Fascinating ride through the scientific discoveries and knowledge of the so called "dark Ages' - that really weren't. I expected historical fiction and was pleasantly surprised.

An interesting look at Dark Ages history through the pov of a medieval monk called John of Westwyk. I admit I was expecting it to read more like a Historical Fiction, but it reads like history with all the facts and figures in an era that appears to be better known than we've been led to believe.

I found that reading it in small increments made it easier to take in the information, yet it was very interesting and worth the time it took to read it.

A very interesting historical read with many interesting facts. In todays age of social media, IT, learning and education we often forget or don"t even realise what it must have been like to live during the periods covered in this book. Certainly the term "dark years" is apt compared to life today. It was enlightening to read some of the ways by which things were calculated and passed on centuries ago. A book that I would pick up and read over a period of time.

A great read perfect for those interested in the lesser-covered elements of both social history and the history of science. It's a bit technical in places but overall really interesting.

Absolutely fantastic history of the Middle Ages that shines light on a period once thought of as dark. Falk leads readers through the margins of illuminated manuscripts and scientific tracts demonstrating an extraordinarily 'advanced' knowledge within a period assumed by many to be primitive, backward, and uncultured. Thoroughly recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in history or science.

I found this to be a book of two halves. In the first instance it is full of very interesting history and tales of the the characters lives which I loved. In the second it was equally filled with complex science and astrology which for me was a bit confusing and I found myself flicking forward to get to the next story style chapter.

Whilst this is well written and contains a lot of nice narrative it wasnt ideal for me due to the complicated (for me) sciencey stuff.

I'd say I would need to give this two seperate ratings 5 Stars for the story-telling and 2 for the science

Although this turned out to be not the book for me I still feel it has loads of merit and would appeal to someone with more interest in the specifics of the science rather than a history buff like myself

A fascinating look into the “dark ages”, purporting that they were not quite so dark as we have previously believed. An enjoyable, well researched read.

There seems to have been a slight shift recently to reconsider whether the “Dark Ages” really were that dark. There has always been an assumption that nothing much happened from the end of the Roman Empire or maybe from the Crusades and the start of the Renaissance. Mr Falk sets out to show there was a lot happening and that we need to rethink the name of the period. The structure of the book is to use a 14th century monk and his astronomical experiments and insights to show that there was much happening in science and philosophy and not all purely within religious confines. The book is not an easy read as it is quite academic but a lay person should have no problem following the narrative. I had to stop to research a few names here and there but Wikipedia is a simple aid to gaining a lot from this book.

I had no idea about the complex instruments being built or the planetary motions being recorded and analysed and I left the book full of admiration for these stalwart folk and for Mr Falk for bringing their stories to life.

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

This fascinating book lifts the myth that the ‘Dark Ages’ were times when intellectual thinking stood still and ignorance was widespread. The author has conducted diligent research and leads us through the life of a 14th century Benedictine monk and gives the history of planetary discovery from Egyptian times to the beginning of the 15th Century. After the first few pages I found myself learning of the very early astronomical discoveries that were known to the ancients and were refined and documented by Ptolemy in the 4th century. The sheer level of detail of the movement of the planets and their geometric relationships in the solar system is to me, quite amazing. I would think that the average ‘man in the street’ would think that these details were only known in the last 3 centuries and certainly not being used by medieval monks to calculate time, create a calendar we recognise today and finally create clocks that not only told time but displayed and forecasted the phases of the moon.
The book also shows the reader that the intellectual power of the religious fraternities and the sharing of information amongst religions allowed theories and facts to be employed in the development of the emerging technologies of the time.
The author also tells us the saga of the ‘flat earth’ story and that is was a myth generated by a fictional story in the 19th Century. It was known by ancients that the planets were spheres and Galileo stated simply ‘you have only to observe a lunar eclipse to see the shape of the Earth.’
This book is essential reading for all historians especially those with an interest in the science of Astronomy.

