ABSTRACT
In the early decades of the seventeenth century, the clash between the traditional scholastic doctrine of the heavens and the astronomers' evidence of their nature brought on a crisis throughout Europe involving natural philosophers, theologians and astronomers. In this chapter a wide range of figures from the period wi l l be examined running from die-hard Aristotelians to astronomers ready to admit that the cosmos might not be finite. An evolving trend can be discerned as the centre of gravity of opinion moved from one extreme to the other, though at different rates for scholars of different religious beliefs and of different disciplines. A number of scholars, particularly Protestants, sought to tie the astronomical evidence in with their own adopted theological views of the nature of the heavens. Plunged into the midst of this crisis, the Jesuits, ill-prepared and divided among themselves, emerged ingloriously, accepting the compromise solution of a Lutheran astronomer, Tycho Brahe.
