David S. Landes argues that the Medieval era, often seen as a dark period of stagnation between the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, was a period of important technological innovation. It produced advances in the water wheel, spectacles, the mechanical clock, printing and gunpowder. Landes writes that the decentralised nature of European politics meant that there was greater impetus for political and economic advantage through technological innovation.

Prior to 1300 and the invention of what we would call glasses, craftsmen who hit age forty, and the inevitable hardening of the eye's lens, meant that skilled craftsman had a massive drop off in productivity from that age on. In many cases it meant they could no longer work in that industry as their eyesight was no longer good enough to produce finely crafted products.

Glasses - two lenses connected by a bridge across the nose that allows the hands to be free - for far-sightedness were invented in Pisa in the late 1200s. Landes writes:

A seemingly banal affair, the kind of thing that appears so commonplace as to be trivial. And yet the invention of spectacles more than double the working life of skilled craftsmen.

Biological limitations of the eye's decay no longer was an impediment to working. Consequently the skills and knowledge of the skilled craftsman was not lost as their eyes made it more and more difficult to work in specialised industries.

This innovation led to economic benefits beyond productivity improvements; Europe had a trade monopoly on spectacles for several hundred years.

x-posted on eurotrib
Cam Riley: South Sea Republic. Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic.

Comments

  • Optics is an interesting example to bring up. I'd suggest that no small part of improvements in optics (and many other things) was due to re-introduction of classical ideas to Europe via Spain, together with newer developments in the Islamic world.

    Al-Hasan in particular is relevant to optics: (see Wikipedia article on his book ).

    Even the word "albedo" (proportion of light reflected), a pretty basic concept in optics, is a bit of a giveaway of arabic influence, along with many other words such as algorithm, alcohol, algebra, azimuth, alchemy, alkali, which shows where post-dark-age europe learned of the concepts.
    • cam . # .
      Dave, Yeh one of the interesting things about Landes' thesis is that Europe, Islam and China were all producing technological innovation, but because Europe had a decentralised political structure, and consequent economic system, the impetus to compete economically and in wealth was much higher, as political power came from wealth.

      So where Islam and China were not interested in upsetting the political status quo - they had large established mono-political empires - Europe was, because their political competitor was in some instances only thirty miles away.

      So that political and economic competition helped drive Europe into the renaissance - as well as seek productivity innovations in the medieval area.

      Interesting take I thought.
      'Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.' Frederick Vosper's republican motto.

      • Perhaps the effect was not directly attributable to the economic competition with decentralized power-bases in Europe but the prevalence of war across the multitude of borders. War, as we've seen in the 20th century, pushes things ahead perhaps faster than anything else.

        High price to pay!
        • cam . # .
          Dave, One of the dynamics he identified with the small city-state or principates was that their populations were periodically decimated by disease and needed to be replenished lest their population get too small and they cease to be a viable (or defendable) entity.

          So they competed on property rights to attract a population. Their hook to wayfarers, opportunists, immigrants, etc was property enfranchisement. Which ultimately led to the British form of property rights and free trade in the 16thC, but which started with the collapse of Rome as a central and dominating political body.

          I find it interesting that it Landes' claims it is political decentralisation which leads in the long term to greater technical and economic innovation.
          'Sworn to no party, and of no sect am I.' Frederick Vosper's republican motto.