Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!oliveb!sun!livesey
From: livesey@sun.uucp (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: science is STILL religion
Message-ID: <46204@sun.uucp>
Date: 20 Mar 88 04:04:42 GMT
References: <73600013@uiucdcsp> <124@heart-of-gold> <121@aplcomm.UUCP> <740@actnyc.UUCP>
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Mtn View, CA
Lines: 36

In article <740@actnyc.UUCP>, gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes:
> In article <121@aplcomm.UUCP> jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu.UUCP (James W. Meritt) writes:
> 
> >Show me a middle-ages king with central heating/air conditioning!
> 
> The Romans knew how to build houses with central heating.  A kind
> of air-conditioning was brought about with clever architecture.
> They also know how to construct indoor plumbing.  All of these
> techniques were learned from earlier civilizations.


	Not to belabour the obvious, but the Romans lived about a
thousand years before the Middle ages and their western Empire pretty
much collapsed five hundred years before.

	Judging from Roman Britain, the main use the people of 
the early Middle Ages made of Roman buildings containing hypocausts 
was to use them as handy quarries.    For example, the tower of the 
cathedral in St Albans is constructed from Roman brick salvaged 
from the Roman villas at Verulamium, some few miles to the north. 
It seems to be the case that the people of the early Middle Ages in 
Britain were unable to profit from Roman architectural techniques
even when they had examples to study.   Even at the end of the
middle ages, central heating was pretty much unknown.

	This is less true, apparently, in continental Europe, where
some buildings of the Carolingian Empire are conscious imitations
of late Roman constructions, for example, Charles the Great's chapel
at Aix versus Ravenna.  However, this may be due to cultural exchange
with the Eastern Empire.

	I'd like to see a reference to the evidence that the Romans 
learned about hypocaust construction from earlier civilizations.
Are we thinking about the other towns of Latium here?

Jon.