The Medieval
Technological Revolution
The roots of Western technological progress can
be
found in the Middle Ages (700-1400). Europe became more
technologically
advanced than China
only after about 1350, but during the middle ages (also
known as the medieval period) European technology began to
progress
while the Chinese increasingly believed that innovation was a
bad thing.
The fall of Rome resulted in a
near-complete
collapse of civilization
- barbarian tribes took over
- literacy was nearly lost
- slavery became impractical and the idea developed
that it
was immoral to hold Christians as slaves
- civilization had to be rebuilt on a new foundation
(Christianity)
- the only functioning organization left was the
church
(Catholic)
the
four season, from bnf.fr
Agriculture:
- The
moldboard
plow (8th century)
- required 6 to 8 oxen to pull so led to
cooperative farming
PEM photo: Moldboard Plow, National Museum of American History
- Three
field crop rotation (9th century)
- winter wheat or rye
- spring
oats, beans, or barley
- fallow
- Horsepower replaces oxen (widespread by
12th
century)--horse could work for more hours a day and moved
50% faster
- oats (oxen can work on grass alone)
- the horse collar
(8th-9th century)--allows a horse to pull 4 or 5 times
more weight.
Horsecollar
-
iron
horseshoes (common by 11th century) allowed horses
to work on wet
ground
- the
stirrup made possible the mounted knight, creating a
demand for
more and better horses
- Feudalism
-
Manorial
System : the serfs (not a slave, but bound to the
land--cannot move
away) lived in a village and farmed the land communally,
giving a share
of their labor and the crop to the knight
- the knight and his family lived in the
castle and had responsibility to protect the serfs and to
fight when
called up by the king
- such
government
as there was was provided by the knights and lords
- the farmers had some opportunity to
better
themselves by improving farming practices
waterwheel at 17th century ironworks
Water Power
- invented in Roman times but used only
rarely
through the 5th century
- Spread of the water
wheel
in the 8th and 9th
centuries
- In 1086 the Domesday Book
lists
5624 mills in 3000 English communities--an average of
one mill for every 50 households
- first
mills were floating mills or mills attached to
bridges. They
first had undershoot wheels (20-30% efficient), then
overshoot (50-60%
efficient, 13th century) with the water directed by a canal
or a wooden
millrace
- the invention of the cam allows the
conversion of rotary motion into reciprocating motion
- new uses for water power:
- around 1000:
fulling
wool cloth, beating hemp, water driven trip hammers to
break up iron ore
- around 1100 water powered bellows,
edge runner wheels to crush olives for oil
- around 1200 saw mills that used water
power both to power a rotary saw and to feed in the log
- around 1300 water powered grindstones,
pumps
to remove water from
mines
- damming a river for water power--1177
Toulouse had 3 dams with 43 mills. The largest dam was
1300 feet
long
-
windmills
(12th century) used in areas where land was flat or streams
froze in
the winter
Windmill
23.
Life
and Miracles of Saint Louis
Christianity and attitudes towards technology
- motivation to go out and
spread Christianity
- God no longer inhabits nature
- Man's dominion over the earth--new
attitude
- monasteries developed and spread technology
because they needed it to be self-supporting on marginal
land and
because they believed work was virtuous
- monks work with their hands--the first
intellectuals who got their hands dirty (
The Cistercians )
- Christianity prohibited the owning of
Christians as slaves so slavery became much less common
- Cathedrals were a technological
achievement
with a religious purpose--competition to build taller both
for civic
pride and because people saw it as getting closer to God (
a medieval mason
, images
of
medieval art and architecture )
- the invention of the clock in the late
13th
century--at a monastery
this page written and copyright © Pamela E. Mack
last updated 9/23/2005