Water Technology in the Middle Ages: Cities, Monasteries, and Waterworks after the Roman Empire

257 Pages·2001·0.69 MB·English

by  Roberta J. Magnusson

Water Technology in the Middle Ages
the johns hopkins studies
in the history of technology
Merritt Roe Smith, Editor
Cities,
Monasteries,
and
Image not available. Waterworks
after the
Roman Empire
Water Technology
in the Middle Ages
Roberta J. Magnusson
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore and London
This book has been brought to publication with the
generous assistance of the Department of History,
University of Oklahoma.
∫ 2001 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2001
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363
www.press.jhu.edu
A catalog record for this book is available from
the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Magnusson, Roberta J., 1952–
Water technology in the Middle Ages : cities,
monasteries, and waterworks after the Roman
Empire / Roberta J. Magnusson.
p. cm. — (Johns Hopkins studies in the
history of technology)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0-8018-6626-x
1. Water-supply engineering—Europe—History.
2. Municipal water supply—Europe—History.
3. Monasteries—Europe—Water-supply—History.
4. Waterworks—Europe—History. 5. Middle
Ages—History. I. Title. II. Series.
tc455.m34 2001
627%.094%0902—dc21
00-011509
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xiii
1 Survival and Revival 1
2 Resource Acquisition 36
3 Design and Construction 53
4 Administration and Finance 116
5 Users 133
Epilogue 163
List of Abbreviations 175
Notes 179
Notes on Sources 221
Index 231

Preface
As the sun rose one Monday morning in the spring of 1339, twelve-year-old
Ralph de Mymmes, a groom employed by carter John Absolon, was driving
his master’s cart through the streets of London. The cart, drawn by a pair of
horses, carried a cask full of water. As the boy drove along Chepe, seven-
year-old John le Stolere, ‘‘a pauper and mendicant,’’ was squatting in the
street to relieve himself. Perhaps Ralph was still sleepy, or perhaps he
simply did not see the small boy in the road. Whatever the reason, John
was accidentally crushed under one of the wheels of the cart, and he died
instantly. The young driver took fright and fled, abandoning his master’s
water-cart and horses—he had still not been found at the time the coroner
recorded the death.∞
This unfortunate accident encapsulates the collision of two fundamen-
tal issues facing the communities of medieval Europe: water supplies and
waste disposal. Did a beggar boy have no better alternative than to relieve
himself amid the traffic in the street? Had Ralph filled his water cask at one
viii Preface
of the docks at the riverfront, where the Thames was polluted with the
sewage generated by John and thousands of other Londoners? Or had
Ralph stopped to fill his cask that morning with clean piped water from
London’s nearby Great Conduit?
Hydraulic engineering stands at the interface between human needs
and the natural world. A society’s ability to harness its hydraulic resources
reveals something of its ability to control the natural environment as well as
its ability to organize its members. Admittedly, advanced hydraulic engi-
neering is not usually the first thing to come to mind when one thinks
about the Middle Ages. My own interest in the subject owes much to my
bottom-up introduction to medieval civilization, based on years spent as an
itinerant field archaeologist. While I was a graduate student at Berkeley, a
history seminar turned to the topic of the Cistercians. Each of us was
asked to say what our first mental image was when we thought about the
famous monastic order. Having grubbed all too intimately in medieval
cesspits, my reply came from the heart: ‘‘Great drains!’’ This response was
greeted with baffled amusement by my fellow students, whose refined
minds turned more naturally to affective spirituality and other such ele-
vated themes. Yet it was Saint Bernard himself who praised the Virgin
Mary by comparing her to an aqueduct and who was reluctant to move to a
larger site when droves of enthusiastic new recruits were crowding into the
first monastic buildings at Clairvaux, on the grounds that the fledgling
community would be maligned as frivolous and unstable were they to
abandon their expensive new water system.≤
In this study I take a close look at the interrelationship between people
and one technology cluster: complex, gravity-flow water systems. Such
systems, which were composed of collection basins, long-distance con-
duits, and distribution points, were built for medieval palaces, castles,
manors, hospitals, gardens, and at least one enterprising village. I focus
primarily on the two most common types of large-scale water systems:
monastic and urban conduits. Why, how, and by whom were they built?
How well did they work? Who used them, and for what purposes? How
were they paid for? How were they maintained? How common were they?
At a more general level, what impact did hydraulic technology have on
medieval society, and what impact did medieval society have on hydraulic
technology?
Like many other ‘‘medieval’’ technologies, gravity-flow hydraulic engi-
Preface ix
neering was not an entirely new invention. Medieval Europe had inherited
a highly developed range of Roman hydraulic components. The basic tech-
nological trajectory, based on low-pressure systems of channels and pipes,
was already established. Individual medieval components, such as pipes
and taps, were often nearly identical to their Roman counterparts. None-
theless, it is not enough to dismiss medieval hydraulic engineering as
merely derivative. Technologies are not immutable, nor are technologi-
cal trajectories permanently fixed. The medieval pipes and channels un-
earthed by the archaeologist are not merely physical objects; they are also
cultural artifacts. The apparent resemblance between a medieval lead pipe
and a Roman lead pipe is the end result of a historical process, which
requires a historical explanation. Was it the product of a continuous tech-
nological tradition, and if so, how was that tradition transmitted over the
centuries? Or was Roman-style engineering rediscovered and revived after
a technological hiatus?
That pipe, moreover, was culturally embedded in medieval society. It
was fashioned by medieval craftsmen, using materials obtained and trans-
ported in the Middle Ages, as part of an overall hydraulic system built for a
particular purpose and for a specific sponsor. Its pipe trench cut through
land held according to medieval patterns of tenure, it was paid for accord-
ing to medieval standards of wages and prices, in money raised by medieval
forms of financial exactions. It delivered water to a structure used by
medieval men and women, who employed the water for a range of cultur-
ally specific activities. In short, however Roman its physical appearance
may be, its full significance can be understood only within the context of its
own society.
If our pipe was the outcome of a set of specifically medieval contingen-
cies and trade-offs, can it be of any use to broader historical questions or
more generalized theories of technological change? I believe that it can,
inasmuch as medieval water systems have the potential to provide a longi-
tudinal case study for the evolution of technological systems in a pre-
modern society. Unlike some other medieval technologies, such as stirrups
or horseshoes, water systems can be documented and dated with a fair
degree of confidence. The conduits of the High Middle Ages were the
products of a society that was increasingly literate and kept extensive
records. References to water appear in a wide variety of sources, such as
charters, administrative and financial records, court records, and law