Technology in the Middle Ages

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The technology in the Middle Ages was marked by numerous inventions that improved productivity, including wind and water mills, wheels plow, collar, horseshoes, spinning wheel and the pedal loom.

Mills

Wind and water mills are among the most important developments of the Middle Ages. They could be used to convert natural resources into mechanical kinetic energy and use them to do work. They were used for grinding grain, for driving forge hammers and bellows, in textile production and in numerous other areas.

Types

The typical mill of the Middle Ages was a water mill with a vertical water wheel that drove a horizontal shaft . This type of mill was already known in late antiquity , but was only used to a limited extent. In the early Middle Ages there were sometimes mills with a horizontal wheel and a vertical shaft. However, they were only suitable for grinding grain and, due to their construction, had a poor degree of efficiency. Most of the mills had so-called undershot water wheels, in which only the lowest part of the wheel protrudes into the water and is driven by the flowing water. Upper and middle Schlächtige water wheels also use the energy of the falling water and are more efficient. For this, however, water pipes or aqueducts are necessary (for the overshot wheels) or special weirs for the medium-sized ones, all of which were expensive to build. Therefore these types of mills were quite rare. Mills were seldom built directly on the river, as the fluctuating water level did not allow continuous work. Instead, dams and canals were built to stabilize the flow of water.

From the 11th century the windmill was added, especially in the north-western coastal regions of Europe. It also typically had a vertical wind turbine that drove a horizontal shaft. They were particularly common in the Netherlands, where there was little running water due to the flat landscape, but plenty of wind.

The mills produced a steady rotating motion that could be used directly on vertical shafts for grinding grain. In the case of horizontal shafts, the movement was diverted by gears and the speed was usually increased. For many applications, however, a reciprocating motion was required, such as forging hammers. Camshafts were used for this , which raised the hammers and then dropped them again.

Applications

Mills have been used in numerous fields. Most were used to grind grain. Grinding is one of the most physically strenuous activities and requires even movement; it can therefore be mechanized particularly easily. Fulling mills were used for milling cloth, which was also a particularly physically demanding work step. Wood was sawed in Waidmühlen . In blast furnaces, they were used to drive bellows. The higher temperatures achieved thereby enabled the production of liquid pig iron for the first time. Mills were used in mines to lift water. There were also ore mills , paper mills , silk twine mills , grinding mills and hammer mills .

Development over time

Watermills had been known since late antiquity, but were only sparsely used there. It was not until the early Middle Ages that they spread. Most of the developments arose independently of the ancient mills; there was no verifiable transfer of technology. The earliest mills were used to grind grain. Since the construction of a water mill with a mill wheel, shaft, gears and buildings as well as access roads required a lot of time and involved major investments, it was only worthwhile where the hand mills were no longer sufficient to meet the demand. In the early medieval small rural village communities, the conditions for this were not given. Therefore, most of the mills were built in the vicinity of the monasteries, where several hundred people often lived. In the 8th century, the mills also spread east of the Rhine-Main line, which was reflected in place names such as Mühlhausen, Mülln or Mühlheim. The spread of the mills can also be seen in the popular or tribal law of the Germanic tribes. There are often special paragraphs with legal provisions on mills. In the High Middle Ages, the so-called mill ban was more common : it forced the farmers to have the local mill mill for a fee and forbade the possession and use of hand mills. Milling technology also began to diversify more strongly from the High Middle Ages. Thanks to the camshaft, the mills were also used in numerous trades in addition to grinding grain. The windmills, however, were mainly operated as a flour mill, in the Netherlands also for water management. There numerous mills with Archimedean screws raised water over the dikes .

However, the importance of mill technology extends far beyond the Middle Ages. The first factories were still powered by water wheels, and even after the invention of the steam engine , numerous mills were built. Its spread in Germany reached its peak around 1880. During the Renaissance, the mill builder emerged as an independent profession. His knowledge in dealing with gears, gears and power transmission in general helped build various machines during industrialization. They are therefore considered to be the forerunners of mechanical engineering .

Agriculture

In agriculture there were already several inventions in the early Middle Ages that considerably improved labor productivity: the wheel plow, the collar, the horseshoe and the three-field economy. Measured against the seeds used, the yields doubled.

