I am sorry if I have made some grammar mistakes whilst writing this post, English is not my first language, I hope I won't be attacked for this.
I was trying to look for a list of scientists killed by the inquisition on Google and in history books, but most of the results I found were from the late 15th and 16th century, which is the technically the Renaissance era. Why is that so? In my homework, I stated the fact that in the Middle ages (not renaissance, so I have to stick to my statement very strictly) people who tried to go against the ideology of the Catholic Church (study science and physics) were tortured because science was considered witchcraft.
I can't find any matching results. So, am I wrong stating this fact? When I talked to my teacher, she didn't say I was wrong, she told me that I should back my statement up with an accurate fact - name, country, the year of death.
TL;DR: I am desperately looking for information about scientists from the 13th or 14th century who were killed by the inquisition or witch hunt.
Thank you!
I am desperately looking for information about scientists from the 13th or 14th century who were killed by the inquisition or witch hunt....I can't find any matching results.
Because you will find zero.
It is a myth of the middle ages, and in fact generally a myth of the early modern (renaissance) period. You have written a hypothesis which is disproven but persists as bad history in science television shows like Cosmos. The thesis is generally called the conflict thesis which I discussed in a previous post.
To be perfectly clear: the Catholic Church never opposed science on principle, the Catholic Church did not oppose 'science and physics', nor did they ever burn a 'scientist' for their scientific views. Certainly the Church did burn unrepentant heretics, including (but less commonly) those accused of harmful witchcraft.
In fact, if we are making bold statements, we can say that the Catholic Church lead the recovery of science, law,criminal investigation, philosophy. A statement like that, in as much as it's true in parts, simplifies history as much as 'the Church hated science'.
It's never too late to change one's mind, and you might find it very, very interesting to hypothesize that 'science' (and logic, and philosophy, and law) was recovered in the schools of cathedrals in cities like Bologna, Montpellier, Paris, Orleans, Oxford, Toulouse, in the 12th and 13th centuries. At the time science was called 'natural philosophy'. No doubt that natural philosophy had dangerous edges to it for orthodoxy, but it was never repressed for it. Some of the greatest 'doctors' of the medieval church (and now saints) were self-styled natural philosophers.