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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Storm Raven" data-source="post: 3552989" data-attributes="member: 307">They may pay some lip service to it, but they express everything in wages and weekly pay.And both were executed for their efforts. Both were considered to be exceptional and, in Joan's case, heretical. You aren't making much of an argument by trotting them out.In any event, how many PCs are defined as even "minor gentry"? The vast majority of PCs seem to be some sort of generic "free person" class (which was fairly rare in actual medieval society), who, in reality, would have had little opportunity for significant political advancement.Bessemer would be surprised to learn that.In any event, these are merely refinements on previous processes, and in most cases have direct military application. Sure, they were done to a certain extent, but even the most basic chemical processes (at the time) were invested with magical significance (see The Last Sorcerers) and were poorly understood, and kept secret.Nice assumptions - of course, it does nothing to butress your argument and is insulting to boot.No, the country farmers were not. But the people with money and power were. That is the major difference in mind set as the transition from the medieval period to the renaissance period took place. When leaders began financing exploration, encouraging discovery and invention, providing prizes for scholarly accomplishments, and so on, a major shift in the culture took place - a top down shift. Rather than the bulk of scholarship being the process of translating and interpreting received wisdom (and yes, there were expreimentalists in the mediaval period, but they were rare and exceptional), the idea of creating something entirely new became valued. Instead of studying Aristotle and Galen, scholars began pioneering their own ideas. Sure, it meant little to the country farmer, but then again, the doings of a band of D&D adventurers probably would mean little to a country farmer in a fantasy world too, but it meant a significant shift in how money and power pushed technology.</blockquote>

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