Toledo translation school

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The Toledo Translation School was a crucial institution during the European Middle ages. It was renowned in its time as a school teaching the Latin and Arabic languages

It was primarily known for two things:

It housed one of the greatest Arabic, Latin and Spanish libraries (the other was that of Abd al Rahman III) during the middle ages of Arabic works captured from former Muslim cities.
A great many of the translations of major works specially Arabic/Muslim scientific, mathematical, pharmacological, botanical and medical texts, Greek works and religious works and some Hebrew into Latin, and Castilian were done here.

Many of the Hebrew and Arabic were in turn, translations from Greek. A lot of the translations were used in Christianity.The Arab/Muslim world was far advanced, compared to Western Europe/Latin Christendom, in medicine, sciences, chemistry, mathematics, etc.

The Toledo school was founded (1127-1152) by Archbishop Raimondo of Toledo. Most of the translators were Jews, Muslims, Christians, monks and scholars from Belgium, Italy, Germany and Low Countries and other countries. Works such as Mathematical discourse by Archimedes, Aristotle's Metaphysics, Euclid's Elements of Geometry, were translated not from the original Greek but Arabic since they have been preserved in the Eastern Mediterranean after the Arab conquest. These were found in Arabic by Archbishop Raymund ('Raimundo') of Toledo in 1105. The school was a place to learn Castilian, Latin and Arabic.

Some of the translators supported by Raymund here Johannes Avendehut Hispanus, a Spanish Jew who translated Avicena, Domingo Gundisalvo, Archdeacon of Cuéllar, and Gherardus Cremonensis who translated Ptolemy's Almagest, and Marcos who translated the Koran.

King Alfonso X of Castile promoted the Toledo site and opened schools in Seville and Murcia (1269). Since Castilian was the lingua franca and Spanish scholars were present, Spanish prose became more Arabic and even more Latinized, a language suitable for learned discourse.