A typical view of history is that, as Ancient Rome declined and fell, technology and science followed, not to develop again until around the Renaissance and only returning to their classical level in the 16th or 17th century.
Most history books I’ve read recently, however, suggest that this idea has been reevaluated, and that the period between the Ancient World and the Renaissance is called the “dark ages” unjustly.
It seems to me that the magnificent cathedrals of the middle ages, supported by buttresses and other medieval innovations, outdo the best architecture of the ancient world in size and sophistication. I have read that windmills were invented in the early middle ages, and it was only after the fall of Rome that sewing technology allowed for buttoned shirts and pants to be made.
I also know, however, that some technical knowledge was lost. A classic example is that, in the time of Constantine, no sculptor existed who was skilled enough to carve reliefs in his triumphal arch. So they tore some panels off Titus’ arch, built a few hundred years earlier.
My question is, was the technology of the middle ages really inferior to that of the ancient world? At the dawn of the Renaissance, was Europe scientifically behind where it was a thousand years ago? If so, what technology was lost? What technology was gained?
The technology of the High Middle Ages was definately better than Roman (at its peak) level. However, the Roman Empire was different-the Romans had better water distribution systems, and better baths. They also had organization and good roads-all of which medieval Europe lacked. Agriculture was slowly getting better in medieval times, and crop rotation was practiced from about 1200 AD onwards. The main problem of the medieval worldview was that religion was the subject of key importance-which is why we have all those gothic cathedrals. Fewer cathedrals and more baths would have made things better. As I say, meieval technology was evolving…while Rome was pretty stagnant. I don’t think the Romans ever learned to use stirrups, or were able to make steel in any quantity. Their sailing skills were pretty poor-which is why they used galleys.
And it was only the Dark Ages in Europe. Science in the Islamosphere and beyond flourished. For instance, Chinese astronomers recorded the birth of the Crab Nebula around 1054, and Indian mathematicians invented the concept of zero.
It wasn’t so much that technology was lost. The real problem was that society was balkanized, the peace and security of the empire was lost. Shipping goods over long distances was simply too dangerous, or expensive as you had to pay each individual lord’s toll. Two lords perpetually at war with each other are not going to repair the road running through each of their kingdoms - the enemy could use it to attack. Why bother repairing an aquaduct that is running to someone you have no allegiance to? Why bother learning to read when you can simply ride to and count anything in your little kingdom? Why have a factory producing more or less standardized tiles or pottery or even clothing when you can’t ship it or sell it outside of your own neighborhood? Depopulation due to plague and famine reduced the population to the point where it was more difficult to support specialists - say someone who only made pottery. Everyone had to farm or soldier or whatever just to have enough to eat, the “fine arts” and technology were still there, but there were not enough people to effectively practice them and to disperse the knowledge widely.
Technology itself didn’t relapse but many things like road building, aqueducts, etc. required the stability and resources of a central state, which was sorely lacking in western Europe until the rise of strong monarchies after the Renaissance.
Some technology was definitely lost. For example, the Pantheon’s dome was the largest in the world for 1500 years, until the 1420’s (Brunelleschi’s Santa Maria del Fiore).
In addition to tomndebb’s link that the Hagia Sophia’s dome was slightly smaller than the Pantheon, it also futher shows that some technology was lost (or at least not able to be reproduced with the available infrastructure):
The Hagia Sophia was built in 537 AD, still within the Roman Empire (barely).
I think you’re confusing two revisionist movements–one old, the other new.
The term “Dark Ages” was coined (in Latin) by Petrarch in the 1300’s, at the dawn of the Italian Renaissance. He used it to refer to everything between the fall of Rome and his own time. He meant that the period was an era of general cultural and technological decline.
This view has been obsolete for at least 100 years. (This is the “old” revisionism.) Since that time, historians have limited the term “Dark Ages” to the period roughly from 476 to 1000, with the years from that time to the Renaissance (which began about 1320 in Italy and gradually spread outward) being the “High Middle Ages”.
