Medieval Technology and Social Change

Medieval Technological Innovation

More than fifty years after its first publication, Lynn White, Jr.’s Medieval Technology & Social Changecontinues to call forth a debate among historians with respect to Medieval technology. As articles by Bernard S. Bachrach, D. A. Bullough, and Alex Roland attest, White’s important work at the very least forms the cornerstone of the fascinating topic of technological innovation and the rise of social groups during the Middle Ages. White expounds upon the importance of the stirrup and how this seemingly insignificant implement spurred feudalism, how new technologies in agriculture led to a surge in population, and how the advances of machine power in the lives of Medieval peoples led to urbanization. 

The thesis of Medieval Technologypoints to the significance of technology during a time period that is usually considered as technically moribund. White begins his work centering around a seemingly inconsequential implement: the stirrup. White argues that the stirrup enabled Charles Martel to engage in mounted shock combat, which “inevitably” led to feudalism. Prior to the stirrup mounted warriors had little stability. Riders used saddles that would prevent them from falling over the horse’s tail, but saddles did not add lateral stability, something which was much needed during combat.White also argues that mounted combatants who used two-handed lances would have been compelled to lay the reins on the “horse’s neck and to guide him solely by voice and pressure of the knees at the most critical moments of battle.”Essentially, mounted warriors would not have had much of an advantage over regular foot soldiers because of the lack of stability and the occasional loss of control of the mount. 

The foot-stirrup began as a way for riders to control their mounts without losing stability and the use loss of control of the mount. Developed in China during the fifth century, the foot-stirrup added to the effectiveness of the mounted fighter.The the stirrup evolved and spread west, White declares that under the direction of Charles Martel, the stirrup helped spur European feudalism. Now that riders could engage in mounted shock combat, held in place on their mounts by stirrups, Martel began to seize ecclesiastical properties to endow the growing use of cavalry. According to White, “mounted warriors could only be maintained in large numbers by landed endowment,” and so in effect, history has the stirrup to thank for European feudalism. 

Moving on, Medieval Technology and Social Change goes on to explain the importance of the plow in Medieval society and how it spurred a shift of power, wealth, and resources within Europe. White puts great emphasis on the plow and argues that it was the first application of non-human power to agriculture For the first time, with the harness the plow substituted animal power for human power. As the first, the plow helped to usher in the manorial system in Europe. The plow had many advantages. It could handle clods better than previous rudimentary implements, saved peasant labor, and increased the area of arable land. Significantly, White gives credit to the heavy plow for changing the shape of fields from squarish to long and narrow. This shift in field shape particularly galvanized the communal aspect of villages. Villagers situated their arable fields next to each other and, with this arrangement, all fields were productive for the benefit of the whole community. Through the cooperative labor of many peasants, these communities were a primitive form of the manorial economy that Northern Europe would later see.

White contends that the plow and the new farming technologies it inspired spurred a population upsurge because more food was made available. However, he is cautious in that although the new productivity that made the heavy plow possible quickly increased the population, it was only adopted in areas already enjoying a certain density of settlement. In conjunction with a balanced approach between herding and agriculture, the heavy plow produced an unprecedented prosperity and vigor in the Frankish heartland. Man became nature’s exploiter. 

The plow and new farming technologies combined to expand production, made possible the accumulation of surplus foods that would spearhead the population growth, made practical the growth of leisure time that would lead to the development of skilled artisans and merchants, and were responsible for urbanization. European peasant society was reshaped with a bursting vigor. 

White begins his analysis of an agricultural revolution on the plow, saying, “the heavy plow is only the first major element in the agricultural revolution.” After the plow, the harness, in conjunction with nailed horseshoe, made the horse an economic and military asset. There were advantages for the peasant population to utilize equine power over oxen. Farm horses were stronger than oxen and had more endurance.Use of the horse-drawn plow soon became standard in European agriculture.

White contends that Medieval peasants soon developed another method of farming that would revolutionize agriculture. Known as the “greatest agricultural novelty of the Middle Ages in Western Europe,” the triennial system of crop rotation allowed peasants to produce more crops and enriched the soil. The horse-drawn plow and triennial field planting “increased the returns from the labor of the Northern peasant,” raised the standard of living, and consequently the ability to buy manufactured goods. Again, White emphasizes the surplus of food that would have been made available, that would ultimately propel urbanization.

