Technology and Religion in Medieval Sweden by Anna Götlind

Abstract

610 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Technology and Religion in Medieval Sweden. By Anna Gotlind. Goteborg: University of Goteborg, 1993. Pp. x+262; illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index. Paper. In September 1993 Bert Hall gave participants at the Oxford Confer­ ence on Technological Change an overview of Lynn White’s work and its capacity to spark argument and, more important, further research to this day. Anna Gotlind’s published dissertation bears out White’s continued influence. She wishes to test, using Swedish sources, White’s claim that the worldview of the Western church gave impetus to medieval technological development. She follows White in the sorts of evidence she uses: in personal reflections penned for Technology and Culture'm October 1975 (p . 521), White described how Alfred Kroeber’s classic Anthropology pointed him to the importance of “depictions of things . . . surviving artifacts . . . the total debris of the past,” as well as written records in the recapturing of medieval life. Gotlind’s researches explore what types of source material can profitably contribute to studies of Swedish medieval technology. The dissertation consists of an introductory first chapter, six chapters which are actually self-contained articles (five of them previously published), and a concluding summary chapter. This arrangement leads to some repetition in the middle section of this volume, but it does allow for a chapter of special interest to be read independently of the other chapters. In particular, Gotlind seeks to answer the questions, “To what extent did the church, and in particular the monastic system, act as an importer, vehicle and disseminator of technical knowledge in medieval Sweden?” and “Can we find examples of and interest in (new) technol­ ogy in medieval Swedish religious art and literature?” (p. 10). The first chapter gives the intellectual background for Gotlind’s questions. The author points out that, aside from ironworking and agriculture, there has been little exploration of Sweden’s medieval technologies. The second chapter, “Cistercians and Technology in Medieval Scandinavia,” attempts to discover how many of the great claims for technological innovation by the Cistercian order after 1100 on continental Europe can be extended to Scandinavian foundations of that order. Gotlind explains that in contrast to earlier continental monasteries which had grown up in marginal lands, environments challenging them to technological creativity, Scandinavian houses were mainly founded by royalty and placed in fertile, populated areas to strengthen the power of church and dynasty. After examining the documentary and physical evidence of the technologies associated with each house, she comes to the conclusion that innovative ideas concern­ ing architecture and water supplies imported from Cistercian houses in France and Germany rarely spread beyond the monastery walls. Utilizing fiscal records and other documents, and also archaeological evidence, to examine “Iron Production on the Farms of Vadstena Abbey,” Gotlind considerably weakens claims that tenants of this abbey TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 611 of the Brigittine order had carried on large-scale iron production in the late Middle Ages. “Peder Mansson, Vadstena Abbey and the Iron Trade” discounts the claim that the 16th-century mining manual of Brigittine monk Mansson shows that Vadstena was heavily engaged in the iron industry. The fifth chapter gives a survey of what is known of “Mechani­ cal Clocks in Medieval Sweden.” The sixth explores “Images of Tech­ nology in the Revelations of St. Birgitta.” Gotlind decides that the writings of the great saint of Sweden (and founder of the Brigittines) must be used with caution in the search for evidence concerning Swedish technology of her time. The seventh chapter exhaustively explores “Technological and Workrelated Motifs in Medieval Swedish Wall Paintings.” These wonderful representations on the walls of Swedish churches do show many a tool and machine in their depiction of scripture stories, but Gotlind decides that, with the exception of hunters wearing skis, they really do not tell much about technologies of the northern lands. Indeed, they do not display an unusual interest in technology at all. In concluding, Gotlind quickly recapitulates the various arguments and her negative findings regarding the two main questions. She urges exploration of Swedish secular evidence for technologies during the Middle Ages. White would be pleased, first that his theories had their part in prompting...