Chiara
Frugoni, trans. William McCuaig.
Books, Banks, Buttons, and other
inventions
from the Middle Ages.
New York: Columbia
University Press, 2003.
xiv,178pp.
Hardback ISBN
0231128126.
Publisher's
recommended price $27.95
Once
regarded by
historians as a period of intellectual stagnation, the Middle Ages were
actually a time of extraordinary cultural and technological innovation.
This entertaining romp through the inventions of the period tells the
story
of the first appearance of dozens of items and ideas of lasting
significance.
From
this misunderstood
age we get our trousers; we entertain ourselves with medieval playing
cards,
tarot cards, and chess. It was during the Middle Ages that domesticated
cats first found their way into our houses, along with glazed windows,
dining tables and chairs, and fireplaces. Numerous labor-saving devices
originated then as well, including the wheelbarrow, the windmill and
watermill,
and the effective use of the horse. War became more deadly with the
introduction
of gunpowder, while travel over water became less so thanks to the
compass
and the rudder. Time itself emerged into recognizably modern form, with
the advent of clocks - based on the escapement mechanism - that
measured
hours of equal length independent of the changing seasons. More cosmic
notions of time developed as well, as the new realm of purgatory broke
the traditional dichotomy of heaven and hell. Even Santa Claus first
captured
the imagination of children during the Middle Ages.
Ranging
from the
invention of eyeglasses (by a now-forgotten layperson who sought to
keep
his methods secret, the better to profit from them) to the creation of
the fork (at first regarded as an instrument of diabolical perversion
but
embraced when it helped people handle another invention of the age,
pasta),
this beautifully illustrated volume is a fitting tribute to an era from
which we still benefit today.
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