What does this have to do with anything I said?
Scientists probably “fled” to the eastern empire because that’s where the learning was: the Nestorian and Byzantine scholars saved all those Greek and Roman texts from being eaten away by moths.
This could be right, but I am unaware of any scientific “brain drain” in the West. I thought if they fled anywhere it would be to Rome. But off hand, I don’t know of any significant amount of scientific Latin types immigrating and integrated into Alexandria, Contantinople, or Toledo.
But yes if this is the case, it would make sense. As it happened in Vienna in 1740, London in 1840, New York in 1940, etc. .
There really wasn’t one. I just mentioned that if someone was “fleeing” persecution because of science, they heading east would make sense. Italy and Muslim Spain make sense too, since that’s where centers of learning were as well (the Muslims migrated the recovered ancient texts from the eastern empire to these places).
There really wasn’t one.
Aye, and now that I think of it there really was a disconnect between all three major Xtian divisions, with little communications. This also holds true of the poets and writers. I would assume other scholars would be in a similar position. And I don’t think it was as much about religous supresion as much as it was highly inconvienent at the time.
Spain would be an interesting case study though.
The main reason was Muslim aggression against the Byzantine Empire, and fear that if it fell, the rest of Europe would quickly follow.