innovation and uncover groundbreaking developments or strengthen or weaken the current theories. In addition to the printed text, the printing press technologies were documenting atlases that illustrated vast coastlines of the emerging new world just like Claudius Ptolemy’s Geographia dating back to 1475 (Atlases,
According to Mr. Broedel, during the Middle Ages, if an individual was not a part of the clergy, they were more than likely illiterate (Broedel, n.d.). With the majority of the population not being able to read or write, verbal communication was key to the distribution of information. Unfortunately, this left the masses open to manipulation because knowledge was limited, information consisted of shared knowledge with in the community and experience(***). The Church frequently communicated news and events apart from the religious sermons (A Brief History of How People Communicated in the Middle Ages, n.d.). It also had a strong foothold in the evolving society, censorship and restriction of speech …show more content…
This invention enabled astronomers, geographers, and philosophers like Newton, Ptolemy, and Galileo the opportunity to record their thoughts and revolutionary discoveries in books (Ideas of Cosmology, n.d.). Readers could then develop their own opinions and, in some cases, they would be motivated to continue the cycle of innovation and uncover groundbreaking developments or strengthen or weaken the current theories. In addition to the printed text, the printing press technologies were documenting atlases that illustrated vast coastlines of the emerging new world just like Claudius Ptolemy’s Geographia dating back to 1475 (Atlases,