Fifty Years of Medieval Technology and Social Change

219 Pages·6.507 MB·English

by  Steven A. Walton

FIFTY YEARS OF MEDIEVAL
TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIAL CHANGE
This volume brings together a series of papers at Kalamazoo as well as some
contributed papers inspired by the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Lynn
White Jr.’s, Medieval Technology and Social Change (1962), a slim study which
catalyzed the study of technology in the Middle Ages in the English-speaking
world. While the initial reviews and decades-long fortune of the volume have
been varied, it is still in print and remains a touchstone of an idea and a time.
The contributors to the volume, therefore, both investigate the book itself and
its fate, and look at new research furthering and inspired by White’s work. The
book opens with an introduction surveying White’s career, with a bibliography of
his work, as well as some opening thoughts on the study of medieval technology
in the last fifty years. Three papers then deal explicitly with the reception and
longevity of his work and its impact on medieval studies more generally. Then
five papers look at new cast studies areas where White’s work and approach has
had a particular impact, namely, medieval technology studies and medieval rural/
ecological studies.
Steven A. Walton is an associate professor of history at Michigan Technological
University, having previously taught at the Program in Science, Technology, and
Society and the Center for Medieval Studies at Penn State University. He is a
former president of AVISTA.
AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science and Art is a
peer-reviewed series published by Routledge that promotes the cross-disciplinary
objectives of AVISTA (The Association Villard de Honnecourt for Interdisciplinary
Study of Medieval Technology, Science and Art). Volumes in the series focus on
research in the areas of the history of medieval technology, science, architecture
and art. The society takes its name from Villard (Wilars) de Honnecourt, an elusive
persona of the thirteenth century whose autograph portfolio contains a variety of
fascinating drawings and descriptions of both the fine and mechanical arts.
www.avista.org
AVISTA President
George Brooks
AVISTA Publications Director
Jennifer M. Feltman
Series Editorial Board
George Brooks
Robert Bork
Ellen Shortell
Sarah Thompson
Titles in the series include:
Fifty Years of Medieval Technology
and Social Change
Edited by Steven A. Walton
The Long Lives of Medieval Art and Architecture
Edited by Jennifer M. Feltman and Sarah Thompson
The North Transept of Reims Cathedral:
Design, Construction and Visual Programs
Edited by Jennifer M. Feltman
AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science and Art
Volume 13
Fifty Years of Medieval
Technology and Social Change
Edited by
STEVEN A. WALTON
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 selection and editorial matter, Steven A. Walton; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Steven A. Walton to be identified as the author of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Walton, Steven A., editor. | White, Lynn, Jr., 1907–1987. Medieval
technology and social change.
Title: Fifty years of medieval technology and social change / [edited by]
Steven A. Walton.
Other titles: Medieval technology and social change
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Series:
AVISTA studies in the history of medieval technology, science and art |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019009920 (print) | LCCN 2019017693 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781317135401 (adobe) | ISBN 9781317135395 (mobi) |
ISBN 9781317135388 (epub) | ISBN 9781472475497 (hbk) | ISBN
9781315582313 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Technology and civilization. | Civilization, Medieval. |
Social history—Medieval, 500-1500.
Classification: LCC CB478 (ebook) | LCC CB478 .F49 2019 (print) | DDC
303.48/30902—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009920
ISBN: 978-1-4724-7549-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-58231-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of contributors vii
List of figures x
Acknowledgments xii
1 Introduction and bibliography of works by Lynn White, Jr. 1
Steven A. Walton
2 Does the history of technology stand on the shoulders of giants? 30
B.B. Price
3 Lynn White’s “Roots” and Medieval Technology and Social
Change: the view from outside medieval studies 70
Elspeth Whitney
4 Determined disjunction: Lynn White’s Medieval Technology
and Social Change then and now 90
Steven A. Walton
5 Of cranks and crankshafts: Lynn White, Jr. and the curious
question of mechanical power transmission 107
George Brooks
6 A Romanesque box hoist in Liège: a possible precursor of
medieval tower-clock frames? 134
C.R.J. Currie
7 Industrial milling and the prolific growth of the Cistercian order
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 150
Christie Peters
vi CONTENTS
8 Cistercian nuns and forest management in northern France 165
Constance H. Berman
9 Cold, rain, and famine: three subsistence crises in the
Burgundian Low Countries during the fifteenth century 187
Chantal Camenisch
Index 198
Contributors
Constance H. Berman is a specialist on medieval social and religious history,
concentrating on the history of women. She received her PhD from the University
of Wisconsin, Madison, and is now Professor of History and Collegiate Fellow in
Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Iowa, Iowa City. Her many publi-
