翻译练习：The Idea Of The 'Dark Ages' Is A Myth(2)

The Idea Of The 'Dark Ages' Is A Myth. Here's Why Medieval Scientific Progress Still Matters(2)

“黑暗年代”的说法是谬论。我们来说说中世纪科学进步为何举足轻重（2）

哥白尼的天体运动论

They recorded the proofs in textbooks, handwritten on smooth animal-skin parchment. The most popular was named The Sphere. It was written in about 1230 by Johannes de Sacrobosco - John of Holywood. As a ship sails away from harbor, noted Sacrobosco, a lookout at the top of the mast will still be able to see land long after the sailors on deck have lost sight of it. A beautiful diagram in many manuscripts illustrates how this shows that the seas must be round. Sacrobosco went on to explain how you could calculate the size of the earth, simply by measuring the height of the sun above the horizon in two different cities. The answer he gave was remarkably accurate. Scholars did mostly think the Sun and other planets went around the Earth, but even that was argued about in the Middle Ages, and it didn't stop them doing some very clever and precise astronomy.

他们把证据记录在教科书里，手书于光滑的羊皮纸上。最受欢迎的一本书名字叫《天体》。大概写于1230年，作者是约翰尼斯・德・萨克罗博斯科——霍利伍德的约翰。萨克罗博斯科注意到，一艘船驶离港口后，在桅杆顶上的瞭望员在甲板上的船员看不到陆地后的很长一段时间，仍然可以看到陆地。在很多手抄本中的精美示意图解释了这个现象的形成肯定是因为大海是圆的。萨克罗博斯科还试图解释你应该如何计算出地球的大小，只需通过在两个不同的城市测量太阳在地平线的高度即可。他给出的答案令人惊奇的精确。当时绝大多数的学者们的确认为太阳与其他星球绕着地球旋转，但是在中世纪，这一观点也是有争议的，但这些也没有阻止他们进行一些十分巧妙和精准的天文研究。

Sacrobosco's Sphere, and many other works of science, were enthusiastically studied in the new universities that sprung up across Europe from the 12th century onwards. Students and lecturers traveled and communicated across borders in the first truly international language of learning: Latin. Many universities were founded directly by the Catholic Church. Contrary to popular myth, the Church was a great supporter of science. It's not hard to see why: the goal of devout Christians was to get closer to God; and the key to the pine plan, said theologians, was written in two books: the book of Scripture and the book of Nature. In other words, to understand the mind of God they sould study His Creation just as much as the Bible. And where experience contradicted scripture, Christian scholars saw no need to take biblical descriptions literally. Many of the biggest names in medieval science were monks and friars, and some - such as Robert Grosseteste and Thomas Bradwardine - became bishops and even archbishops.

萨克罗博斯科的《天体》，还有其他许多科学著作，从12世纪以来，被欧洲迅速出现的新综合性大学进行了踊跃研究。学生和老师们跨越国界，使用首个真正国际化的学术语言——拉丁语进行交流和沟通。许多大学由天主教会直接建立。与大多数人的印象相反，教会非常支持科学的研究。其实不难理解其中的道理：虔诚的基督徒的目标是想更接近上帝；神学研究者说，这项神圣计划的关键写在两本书里：一本是《圣经》，一本是自然之书。换个说法，要想理解上帝的意志，他们应该像研究《圣经》那样研究上帝的造物。而当经验与圣经相悖时，基督教学者认为不必按字面意思来理解《圣经》描述的内容。许多中世纪伟大的科学人物都是僧侣和修士，而有一些人——比如罗伯特・格罗斯泰斯特和托马斯・布拉德沃丁——还成了主教甚至大主教。