Never said anything about innovation, I was actually arguing that the Middle Ages were better than a 'dark' age. The fact remains though that Europe was poorer, less healthy and less populous than China or the Islamic world in 1400.
European metalurgy was way better than Chinese smelting, which is why Europe could make Cannon and China only small handguns. The Chinese had insufficient skill to create barrels that could cope with the stress.
Islamic countries used different military styles to the the Europeans, favouring light cavalry. This was a disadvantage in a straight charge, but as the battle of Hattin can attest, the Islamic strategy was also effective. Heavy Cavalry is not necessarily better than light cavalry, depends on the military situation.
Read the extent works of Heron of Alexandria: Pneumatica and Automapoeia explains in some detail his steam engine. A working example has also been built.
Ausonius's Mosella has an extensive description of a marble cutting watermill on the Moselle river in the fourth century.
Ammianus Marcellinus' XXIII letter speaks of a water powered saw mill.
Orjan Wikander and Michael Lewis have written extensively and done 30 years worth of Archeological digs that shows widespread wind and watermill use in Roman Britain and Gaul.
No, by your defintion in this post it isn't, as Dutch reclamation mostly happened after 1300. Putting lenses on a piece of wire is not a major innovation. Lenses themselves were, which had to be rediscovered.
The Romans already used saddles, the four horn type which Eastern Roman Cataphrachts modified into the high saddle of the middle ages. This was an advantage to heavy cavalry.
The Muslims used lower saddles modified from the Roman design as well, which was better suited for light cavalry.
The Huns invaded in the 5th century and did not use Stirrups. It was introduced in the 7th century by the Avars, with the first reference to it the Strategikon of Emperor Maurice.
Correct. Read what I wrote. Man-powered galleys were better for Mediterranean warfare which is why they remained the primary military shipping there until the rise of Cannon. The battle of Lepanto in the 16th century was still fought by man-powered galleys. The Romans had sails and exclusively wind-powered vessels as well, just as Venice did in the 16th.
Regardless, Slavery was never outlawed. Bathilde outlawed slave-trading in the Merovingian realm though.
For instance 10% of the English population in the Domesday book were slaves.
The Feudal system and the establishment of serfdom replaced the Roman slave system and lead to a decline and eventual death of slavery in continental Europe. The Crusaders however, acquired and used slaves in Outremer, as did some monarchs for instance the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II.
It was expected to free Christian slaves in Jubilee years and was considered a commendable act, but the institution of slavery was never outlawed nor was there a concerted attempt to do so. Slavery disappeared in Europe by about 1200 on economic and social factors.
In some respects an improvement and in others not. Roman structures are still standing securely while many Mediaeval ones are crumbling and tilting.
You are equating all Roman Architecture to a few examples, few would agree that the Colosseum or most Aquaduct systems could be considered to have thick walls.
The most important decline from Roman times in this respect was the decline in waterproofing and the loss of Concrete.
Quibbling yes, as I said 'roughly 1200'. Ancient academies were also not really for teaching alone but for innovation. We see multiple works on science, astronomy, biology etc. which came from there.
Um, yes there was a cultural decline called by scholars the 'Dark Ages' (not your definition of the term) up to about the 800s AD.
Christian Europe did not achieve Roman levels of population, health, life expectancy or productivity until the 18th century.
Also knowledge of Mechanics and Physics was quite lacking. Most of the Greco-Roman science had to be rediscovered from Arabic texts in the high middle ages. From the late middle ages they had surpassed the ancient world in certain fields, but by no means all.
Again Renaissance isn't a myth as it was a dramatic departure from the thought paradigm that came before it even though it wasn't an instantaneous process or a specific point that can be said to be the beginning of it.
You yourself called it a decline from the middle ages, so how can a myth be a decline?
There were advances from the Ancient World in the Middle Ages, but by no means did they surpass it 'in every way'.
There was a steep decline of all factors: health, life expectancy, population, productivity, knowledge etc. when the Western Roman world fell. Europe then took two or three centuries to dust itself off and began recovering itself thereafter. It is a specious argument to see the Middle Ages as a unit, as an advance on the Ancient world and deny the very real decline that initiated it.
Some things got better, others not so much.
The Enlightenment and Renaissance are other arguments entirely and depends on what you consider advancement and what not.
