Lack of technological progress in late Roman Empire

[conon394]

Many of the sources of mechanical power widely implemented in the Middle Ages were not actually 'innovations' per se - they had existed for quite a while (eg overshot waterwheels). The thing that made them special in terms of medieval technology was the extent to which they were utilised. Even given the paucity of our evidence, there were very few watermills in Roman Britain, for example. But by 1100 AD there were 5624 documented mills in England alone, and that number increased vastly as the population of medieval England rose steadily

Thiudareiks Flavius

This is certainly one of your favorite bits of evidence on for this kind of thread…

As you have has noted (elsewhere) your figure is provided by the fairly unique bit of evidence for England provided by the Doomsday Book. The picture one could build based on other literary sources is less complete and with archaeology alone (as Elcic as already pointed out) likely to be no more robust than the Roman evidence.

I also think you are making something of an apples-to-oranges comparison, Roman Britain was not exactly the economic hub of the Roman Empire or the Classical World. A better comparison might be to note the under the late empire 4th- 5th century Athens was not exactly a major town - yet it had an installation of at least 3 water mills working in succession and completely undocumented by any literary evidence. It seems to me that Athens was unlikely to be unique in the Roman world. It also seems to me that raw numbers might not provide the best insight. In this case Imperial Rome may have for used relatively fewer mills but in larger and more geographically concentrated, while the Feudal economy and manor systems of the Middle Ages may have an encouraged a more dispersed deployment of mills.

Yet this doesn't seem to have affected the rate of technical innovation or the rate of the dissemination of new technologies across Europe. Even the brainy old Greeks, who were very good at using reason and questioning to come up with new ideas, tended to scorn using those ideas for practical technological innovations. With a few notable exceptions (Hero, Archimedes), Greek thinkers tended to regard technology as the work of mere dirty artisans, not lofty thinkers.

Even if you are correct, I don’t see this as particularly relevant. Did the Greek artisans and engineers feel the same way? Nor do I think it is quite accurate to suggest only a few Greeks were not averse technological tinkering. Plutarch for example, did not laude Archimedes, but chided him for his aversion to pursing and recording his mechanical inventions. A lot of Greek philosophers and thinkers didn’t like democracy either, but that did not seem to stop either Athens or Rhodes in developing and flourishing with said governments.

Personally it seems to me the classical world is going suffer when you compare it to the documentary evidence from AD 1100 or later as a result of simple information loss. Things like letters discussing watermills or arguments over the best why to implement differential gears, or even more useful court cases over the sale of a mill, the tax rolls on metric mill operators and such like were not exactly likely to survive the collapse of the Empire and its economy and the fall off literacy that accompanied them.