Monday, April 14, 2014

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Horses and Iron industrialization

Not a simple set of inventions.

by Ferdinand III



A list of some medieval inventions is here.



Two notable inventions which occurred just before the Carolingian Renaissance [circa 800 AD], were the horse-collar and the horse-shoe.



Roman and ancient agriculture practices were primarily based on slave labour alone. Machines and improvements in technology were unimportant compared to the deployment of flesh and muscle. The European Christians, once freed from the taxing bureaucracy of the decrepit and corrupt Latin Empire; established the horse as the main draft animal by no later than 750 AD. This was a revolution in agricultural production, leading to a vast increase in food production, living standards, and arable, productive land which could be put to the plough.



The Europeans in the 8th and 9th centuries had discovered the following:

-Horses were hardier and more productive than oxen

-A horse-collar was mandatory to control the horse and the attendant plough-board or 'heavy-plough'

-Iron plough-boards and iron horse shoes vastly increased productivity

-Heavy ploughs could clear once-inhospitable soil, last a long time, and were more productive than any other method to dig up the soil

-Iron horse shoes protected the animal from round terrain and rocks



With the advent of the horse-collar, horse-shoe and plough-board the Europeans had created by the 9th century, a veritable 'industrial revolution'. Trade in iron, its manufacture and design irrupted. Smithies appeared everywhere and there was an almost ceaseless demand for these iron tools. As agricultural productivity increased, living standards rose, incomes improved, life became somewhat easier, and free-will associations developed and formed, including guilds and groups who freely traded ideas as well as implements.



A good book which details medieval inventions, including the horse collar and shoe is Barbara Hanawalt's 'The Middle Ages: An Illustrated History' [link].