No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
In Praise of Medieval Tinkers*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2011
Extract
The subject of technology, it has long been agreed, is of vital interest to the economic historian, as well as to the historian of science. the latter connection my ignorance is such that I can do no more than make a few hesitant observations, largely inspired by a very competent adviser. In the former connection I should presumably speak with greater assurance, because my own research for a good many years has been concerned with medieval society. But with regard the difficult problem of technological advance and its significance, must confess that I can ask many more questions than I can answer—as will be seen from what follows. Such questions must be faced by anyone who considers history more than an antiquarian hobby. For what phase of historical investigation can be more important than the development of the industrial society in which we live ? Precisely where is taking mankind nobody knows. We historians—medievalists and others—must at least remark its novelty and try better to understand it by explaining its origins.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Economic History Association 1948
References
1 See especially the admirable book by Usher, A. P., A History of Mechanical Inventions (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1929)Google Scholar.
2 The case has been well stated by White, Lynn in his recent article, “Natural Science and Naturalistic Art in the Middle Ages,” American Historical Review, LII (1947), 421 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. For reasons stated below, I recommend the synthesis of Crowdier, J. G., The Social Relations of Science (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1941)Google Scholar, to that presented in any of the other works cited by Lynn White, p. 422, n. 4.
3 My present colleague, Henry Guerlac, professor of the history of science, would have been named co-author of this article except for the fact that he asked me to read the paper on which is based. I therefore have to assume full responsibility for the opinions here expressed. Nevertheless, he and I have been equally excited by the Montecassino miniatures which one of our graduate students happened to draw from the obscure depths of the Cornell University Library. And he has actively collaborated in all I have written on the subject of technology, during either the past year or those preceding.
4 Renaissance in Italy (London, 1875–81)Google Scholar.
5 This remark applies rather to well-known books on the Byzantine Empire than to Hitti's, P. K.History of the Arabs (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1940)Google Scholar. Yet our information about the technological contributions of the Moslems remains woefully inadequate.
6 Der moderne Kapitalismus (Leipzig, 1902)Google Scholar.
7 Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitlismus (Tübingen, 1934)Google Scholar.
6 See White, Lynn, in American Historical Review, LII, 422–23Google Scholar; Crowthcr, Social Relations of Science, pp. 106–240. By way of contrast, Bernal, J. D., The Social Functions of Science (London: Macmillan and Company, 1939), pp. 18–19Google Scholar, devotes one paragraph to the medieval period, describing it as characterized by a “static society.” Edgar Zilsel's article, “The Sociological Roots of Science,” American Journal of Sociology, XLVII (1942), 544Google Scholar ff., contains a fine appreciation of artist-engineers; but it is hard to forgive his statement that “the first of them is Brunelleschi.” Had he never heard of Villard de Honnecourt?
9 “Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages,” Speculum, XV (1940), 141 ffGoogle Scholar.
10 La Fin du mondc antique et le début du moyen âge (Paris, 1927)Google Scholar.
11 Lynn White, in Speculum, XV, 151–52, 154–55, suggests that “the sudden upswing of European vitality after the year 1000” can be attributed to an increase of agricultural production. This is a determining factor in human life which I can understand much better than such a mystic influence as belief in the approaching end of the world was once held to have created. Also, I think, it must be admitted that the extension of the three-field system, the wider use of the wheeled plow, and the substitution of the horse for the ox in traction, all contributed to the increase of agricultural production. Yet we have to acknowledge that the wheeled plow was known to the Romans, that the antiquity of the three-field system is still disputed, and that oxen were regularly used for plowing until at least the fifteenth century. How, by combining these facts, can we explain a “sudden upswing” in the eleventh century?
