ABSTRACT
The most important element of scientific endeavour was 'thought': bold, logical, objective, abstract and predominantly male. Their writings hailed the so-called scientific revolution as the triumph of a fearless, rational mind over the superstitious and backward reasoning of the dark Middle Ages. Historians also reassessed the socio-cultural context in which scientific practices developed. They tried to see the world through the eyes of their historical actors and asked, for example, how their scientific enterprise was shaped by institutions such as the early modern patronage system or the etiquette of court culture. Medieval historians, for example, have shown that their period was certainly not characterized by ignorance and scientific backwardness. Scholars felt increasingly uneasy with the very idea of the scientific revolution as a singular and discrete event. Feminist scholars demanded a place for women in the heroic accounts of the scientific revolution.
