Position:Home>History> How is a miller in the middle ages an advantage to human and crops?

Annika, dear sweet Annika!.!.!.did you ever wonder why you only have a 2% correct answer score!?
And now for the facts: Millers were beneficial to the people of the Medieval Period because they were able to mass-produce edible product from the grain grown by the farmers!.
This meant that, with more edible grains, more people could eat on a regular basis, reproduce, and plant more grain!.
Millers did not directly influence farming, however!. Their contribution to farming was to centralize production of grains around their mills!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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also, in the Middle Ages, most farming was done on large manors--the land was owned by the local lord of the manor and he parceled out strips to the serfs, who owed him part of the crop lin return (like sharecropping) and also owed the lord labor several days a week on the land the lord kept for himself!.

The local mill was usually controlled by the lord and he could set the price the miller charged (taking a nice cut for himself) and forbid his serfs to have their grain ground at any other mill!. So, milling may have had some advantages, like Louise said, but also helped the lord control his workers!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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A miller was important in every daily part of life but none of the rich ones realized their importance!. A miller was the source of rice and other vegetations!. The miller is the supplier of food to the Medieval kingdom!. Without his existence all will die of famine and hunger!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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The mill was one of the first great labour-saving devices ever invented!. In societies which do not have mills, corn has to be ground by hand, and is a tiring and time-consuming job, usually done by women!. In 'Women in the Age of the Cathedrals' Regine Pernoud writes:

'If nowadays the washing machine constitutes a liberation for women, nevertheless it answers a less immediate daily need than that of bread, the food staple that was even more indispensable then than it is now!. The spectacle of a woman tied to a grindstone was a familiar one in antiquity!. Even today the picture of women pounding millet still defines African womanhood!. But in Western feudal society, that image was replaced by that of neighbors gossiping at the mill entrance and at the oven door, those two essential elements of country life!.

All historians of technological advance have noted the rapid increase in the number of mills in the feudal era in France, a country that was abundantly blessed with numerous watercourses to which diversions and canals were added when needed, for of course at first they were all water mills!. Bertrand Gille has noted that "of all the technical advances achieved between the tenth and the thirteenth century, none is so remarkable or so spectacular as the expansion of the water mill!." From the start, the contemporaries of this development were conscious of this!. The oldest text that mentions it says so specifically; the life of St Ursicinus of Loches relates that the latter had a mill built in his monastery to spare his brethren and leave them more time for prayer!.

In fact, Gaul in the sixth century already possessed about ten hydraulic wheels!. On the other hand, at the time the Domesday book was written in england after it sconquest by William the conquerer in 1066, no fewer than 5,624 were counted in england alone!. By that time, their function had diversified!. Whether their wheels were vertical or horizontal, they served not only to grind corn and cereals but to press olives for oil, to full cloth, to forge iron, to crush dyes, and so on!. From the twelfth century the first paper mill was installed at Xatavia in Spain, near Valencia!.




Future historians will probably be surprised to learn that at the end of the twentieth century, which is developed and even overdeveloped in certain aspects, the mill has not yet appeared in the ordinary life of many regions of Africa, Asia or America!. Some recent studies, however, have revealed the importance of mills established during the conquest of North America!. They became a centre of attraction as the pioneers advanced!. But the surprising thing is that the familiar technology, which is so easy to introduce, has not spread even to some regions where airplanes touch down sometimes daily!. Only recently have organizations like O!.E!.C!.D!. concentrated on what Anglo-Saxons call soft technology that simplifies daily life and bring about a real and daily prosperity that among Europeans was the great conquest of the tenth and eleventh centuries!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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