Developed during the 11^th century, the Cathedral school of Chartres was a seminal innovation in Western civilisation and the development of real science (not the faux science of materialism, fraudulent data and metaphysics).  Inspired by the work of the polymath and scientist Pope Sylvester in the late 10^th century, Chartres provided a foundation for scientific excellence during the 11^th century under the leadership of Fulbert a former student of Sylvester.  During the 11^th and 12^th centuries this school at Chartres was at the forefront of naturalist and scientific inquiry.

Fulbert and other academics at Chartres were versatile and fluent in the areas of medicine, logic, mathematics, and astronomy.  Pagan concepts along with more modern Christian innovations suffused the school.  In the western façade at the Cathedral of Chartres one can still see today the liberal arts as taught in the 11^th century, reflected in the statues of Aristotle, Boethius, Cicero, Euclid, Ptolemy, and Pythagoras.  This façade was created by Thierry of Chartres in the 1140s, to represent the influence, learning and education from the ancients and pagans.  There was no conflict between Christianity and science, either ancient or modern.

This school along with many others built during the 12^th century, pursued the quadrivium as part of the seven core courses.  The quadrivium included arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy.  The patterns of God’s perfect creation and the natural laws of perfect harmony were investigated, pursued and contemplated.  The trivium of grammar, rhetoric and logic, comprising the rest of the 7 core courses, made the expression of thoughts and conclusions from the study of these patterns, possible and intelligible.  Man was invited to understand and glory in God’s created cosmos.

One of the most important contributions by Chartres was its systematic appraisal of nature as an autonomous creation, operating to fixed natural laws.  Natural causations were to be utilised to explain how nature functioned.  Gone were the gods and spirits of rocks, planets and movements (Aristotle, pagan naturalism).  In their place scientific explanations had to be offered for the physics of nature, the movement of objects, the patterns of weather and seasons and the obvious design and cycles of life one could see in nature itself.  It was a gigantic movement away from the incorrect physics of the ancients and polytheists to a rational investigation of reality and nature.  This rational approach only appeared in Catholic Europe.

The famed scientist and philosopher Adelard of Bath (1080-1142) was a student at Chartres.  He commented that rationality is what makes us human.  The rational beauty of the universe pace Adelard demands an appreciation and understanding.  Knowledge was a gift from God.  William of Conches another student and scientist at Chartres agree emphasising that natural phenomena must be understand without recourse to the invocation of the supernatural.  This attitude is why Christianity built modern science and the pagans and naturalists failed in the same endeavour.

Thierry and his successors at Chartres thankfully dispensed with the pagan notion that celestial bodies were divine.  The Muslim Al-Lah for example, is historically an idol representing moon and celestial worship, common in the Near East reflected in the name Baal found in the Old Testament and associated with evil.  The schools at Chartres believed that the planets were formed of material substances, not semi-divine characteristics and that they served a purpose in the firmament that needed to be discovered.  Under Thierry and his successors, we can see the beginnings of true science and physics.

‘Averroists’, or those who followed the incorrect philosophy of Averroes the Muslim philosopher, were also dealt with by the Chartres school.  Averroes believed that Aristotle was correct in his belief that the Earth was eternal.  This contravenes common sense and the Bible, in which the Earth and the universe must have been created.  Saint Thomas Acquinas, basing his work in part on the output from Chartres reconciled Aristotle with Catholicism, providing in essence scientific and logical proofs in his synthesis to prove the existence of God and the created universe. 

After Acquinas’ death the Bishop of Paris issued the Condemnation of 1277, books and works that professors at the University of Paris were forbidden to teach.  The condemnations targeted erroneous Aristotelian beliefs.  Pierre Duhem the great historian of science believed that the Condemnations opened the path for real science to flourish.  It forced academics and thinkers to break out of the prison walls of Aristotelian belief and pursue new and fresh paths of discovery.  This energy and vitality led to the astronomy, physics and laws of inertia and motion developed in Paris and Chartres by Robert Grosseteste (13^th century) and Jean Buridan (14^th century), amongst many others. 

The age of naturalist science was born in the 11^th century in Western Christendom.  This epochal achievement is seldom recognised or understood.