I think university education then was for the few and it would take a great deal of independent thought, or independent wealth, to have gone against religious teaching, such that it was probably accepted that one towed the line in this regard.
Well Copernicus dedicated his book on heliocentrism to the Pope and his patron was a Bishop so unless he was engaged in an epic feat of trolling, perhaps things weren't quite as bad as commonly assumed.
Some scholarly views:
John Heilbron, no apologist for the Vatican, got it
right when he opened his book The Sun in the Church with the
following words: “The Roman Catholic Church gave more financial
and social support to the study of astronomy for over six
centuries, from the recovery of ancient learning during the late
Middle Ages into the Enlightenment, than any other, and probably
all, other institutions.”4 Heilbron’s point can be generalized far
beyond astronomy....
No institution or cultural force of the patristic period offered more encouragement for the investigation of nature than did the
Christian church. Contemporary pagan culture was no more favorable to disinterested speculation about the cosmos than was Christian culture. It follows that the presence of the Christian church enhanced, rather than damaged, the development of the natural sciences.
Michael H. Shank Ch2 in Galileo goes to jail and other myths about science and religion - Harvard University Press
A widespread myth that refuses to die...maintains that consistent opposition of the Christian church to rational thought in general and the natural sciences in particular, throughout the patristic and medieval periods, retarded the development of a viable scientific tradition, thereby delaying the Scientific Revolution and the origins of modern science by more than a millennium.
Historical scholarship of the past half-century demonstrates that the truth is otherwise.
David C Lindberg in the Cambridge companion to science and religion
Historians have observed that Christian churches were for a crucial millennium leading patrons of natural philosophy and science, in that they supported theorizing, experimentation, observation, exploration, documentation, and publication. Noah J Efron
No account of Catholic involvement with science could be complete without mention of the Jesuits (officially called the Society of Jesus). Formally established in 1540, the society placed such special emphasis on education that by 1625 they had founded nearly 450 colleges in Europe and elsewhere... It is clear from the historical record that the Catholic church has been probably the largest single and longest- term patron of science in history, that many contributors to the Scientific Revolution were themselves Catholic, and that several Catholic institutions and perspectives were key influences upon the rise of modern science. Margaret J Osler
Although they disagree about nuances, today almost all historians agree that Christianity (Catholicism as well as Protestantism) move many early-modern intellectuals to study nature systematically.4 Historians have also found that notions borrowed from Christian belief found their ways into scientific discourse, with glorious re- sults; the very notion that nature is lawful, some scholars argue, was borrowed from Christian theology.5 Christian convictions also affected how nature was studied. For example, in the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries, Augustine’s notion of original sin (which held that Adam’s Fall left humans implacably dam- aged) was embraced by advocates of “experimental natural phi- losophy.” As they saw it, fallen humans lacked the grace to understand the workings of the world through cogitation alone, requiring in their disgraced state painstaking experiment and ob- servation to arrive at knowledge of how nature works (though our knowledge even then could never be certain). In this way, Christian doctrine lent urgency to experiment.6
Historians have also found that changing Christian approaches to interpreting the Bible affected the way nature was studied in crucial ways. For example, Reformation leaders disparaged allegorical readings of Scripture, counseling their congregations to read Holy Writ literally. This approach to the Bible led some scholars to change the way they studied nature, no longer seeking the allegorical meaning of plants and animals and instead seeking what they took to be a more straightforward description of the material world.7 Also, many of those today considered “fore- fathers” of modern science found in Christianity legitimation of their pursuits. René Descartes (1596–1650) boasted of his physics that “my new philosophy is in much better agreement with all the truths of faith than that of Aristotle.”8 Isaac Newton (1642–1727) believed that his system restored the original divine wisdom God had provided to Moses and had no doubt that his Christianity bolstered his physics—and that his physics bolstered his Christi- anity.9 Finally, historians have observed that Christian churches were for a crucial millennium leading patrons of natural philosophy and science, in that they supported theorizing, experimentation, observation, exploration, documentation, and publication. (Noah J Efron - Ch9 in Galileo goes to jail and other myths about science and religion - Harvard University Press)
True, but still just a way of keeping the 'lower classes' subservient.
If the goal was keeping the lower classes 'subservient' why would you encourage their literacy so they could read the Bible, interpret it themselves and that their interpretation was as good as any priest's?
Doesn't it seem a bit incongruous that the goal of religion was to keep people subservient while also been the foremost patron of education of those who would otherwise not be educated? Given that church 'employees' were also among the biggest contributors to advancing and spreading scientific knowledge and did so using church resources, the church must have either been completely impotent, or not actually the big bad wolf
Do you think that universal, free general education which serves no direct practical purpose is the 'default' state unless mendacious actors connive to keep the masses ignorant?
The 'default' state is humans not learning anything without a direct practical benefit as they don't have the time or resources to pursue some completely arbitrary goal of gaining classroom knowledge. Modern Western liberalism is a well-developed ideology born of a specific historical circumstance.
Not exactly a major change for society though was it?
Actually it was, and was the only reason we've heard of people like Newton, etc.
Put succinctly, the medieval period gave birth
to the university, which developed with the active support of the
papacy. This unusual institution sprang up rather spontaneously
around famous masters in towns like Bologna, Paris, and Oxford
before 1200. By 1500, about sixty universities were scattered
throughout Europe. What is the significance of this development
for our myth? About 30 percent of the medieval university curriculum
covered subjects and texts concerned with the natural
world. This was not a trivial development. The proliferation of
universities between 1200 and 1500 meant that hundreds of thousands
of students—a quarter million in the German universities
alone from 1350 on—were exposed to science in the Greco-
Arabic tradition... Michael H Shank
And your earlier point about only a few being affected seems out of place according to this article, even if all cannot entirely be put down to religious beliefs:
BBC Radio 4 - You're Dead To Me - Six spellbinding facts about the European Witch Craze
No one is saying it was all sweetness and light. Many atrocities were committed, but the scale was nothing compared to modernity.
Originally the Church position was that there was no such thing as witchcraft. Ironically, the witch hunts were probably a consequence of increased literacy and the printing press as firebrands could get there message to more people.
Also while maybe 50,000 deaths is a tragedy, it was across a couple of centuries and the whole of Europe. The Middle Ages were a violent time, and it works out at maybe a couple of people per week in each country.
The communist countries saw maybe as many as 80-100 million deaths in a few decades.
