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This era is considered a time of barbarism and ignorance. But actually everything was not so bad.
There is an opinion that the difficult Middle Ages did not give humanity anything new and were an era of stagnation and religious hysteria. But it is not so. In those difficult times, of course, a lot of strange things happened, but people also did good things. Let's talk about some of them in more detail.
1. Glasses
Yes, it was in Medieval Europe, most likely in Pisa in 1284, that glasses were invented to help people with poor eyesight to read.
Prior to this, the Berber astronomer, chemist and engineer Abbas ibn Firnas in the 300th century invented a "reading stone" - a polished piece of quartz that was used to move the pages of a book to enlarge the letters. But only after XNUMX years did the Italians think of carving lenses from such a stone and placing them in a frame. Presumably, glasses were invented by Alessandro di Spina from Florence.
Initially, they were attached to the nose like a clip and were used only to correct farsightedness. And only in the middle of the XNUMXth century, braces and lenses for myopia were invented.
2. Mechanical watch
The mechanical clock appeared in Europe between 1280 and 1320. No, of course, this is not the first device for measuring time at all - the ancient Greeks and Chinese made water models even earlier.
But invented in Italy (probably) the trigger mechanism with a gear wheel made it possible to create a fully mechanical watch that works without any liquid due to the load that is lowered on the rope. Finally, it became possible to make chronographs that did not take up an entire room and did not freeze in winter.
It can be compared to the transition from huge tube computers with punched cards to a device that sits on a table.
Watchmakers' guilds in medieval Europe were highly respected, and their members riveted incredibly complex and finely crafted mechanisms. Most often, a clock - especially a large, tower clock - not only measured time, but also showed the movement of celestial bodies.
This was important because the planets predict the future - at least according to medieval doctors. Here, Jupiter will enter the house of Scorpio uninvited, and the plague will happen. You have to be prepared for this in advance.
3. Buttresses
Buttresses are such clever supports that allow you to distribute the weight of the walls of large buildings and make them more stable.
These structures were invented in the XNUMXth century, and they made the so-called Gothic architectural style possible. Well, you know, all those huge temples with statues and towers, like Notre Dame. It was simply impossible to build them without buttresses: the houses would collapse under their own weight.
Before that, really healthy architectural monuments had to be built according to the principle of the Egyptian pyramids - so that the base was wide and the top was small. Buttresses made it possible to turn them from gray, sad piles of stone into magnificent works of art.
4. Windmills
In general, the very idea of using the wind to grind grain, pump water and lift loads is not new. The first windmills were invented in Eastern Persia in the XNUMXth century, and their blades were located horizontally.
But Europeans in the XNUMXth century invented the windmill, which was equipped with a revolving roof and could carry really huge sails. It was much more effective than the previous inventions of the Persians.
For almost 600 years, the windmill was the main source of energy in Europe.
These structures in the Middle Ages were a very valuable thing, and their construction cost a penny. Therefore, they were often added to castles or converted watchtowers. As a result, the mill became not only a miracle of engineering thought, but also a fortress ready to withstand a siege.
5. Printing press
How do you think wine and books are related? Well, booze not only inspired some writers, but also made their work popular.
The fact is that one German engineer and engraver named Johann Gutenberg in the mid-1440s looked at a wine press, which was used to press grapes for the production of alcohol, thought and decided to use such a thing to print books.
The mechanism is as follows: we type the text from lead letters, as if from construction blocks. We attach them to the plate, it to the press, smear it with ink, and proceed to press page after page until you have made the required number of copies.
By the way, a few centuries before that, in 1282, factories were invented in Europe that worked on water and wind energy, which made it possible to stamp good paper in large quantities. Before that, the Chinese and Muslims produced it exclusively by hand, which made the material too expensive.
Book printing and cheap paper sparked a revolution in European education, greatly increasing the number of literate people.
And so, as books became more accessible, it was in Medieval Europe that public libraries appeared. The first was founded in 1452 by Malatesto Novello, the ruler of the Italian city of Cesene.