For most scientists the middle ages are also know as the dark ages. From the fall of the Roman Empire until the Renaissance it has long been held that no great advances were made in Western Europe. Despite the flourishing of science in the Islamic world and in the Far East little evidence was seen from closer to home. In this book Falks unearths key developments and puts them in the context of the medieval world. It is utterly fascinating as research is both focused on science but also on the life of obscure writers and experimenters.

This is a fascinating book which takes a new look at the so-called "Dark Ages" and the science of the era.

Exceptionally well researched and terrifically engaging, this is an easy read, even to those of us without a background in either history or science. Seb Falk is an engaging writer who discusses the advances made during the Dark Ages in a very approachable book. However, the Dark (or Light) Ages spanned a few centuries, and from the point of view of a layman, given the time that the book covers, although progress was undoubtedly made, the rate of advance seems very slow, parrticularly as the timeline seems to jump around a bit. A timeline would have been helpful. Nevertheless, a very enjoyable book, highly deserving of a five star review, and one that I would recommend - one or two members of my family may well get a copy as a Christmas present!.

The Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century, at which point starts the 'Age of Discovery'.

While, in popular knowledge, a majority of the inventions are attributed to the ages of discovery, the groundwork was laid, surprisingly, in the so called Dark Ages

And so begins Seb Falk’s ambitious project – The Light Ages!

Written in seven parts - from the basics of monastic life to universities, astronomy and medicine, The Light Ages by Seb Falk attempts to summarize the pathbreaking research that occurred in the middle ages in 570 odd pages.

Although this book has all the makings of a thoroughly researched book complete with empirical evidence, it does not read like a dry academic paper. On the contrary, set against the backdrop of quaint English villages, looming cathedral and a slow simmering civic unrest, the overall aura of the book is very vintage and reminiscent of a simpler time.


What I loved: The Light Ages is very thoroughly researched; the data and manner of presentation is impeccable and faultless. Personally, my favourite part was the chapter on Astrolabe, which was so visual in the way it has been written.

Additionally, the insight it provides us in the amount of time our ancestors in the middle ages actually dedicated trying to understand and thereby lay the groundwork in the basics of astronomy.

What was challenging: This book is very academic and gets really detailed. As such it is intended for an extremely niche audience. The book demands a basic understanding of medieval history, mathematics and astronomy. A keen interest in both is a given, considering the fact that you're considering reading the book!

I’d like to thank Penguin Press UK and Allen Lane for sending me an advanced readers copy.

A fascinating glimpse into the actual science and knowledge of the medieval age, explained in a very accessible way. A salutary reminder that scientists flourished in the dark ages, despite the common assumption that nothing much happened until the Renaissance.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Press UK – Allen Lane for this review copy. This is my unbiased review of the author's work and style.
For those interested in history, historical novel authors, people with a genuine interest in uncovered history, instrument makes, travel enthusiasts - the list goes on, this volume is a must.
I, like many people, had always looked upon the period before Henry VIII as a time of religious dominance set, in the west, to ensure peoples strict adherence to Christian dogma and prescribed beliefs which the reformation started the new age of enlightenment and the fading of medieval times.
To find that the known knowledge of the world was much farther advanced is a happy discovery. That science and craft were working together to bring about much greater understanding means to me that beneath the foot of serfdom the formulation of new thinking never really died with the demise of Greek culture.
I am much indebted to Seb Falk for his book and the dedication he has put into its formulation.

The Middle Ages and Science? Do you think they are incompatible? Well you'll think differently after reading Seb Falk's book. His aim, as stated in the Prolog, is to give The Middle Ages a better name. If you'd ask me, he was more than successful in his quest. To begin with I was a bit won over anyway, but after going through this book I am actually impressed. Gosh, what the monks were doing was so very hard. I am amazed at how smart they were!!

