The State of

Science and
Technology during
the Middle Ages
( A.D. 400- A.D. 1300
in the Western
World)
- Medieval Times, Middle Ages, and Dark
Ages are generally referring to the same
period of time from 500 to 1500 AD.

- The Medieval period saw major

technological advances, including the
invention of vertical windmills, spectacles,
mechanical clocks, greatly improved water
mills, building techniques like the Gothic
style and three-field crop rotation.
Here are some of the famous inventions
during Medieval times:
1. Military technologies such:
a. Counterweight trebuchet isa revolutionized medieval
siege weapon which uses counterweights and hurling of
huge stones to very fast distances. It was first used
in the eastern mediterranean basin.

.
b. Longbow with massed disciplined archery
was used by the English against the french
during hundreds
years war (1337-1453) . The longbow was
powerful accurate and contributed to the
eventual demise of the
medieval knight class.
c. Steel crossbow was the first hand-held mechanical
crossbow. Thhis European innovation came with several
different cocking aids to enhance draw power.
d. Complete full plate armour appeared by the end of
the 14th century. The armour chain mail was made from
thousands of metal rings and the armour was a long cloak called a
hauberk. Plate armour is considered the best in
personal armour in terms of body protection and showed
the skills involved in working metal.
2. Agricultural Innovations

- such as the heavy

wheeled plough, three
field system, horse collar,
the stirrup, and horsehoe
were developed.
a. Heavy wheeled plough - was important in the cultivation of rich,
heavy,often wet soils of
NorthernEurope that advanced their agricultural
practices
b. Horse collar - when through multiple
evolutions from the 6th to 9th centuries.
- adapt to rocky terain, mountainnns and carry
heavier loads. They may have been known to
the Romans and Celts as early as 50 BC.
• c. Artesian well - is composed of a thin
rod with a hard iron cutting edge placed
in borehole and repeatedly stuck with a
hammer.
d. Wheelbarrow - is used in construction, mining, and
farming for carrying materials from place to place.
- appeared in the stories and pictures between
1170 and 1250 in Northern Europe
3. Other inventions
a. blast furnace or cast iron first appeared in Middle Europe
1150
b. Hourglass was made from dependable , affordable and
accurate measure of time, believed to be a medieval
innovation first documented in Siena,
Italy.
Mechanical clocks is a European innovation, there weight-
driven clocks were used primarily in
clock towers
c. Vertical windmills is a pivot able post mill
efficient at grinding grain or draining water.
d. Spectacles is composed of convex lenses to
help far-sighted people to see.
e. Chess the game evolved to its current from
the 15th century.
f. Mirrors were made in 1180 by Alexander
Neckham
g. Oil paint was invented by Flemish painter
Jan van Eyck around 1140 who introduced a
stable oil mixture. Oil was used to add
details to tempera paintings.
h. Tide mill a special type of water mill
driven by tidal rise and fall
i. Spinning wheel was probably invented in
India, though its origin are ambiguous
- By 1000's the first universities were
developed
- By 1100's modern universities emerged
throughout Western Europe such as
Oxford and Cambridge in England
- In the 14th century, Crisis of the Late
Middle Ages was underway.
- A plague called Black Death
Blast furnance
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for
smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also
others such as lead or copper. Blast refers to the combustion air
being "forced" or supplied above atmospheric pressure.
Hourglass
Vertical windmill
Spectacles
Chess
Mirrors
Oil paint example

THE
MADONNA
AND CHILD
Tide mill
Spinning will
Black Death History
The Black Death was a devastating
global epidemic of bubonic plague
that struck Europe and Asia in the
mid-1300s. The plague arrived in
Europe in October 1347, when 12
ships from the Black Sea docked at
the Sicilian port of Messina. People
gathered on the docks were met with
a horrifying surprise:
• Most sailors aboard the ships were dead,
and those still alive were gravely ill and
covered in black boils that oozed blood
and pus. Sicilian authorities hastily
ordered the fleet of “death ships” out of
the harbor, but it was too late: Over the
next five years, the Black Death would kill
more than 20 million people in Europe –
almost one-third of the continent’s
population.
• Black Death Begins
• Even before the “death ships” pulled into
port at Messina, many Europeans had
heard rumors about a “Great Pestilence”
that was carving a deadly path across the
trade routes of the Near and Far East.
Indeed, in the early 1340s, the disease
had struck China, India, Persia, Syria and
Egypt
Quarantine
• A quarantine is used to separate and restrict
the movement of people; it is a "restraint upon
the activities or communication of persons or
the transport of goods designed to prevent
the spread of disease or pests," for a certain
period of time. This is often used in
connection to disease and illness, such as
those who may possibly have been exposed to
a communicable disease, but do not have a
confirmed medical diagnosis.
• The term is often erroneously used to
mean medical isolation, which is "to
separate ill persons who have a
communicable disease from those who
are healthy," and refers to patients
whose diagnosis has been confirmed