Climate after the Middle Ages: a Look at Later Developments

Abstract In this article, I explore the influence of medieval “climate theories” upon later thinkers, highlighting three thematic areas where this continuity was particularly strong: the problem of method; the management of disagreement; and the question of freedom. In each of these areas, Renaissance theorists built upon the work of their Scholastic predecessors (primarily Albert the Great and Roger Bacon) to discuss how human beings owed their character and physique to the specific “powers” ( virtutes ) of the places in which they lived. Yet Renaissance thinkers also introduced innovations that reflected the new discursive and material contexts in which they operated.