Eilmer from Malmesbury

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Eilmer on a 1920 stained glass window in Malmesbury Abbey. The flying machine in his hands is borrowed from the iconography of Leonardo da Vinci .

Eilmer von Malmesbury was an English Benedictine monk from the 11th century who, according to the report of his monk brother William of Malmesbury (approx. 1080–1143) , undertook a gliding flight of 200 m in length.

Accordingly, Eilmer jumped from a tower with wings attached to arms and legs, but broke both legs on landing, which he attributed to the lack of a rear wing.

The technology historian Lynn Townsend White dates the event on the basis of Wilhelm's information to the decade from 1000 to 1010 and rates it as authentic.

The report on Eilmer's attempt to fly shows various parallels to the report on Abbas ibn Firnas around 200 years earlier.

Bernd Roeck described Eilmer's flight attempt in 2017 as “a beginning” of the following, empirically-based technological development in Europe and pointed out that Eilmer must have had access to a well-stocked library in which he took up ancient suggestions.

literature

  • Lynn Townsend White: Eilmer of Malmesbury, an Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study of Technological Innovation, Its Context and Tradition. In: Technology and Culture. Volume 2, 1961, No. 2, pp. 97-111, doi: 10.2307 / 3101411 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lynn White 1961: 107, fn. 1.
  2. ↑ Lynn White 1961: 97-98.
  3. ↑ Lynn White 1961: 99.
  4. ↑ Bernd Roeck: The morning of the world. History of the renaissance. CH Beck, Munich 2017, p. 201.
personal data
SURNAME Eilmer from Malmesbury
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English Benedictine monk
DATE OF BIRTH 10th century
DATE OF DEATH 11th century