ABSTRACT
In Christian Europe, the natural world was referred to as the "Book of Nature," which was considered to complement the Bible as a guide to divine will. Early science hardly breaks with medieval tradition concerning the Book of Nature; quite the contrary, it implicitly regards nature as a text to be deciphered. Medieval Christians thought allegorically and interpreted texts freely, imaginatively. They mined scripture for spiritual lessons they could apply in daily life, and brought the same approach to the Book of Nature. The context for reading the Book of Nature was the eschatology of medieval Christianity. Study of nature meant attention to the miraculous and portentous; the Book of Nature, like scripture, was read for its prophetic value. The printing press contributed to widespread interest in prophecies and biblical interpretations of natural portents like earthquakes and comets. A striking aspect of the medieval mind is its awe for the authority of written texts.
