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© Copyright by Christie Peters May, 2016 CISTERCIAN EXPANSION AND INDUSTRIAL WATER MILL INFRASTRUCTURE IN TWELFTH-CENTURY FRANCE: AN UNRECOGNIZED DEPENDENCY ________________ A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Department of History University of Houston ________________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts ________________ By Christie Peters May, 2016 CISTERCIAN EXPANSION AND INDUSTRIAL WATER MILL INFRASTRUCTURE IN TWELFTH CENTURY FRANCE: AN UNRECOGNIZED DEPENDENCY _________________________ Christie Peters APPROVED: _________________________ Sally Vaughn, Ph.D. Committee Chair _________________________ Martin Melosi, Ph.D. _________________________ Nora Laos, Ph.D. Hines College of Architecture and Design University of Houston _________________________ Steven Craig, Ph.D. Interim Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Department of Economics CISTERCIAN EXPANSION AND INDUSTRIAL WATER MILL INFRASTRUCTURE IN TWELFTH-CENTURY FRANCE: AN UNRECOGNIZED DEPENDENCY ________________ An Abstract Presented to the Faculty of the Department of History University of Houston ________________ In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts ________________ By Christie Peters May, 2016 ABSTRACT Cistercians have long been linked with the development and use of industrial water mill technology, but current scholarship downplays this interrelationship. The argument presented here is that the success of the Cistercian Order in twelfth- century France and Europe depended upon the incorporation and use of industrial water mill infrastructure and technology that existed in France prior to the Order’s foundation in 1098. Evidence for the presence of pre-existing hydraulic resources in France, the development of a Cistercian technological system centered on the incorporation and use of these resources, as well as an explanation of St. Bernard’s role in perpetuating an architectural and technological model throughout the Order based upon his own monastery of Clairvaux that incorporated hydraulic infrastructure into its design will be presented here. Taken together, this evidence demonstrates the dependency of the Order on these pre-existing resources. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2: The Water Mill ........................................................................................ 24 Chapter 3: Monastic Reform and the Foundation of the Cistercian Order ............... 40 Chapter 4: Clairvaux – Architectural Archetype ....................................................... 60 Chapter 5: Cistercian Milling in the Context of 12th Century France ........................ 87 Chapter 6: Conclusion ........................................................................................... 108 Works Cited ........................................................................................................... 113 TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1: a) Horizontal, b) Vertical undershot, c) Vertical overshot ....................................... 26 Figure 2: Mill powered by a vertical waterwheel ................................................................... 28 Figure 3: Rock crushing industrial mill .................................................................................. 29 Figure 4: Cam mechanisms for a fulling mill ......................................................................... 30 Figure 5: Color-coded Plan of St. Gall .................................................................................. 32 Figure 6: Mill and Mortar house from Plan of St. Gall ........................................................... 33 Figure 7: Plan for the ideal Cistercian monastery ................................................................. 56 Figure 8: Plan of Clairvaux by Dom Milley, 1708 .................................................................. 64 Figure 9: Plan of Old St. Peter's in Rome ............................................................................. 71 Figure 10: Cluny III church plan ............................................................................................ 72 Figure 11: Nave of Fontenay's abbey church ....................................................................... 73 Figure 12: Villard de Honnecourt's plan of a squared Cistercian church .............................. 75 Figure 13: Plans of the abbey church of Clairvaux ............................................................... 78 Figure 14: Plans of the abbey church of Cîteaux .................................................................. 78 Figure 15: Plans of the abbey church of Pontigny ................................................................ 79 Figure 16: Comparison of Clairvaux II & Fontenay church plans .......................................... 80 Figure 17: Comparison of Clairvaux II (b) & Alcobaça church plans..................................... 80 Figure 18: Nave of Alcobaça’s abbey church ....................................................................... 81 Figure 19: Bird's Eye View of Clairvaux ................................................................................ 82 Figure 20: Moralia in Job: Initial of book 23 .......................................................................... 86 Figure 21: Ecclesiastical institutions in northwest France, c. 1150 ....................................... 91 Figure 22: Hammer & anvil from Fontenay iron mill .............................................................. 99 Figure 23: Forge Sites Associated with Clairvaux .............................................................. 102 Figure 24: Fontenay Hydraulic System ............................................................................... 103 1 Chapter 1: Introduction The chief glory of the later Middle Ages was not its cathedrals or its epics or its scholasticism: it was the building for the first time in history of a complex civilization which rested not on the backs of sweating slaves or coolies, but primarily on human power.1 – Lynn White, Jr. The recognition of medieval technology as a legitimate field of study owes much to the scholarship of Lynn White, Jr. White acknowledged that Hellenistic society had developed the cam and basic gearing mechanisms that are necessary for various types of milling, but thought that the real development of power sources like the water mill and windmill took place in the High Middle Ages due largely to the work of monks. Cistercian monks in particular, according to White, seem to have been leaders in the use of power.2 We now know diverse milling technologies existed in later Antiquity, contrary to views of White and his peers in the early twentieth century, but the medieval attitude towards and contribution to milling technology and technology in general still demands clarification. I argue that the existence of advanced industrial water mill technology in France prior to the foundation of the Cistercian Order in 1098 enabled its prolific expansion and economic growth in the twelfth century. This is not a claim that technology alone drove the expansion of the Order, simply recognition that it would have been incapable of growing at the rate that it did without the presence and systematic implementation of this pre-existing technology. This inverts the idea espoused by White and his peers that an already rapidly expanding and 1 Lynn White, Jr., "Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages," Speculum 15, no. 2 (1940): col. 613 D ‐ 14 D. 2 "Dynamo and virgin reconsidered," The American Scholar 27 (1958): 190. 2 technologically adept Cistercian Order initiated the revolutionary development and proliferation of water mill technology in the Middle Ages. It is in keeping, however, with White’s assertion that the heart of the Western Middle Ages lay between the Loire and the Rhine.3 The birth place and locus of the Cistercian Order lies squarely within this region. While my argument and White’s are essentially at odds with one another, they both tie Cistercians to water mill technology and economic expansion in the Middle Ages. Our differences of opinion arguably lie in extensive research that has been done in the intervening years that disprove technological stagnation in Antiquity and discontinuity with the Middle Ages. The historiography of water mill technology in twelfth-century France requires some preliminary explanation. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, a shift away from grand periodization and toward a more topically-focused approach took place in the study of medieval technology. While other areas of history of technology have seen grand narratives developed that refine earlier periodization or emphases, medieval technology has seen no new sweeping narratives since the 1970’s. As such, contemporary medieval scholarship still uses those mid-century insights as their basis. A thorough historiography of medieval technology must therefore reach back to the works written in the middle third of the twentieth century to properly situate the topic. This does not mean that current literature is irrelevant. It simply means that the historic literature is more relevant to this discussion than if such a shift had not taken place. An effort will be made here to balance the old with the 3 "Technological Progress in Western Middle Ages," in Scientific change: historical studies in the intellectual, social, and technical conditions for scientific discovery