Technology and Change in History Working with Water Medieval Europe

This collection of studies on the ways water was used and manipulated in Europe between AD 500 and 1500 provides complete coverage of the technologies related to water in a vital period of technological development. Fishing, water power, irrigation, and domestic supply receive attention. A collaborative study of the uses of water and the technologies employed to use it in medieval Europe. Experts on different areas of water use and of the European continent contribute separate studies to it so as to produce the first comprehensive survey of the techniques people used to harness, and defend themselves from, water in western Christendom between 500 and 1500. Each chapter sets the technologies of fishing, land drainage, irrigation, flood control, urban, domestic, and ecclesiastical water supply within a social and cultural context. Of interest to historians of technology and science, social historians, and all medievalists.