page_title: Medieval technology
section_title: Miscellaneous
hierarchical_section_title: Medieval technology / Civil technologies / Miscellaneous
caption_attribution_description: English: Knights Templar playing Chess. Čeština: Templařští rytíři hrají šachy. Klášterní knihovna v El Escorial, ms T. I 6, fol. 25. Národní památka, Španělsko.
context_page_description: Medieval technology is the technology used in medieval Europe under Christian rule. After the Renaissance of the 12th century, medieval Europe saw a radical change in the rate of new inventions, innovations in the ways of managing traditional means of production, and economic growth. The period saw major technological advances, including the adoption of gunpowder, the invention of vertical windmills, spectacles, mechanical clocks, and greatly improved water mills, building techniques, and agriculture in general.
  The development of water mills from their ancient origins was impressive, and extended from agriculture to sawmills both for timber and stone. By the time of the Domesday Book, most large villages had turnable mills, around 6,500 in England alone. Water-power was also widely used in mining for raising ore from shafts, crushing ore, and even powering bellows.
  European technical advancements from the 12th to 14th centuries were either built on long-established techniques in medieval Europe, originating from Roman and Byzantine antecedents, or adapted from cross-cultural exchanges through trading networks with the Islamic world, China, and India.
context_section_description: Chess (1450)
  The earliest predecessors of the game originated in 6th-century AD India and spread via Persia and the Muslim world to Europe. Here the game evolved into its current form in the 15th century.
  Forest glass (c. 1000)
  This type of glass uses wood ash and sand as the main raw materials and is characterised by a variety of greenish-yellow colours.
  Grindstones (834)
  Grindstones are a rough stone, usually sandstone, used to sharpen iron. The first rotary grindstone (turned with a leveraged handle) occurs in the Utrecht Psalter, illustrated between 816 and 834. According to Hägermann, the pen drawing is a copy of a late-antique manuscript. A second crank which was mounted on the other end of the axle is depicted in the Luttrell Psalter from around 1340.
  Liquor (12th century)
  Primitive forms of distillation were known to the Babylonians, as well as Indians in the first centuries AD. Early evidence of distillation also comes from alchemists working in Alexandria, Roman Egypt, in the 1st century. The medieval Arabs adopted the distillation process, which later spread to Europe. Texts on the distillation of waters, wine, and other spirits were written in Salerno and Cologne in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
  Liquor consumption rose dramatically in Europe in and after the mid-14th century, when distilled liquors were commonly used as remedies for the Black Death. These spirits would have had a much lower alcohol content (about 40% ABV) than the alchemists' pure distillations, and they were likely first thought of as medicinal elixirs. Around 1400, methods to distill spirits from wheat, barley, and rye were discovered. Thus began the "national" drinks of Europe, including  gin (England) and grappa (Italy). In 1437, "burned water" (brandy) was mentioned in the records of the County of Katzenelnbogen in Germany.
  Magnets (12th century)
  Magnets were first referenced in the Roman d'Enéas, composed between 1155 and 1160.
  Mirrors (1180)
  The first mention of a "glass" mirror is in 1180 by Alexander Neckham who said "Take away the lead which is behind the glass and there will be no image of the one looking in."
  Illustrated surgical atlas (1345)
  Guido da Vigevano (c. 1280 − 1349) was the first author to add illustrations to his anatomical descriptions. His Anathomia provides pictures of neuroanatomical structures and techniques such as the dissection of the head by means of trephination, and depictions of the meninges, cerebrum, and spinal cord.
  Quarantine (1377)
  Initially a 40-day-period, the quarantine was introduced by the Republic of Ragusa as a measure of disease prevention related to the Black Death. It was later adopted by Venice from where the practice spread all around in Europe.
  Rat traps (1170s)
  The first mention of a rat trap is in the medieval romance Yvain, the Knight of the Lion by Chrétien de Troyes.
caption: Knights Templar playing chess, Libro de los juegos (1283)
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