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. In less than a century there were more inventions developed and applied usefully than in the previous three thousand years of human history all over the globe. 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.
Bold texthh==Medieval technologies==
List of important medieval technologies.
- 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 | 13thhh | 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 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 | Known since antiquity in Asia Minor. 5th century used in Slavic lands, 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 harness | 6th->9th | Multiple evolutions from Classical Harness (Antiquity), to Breast Strap Harness (6th) to Horse collar (9th). Allowed horse more pulling power (an increase in horse power). |
| Horseshoes | 9th | Allowed horse to adapt to non-grassland terrains in Europe (rocky terrain, mountains) and carry heavier loads. Possibly known to the 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 known as Yvain. |
| 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 | Invented by Gauls in Antiquity but not used by Romans who preferred oiling and scraping. 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. |
See also
References
- 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.
- White, Lynn. Medieval technology and social change. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962.