Medieval technology
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During the 12th and 13th century in Europe there was a radical change in the rate of new inventions, innovations in the ways of managing traditional means of production, and economic growth. The period saw major technological advances, including the invention or adoption through the Silk Road of printing, gunpowder, the astrolabe, spectacles, and greatly improved water mills, building techniques, agriculture in general, clocks, and ships. The latter advances made possible the dawn of the Age of Exploration.
Alfred Crosby described some of this technological revolution in The Measure of Reality : Quantification in Western Europe, 1250-1600 and other major historians of Technology have also noted it.
European technical advancements of the 14th and 15th centuries were usually not native to Europe, but cross cultural exchanges through trading networks with the east, such as Chinese or Arab civilizations. Yet, the revolutionary aspect lay not in the inventions themselves, but in their application to political and economic power. Though gunpowder had long been known to the Chinese, it was the Europeans who fully realized its military potential, precipitating European expansion and eventual imperialism in the Modern Era. Also significant in this respect were advances within the fields of navigation. The compass, astrolabe and sextant, along with advances in shipbuilding, enabled the navigation of the World Oceans and thus domination of the worlds economic trade. Gutenberg’s printing press made possible a dissemination of knowledge to a wider population, that would not only lead to a gradually more egalitarian society, but one more able to dominate other cultures, drawing from a vast reserve of knowledge and experience.
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[edit] Medieval technologies
A list of some important medieval technology.
- Circa is the approximate date or first mention of a technology in Medieval Europe. Technologies were often a matter of cultural exchange and date and place of first invention are not listed, see main links for a more complete history of each.
| Technology | Circa | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Arabic Numerals | 13th | First recorded mention in Europe 976, first widely published in 1202 by Leonardo of Pisa with his Liber Abaci. |
| Artesian wells | 1126 | A thin rod with a hard iron cutting edge is placed in the bore hole and repeatedly struck with a hammer, underground water pressure forces the water up the hole without pumping. Artesian wells are named after the town of Artois in France, where the first one was drilled by Carthusian monks in 1126. |
| Cannons | 1324 | Documented in China from 1128, cannons are first recorded in Europe at the siege of Metz in 1324. In 1350 Petrarch wrote "these instruments which discharge balls of metal with most tremendous noise and flashes of fire...were a few years ago very rare and were viewed with greatest astonishment and admiration, but now they are become as common and familiar as any other kinds of arms." |
| Compass | 12th | The first mention of the directional compass is in Alexander Neckam's On the Natures of Things, written in Paris around 1190. Transmitted directly from China via the Silk Road, Arabs learned about it from Europeans soon after. |
| Grindstones | 834 | Rough stone, usually sandstone, used to sharpen Iron. A long and difficult process, the first rotary grindstone (turned with a leveraged handle) in Medieval Europe occurs in the Utrecht Psalter. |
| Liquor | 12th | By way of Islamic alchemists, initially used as medicinal elixir. Popular remedy for the Black Death during 14th century; "national" drinks like vodka, gin, brandy come into form. |
| Heavy plough | 5th->8th | The heavy wheeled plow with a moldboard first appears in the 5th century in Slavic lands, is then introduced into Northern Italy (the Po valley) and by the 8th century it was used in the Rhineland. Essential in the efficient use of the rich, heavy, often wet soils of Northern Europe, its use allowed the area's forests and swamps to be brought under cultivation. |
| Hops | 10th | Added to beer, importance lay primarily in its ability to preserve beer. |
| Horizontal loom | 11th | Horizontal and operated by foot-treadles, faster and more efficient. |
| Horse collar | 6th->9th | Multiple evolutions from Classical Harness (Antiquity), to Breast Strap Harness (6th) to Horse collar (9th). Allowed more horse pulling power, such as with heavy ploughs. |
| Horseshoes | 9th | Allowed horse to adapt to non-grassland terrains in Europe (rocky terrain, mountains) and carry heavier loads. Possibly known to the Romans and Celts as early as 50 BC. |
| Magnets | 12th | First reference in the Roman d'Enéas, composed between 1155 and 1160. |
| Mirrors | 1180 | First mention of "glass" mirror in 1180 by Alexander Neckham who said "Take away the lead which is behind the glass and there will be no image of the one looking in." |
| Paper | 10th | Invented in China, transmitted through Islamic Spain to Europe in the 10th century. |
| Rat traps | 1170s | First mention of a rat trap in the medieval romance Yvain, the Knight of the Lion by Chrétien de Troyes. |
| Stern-mounted rudders | 12th | First depiction on church carvings dating to around 1180, about a thousand years after its invention in China. |
| Silk | 11th-12th | Manufacture of silk began in 11th or 12th centuries. Imported over the Silk Road since Antiquity. Technnology of "silk throwing" mastered in Tuscany in the 13th century. The silk works used waterpower and some regard these as the first mechanized textile mills. |
| Spinning wheel | 13th | Brought to Europe probably from India |
| Soap | 9th | Soap came into widespread European use in the 9th century in semi-liquid form, with hard soap perfected by Arabs in the 12th century. |
| Spectacles | 1285 | Florence, Italy. Convex lenses, of help only to the far-sighted. Concave lenses were not developed prior to the 16th century. |
| Stirrups | 8th | Invented in China in the 5th century and transmitted through Asia to Europe by the 8th. Allowed mounted knight to wield and strike from a distance with a lance, leading to a great advantage for mounted cavalry. |
| Tidal Mills | 12th | Medieval invention, harnessed power of tides to turn grain mills. |
| Wheelbarrow | 13th | Appearing first in a drawing by Matthew Paris in the 13th century. |
| Windmills | 12th | Post mill invented in Europe, first surviving mention of one comes from Yorkshire in England in 1185. Efficient at grinding grain. |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Andrews, Francis B. The Medieval Builder and His Methods. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1973. Medieval construction technique, with a brief chapter on tools.
- Blair, John, and Nigel Ramsay, editors. English Medieval Industries: Craftsmen, Techniques, Products London: Hambledon Press. 1991. ISBN 1852853263
- Crosby, Alfred. The Measure of Reality : Quantification in Western Europe, 1250-1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
- Gies, Frances and Joseph. Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages. New York: Harper Collins, 1994. ISBN 0060925817
- Gimpel, Jean. The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages. London: Pimlico, (2nd ed. 1992) ISBN 0140045147
- Long, Pamela O.,editor. Science and Technology in Medieval Society. in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol 441 New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1985 ISBN 0897662776 A series of papers on highly specific topics.
- Singer, Charles, editor. History of Technology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954. Volumes II and III cover the Middle Ages with great scope and detail. This is the standard work.
- White, Lynn. Medieval technology and social change. Oxford: clarendon Press, 1962.
[edit] External links
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