In the premodern era, truth was derived from authority. This was the primary source of knowledge
about the world. These authorities were usually a god or gods. This knowledge
was then mediated to the average person through spiritual authorities (there’s
that word again) in the form of religious officials, like priests, tribal
leaders, etc. The common person did not have access to the divine except
through these intermediaries.
Tradition was seen
as unshakable and sacred. The world as a whole was seen as static and
unchanging, and the social order was strictly enforced. People had very little
means to make sense of the world around them, and so they explained the world
they lived in largely through narrative and myth. In this way the unknown became known.
So we could say that in a premodern world,
knowledge was controlled and dispensed by people in authority, who were almost
always religious leaders of some kind, and the form of that knowledge was myth
and tradition. In order to survive, societies must make sense out of their
physical environment. This was how their world cohered.
Most people acknowledge that the premodern
period lasted for about 1,000 years from 500 C.E. to 1500 C.E., roughly
parallel with the Middle Ages.
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