The Dark Ages were still seen as a period of decline, but the High Middle Ages were a time of recovery. The HMA saw improvements in agriculture (horse collars, moldboard plows, crop rotation), weaponry (stirrups, crossbows, longbows), and architecture (Gothic cathedrals), and the rise of strong monarchies and a strong papacy in Europe which challenged the eastern world in the Crusades. Nobody could consider this a time of decline.
In more recent times, historians have also been revisiting the more limited “Dark Ages” (476-1000) and wondering how dark they really were. (This is the “new revisionism”.) I personally still see them as a decline from Rome, but I’m not very knowledgeable about this period so I’ll defer and hopefully somebody smarter will chime in.
One area of serious retrogression was in marine design. The Roman grain fleet had numerous ships of 1300 tons with some reputed to have been larger than 1700 tons. After the fall of Rome, no ship was built in Europe approaching even 1000 tons until the nineteenth century. The great fleet of the Chinese under Zheng He had ships that might have been much larger (I have seen estimates of several thousand tons, although we do not have reliable confirmation of that, yet), but the Chinese development in marine architecture did not take off until the twelfth century and did not fully bloom until the time of Zheng He at the beginning of the fifteenth century.
The Romans also employed a small sail near the bow called an artemon that was probably not as useful as the later jib in allowing ships to sail across the wind, but did aid ships in not having to sail only downwind.
The most significant technological loss in my opinion was the ability to make concrete. It amazes me, given the importance of this technology today to support our environment and heavy machinery that mankind could have allowed this knowledge to become extinct.l
To elaborate on YPODs point, during Roman times even ordinary people could afford mass-produced pottery, roof tiles, imported olive oil, grain and so on. Farmers in say, Turkey could grow olives and export oil, using their earnings to buy grain from Libya or Iraq.
During the ‘Dark Ages’ much of the technical skill that remained was only relevant to the elite, since there wasn’t much of a mass market for stained glass, gold brooches, crossbows or whatever. Mass literacy and mass economic participation pretty much disappeared in favour of subsistence farming.
Or at least that is the premise rather excellently argued in this book , which also stresses the significant differences between collapses of the Eastern and Western empires, most particularly in terms of timing.
Interesting info! I had no idea that the Roamns had such large ships. Were these mostly grain barges? As far as i know, the Romans never learned to tak 9sail against the wind). Also, they did not have magnetic compasses. these were bad problems, but not too bad in the mediterranean sea. they probably would have made commerce in Northern europe a big problem. How did the Romans bend such large beams? Did they use wooden pegs 9trunnels0, or did they use iron ship spikes?
All of the large ships were grain ships bringing grain from Egypt to Rome. (My memory, from a source I read in college which I can no longer find, was that they were only able to make one trip each year following the harvest; the prevailing winds either lasted long enough to let them make the trip or lasted long enough to let them return, and if they missed that period, the ship was stuck at the other port for a year.)
You are right that the Romans never developed a ship that could tack. This is why the majority of their “work” ships were galleys (actually, liburnias) using oars. However the larger grain ships were strictly sail powered.
A couple of good sites on the topic are This page from the University of Southhampton
and this page from the Museum of Roman Ships
along with The NAVIS I project (It uses ::: ick ::: frames, but if you wait for the box applet on the left to load, you can drill down through the folders to find a lot of good informations, for example Ships => Navis Ships => Italy brings you to a group of wrecks being recovered by archaeologists.)
The general belief regarding the poor (note, not absent) technological development in most very large ancient civilizations has been the prevalence of slavery. As long as someone could round up a few thousand people to haul on rocks, there was little impetus to look for labor saving devices. This does not mean that there was no technological development, only that when people discovered ways to make toy axles turn using wind or steam, (as they did), no one else ever thought “How could we scale that up to eliminate the slave corps?”