Bernard of Chartres, a prominent 12th-century French philosopher, lived around 1070 to 1130. He is best known for his influential teaching that emphasized the continuity of knowledge through the ages. Bernard is famously credited with the phrase,

“We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants,”

highlighting the idea that contemporary scholars build upon the knowledge of their predecessors. Bernard’s contributions significantly promoted a “dark” medieval intellectual life, known as scholasticism, that oppressed rational ideas about our empirical world.