No matter where you stand in regards to religion/the Church, I believe the Church was instrumental in the development of science and Universities; in writing and distributing books etc. This is particularly well explored in this book through Westwyck's story. I found the idea of following a normal monk, someone we never heard of, to show that science is not only about the most famous, but mostly about those tinkering on a daily basis, doing their bit to help the advancement of science, brilliant. From this point of view, this book is an ode to everyday heroes that are so very important, yet they never make it to the news. I found particularly interesting how science and religion use to go hand in hand. I think nowadays we mostly view religion as antiscience, yet it seems that the Dark Ages were better than us. They were able to study science and embrace scientific discoveries without refuting the existence of a God. Also very illuminating how information used to circulate and propagate all over the world. Falk puts an accent on the Muslim thinkers alongside Greeks, making us aware that it was not only Europe that contributed to scientific advancement.

Truth be told, I've found parts of this book very hard to go through. Bits like: how to use an astrolabe or how they were calculating planetary trajectories etc went over my head as they were very hard to follow and understand. Probably for someone already interested in such things, this is going to be a treat. The good part is that one can still read and enjoy the book regardless if they get the mathematical bits or not :D

3.0 out of 5 stars The Dark Light Years
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 September 2020
There is a great deal of interesting information in this book and Dr Falk has certainly done his research (43 pages of back notes and 15 pages of Further Reading, which is catnip to some of us). I suspect he would be a fascinating person to go down (these days, virtual) pub with. He uses the career of the monk John Westwyk as a thread with which to discuss science, particularly astronomy, and life in the medieval period and in particularly late C14th England. The thing is that we know more about John Westwyk that almost all of the people who have ever lived in the history of the world, but it is still not actually very much and Falk is forced to fill the gaps with speculations derived from his wide reading (we don't, for instance, know whether Westwyk ever himself studied at Oxford, although it is certainly very possible he did, much less whether he was disturbed by the bells around the necks of the pigs of St Anthony's Hospital when he was at St Albans Inn in London).

Falk emphasises the continuity of science through the ages. This works best for astronomy and it is certainly fascinating just how accurate the predictions of the motions of the celestial bodies could be and that phenomena like the precession of the equinoxes could be recognised in the long time series data available. Of course, a big issue is the difference between a model that is accurate (and useful) and one that is true. Medieval people might have been able to construct sophisticated clocks that mimicked the motions of the heavens, but despite having spectacles, they didn't invent the telescope and thus discover that the Moon is a place, and more, pertinently that Jupiter has satellites. Copernicus's model might have been wrong because the planets don't move in concentric circles around the Sun, but Kepler's model, derived entirely from data obtained with the same types of naked eye observation, had the planets moving in ellipses and offered rules for how quickly they moved. This was a great leap forward and the real kicker was that Newton's law of universal gravitation just a few decades later could predict Kepler's law and unite celestial and terrestrial gravity. The inverse square law even makes intuitive sense (the influence decreases because it is spread out over the surface area of increasing large spheres) even if action at a distance was still occult.

Of course, it is unfair to blame the medievals for not being Kepler or Newton. John Westywk or Geoffrey Chaucer were still highly skilled in the practical aspects of positional astronomy. The past is a foreign country, but don't get me started on astrology, and our worldview might be very different in 600 years. Falk mentions the great influence of Islamic scholars on Christian ones and the free exchange of ideas between the cultures, but doesn't mention algebra, which is a real key in the evolution of modern science and helps make some of the laborious arithmetical and geometrical calculations that people like John Westwyk did a little clearer and easier to understand.

Although Falk does focus primarily on the late C14th, he does jump around a bit when it suits his purposes. As with John's life, we know something of the medieval period, but there are still great gaps and one must go where there is a material to be had. He rightly deprecates the term "Dark Ages", but what would have helped this lay reader would have been a timeline. Just what was known and by whom when? The medievals were certainly able to do things (those clocks, for instance) that the ancients weren't, so there is a definite building on the shoulders of giants, but how quickly and when? For instance, how did what was going on at Alcuin's cathedral school in York in the late 700s compare to Westwyk's St Albans, Oxford, Tynemouth and London 600(!) years later in the late 1300s? How much progress ("progress" if you prefer, but we definitely should believe in any general notions of medieval stasis) had been made and how different were the worldviews? Some of this might be obvious to a scholar like Falk, but it is not obvious to me!

