Technikatörténeti szemle 11. (1979)

TANULMÁNYOK - Endrei Walter: Industrial revolution in the middle ages?

as that of the wind, the tides or the gunpowder, increasing the variety of mills and incidentally putting the art of warfare on a new basis;

— In architecture and shipbuilding new skeleton — construction principles became effective;

— In metallurgy, the production of tools and arms was modernized by new legendary technologies bringing with them — to quote the words of Lynn White — the beginning of the real Iron Age. It is totally indifferent whether we attribute the beginning of 'the new era to the smiths of Damascus or to Wayland the Smith: it was mediaeval Europe that made use of*the new steel technology in producing her ploughs, chisels and swords;

— In antique times several newly invented transmission principles were totally unknown, such as the cam and the crank that transformed the alternating rotating movement into rectilinear movement or the twine propulsion and the excenter; these made complicated mechanisms feasible which not only liberated man from difficult physical wolk but ultimately led to multi-tool machines. From here only one further step was needed to construct — in contrast to ancient times — useful automats.

It is also a much analized fact that such fundamental technological changes go hand in hand with social changes: the exploited labour of lay monks (conversi) in the Cistercian forges- reminds us in exactly the same way to the rise of the industrial proletariat as the textile workers of Florence or the Flemish towns. Strikes, destruction of machines and rebellions are all symptoms that recall the 19th century. But these class-struggles were doomed to failure in the same way as was natural science research hallmarked by Grosseteste, Maricourt and Roger Bacon.

Now let us not study the role played by the climatic, social and economic factors in slowing down the boom and in the stagnation of following centuries. We had better go back to the principal question: is it possible to talk about an industrial revolution in the middle ages?

Before the 17th century, the word „revolution” was used mostly in reference to the movements of planets, later it got the sense of popular disturbances of political or economical character, in English carrying the implication of return or even restoration. In such linguistically blameless interpretation (Latin revolvo means to roll back something) we may assert that revolution took place. But in today’s semantics the concept of revolution is associated with a complete and lasting reversal of conditions or fundamental changes. The events of 18th— 19th century proved to be irreversible. Agrarian society became industrial; productivity of industry increased by scales of magnitude within the frames of entirely new production organisms: the factories. The capitalist class succeeded the feudal one, and a new class appeared on the scene: the industrial proletariat.

As a result we may state that the analogy proves to be imperfect as soon as social phenomena and consequences are investigated. Neither did the methods of production as initiated in the Cistercian forges or the Italian silkthrowing mills lead to a factory system nor did relations of production effect the rise of a new class. The fundamental character of mediaeval society remained agrarian.

In spite of all this, I feel we have to do justice to those excellent historians who noticed the unprecedented acceleration of technical development and put

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