Bungler on Nostr: Punished Kero Good excerpts, but not enough said about wind, & especially water ...
Punished Kero (nprofile…6ak9) Good excerpts, but not enough said about wind, & especially water power. The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages, by Jean Gimpel, goes into this in depth. tl;dr, medieval Europe saw a much wider application of wind & water power than any other time or place before. Water mills could be powered by rivers, or tides; towns had mills built into bridges. The tower windmill was a medieval European invention, & much more efficient than more rudimentary windmills found elsewhere.
Modern historians, subsequent to the fall of the domination of Positivism, now see the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century primarily as an extension of the medieval & early modern traditions of engineering & craftsmanship. This is in contrast to the older Positivist historiography, that promulgated the Dark Ages Myth, & claimed the Mechanical Philosophy of Boyle, Descartes, etc caused a sudden gain in technical aptitude. But as is pointed out now, when Boyle wanted to justify his mechanical worldview, he pointed to was the Strasbourg Clock, a medieval invention. So the causation was misportrayed by the Positivists -- it was European mechanical aptitude that inspired mechanical philosophy, not the other way around.
Modern historians, subsequent to the fall of the domination of Positivism, now see the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century primarily as an extension of the medieval & early modern traditions of engineering & craftsmanship. This is in contrast to the older Positivist historiography, that promulgated the Dark Ages Myth, & claimed the Mechanical Philosophy of Boyle, Descartes, etc caused a sudden gain in technical aptitude. But as is pointed out now, when Boyle wanted to justify his mechanical worldview, he pointed to was the Strasbourg Clock, a medieval invention. So the causation was misportrayed by the Positivists -- it was European mechanical aptitude that inspired mechanical philosophy, not the other way around.