The Enlightenment was the result of a vast set of cultural and intellectual changes in Europe during the 15 and 1600s--one of the most important of these changes was the Scientific Revolution. During the Scientific Revolution, European thinkers tore down the flawed set of "scientific" beliefs established by the ancients and maintained by the Church. To replace this flawed knowledge, scientists sought to discover and convey the true laws governing the phenomena they observed in nature.
Although it would take centuries to develop, the Scientific Revolution began near the end of the Middle Ages, when farmers began to notice, study, and record those environmental conditions that yielded the best harvests. In time, curiosity about the world spread, which led to further innovation. Even the Church initially encouraged such investigations, out of the belief that studying the world was a form of piety and constituted an admiration of God's work.
