CATHEDRAL, FORGE, AND WATERWHEEL

In their latest medieval study, the Gieses (Life in a Medieval Village, 1990, etc.) explode the myth that the Middle Ages were unconcerned with the empirical and demonstrate that the Renaissance itself was the outcome of gradual progress made over the previous thousand years. The political and military facade of Imperial Rome masked a largely stagnant peasant economy—along with a mentality that had little incentive to explore labor-saving technology and dismissed the ``useful arts'' as unworthy of a free man. The authors show that by the year 900 the new Europe, for all its political chaos, had already surpassed the ancient Mediterranean world in technology. They describe the above-ground reduction furnace that was feeding iron to local forges where smiths shaped it into parts for the new heavy ploughs, spades, and shoes for horses now beginning to pull with the aid of the padded collar; the triangular lateen sail that could drive Viking ships to trading posts on the Volga; and the considerable extension of the use of the waterwheel. The Gieses work century by century through the Middle Ages (from 500 to 1500), listing new tools and methods, each page full of attractive detail and anecdote. An important chapter is devoted to the influence of China, via the Silk Road, and Islam. We also learn how cities developed from fortresses into centers of commerce and watch the growth of handicrafts, gothic architecture, universities, mass production, the printing press and more. The final chapters show how the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci were indebted to lesser-known predecessors. The Gieses suggest that important factors were the early spread of Benedictine monasticism creating centers of culture where manual work as well as learning were honored, and the emergence of an intellectual tradition that encouraged curiosity about God's world and made possible the idea of progress by positing a linear, rather than a cyclical, view of time. A mine of information, suitable for the intelligent nonspecialist. (Seventy b&w illustrations) (Book-of-the-Month Selection for January)