Plows

Plows were already known at the beginning of the Bronze Age. Until late antiquity, however, they could only be used to scratch the ground. The early medieval bed plow or wheel plow could also turn the soil so that it was better ventilated. In addition, minerals were brought to the surface, the rainwater could flow away better and cross plowing was no longer necessary. With the new plow it was therefore possible to increase the profitability of the fields and to cultivate previously unused soils such as those in damp valleys. The bed plow originated in Northern Europe, where there were often heavy and moist soils. It had an asymmetrical ploughshare and moldboard that made it possible to go deeper into the ground and turn it.

Collar and horseshoe

As in ancient times, oxen were initially used as draft animals , which were harnessed to a yoke . The collar was a way of harnessing horses without pulling the trigger, as with the neck and chest strap, trachea and blood vessels of the horse, so that the usable pulling force increased considerably. It was a kind of collar, which was later also padded and lay on the shoulders, thus distributing the pulling force evenly over the horse.

The view that goes back to Lynn White is widespread that the collar appeared as early as around the year 800 and doubled the plow performance due to the significantly higher pulling power and faster movement, so that horses soon prevailed over oxen in agriculture and for pulling carts. Dieter Hägermann, on the other hand, points out that this thesis is neither supported by representations nor by other sources. It is known, however, that horses with a suitable character first had to be bred before they could be used as draft horses. In addition, horses had other disadvantages compared to cattle: They were more susceptible to disease, needed more and more expensive feed and were more difficult to steer because they are quite shy. Up until the 13th century, the horse remained primarily a mount for warriors and messengers. Only then was it used in agriculture.

The Romans already used horse shoes, so-called hippo sandals . Horseshoes may have been known, at least not widely used. In damp areas, however, they were necessary to protect the horses' hooves against moisture, which could lead to diseases. They appeared at the end of the 9th century and were probably previously spread from east to west, as they were already known to the Lombards of the 6th century.

Three-field economy

In antiquity, the economy of doubt was common. Half of the fields were cultivated , the other half released as so-called fallow land and used as pasture for animal breeding. Most of the fields were laid out in a square, as they were plowed lengthways and crossways. With the new wheel plows, however, turning was time-consuming, so that elongated fields were created. Cross plowing was no longer necessary. In addition, in the 8th and 9th centuries, the three-field economy was used . Only one third of the area was used as fallow land and another third each for summer cereals ( oats , barley ) and winter cereals ( wheat , rye ). Dieter Hägermann explains: “Due to the crop rotation, this cultivation sequence increased the grain yield by up to 50 percent in relation to the older field use systems, distributed the plowing work, sowing and harvesting over the whole year and thus led to a better and increased use of farm labor and more frequent use of technical equipment. In addition, given the broader range of grain cultivation, there was a reduction in the risk of death in the event of poor harvests. Without an increase in crop yields, neither the landlords nor the farmers, who created the first approaches to a society based on the division of labor, would have been able to develop real mill landscapes or fill markets. ”Most types of grain had been known for a long time, but rye was one important medieval discovery. It could also be grown on the poor soils under cold, damp conditions.

Construction engineering

Relatively little is known of the construction technology compared to the aesthetic-artistic aspects of the preserved buildings, which are predominant in research and literature. These were mostly stone buildings. From the early Middle Ages, for example, over 30 royal palaces , 300 cathedrals and 1200 monasteries are known. Initially, the Romanesque style was based on Roman architecture with its domes, pillars, vaults, round arches and Greek columns. Byzantine architecture, which was modern at the time, also had influences. In the High Middle Ages, the style known as Gothic changed to pointed arches , ribbed vaults and buttresses . These were structural elements that conducted the weight of the ceilings and vaults much better into the walls, making it possible to erect taller buildings with larger windows.

Building materials

Lime , which was required for mortar , was known throughout Europe, but not always and everywhere in sufficient quantities. Due to the lack of this building material , construction projects could be delayed. Mortar was especially necessary in the early Middle Ages, when stones were not yet carved so precisely that they could stick together without it. It can be proven on some construction sites and sources. Some mortar mixing plants, which consisted of a large pit, have also survived. About one cubic meter of mortar was mixed with an agitator operated by auxiliary staff. Metals were rarely used. In addition to wooden shingles (mostly made of oak ), lead was also used for roofing, and in rarer cases copper or tin . Lead was also needed to build the windows. Iron was used for nails and door fittings and was occasionally stolen from construction sites.

