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#41
History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / Re: Medieval European History
Last post by BeerDrinkingBurke - September 27, 2026, 07:29:32 AMWoops, and another two weeks pass! I better push ahead on finishing this series before my few remaining impressions have been scattered to the wind.
OK, as per the program I laid out... let's talk The Later Middle Ages (1300-1500s) for a bit.
I think I've already mentioned quite a few things that overlap with this subject. Particularly in the last post on the impact of the black death on speeding up the shift away from feudalism. But also in the discussion about regionalism growing stronger over the earlier internationalism, and the way in which Italy was beginning to transform economically and culturally (we will come back to that when talking about the renaissance of course).
This is a topic that I want to focus on when I get around to final thoughts, but naturally enough the beginning of the "early modern" period is somewhat arbitrary. Or perhaps it is better to say, it is a gray distinction. To say that there is a "modern" and an "early modern", vs a "middle ages" and "late middle ages" is meaningful and useful. But people at the time understood the changes that were happening slowly (some aware sooner than others), and used different framing. Certainly, nobody flipped a switch and changed peoples minds or conditions of living overnight. The later middle ages is a time when already there is much that can strike us as quite modern, or at least, much that is already on the way towards a new form of living and thinking.
One example of the above point would be the rise of representative government. A subject which Koenigsberger spends a bit of time discussing. I am going to skip this topic. It's important I grant, but fairly complex. I'll simply note that, as feudal relations changed, so did means of gathering money (see above black death subject). Kings sought to enlist the aid of legislative bodies to tax people in new ways. And once these bodies were granted the status and autonomy to do so, they "took on a life of their own". The ways in which representative government was established, and the extent to which it wrested power from the monarchies, would vary in country to country.
What I want to focus on instead is technology. Something that had a decisive impact in shifting the conditions of peoples lives, as well as their access to information (and from this, their understanding of politics, religion and the world).
Here are the big ones:
- The Carrack (lanteen sails integrated with square sails). Lanteen sails are those triangular shaped ones that can tack against the wind. In the classic big ships of the Napoleonic era we see them at the front and back of the rigging, although sometimes they can also be rigged up high.) They apparently work more in the form of an airplane wing, with the airflow "pulling" at the sail. Apparently lanteen sails were developed by the byzantines, who drew on the techniques used in Arab dhows (and Koenigsberger suggests that these in turn were probably inspired by Chinese junks. I wonder if this has been demonstrated clearly in the decades since publication.). Although I studied sailing (with a decent amount of actual practice) in high school, I had forgotten this term (or never properly learned it!)
Forward facing square sails, meanwhile, are those where the wind simply "pushes" at the sail. These are more powerful, but also more restrictive. Best when you have the wind at your back (think, the sails of the Romans, the Greeks, and the Vikings).
In the 1200s, the carrack was born. This was a ship that combined lanteen sails and square sails. A precursor to the great ocean going Spanish and Portuguese caravels of the age of exploration. This was a ship that could travel more efficiently than any previously made. All that it needed now was a means of navigation...
- The magnetic compass.
Here comes another decisive Chinese invention (if we grant that the inspiration for lanteen sails were also originally from Chinese junks). Apparently it dates back to Han dynasty China (2000 years ago), where a kind of "lodestone" was used for land navigation. Over time this was refined to a magnetised needle (1000 years ago), with use in maritime navigation mentioned by the 12th century. A hundred years or so later they began to be adopted in Europe.
Combined with the carrack, the Europeans now had the means with which to travel around the entire world.
- Gunpowder
Yet another Chinese invention. Although the military applications were apparently refined in the Arab world. Naturally the military applications are what we can readily imagine. Canons gradually (and then quite suddenly) changed the face of warfare, and the usefulness (and shape / form / function) of things like castles / forts. Yet what I didn't appreciate was the manner in which this new technology helped to usher in changes in the making of metals and chemicals. Sophisticated "mechanisms, cogwheels, gears, suction pumps" etc were all spurred on by this development. Downstream of it we find the power-driven bellows (around 1400), which allowed for iron to be fully melted for the first time (instead of reducing it to blooms that had to be beaten into shape I think). This laid the path for cheap, mass produced iron. Truly a society-transforming development. That said, iron continued to remain relatively scarce and expensive for centuries.
- Paper. Eyeglasses. Printing.
Koenigsberger treats these three together, due to their interrelated nature. With paper, we have yet another Chinese invention. Eyeglasses, an Italian one. Printing? Of course, first invented in China. Yet its separate re-invention in 15th Germany seems to have been unrelated. With these three inventions, it now became possible to mass produce books. An event Koenigsberger refers to as: "...the greatest advance in human communications since the invention of writing."
