Medieval Technology and Social Change

"This was the first book that called my attention to a new field of history. It opened my eyes to the role of technology in human affairs. Until then, my interest in technology had been purely instrumental – how to fix a bicycle, how an airplane stays up in the air, and so on. White’s book showed me that technology – the means by which humans use resources for their own ends – was one of the most important, though neglected, aspects of history, one that explained how some people were able to thrive in places where others had failed. I hadn’t realised the importance of technology in human affairs until I read this book. One good example is when he talks about the invention of stirrups for horse riders, which is the metal bit that they put their feet through to keep them stable. This happened in the eighth century, and it meant that they were more agile in warfare because they could still stay on the horse even when they were pushed by a spear from an opposing rider. This transformed mounted cavalry warfare. Also the introduction of a horse collar in the early Middle Ages made the horse infinitely more useful in agriculture. So it was technology making the horse more powerful and useful. Today many people think of technology as computers and the Internet, but really technology means those devices that humans have invented to make it possible to do things they couldn’t do otherwise – and that could be as simple as the horse collar or a stirrup."