Medieval Industry 1000-1500 [antikvár]

Medieval Industry 1000-1500 i. MEDIEVAL INDUSTRY IN EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE The industrial litter that people leave behind them forms the earliest record of human society that we possess. In Europe the litter that has been examined so far suggests that industrial activity of one sort or another has been going on there continuously, at a conservative estimate, for some forty thousand years. From the point of view of how such activity was fitted into the general organisation of societies, however, this immense span of time is commonly viewed as falling into just three ages. The age ofthe primitive hunting-band covers some three-quarters of the span. Almost all of the remaining time has been passed in a series of primarily agrarian civilisations which it is currently fashionable to lump together under the somewhat negative label of 'pre-industrial'. The infinitely more complex organisation of modern industrialism, dated from Britain's pioneering advances in the late eighteenth century a.d., has been dominant for barely half of one per cent of the total stretch of time. To look briefly at the central contrasts between these ages will help to bring medieval problems and achievements into perspective. i. the three ages of industrial evolution In the first age, men's attitude to the natural environment was almost wholly predatory. Towards each other, it was co-operative within the small hunting-band that roved a given territory. In such a life, any possessions beyond a portable kit of tools and weapons, and such clothing as may be considered functional, are a nuisance. It follows that people are not acquisitive, nor are they dependent on specialists: every child has to learn to make and repair [5]