Lecture 9 - Medieval Technology

Thorp, Washington water-powered mill tour

Terms

Watermill - improved in the Middle Ages
Windmill - invented in the Middle Ages (popular in England and Low Countries)
Manorialism - economic system adopted in Middle Ages
Feudalism - dominant social system during Middle Ages, hierarchy of knights and lords
Latifundia - Ancient estates tranformed into manors
Serfs - peasants tied to the soil, lived on manors
Regular Clergy - in monastery
Secular Clergy - looked after ordinary people in the parishes, peasants appointed to position by nobility
Advowson - the right to present a priest to a living
Subinfeudation - the tendency for more and more individuals to take land (like sub-leasing, but with feudalism)
Vassal - servant
Fireplace - medieval invention
Charlemagne - greatest of early medieval Frankish kings
Alcuin - Anglo Saxon scholar, worked to correct texts, ran school for clergy
Holy Roman Empire - created by Charlemagne
Mouldboard Plow - more efficient plow that became important from 8th century onwards
Magyars - 9th and 10th century invaders into eastern Europe from steppes
Mulsims - Islam challenged Christianity in Europe, attacked Italy and Spain
Vikings - invaders from the north, wrote sagas, settled in Normandy, Dublin, Iceland, and Sicily, gradually Christianized after 1000 CE

Three groups in society - monk, knight and peasant
Iconoclasts - destroyed eastern icons/images
Grindstone - 9th century invention
Motte and bailey - typical construction technique for medieval castles
Treaty of Verdun - split Frankish Empire into what became modern Germany and France
Thomas Aquinas - Spanish monk, worked in Paris, brought back Aristotle
Roger Bacon - English Franciscan monk & mathematician
Spectacles - invented in 13th century Italy