12 I thus disagree with White, Lynn when he says (“Technology and Invention,” Speculum, XV, 143Google Scholar) that “technology knows neither chronological nor geographic frontiers.” So far as sicgecraft is concerned (cf. his remarks on p. 150), Lammert, F., in Klio, XXXI (1938), 389 ff.Google Scholar, does prove that knowledge of the Roman technique persisted throughout the medieval period; but only in the Byzantine Empire, as sharply distinguished from the feudal West. And before I believe that the Vikings actually used “elaborate and powerful artillery” before the walls of Paris in 886, I demand a better authority than Abbo of Saint-Germain—see the recent edition and translation by Waquet, H. in Lei Classiques de l'histoire de France au moyen áge, Vol. XX, (Paris, 1942)Google Scholar. Abbo is known to have been a pedant who, refusing to say anything simply, delighted in preposterous Latin and pseudo-Greek. He obviously sought to write an epic about a siege comparable to one in antiquity. Can we take him seriously when he fills the air over Paris with bolts and stones hurled by catapults and ballistae? Even the conservative Waquet admits (p. 23, n. 2) that, with regard to classic siegecraft, “Abbon …. ne montre pas une connaissance bien nette.” Prolonged research has definitely shown that, throughout the age of the Viking invasions and for hundreds of years thereafter, ordinary fortification in western Europe consisted of wooden palisades and earthen ramparts. Could they have successfully withstood attack by armies—whether of Vikings or of others—trained in Roman siegecraft and equipped with the appropriate engines? I find that hard to believe.
13 Mediaeval Feudalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1942), pp. 40–43Google Scholar; “Feudalism and Its Antecedents in England,” American Historical Review. XLVIII (1943). 259–60Google Scholar. For recent comment, see Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, II (1947). 240–41Google Scholar.
14 Miniature sacre e profane dell'anno 1023 illustranti l'enciclopedia medioevale di Rabano Mauro, ed. Amelli, A. M. (Montecassino, 1896)Google Scholar. So far as I have been able to discover, almost none of these miniatures have been even referred to in standard works on medieval technology. Only one of them, that of a man eating with a fork, is reproduced in F. M. Fcldhaus, Die Technik der Vorzeit, der geschichtlichen Zeit und der Naturvölker (Leipzig, 1914), p. 348, under “Gabel.” For the one representing a loom, see below, n. 21. Thus, very naturally, arises the question whether various other contemporary manuscripts do not contain similar material. I can only say that, in the brief time at my disposal, I have failed to hear of any. From the later Middle Ages, of course, we have a wealth of miniatures illustrating almost every phase of human activity; but from the early eleventh century—two generations before the Bayeux tapestry—nothing to equal those of Montecassino. Even they are not reproduced in such fine books as d'Ancona, Paolo, L'nomo e le sue opere (Florence, 1923)Google Scholar, and Brandt, Paul, Schaffende Arbeit und bildene Kunst (Leipzig, 1927–28)Google Scholar. The works which do reproduce some of these Montecassino miniatures are primarily concerned with the traditional art of the early medieval period and therefore omit the less conventional pictures (see below, n. 17). All interested in the field of technology are urged to make a more careful search than I have been able to do. Who knows what might be discovered?
15 For its general character and content, see Laistncr, M. L. W., Thought and Letters in Western Europe, A.D. 500–900 (London: Methuen and Company, Ltd., 1931), p. 176Google Scholar.
16 Of the 168 miniatures in the original, Amelli left out 45 in his edition: principally those representing beasts, birds, fish, snakes, worms, insects, metals, precious stones, plants, and trees. See his Introduction, pp. xiv-xvi.
