Expertus – experientia – experimentum. Neue Wege der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis im Spätmittelalter

Abstract Experience played a key role in the natural science of the later Middle Ages. Both the terms “experience” and “experiment” can be found in medieval texts. However, the latter was mainly used as a synonym and there is only a slight allusion to the concept of experiments in the modern sense. In their arguments, medieval authors rather referred to day-to-day experience, to phenomena which were evident from simple observation. The medieval Latin meaning of expertus (or its close equivalent experimentator) was thus closely related to the notion of everyday experience. An expert was someone who had a wide experience of natural phenomena and who always sought to extend his knowledge. During the later Middle Ages, this aspect slowly gained in importance (despite the fact that written authorities and the textbooks of natural philosophy remained dominant), thus opening up new ways of thinking, which finally led to the Scientific Revolution.