>I'm not sure, incidentally, that astrology was more important in the
>middle ages than in the "Renaissance" -- in many ways superstition
>_increased_ greatly during the 16th & 17th centuries
Yup, which is why "The Inquisition" is more early modern than medieval.
>it is important to identify the precise nature
>of that difference and the factors that brought about the change. And it
>does not seem to me that measurement was among those factors but,
>rather, a later and secondary result of the changes that took place.
I got no problem with that. But it was a monumental secondary result I think, touching everything from painting/sculpture/architecture to cartography to sizing criminals' cocks and earlobes.