Midieval Technology And Social Change :: essays research papers

chivalric Technology and Social counterchange chivalrous Technology and Social revision Oxford University Press first published Medieval Technology and Social Change in 1962. It discusses the scientific advances during the gallant times and how these changes affected society. The books author, Lynn White, Jr., was born in San Francisco in 1907. Educated at Stanford, Union Theological, and Princeton, White taught at Princeton and the University of calcium at Los Angeles. He was also president of Mills College in Oakland from the mid-forties to the 1960s. His other works include Medieval Religion and Technology accumulate Essays, published in 1978 and Life & Work in Medieval Europe, the Evolution of Medieval Economy from the Fifth to the Fifteenth Century, published in 1982. Whites work has been influential both in medieval invoice and the history of science. In Medieval Technology and Social Change, White examines the role of technological innovation during the rise of soc ial groups in the Middle Ages. White begins with the imposture of the stirrup. He shows how this innovation, in turn, introduced heavy, long-range cavalry to the medieval battlefield. The development olibanum escalated small-scale conflict to "shock combat." Cannons and flame-throwers followed, as did more peaceful inventions, much(prenominal) as watermills and reapers. White also reviews the development of the manorial system with the display of new kinds of twists and new methods of crop rotation. He reviews the evolution of the scratch plow into the heavy plow and explains the use of each type in opposite areas of Europe. White next discusses the social effects of feudalism and how it spread from the Franks to Spain and afterwards to England. He shows that military service became a matter of class, with lands and titles being interchange for the commitment to serve as mounted warriors. The concept of the knights duty to his nobleman translated into chivalry and n oble obligation. White then ventures into the slow collapse of feudalism, advance about with the development of machines and tools. This caused the introduction of factories, which took the place of cottage industries. Although Whites work locomote short in a hardly a(prenominal) areas, it is valuable for the attention that it pays to aspects of medieval history that too often go ignored Whites work is of the essence(p) because he advocates the importance of science and technology to medieval history. Before White, few scholars thought that any significant science or engineering was through in Europe during the Middle.