The Translation of Hugo Sanctelliensis

In the history of culture in the Romance countries of mediaeval Europe an important place must be given to the movement which it is becoming common to call the renaissance of the twelfth century. This revival of learning had many aspects, according as we consider it from the point of view of classical literature, of law, of natural science, or of philosophy and theology; but on its philosophical and scientific sides it owed its significance to the influx of a great body of new knowledge, coming in some measure from direct contact with Greek writers in the Norman kingdom of Sicily and elsewhere, but derived for the most part through the intermediary of Arabie and Jewish sources as these were made accessible in central and northern Spain. Here the chief center was Toledo, where a large amount of Arabie literature survived the Christian conquest of 1085 and whence in the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries an active school of translators spread over western Europe the Latin versions of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Euclid, Galen, Hippocrates, and their Arabie expositors and commentators which constituted the basis of study and teaching in the mediaeval universities