Penn State Medieval Studies, Vol. 2

Wind & Water in the Middle Ages: Fluid Technologies from Antiquity to the Renaissance

Edited by Steven A. Walton (Penn State) General Editor, Norris Lacy (Penn State)
2006 | 300 + xxviii pp. | 45 ills. | Hardcover | 6 x 9 in | 978-0-86698-367-9 | MRTS 322
$55 | £39

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Wind & Water in the Middle Ages offers numerous reflections on the role of windmills, watermills, water control, and irrigation systems and their users in the Middle Ages. These collected essays examine the continuity of mill technology from the ancient world to the Middle Ages and its transfer between Arabic and European cultures; the legal position of mills and millers; literary and artistic representations of these technologies; their urban, rural, and monastic contexts; and early modern adaptations of the medieval technologies of wind and water.

Table of Contents

  • Steven A. Walton: Introduction

  • George Brooks: The “Vitruvian Mill” in Roman and Medieval Europe

  • Niall Brady: Mills in Medieval Ireland: Looking Beyond Design

  • D. Fairchild Ruggles: Waterwheels and Garden Gizmos: Technology and Illusion in Islamic Gardens

  • Adam Lucas: The Role of the Monasteries in the Development of Medieval Milling

  • Janet S. Loengard: Lords’ Rights and Neighbors’ Nuisances: Mills and Medieval English Law

  • Tim Sistrunk: The Right to the Wind in the Later Middle Ages

  • Roberta Magnusson: Public and Private Urban Hydrology: Water Management in Medieval London

  • Thomas F. Glick and Luis Pablo Martinez: Mills and Millers in Medieval Valencia

  • David W. Marshall: John Ball’s Revolutionary Windmill:“The Letter of Jakke Mylner” in the English Rising of 1381

  • Kirk Ambrose: The ‘Mystic Mill’ Capital at Vézelay

  • Shana Worthen: Of Mills and Meaning