Again I certainly learned something here. For while of course one impact of this development was the availability of texts, which is obvious enough, something somewhat less obvious that I did not appreciate was how it helped to standardize the texts themselves. This meant that "for the first time" readers could feel that they were actually reading what the author had written, and not the cribbed, 2nd, 3rd or 4th hand, annotated or misunderstood version of a thing. This meant that: "International dialogue on religious, philosophical, scientific and literary topics underwent a 'quantum leap' in volume and intensity."
So, initially in the European early middle ages we had an internationalism, born of necessity, where itinerant intellectuals would converse in Latin. A small community sustained by the whole (western) continent. Then, in the high middle ages, we see the rise of regionalism, and separate regions become capable (intellectually and economically) of sustaining their own "centers of gravity". Then, in the late middle ages, internationalism makes a come back, via the printing press, and the capacity for everybody to have access to the same books.
Another impact of this development was the accessibility of literature (in pamphlet form) for "the common man", concerning religious topics, or political topics. We can readily imagine the way that this helped spur the protestant reformation of the 16th century.
The impact of China...
Looking at the above, it seems as though the impact of Chinese technology on European history at this time is really quite profound. It lead to the expansion of the external frontiers of the ocean, and the internal frontiers of the mind via written communication. It also helped transform material conditions via metallurgy and chemistry, with the development of clockwork mechanisms, iron smelting, and so on.
Of course, these developments in turn also helped bring Chinese thinking to Europe. With their new sailing technology, the Jesuits could reach the "far east", and began to bring back and translate intellectual works. These ideas then could be disseminated via paper, beginning to reach the intellectuals of Europe in the 17th century. It's a funny thing to think that the technologies of China, running ahead, then in turn became a vehicle by which the thinking of China could be disseminated.
Incidentally, here's a book I'd like to read at some point looking at the impact of Chinese thinking on Leibniz. Now of course as you know, the binary system itself, which I am using right now to type these words on a computer (or you, to read them - if anybody is reading this haha) was invented by Leibniz. But this binary logic was arguably inspired by his reading of the I Ching.
But that is another topic! Onwards.
OK, as per the program I laid out... let's talk The Later Middle Ages (1300-1500s) for a bit.
I think I've already mentioned quite a few things that overlap with this subject. Particularly in the last post on the impact of the black death on speeding up the shift away from feudalism. But also in the discussion about regionalism growing stronger over the earlier internationalism, and the way in which Italy was beginning to transform economically and culturally (we will come back to that when talking about the renaissance of course).
This is a topic that I want to focus on when I get around to final thoughts, but naturally enough the beginning of the "early modern" period is somewhat arbitrary. Or perhaps it is better to say, it is a gray distinction. To say that there is a "modern" and an "early modern", vs a "middle ages" and "late middle ages" is meaningful and useful. But people at the time understood the changes that were happening slowly (some aware sooner than others), and used different framing. Certainly, nobody flipped a switch and changed peoples minds or conditions of living overnight. The later middle ages is a time when already there is much that can strike us as quite modern, or at least, much that is already on the way towards a new form of living and thinking.
One example of the above point would be the rise of representative government. A subject which Koenigsberger spends a bit of time discussing. I am going to skip this topic. It's important I grant, but fairly complex. I'll simply note that, as feudal relations changed, so did means of gathering money (see above black death subject). Kings sought to enlist the aid of legislative bodies to tax people in new ways. And once these bodies were granted the status and autonomy to do so, they "took on a life of their own". The ways in which representative government was established, and the extent to which it wrested power from the monarchies, would vary in country to country.
What I want to focus on instead is technology. Something that had a decisive impact in shifting the conditions of peoples lives, as well as their access to information (and from this, their understanding of politics, religion and the world).
Here are the big ones:
- The Carrack (lanteen sails integrated with square sails). Lanteen sails are those triangular shaped ones that can tack against the wind. In the classic big ships of the Napoleonic era we see them at the front and back of the rigging, although sometimes they can also be rigged up high.) They apparently work more in the form of an airplane wing, with the airflow "pulling" at the sail. Apparently lanteen sails were developed by the byzantines, who drew on the techniques used in Arab dhows (and Koenigsberger suggests that these in turn were probably inspired by Chinese junks. I wonder if this has been demonstrated clearly in the decades since publication.). Although I studied sailing (with a decent amount of actual practice) in high school, I had forgotten this term (or never properly learned it!)
Forward facing square sails, meanwhile, are those where the wind simply "pushes" at the sail. These are more powerful, but also more restrictive. Best when you have the wind at your back (think, the sails of the Romans, the Greeks, and the Vikings).
In the 1200s, the carrack was born. This was a ship that combined lanteen sails and square sails. A precursor to the great ocean going Spanish and Portuguese caravels of the age of exploration. This was a ship that could travel more efficiently than any previously made. All that it needed now was a means of navigation...
- The magnetic compass.