17 Two excellent studies (independent except for a note in the latter) have dealt with this manuscript and its miniatures: Goldschmidt, Adolph, “Frūhmittelalterliche illustrierte Enzyklopadien,” Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg, III (Berlin, 1926), 215 ff.Google Scholar; and Lchmann, Paul, “Fuldaer Studien,” Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-philologischen und der histomchen Klasse der bayerischen Academie der Wissenschaften (Munich, 1927), pp. 13 ff.Google Scholar Lehmann, without reproducing any of the relevant pictures, compares the Montecassino miniatures with those in a German manuscript of the same work dating from the fifteenth century. He believes diat both sets, though to some extent reflecting the age in which they were made, must in general have been inspired by an illuminated manuscript originally composed at Fulda in the eighth century, but now lost. Goldschmidt, without referring to the fifteenth-century manuscript of Rabanus, arrives at much the same conclusion. He points out that in many ways the work of the Montecassino artist is reminiscent of Carolingian, or even of classic, design. He assuredly copied many pictures from those of an earlier codex. Besides, since Isidore's encyclopedia served as a model for that of Rabanus, it is quite possible that illustrations used for the former would have reappeared in the latter. Yet to the best of his knowledge, says Goldschmidt, there is no extant manuscript of Isidore's work to verify such an opinion. Being primarily interested in conjectures of this kind, he reproduces some of the Montecassino miniatures that dearly preserve ancient tradition; none of those in which the originality of the eleventh-century, painter was, as he remarks, deutlich sichtbar. In this same connection, cf. Panofsky, E. and Saxl, F., in Metropolitan Museum Studies, IV (1932), 250Google Scholar; Webster, J. C., The Labors of the Months (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1938)Google Scholar; Weittmann, K., Illustrations in Roll and Codex (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947)Google Scholar. For valuable assistance in making the brief comparison indicated here and above, n. 14, I wish to thank Professor George Hanfmann of Harvard University and Mr. Felix Reichmann of the Cornell University Library.
18 Amelli, Plate CXIII.
19 Amelli, Plates CXIX, XCV. The marble pictured as being sawed is presumably Italian travertine, which is quite soft when first taken from the ground.
20 See esp. Amelli, Plates XXIII, XL, LXXX, LXXXII, XC, XCVII, XCIX.
21 Amelli, Plate XCVI. This particular miniature somehow came to be reproduced in The Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., XXVI, 404, under “Tapestry”; but has, of course, been omitted from the latest edition. Although the artist gives us a clear representation of a vertical frame, with movable bars to hold the warp, he does not show how the woman actually makes cloth.
22 Amelli, Plate CXXVIII; cf. CV (De paganis). In the latter, mounted men seem to wear cloth hoods and shirts (with colored borders); in the former, the hoods and shirts are solid blue, which may be taken to represent mail. Otherwise, the warriors in both pictures have similar equipment, including red shields. And their horses are identically fitted, except that the saddles of the “pagans” are more prominently formed. That the artist thus sought to portray real differences of custom may well be doubted. In any case, I think, he does give us clear pictures of contemporary harness, including stirrups, bits, and spurs. Comparison of the two miniatures leads to the conclusion that the artist always meant to attach the stirrups to the saddle, though in part of his drawing they seem to be merely looped through the crupper. On most of the points here noted, see des Noëttes, Lefebvre, L'attelage et le cheval de sellc à travers let âges (Paris, 1931)Google Scholar.
23 Amelli, Plates XXXIX, CXVI.
24 Amelli, Plates LIII, CXXV. Cf. Encyclopedia Itdiana, III, 965, under “Aratro.” Among the drawings there presented are two that closely resemble that in Fig. V: one (no. 15) is described as an ancient Greek plow; the other (no. 19) as a modern Sardinian plow. Note the “tiller” on all three.
25 Ameli, Plate CXXI.
26 Amelli, Plate CXX.
27 Amelli, Plate LXV; see Usher, History of Mechanical Inventions, p. 73.
28 Amelli, Plates CXXIX, CXXXIII; apparently unknown to Lefebvre des Noëttes.
29 M. Berthelot, “Pour l'histoire des arts mécaniques et de l'artillerie vers la fin du moyen âge,” Annales de chimie et de physique, 6th series, XXIV (1891), 433 ff.; 7th series, XIX (1900), 289 ff.