cations include Medieval Agriculture, the Southern-French Countryside, and the
Early Cistercians (Philadelphia, 1986); The Cistercian Evolution (Philadelphia,
2000/2010); Women and Monasticism in Medieval Europe (Kalamazoo, 2002);
Medieval Religion: New Approaches (London: 2005); The White Nuns: Cistercian
Abbeys for Women in Medieval France (Philadelphia, 2018), research for which
included material for the current article. She was coeditor with Alison Beach and
Lisa Bitel of the late June L. Mecham’s study, Sacred Communities, Shared Devo-
tions. Gender, Material Culture, and Monasticism in Late Medieval Germany
(Brepols, 2014).
George Brooks is Professor of Humanities at Valencia College in Orlando, Flor-
ida. He specializes in medieval culture and history of science and technology and
is currently president of AVISTA (The Association Villard de Honnecourt for the
Interdisciplinary Study of Medieval Technology, Science and Art). Keenly inter-
ested in the carpenter engineers (the ingeniators) of the medieval era, he also builds
reconstructions of their work, including several catapults. He lives in Orlando with
his wife and two daughters.
Chantal Camenisch completed her PhD in Economic, Social, and Environmental
History in 2011 at the University of Berne. Her thesis “Endlose Kälte. Getrei-
depreise und Witterungsverlauf in den burgundischen Niederlande im 15. Jahr-
hundert” (“Endless Cold. Grain prices and weather conditions in the Burgundian
Netherlands in the 15th Century”) was published by Schwabe Verlag Basel press
in 2015. She is currently a senior research fellow in the Department of Economic,
Social and Environmental History at the University of Bern and focuses on eco-
nomic and environmental history of the late Middle Ages and early modern period.
C.R.J. Currie is Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Historical Research, School
of Advanced Studies, London University. He holds a DPhil from Oxford Univer-
sity (1976). From 1972 to 2002 he worked for the Victoria County History (VCH)
of England and became the general editor of the VCH series from 1994 to 2000. He
still occasionally contributes to the VCH, as for example, the accounts of buildings
in Janet Cooper, The Victoria History of Herefordshire, Eastnor (London 2013),
viii CONTRIBUTORS
and “Bosbury” (in progress). He was Vice-President and President of the Vernacu-
lar Architecture Group (2011–14 and 2007–11, respectively), a contributor to the
Toits d’Europe project in 2008–09, and a co-translator of Roof Frames from the
11th to the 19th Century, edited by Patrick Hoffsummer (Turhout, Brepols, 2009).
Christie Peters is Head of Science and Engineering Library and eScience initia-
tives at the University of Kentucky in Louisville. Christie has a Master of Library
and Information Studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and
an MA in history from the University of Houston under the direction of Sally
Vaughn. Her thesis focused on the early utilization and development of industrial
milling technology by the Cistercian order in France.
B.B. Price is Professor of History and Multidisciplinary Studies at Glendon Col-
lege, York University in Toronto, having taught previously at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. Her writings span topics within the ancient, medieval, and
early modern eras, with a focus on the intersection of the histories of technology
and science, and elements of intellectual and philosophical history, such as the
transmission of artisan practices, rituals reflecting mastery of technical skills, and
institutional structures to protect acquired knowledge. She has published numer-
ous articles and several books, including Medieval Intellectual Thought. She is
also the editor of the History of Medieval Science Series of the Pontifical Institute
of Medieval Studies Publications Programme, editorial manager for the Journal
of Income Distribution, and publisher’s liaison for Ad Libros Publications Inc., a
small academic publishing house in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Steven A. Walton is Associate Professor of history at Michigan Technological
University, having previously taught at the Program in Science, Technology, and
Society and the Center for Medieval Studies at Penn State University. He held
numerous positions with AVISTA since graduate school: President (2009–2013),
Vice-President (2004–9), layout editor for the AVISTA Forum Journal (2006–
2010), and webmaster (1992–2013). His works spans medieval to modern and
tends to focus on the intersection of the history of technology and military pro-
duction, as in sword manufacture, fortification, cannon foundries, or torpedo
research and development, which has resulted in over a dozen articles and two
previously edited books. He is also simultaneously editor of two journals: Vuclan:
The Journal for the History of Military Technology (Brill) and IA: The Journal of
the Society for Industrial Archeology (SIA).
Elspeth Whitney received her PhD from the Graduate Center of the City Uni-
versity of New York. She is Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las
Vegas, where she teaches medieval history, early modern history, and women’s
history. She is the author of Paradise Restored: The Mechanical Arts from Antiq-
uity through the Thirteenth Century (1990) and a series of articles on the Lynn
CONTRIBUTORS ix
White Thesis in Environmental Ethics, History Compass, and elsewhere. She has
also written on gender and the medieval theory of the humors and complexions, as
well as on the historiography of the European witch hunts.