| Abstract: | An analysis of the scale used by the designer of the Plan of St Gall allows for no other conclusion than that the mill and mortars shown on this Plan were water driven. Because of the paradigmatic nature of the Plan this means that hydraulically operated mills and mortars were by the makers of the Plan considered to be standard equipment of a Carolingian monastery — a conclusion supported by a wealth of other documentary source material available for this period.The Romans knew the water mill, but made little use of it. Its general adoption and diffusion in Merovingian and Carolingian Europe is in this study attributed to the rise and spread of Benedictine monasticism. It received its primary impetus from the need to provide milled and crushed grain in bulk for communities of considerable size, including a leisure class of men who had to be freed from the normal chores of toiling for life so that their energies could be directed to their primary task: the Work of God (Opus Dei). Water-powered trip hammers were in use in China before the birth of Christ. Their portrayal on the Plan of St Gall suggests that they were introduced in western Europe, not by Marco Polo, as some propose, but in the age of folk migrations or the early Carolingian Period. |