The stirrup, the heavy plow, new farming technologies, the switch to horse from oxen, and the horse all gave way to power technology. Water was the first source of power to be tamed. Water wheels and mills were implemented to mill crops and even to treat cloth and hemp. In the thirteenth century, “windmills became one of the most typical features of the landscape of the great plains of northern Europe.” Windmills assisted Medieval people in the manufacture of textiles and grinding grain just to cite a few examples. Vapor and steam were harnessed to aid fire combustion as a bellows. Jets of steam would also turn turbines and eventually the steam-turbine was developed. Hot air and air under pressure were also utilized by Europeans. In the late fifteenth century, for example, engineers were “setting in the flues small  turbines geared to turn a spit.” Eventually, rockets, cannons, and other primitive forms of guns and explosives would be exploited as a result of using air as a source of power.  

White presents a charming case for the Medieval control of gravity. Torsion, by way of the twisting of fibers, was developed in Graeco-Roman Antiquity. However, this method of gravitational control proved unsatisfactory because elasticity issues in certain climates. In the thirteenth century, technicians used gravity to harness one of their most significant problems: the need for an accurate and reliable clock. Not only did Medieval people explore sources of power like gravity, but they also invented ways to control and guide this power. As the middle of the fourteenth century passed, clocks became a status symbol in communities. Clocks were intricate, elaborate, and coveted. In spite of the enthusiasm and eagerness that Medieval people chased the accurate measurement of time, the design for a working clock did not come from clockmakers, but instead White argues that “the interdependence of all aspects of technology” borrowed from military engineers initiated the standard clock.

While modernist thinking in Europe and the United States has touted western civilization as the greatest ever, or “The West is Best” mantra, White’s Medieval Technological Innovation paints a noteworthy difference. In nearly every significant development, from the rudimentary forms of stirrups, the water wheel, artillery and cannon fire, and farming, White denotes that most original ideas developed in the Orient. Far from diminishing western influence, White explains the origins of objects or ideas, and then goes on to document the way in which these things were influenced by Europeans. For instance, White’s foremost implement, the foot-stirrup, probably originated in China.

Bernard Bachrach gives White due credit in his critique of Medieval Change and Social Technology.Looking to the future, Bachrach advocates for the more frequent use of archaeology to back up White’s contentions regarding the stirrup. Bachrach also interprets the data differently than White, by claiming that the Carolingian world was not as impressed with the stirrup as White leads readers to believe. Bachrach makes another important fact that White omits: the armies of Charles Martel and those of his sons excelled in siege warfare in which horsemen play at most a limited role. His statements infer that the stirrup, although it may have been used, would not have been a necessity in early Medieval battles, especially those of Charles Martel. Finally, Bachrach argues that Charles Martel did not make use of heavily armed horsemen in his military force that would have required the use of securing armed support and lands that White avows led to the European Feudal system.

Alex Roland provides an informative critique of Lynn White, Jr.’s Medieval Technology and Social Change.Roland begins with a succinct summarization of Medieval Technology, but moreover goes on to address several attacks against White’s work. Foremost is White’s argument that the stirrup is innately tied to feudalism. Roland’s main point is that White did not mean to intimate that the stirrup inevitably lead to feudalism, but that the stirrup made the succeeding social changes possible. Roland also defends White from the harsh criticism, notably from P. H. Sawyer and R. H. Hilton. Roland argues that Sawyer and Hilton misinterpreted what White was trying to convey. Namely, they “refuted arguments that White did not make, inferred motives that White did not manifest, and accused him of views he did not hold.” Roland does concede that the nature of White’s writing leaves room for misunderstanding and misinterpretation. “He (White) favored evidence that supported his argument, apparently overlooking some.” Above all, Roland decides that Medieval History is better for having White’s Medieval Technology and Social Change. Roland sees the work as a challenge to the scholarly community to revise and accept or revise and edit White’s conclusions, something that cannot help but further our understanding of all history.