30 His famous album was first edited by J. B. A. Lassus and A. Darcel (Paris, 1858); the most recent edition is that of H. R. Hahnloser (Vienna, 1935).
31 For scholarly bibliography on the much disputed subject of Gerbert and his writings, see Sarton, G., Introduction to the History of Science, I (Baltimore: The Williams and Wilkins Company, 1927), 668–71Google Scholar; and Lattin, H. P., in Isis, XIX (1933), 181CrossRefGoogle Scholar ff. Gerbert's authentic works on science should be sought in Bubnov's, N. edition, Gerberti…. Opera Mathcmatica (Berlin, 1899)Google Scholar, rather than in that of Olleris, A., Oeuvres de Gerbert (Paris, 1867)Google Scholar. But Bubnov's statements regarding the sources of Gerbert's science must be modified in the light of the excellent book by Millàs Vallicrosa, J., Assaig d'història de les idees fisiques i matemàtiques a la Catalunya medieval (Barcelona, 1931)Google Scholar. The slight study I have been able to make of these controversial matters leads me to conclude (1) that Gerbert certainly obtained his knowledge of the abacus, together with the Arabic numerals 1 to 9, from Catalonia; (2) that he probably obtained his knowledge of the Ptolemaic universe, and perhaps much else, from the same source; (3) that he remained ignorant of the great mathematical works in Greek and Arabic, including any about the use of the zero, and therefore relied on available instruments rather than on theoretic treatises; (4) that, after returning to France, he wrote to friends for certain Latin handbooks which he knew they had written, partly at least translations from the Arabic; and (5) that he gave all this information to his pupils, who found it sensationally new and proceeded to develop it as best they could. I am very grateful to Mrs. Lattin for helping me to make a rapid review of the more recent work en Gerbert—enough, I hope, to justify my tribute to that pioneer of French scholarship. Without entirely agreeing with all I have said, Mrs. Lattin also believes that Gerbert's influence tended to revolutionize western European education. See her article in the forthcoming number of Isis, which significantly adds to our information about Gerbert as a teacher of mathematics and logic.
32 Les classiques de l'histoire de France au moyen áge, XVII (Paris, 1937), 51 ff.Google Scholar See the interesting article by Darlington, O. G., “Gerbert, the Teacher,” American Historical Review, LII (1947), 456 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar We must, however, remember that Gerbert utterly lacked good books on science and so had to emphasize what we call “visual instruction.”
33 See especially Millàs Vallicrosa, pp. 187 ff., 271 ff. Bubnov (pp. 48 ff., 310 ff.) righdy distinguished the authentic work of Gerbert on geometry from that of a later writer (Geometria Incerti Auctoris), which included rules for the use of an astrolabe (or quadrant); yet attributed to Gerbert another book about the astrolabe (pp. 370 ff.). This last, it is now agreed, was not written by Gerbert but, like the Geometria Incerti Auctoris, by a later compiler. An important source for such compilation was a translation which had been made in the tenth century by a certain Lupitus (or Lobet) of Barcelona, and which Gerbert asked for in a famous letter. So we can only guess that Gerbert got the desired book and passed its contents on to his students, some of whom then wrote books on the subject; or that Gerbert's teaching stimulated the interest that eventually led to the same result In either case we must award major credit to the great master. And I think it very probable that, as his original incentive to such study, Gerbert actually had an astrolabe–presumably one of Arab manufacture, that provided, as usual, a quadrant on the back. See, in addition to the works cited above, Thorndike, Lynn, History of Magic and Experimental Science, I (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1923), 697 ff.Google Scholar; Lattin, H. P., in Speculum, VII (1932), 58 ffGoogle Scholar.
34 Poole, R. L., The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912)Google Scholar, which recognizes the contributions of Haskins to our knowledge of this subject.
35 See the article of Darlington cited above, n. 32; though he stops short of the suggestion made here.
36 See above, n. 30.