Here comes another decisive Chinese invention (if we grant that the inspiration for lanteen sails were also originally from Chinese junks). Apparently it dates back to Han dynasty China (2000 years ago), where a kind of "lodestone" was used for land navigation. Over time this was refined to a magnetised needle (1000 years ago), with use in maritime navigation mentioned by the 12th century. A hundred years or so later they began to be adopted in Europe.
Combined with the carrack, the Europeans now had the means with which to travel around the entire world.
- Gunpowder
Yet another Chinese invention. Although the military applications were apparently refined in the Arab world. Naturally the military applications are what we can readily imagine. Canons gradually (and then quite suddenly) changed the face of warfare, and the usefulness (and shape / form / function) of things like castles / forts. Yet what I didn't appreciate was the manner in which this new technology helped to usher in changes in the making of metals and chemicals. Sophisticated "mechanisms, cogwheels, gears, suction pumps" etc were all spurred on by this development. Downstream of it we find the power-driven bellows (around 1400), which allowed for iron to be fully melted for the first time (instead of reducing it to blooms that had to be beaten into shape I think). This laid the path for cheap, mass produced iron. Truly a society-transforming development. That said, iron continued to remain relatively scarce and expensive for centuries.
- Paper. Eyeglasses. Printing.
Koenigsberger treats these three together, due to their interrelated nature. With paper, we have yet another Chinese invention. Eyeglasses, an Italian one. Printing? Of course, first invented in China. Yet its separate re-invention in 15th Germany seems to have been unrelated. With these three inventions, it now became possible to mass produce books. An event Koenigsberger refers to as: "...the greatest advance in human communications since the invention of writing."
Again I certainly learned something here. For while of course one impact of this development was the availability of texts, which is obvious enough, something somewhat less obvious that I did not appreciate was how it helped to standardize the texts themselves. This meant that "for the first time" readers could feel that they were actually reading what the author had written, and not the cribbed, 2nd, 3rd or 4th hand, annotated or misunderstood version of a thing. This meant that: "International dialogue on religious, philosophical, scientific and literary topics underwent a 'quantum leap' in volume and intensity."
So, initially in the European early middle ages we had an internationalism, born of necessity, where itinerant intellectuals would converse in Latin. A small community sustained by the whole (western) continent. Then, in the high middle ages, we see the rise of regionalism, and separate regions become capable (intellectually and economically) of sustaining their own "centers of gravity". Then, in the late middle ages, internationalism makes a come back, via the printing press, and the capacity for everybody to have access to the same books.
Another impact of this development was the accessibility of literature (in pamphlet form) for "the common man", concerning religious topics, or political topics. We can readily imagine the way that this helped spur the protestant reformation of the 16th century.
The impact of China...
Looking at the above, it seems as though the impact of Chinese technology on European history at this time is really quite profound. It lead to the expansion of the external frontiers of the ocean, and the internal frontiers of the mind via written communication. It also helped transform material conditions via metallurgy and chemistry, with the development of clockwork mechanisms, iron smelting, and so on.
Of course, these developments in turn also helped bring Chinese thinking to Europe. With their new sailing technology, the Jesuits could reach the "far east", and began to bring back and translate intellectual works. These ideas then could be disseminated via paper, beginning to reach the intellectuals of Europe in the 17th century. It's a funny thing to think that the technologies of China, running ahead, then in turn became a vehicle by which the thinking of China could be disseminated.
Incidentally, here's a book I'd like to read at some point looking at the impact of Chinese thinking on Leibniz. Now of course as you know, the binary system itself, which I am using right now to type these words on a computer (or you, to read them - if anybody is reading this haha) was invented by Leibniz. But this binary logic was arguably inspired by his reading of the I Ching.
But that is another topic! Onwards.
#42
Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: Word Association
Last post by Jubal - September 27, 2026, 07:20:53 AMMeat
#43
Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: Last Post
Last post by Tusky - September 27, 2026, 06:21:59 AMNow into Sunday wins
#44
Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: Word Association
Last post by Tusky - September 27, 2026, 06:21:33 AMMeet
#45
Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: Word Association
Last post by Glaurung - September 26, 2026, 09:18:40 PMmoot
#46
Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: Last Post
Last post by Glaurung - September 26, 2026, 09:17:56 PMAnother Saturday win.
#47
Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: Word Association
Last post by Jubal - September 26, 2026, 08:18:56 PMInn
#48
Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: Word Association
Last post by Tusky - September 26, 2026, 08:11:06 PMIn
#49
Computer Game Development - The Indie Alley / Re: Five Nights at Sh*thouse
Last post by Jubal - September 26, 2026, 08:03:24 PMYep, fair 
I feel like there should be a name for that particular aesthetic but I'm not sure what it is.
I feel like there should be a name for that particular aesthetic but I'm not sure what it is. #50
Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: Word Association
Last post by Jubal - September 26, 2026, 06:59:08 PMRepayment