Overall, definitely worth a read and I learnt a lot even if I am not wholly convinced by Falk's thesis. Science (or, if you prefer, "science") in Medieval Europe is as fascinating subject with much left to be explored. I look forward eagerly to Falk's next book.

(Thanks to NetGalley for providing a free Advanced Reading Copy of the book.)

My thanks to Penguin Press U.K. Allen Lane for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Light Ages: A Medieval Journey’ of Discovery by Seb Falk in exchange for an honest review.

While I had taken a course on the History of Science some years ago, it only covered the Early Modern Period, i.e. the Renaissance onward. So from the opening pages this was such an eye opener!

Falk is writing for a general readership guiding us through the Middle Ages, a time of wonder that gave us the first universities, the first eyeglasses and the first mechanical clocks as medieval thinkers sought to understand the world around them, from the passing of the seasons to the stars in the sky.

Falk provides a real-life guide to the world of medieval science: a fourteenth-century monk named John of Westwyk - an inventor, astrologer, and crusader. While only traces of Brother John’s life are known, Falk follows these so that we encounter the natural world through Brother John's eyes. Along the way we meet other fascinating characters.

Falk makes a persuasive case for the medieval period being reconsidered as The Light Ages.

He also contrasts the attitudes towards religion between medieval science and the science of today. He writes: “Medieval science was not trying to understand the workings of a coldly mechanistic natural world but a living cosmos endowed by God.“

Also, he takes time to consider examples of scholarly cooperation during this period: “We have seen, too, that religion was no impediment to scientific progress. Time and again we have witnessed medieval Christians respecting and absorbing learning from other faiths without prejudice.” Reading of these, it seems that in some ways the medieval period was more progressive than the following period of the Reformation and Counter Reformation.

Falk rounds out the book with a comprehensive list of primary and secondary sources. Again, he notes that articles, books and online resources have been slanted towards general readers, though full bibliographic notes are included so the book is also suitable for academics.

I have always been interested in history and science and so my little grey cells were delighted by this book. It provided much food for thought while always remaining accessible.

The book contains many illustrations from the period and concludes with suggestions for further reading, including fiction as well as the more traditional works. There is also a handy index.

An excellent work of nonfiction that takes its readers on an amazing journey. Highly recommended.

Meticulously researched, beautifully written. I was absolutely one of the people who viewed Science in the Middle Ages as “putting leeches on everything”, so it was wonderful to read more about the subject. The breadth of subjects covered is great, and it’s really interesting to see how people from different ethnicities and religions were so open to working with each other

Whoever it was that described those post Roman and pre Norman years as the Dark Ages was utterly wrong.. The author quotes the 1605 Anglian antiquarian William Camden who dismissed the Middle Ages even as 'overcast with darke clouds, or rather the fogges of ignorance'. However Seb Falk has written of the astonishing history of scientific thought and as he points out the word science had a different connotation then than nowadays. It is a subject that I have no knowledge of at all - but being interested in history I was gripped from beginning to end and I have learnt so much. Even little things like the word solstice from the Latin solstitium means 'Sun standing still'. What really fascinated me was to see the change from the work being carried out by monks to gradually being taken over by scholars as universities came into existence, and theories like the Earth being flat was simply an invention of the 19th century.

This has been a very enjoyable book and deserves to be read by any one interested in how knowledge grows from itself and how lucky we have been to have had such inquiring men and women in the past whose intellect and curiosity has given us so much. If I could I would give it more than 5 stars!

This book is written by a Cambridge science historian and looks at science in the Middle Ages with a character, a fourteenth century monk, guiding us through all the different events.
The writing is very good although this book did not quite hit it for me. The book concentrates a lot on astrological science which I am not really that well up on but I did learn a lot through reading the book although I found some of it quite hard going and hard to get my head around.
If you are interested in astrological science and the Middle Ages then this is definitely the book for you.
Many thanks to NetGalley, the publishers and author for letting me have an advanced copy of this book on the Kindle in return for leaving a review.
The book was published yesterday and available at all good bookshops