Stone construction

The stone construction was carried out in the areas of the Roman Empire. In the Germanic areas, however, only wood was used. The stone construction method spread from southern and southeastern Europe, together with royalty, church and sometimes also the nobility. In some cases, the remains of Roman facilities were also used as building sites. The Roman Tacitus already reported on the lack of stone construction of the Germanic peoples, which was also reflected in the old and central German language usage. Numerous terms have been adopted from Latin. Stone buildings were mainly cathedrals, monasteries and monasteries of royalty, and later also castles. In Regensburg, a city that emerged from a Roman castle on the Limes, in the 8th century the numerous stone buildings were emphasized, which were supplemented by the Stone Bridge in the 12th century , the first stone bridge over the Danube. Marble was only used in Italy. Bricks and bricks were used in the other regions. They did not appear in Northern Germany until the High Middle Ages, but then became the predominant building method that is typical of this region. The Cistercians were particularly involved in its spread . There were also hewn stones, which were mainly used for the Romanesque and Gothic churches and which did not require mortar.

Timber construction

The most important building material, however, was wood, which was used exclusively for secular buildings. But early churches were also made of wood, but were replaced by stone buildings very early on. But wood was also needed for roof ridges, beams and struts in stone buildings. Several architectural miracles in which beams were lengthened through divine help have been handed down. They indicate problems with the procurement of long pieces of wood. In regions with coniferous forests that supplied long, straight pieces of wood, block or solid construction was common. The walls were either made of lengthwise wood or stuck into the ground like palisades. In regions with other woods, the skeleton construction was common. First, a framework made of beams was built. The gaps were then lined with planks.

Iron extraction and processing

In the early Middle Ages, iron extraction was still the same as in ancient times. Iron ore and charcoal were placed in racing furnaces and melted. The result was wrought iron , a material that consisted almost entirely of iron and hardly contained any carbon. Since it was too soft as a material for weapons and tools, it was annealed on charcoal, which made it harder.

In the High Middle Ages, higher temperatures were reached with the new blast furnaces and this was the first time that liquid pig iron could be produced. The processing was mainly done by forging and casting. A new method of making wire that was needed for ring armor was wire drawing . The Damascene was a new method to connect the advantages of hard and soft iron.

Textile technology

New developments were the spinning wheel , with which a single person could produce significantly more yarn than with the hand spindle and the step loom , which improved productivity in the weaving mill.

Means of transport and infrastructure

Various wagons and carts that could be equipped with two or four wheels were already known in the early Middle Ages . They were mainly used in agriculture for transport purposes. They were made almost entirely of wood, with a few but important parts such as drawbar fittings , wheel tires and rim clips made of iron.

Already in the early Middle Ages there was a great variety of ships and boats . In Scandinavia there were long ships that were equipped with a long keel and were attached to the planks in clinker construction. The holk , on the other hand, was built on the dugout - so it had no keel. The cog became the most popular transport ship of the Hanseatic League , a trade alliance in the North and Baltic Sea region.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Propylaea History of Technology , Volume I, p. 357.
  2. ^ Propylaea History of Technology , Volume I, pp. 357, 360.
  3. ^ Propylaea History of Technology , Volume I, p. 355, Volume II, p. 83, 85, 88, 92–94, 96.
  4. ↑ Propylaea History of Technology , Volume I, p. 355, Volume I, p. 347.
  5. ^ Propylaea History of Technology , Volume I, p. 358.
  6. ^ Propylaea History of Technology , Volume I, pp. 357f., Volume II, pp. 76–82
  7. ^ Karl H. Metz: Origins of Technology - The History of Technology in Western Civilization. Schöningh, Paderborn 2006, p. 41.
  8. ^ Karl H. Metz: Origins of Technology - The History of Technology in Western Civilization. Schöningh, Paderborn 2006, p. 41f.
  9. ↑ Dieter Hägermann: Technology in the early Middle Ages between 500 and 1000 . In: Wolfgang König (ed.): Propylaea history of technology . Propylaeen, Berlin 1997, pp. 397-399.
  10. ↑ Dieter Hägermann: Technology in the early Middle Ages between 500 and 1000 . In: Wolfgang König (ed.): Propylaea history of technology . Propylaea, Berlin 1997, p. 400f.
  11. ↑ Dieter Hägermann: Technology in the early Middle Ages between 500 and 1000 . In: Wolfgang König (ed.): Propylaea history of technology . Propylaea, Berlin 1997, p. 394 f.