[MR] medieval machinery links (Fwd: Aoife-Links Digest, Vol 12, Issue 4)

Thu Oct 27 11:27:39 PDT 2005

In a message dated 10/27/2005 1:03:44 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
aoife-links-request at scatoday.net writes:

Today's  Topics:

1. More Power! Medieval Machinery  (Aoife)

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Message:  1
Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2005 21:18:01 -0400
From: "Aoife"  <aoife at scatoday.net>
Subject: [Aoife-Links] More Power! Medieval  Machinery
To: <aoife-links at scatoday.net>
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Greetings my Faithful Readers!

This week  It's all about More Medieval Power.

Wait--did you think everything in  the Middle Ages was done painstakingly by 
hand? Think again! Like  ourselves, our ancestors were no slouches when 
thinking up ways to AVOID  hard physical labor. How did those huge blocks of 
stone get to the top of  the cathedral? Machine Power! How did that Gutenberg 
Bible get printed?  Machine Power. How was the wheel formed so perfectly for 
carriages and  carts? Machine Power. And Da Vinci, the penultimate 
renaissance man, had a  hand in designing some very sophisticated machines. 
These were not gas or  electric powered engines, but rather they were powered 
by water, by air,  by animals, or even by Men running in their own 
hamster-like wheel! From  unloading ships to grinding grain, to fulling 
cloth, to pumping water, to  tearing down castle walls, machines were 
everywhere in the Medieval world.  Please join me in exploring some of those 
fascinating  machines.

Cheers!

Aoife

Dame Aoife Finn of Ynos  Mon
m/k/a Lisbeth Herr-Gelatt
Riverouge
Endless  Hills
Aethelmearc

Machines of War:

PBS.org Medieval Siege  Teacher's Site
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempires/trebuchet/
(Site  Excerpt) NOVA's science game, "Destroy the Castle," is very much like
the  real thing. There are five elements you can adjust in your trebuchet:
stone  ball weight, sling length, counterweight design, distance from the
castle,  whether to add wheels.

Reconstructing Medieval  Artillery
http://www.archaeology.org/online/interviews/vemming/
(Site  Excerpt) Work has begun on a 22-ton fourteenth-century trebuchet at
Warwick  castle in southern England. The largest reconstructed trebuchet  ever
attempted, it is the work of medieval weapons expert Peter Vemming of  the
Danish Medieval Centre. Once it is completed in late June, the siege  weapon
will launch projectiles--sending them up to 300 meters--daily  throughout the
summer.

War  Machines
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/bbcp/english/engins/engins.html
(Site  Excerpt) There was a great quantity of machines of attack. Some were 
drove  by counterweights like the assay balances, the mangonel. Others by the 

tension of ropes, nerves, branches, springs of wood or steel, like the  
caables, maleveisines, pierrieres. Some others, by their own weight and  the 
impulse of arms, like the rams.

Machines of  Peace

NYU: The Medieval Technology  Pages
http://scholar.chem.nyu.edu/tekpages/Refs.html
A list of  References
SEE ALSO:
Horizontal  Loom
http://scholar.chem.nyu.edu/tekpages/loom.html
Tidal  Mills
http://scholar.chem.nyu.edu/tekpages/tidalmills.html

Da Vinci  Inventions
http://www.lib.stevens-tech.edu/collections/davinci/inventions/index.html
(Site  Excerpt) Spring-Driven Car: It is doubtful that any such vehicle was
ever  constructed. Though springs had been known since ancient times, their
use  to supply power first appeared in clocks and watches made after
Leonardo's  time. He recognized their potential usefulness in such
theoretical designs  as this, and in a drawing for a flying machine in which
springs were  intended to provide an aid to manpower.

Epact: Scientific Instuments of  Medieval and Renaissance Europe
htttp://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/
(Site  Excerpt) This is one of the earliest surviving armillary spheres and
the  assigned date is consistent with its simple form. Only later do  such
instruments include more complicated motions and planets. Here there  is
simply the celestial sphere, incorporating the motion of the sun, and  a
central earth.

Matteo Ricci:
The Art of  Printing
http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/ric-prt.html
(Site  Excerpt) They have another odd method of reproducing reliefs which
have  been cut into marble or wood, An epitaph, for example, or a picture set
out  in low relief on marble or on wood, is covered with a piece of moist
paper  which in turn is overlayed with several pieces of cloth. Then the
entire  surface is beaten with a small mallet until all the lineaments of  the
relief are impressed upon the paper.

The Origin of the Suction  Pump
http://www.gabarin.com/ayh/Notes/Notes%202.htm
(Site Excerpt) The  European piston pump that made its first appearance in 
the  fifteenth-century in the writings of Taccola (c. 1450) and Martini (c.  
1475) had a suction pipe incorporated into it[2]. Fig 2. shows an  
underdeveloped design with a crude construction.

ORB: Science and  Technology in the Middle Ages: A Preliminary  Bibliography
http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/culture/scitech/biblio.html

Medieval  and Renaissance Lathes
http://www.his.com/%7Etom/sca/lathes.html
(Site  Excerpt) There are several reasons why this simple machine has been in 
use  for thousands of years. From a practical point of view, the lathe can  
easily produce truly round objects, invaluable in making wheels for carts  
and parts for mills and pumps. Turned spindles can also be easily  assembled 
into complex objects such as chairs, beds, tables,  etc.

The medieval machine. The Industrial Revolution of the Middle  Ages
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1082182
An  ebook whose full text is available online for free. Adobe Acrobat needed  
to view ebook.

A Revolution in  Timekeeping
http://physics.nist.gov/GenInt/Time/revol.html
(Site  Excerpt) Then, in the first half of the 14th century, large mechanical 

clocks began to appear in the towers of several large Italian cities. We  
have no evidence or record of the working models preceding these public  
clocks, which were weight-driven and regulated by a verge-and-foliot  
escapement.

Medieval Technology  Bibliography
http://www.medievalwoodworking.com/technology.htm

Industrial  Developments in Medieval  Dartford
http://www.dartfordarchive.org.uk/medieval/industry.shtml
(Site  Excerpt) Of all the machines in use, the mill was the most widespread. 
It  turned wind or water power into cost-effective energy for grinding flour, 

tanning leather, processing cloth and a variety of other tasks. The mills  
played an important economic role in medieval society. Although the  initial 
investment in mill machinery and plant was expensive, the  long-term return 
in profits was excellent. It is not therefore surprising  to find that 
important institutions such as the Church and the Knights  Templars owned 
mills on the River Darent either in or close to the town.  The River Darent 
provided a constant and reliable flow of water ideal for  driving rudimentary 
mill machinery.

Engines of our Enginuity: The  Medieval 20th Century
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1048.htm
(Site  Excerpt) Medieval machines keep popping up, all through the book. 
Bowser  shows how to calibrate a medieval water clock. He calculates the  
performance of a flap valve pump -- the kind sailors began using to pump  
bilge water from sailing vessels just after Columbus.

Statue of Jan  van Eyck in front of reconstruction of medieval crane (Photo 
and  Commentary)
http://www.speechcode.com/show-public-photo-cover.php3?serialNumber=834
(Site  Excerpt) This crane was powered by men walking inside its two wheels,  
hamster-fashion. You can see the bottom of one wheel here.

Medieval  Crane of Gdansk,  Poland
http://www.terryblackburn.us/Travel/Baltics/Poland/crane/
(Site  Excerpt) The human powered 'squirrel-cage' winch mechanism makes you 
tired  just looking at it! Its distinctive silhouette is visible up and down 
the  waterfront. (NOTE: The photps present strangely, but you can click on 
them  for enlargements)  

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