section_path: History/Middle Ages
section_name: Middle Ages
paragraph_text: Middle Ages
  
  Due to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the 5th century saw an intellectual decline and knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Western Europe. During the period, Latin encyclopaedists such as Isidore of Seville preserved the majority of general ancient knowledge. In contrast, because the Byzantine Empire resisted attacks from invaders, they were able to preserve and improve prior learning. John Philoponus, a Byzantine scholar in the 500s, started to question Aristotle's teaching of physics, introducing the theory of impetus. His criticism served as an inspiration to medieval scholars and Galileo Galilei, who extensively cited his works ten centuries later.
  
  During late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, natural phenomena were mainly examined via the Aristotelian approach. The approach includes Aristotle's four causes: material, formal, moving, and final cause. Many Greek classical texts were preserved by the Byzantine empire and Arabic translations were done by groups such as the Nestorians and the Monophysites. Under the Caliphate, these Arabic translations were later improved and developed by Arabic scientists. By the 6th and 7th centuries, the neighbouring Sassanid Empire established the medical Academy of Gondeshapur, which is considered by Greek, Syriac, and Persian physicians as the most important medical center of the ancient world.
  
  The House of Wisdom was established in Abbasid -era Baghdad, Iraq, where the Islamic study of Aristotelianism flourished until the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. Ibn al-Haytham, better known as Alhazen, used controlled experiments in his optical study. Avicenna 's compilation of the Canon of Medicine, a medical encyclopaedia, is considered to be one of the most important publications in medicine and was used until the 18th century.
  
  By the eleventh century most of Europe had become Christian, and in 1088, the University of Bologna emerged as the first university in Europe. As such, demand for Latin translation of ancient and scientific texts grew, a major contributor to the Renaissance of the 12th century. Renaissance scholasticism in western Europe flourished, with experiments done by observing, describing, and classifying subjects in nature. In the 13th century, medical teachers and students at Bologna began opening human bodies, leading to the first anatomy textbook based on human dissection by Mondino de Luzzi.