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Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art
"The first comprehensive work of scholarship on European automata of the Middle Ages, Medieval Robots systematically and chronologically works through themes such as the transition from the magical to the mechanical and the liminal status of robots between art and nature, familiar and foreign. Well-researched and well-written, the book does an excellent job of showing the wider cultural significance of automata within medieval history and the history of science."—Pamela O. Long, author of Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance.
A thousand years before Isaac Asimov set down his Three Laws of Robotics, real and imagined automata appeared throughout European courts, liturgies, and literary texts. Medieval robots took such forms as talking statues, mechanical animals, or silent metal guardians; some served to entertain or instruct while others performed disciplinary or surveillance functions. Variously ascribed to artisanal genius, inexplicable cosmic forces, or demonic powers, these marvelous fabrications raised fundamental questions about knowledge, nature, and divine purpose in the Middle Ages.
Medieval Robots recovers the forgotten history of fantastical, aspirational, and terrifying machines that especially captivated Europe in imagination and reality between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. E. R. Truitt traces the different forms of self-moving or self-sustaining manufactured objects from their earliest appearances in the Latin West through centuries of mechanical and literary invention. Chronicled in romances and song as well as histories and encyclopedias, medieval automata were powerful cultural objects that probed the limits of natural philosophy, illuminated and challenged definitions of life and death, and epitomized the transformative and threatening potential of foreign knowledge and culture. This original and wide-ranging study reveals the convergence of science, technology, and imagination in medieval culture, and demonstrates the striking similarities between medieval and modern robotic and cybernetic visions.
E. R. Truitt teaches history at Bryn Mawr College.
A thousand years before Isaac Asimov set down his Three Laws of Robotics, real and imagined automata appeared throughout European courts, liturgies, and literary texts. Medieval robots took such forms as talking statues, mechanical animals, or silent metal guardians; some served to entertain or instruct while others performed disciplinary or surveillance functions. Variously ascribed to artisanal genius, inexplicable cosmic forces, or demonic powers, these marvelous fabrications raised fundamental questions about knowledge, nature, and divine purpose in the Middle Ages.
Medieval Robots recovers the forgotten history of fantastical, aspirational, and terrifying machines that especially captivated Europe in imagination and reality between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. E. R. Truitt traces the different forms of self-moving or self-sustaining manufactured objects from their earliest appearances in the Latin West through centuries of mechanical and literary invention. Chronicled in romances and song as well as histories and encyclopedias, medieval automata were powerful cultural objects that probed the limits of natural philosophy, illuminated and challenged definitions of life and death, and epitomized the transformative and threatening potential of foreign knowledge and culture. This original and wide-ranging study reveals the convergence of science, technology, and imagination in medieval culture, and demonstrates the striking similarities between medieval and modern robotic and cybernetic visions.
E. R. Truitt teaches history at Bryn Mawr College.
312 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 9, 2023
I can’t help wondering whether this was originally titled “Medieval Automata” and it was the publisher who beefed it up to the slightly misleading “Robots”. Anyway, what we’re really dealing with here are automata in general: self-moving and self-sustaining manufactured objects, in both fiction and the real world; in fiction they are powered by magic or unknown means, in real life by flowing water, air pressure, or weights, springs and so on. The book covers the period from the 9th through to the 15th Centuries, and in Europe only, so there were essentially three waves: first, automata in literature; then, as real marvels reported by early European travellers or as gifts from foreign khans and emperors; and finally, their construction by European craftsmen themselves.
In stories they’re often found defending things (guarding ideas as much as buildings I think, “enforcing boundaries” is how Truitt puts it), such as Lancelot’s battle with the two mechanical knights, made of copper, blocking his way into Doloreuse Castle. In the hazy world of astrology there were talking brass heads which would supposedly foretell the future. In real life automata were deployed as entertainment and spectacle (pleasure gardens with moving statues, musical fountains and artificial trees filled with hydraulically-powered birds singing); or as demonstrations of wealth (the mediaeval equivalent of owning a big yacht maybe); or even occasionally as practical jokes (hidden devices which drenched your guests to the skin, or bombarded them with soot and flour). Finally there were the purely practical machines, particularly clocks with toothed gear-wheels, escapements and so on.
Overall, far from giving the impression I’d been half expecting that “robots” are an age-old idea, the examples given here are so few and far between they reinforce the truth that it’s overwhelmingly a modern one—further emphasised by the simple fact that the mediaeval world itself had no word for them (even “automata” dating from the Renaissance). This is a detailed and scholarly book all the same, an interesting read.
In stories they’re often found defending things (guarding ideas as much as buildings I think, “enforcing boundaries” is how Truitt puts it), such as Lancelot’s battle with the two mechanical knights, made of copper, blocking his way into Doloreuse Castle. In the hazy world of astrology there were talking brass heads which would supposedly foretell the future. In real life automata were deployed as entertainment and spectacle (pleasure gardens with moving statues, musical fountains and artificial trees filled with hydraulically-powered birds singing); or as demonstrations of wealth (the mediaeval equivalent of owning a big yacht maybe); or even occasionally as practical jokes (hidden devices which drenched your guests to the skin, or bombarded them with soot and flour). Finally there were the purely practical machines, particularly clocks with toothed gear-wheels, escapements and so on.
Overall, far from giving the impression I’d been half expecting that “robots” are an age-old idea, the examples given here are so few and far between they reinforce the truth that it’s overwhelmingly a modern one—further emphasised by the simple fact that the mediaeval world itself had no word for them (even “automata” dating from the Renaissance). This is a detailed and scholarly book all the same, an interesting read.
February 16, 2022
Good stuff about Roger Bacon's brazen head and about the Faustian Pope Sylvester II creating his own ocular head by demonic intervention. According to the cardinal Beno of Santi Martino e Silvestro (heavily involved in the Investiture Controversy), Pope Sylvester asked his demon about his death, and the demon answered that he would not die until he had said Mass in Jerusalem. Unfortunately, the pope forgot that there was a church in Rome nicknamed “Jerusalem,” and he celebrated Mass in it. “Immediately after he died a horrid and miserable death, and in between those dying breaths, he begged his hands and tongue (with which, by offering them to demons, he had dishonoured God) to be cut into pieces.”
April 6, 2024
Robótica e Idade Média não são dois conceitos que estejamos habituados a ver inteligados. Este livro muda isso, mostrando-nos como na Idade Média foram férteis os ideários que conduziram à robótica de hoje. Claro, não falamos aqui dos robots complexos que nos estimulam a imaginação e revolucionam a sociedade. A visão medieva era diferente, combinava mito e saber artesanal.
Este livro cruza diversas vertentes. Uma é eminentemente mítica e mística, com uma análise à literatura medieva que nos mostra muitas referências a seres artificiais e artefactos mecânicos maravilhosos. Textos que se encontram em obras religiosas ou no imenso manancial de gestas cavaleirescas, que descrevem maravilhas mecânicas, das quais o trono mecânico de Bizâncio é o mais icónico.
Para mostrar que há uma raiz nos mitos e fantasias, Truitt vira-se para a história da ciência, recordando-nos da tradição de criação de elaborados mecanismos que nos vem da antiguidade clássica, dos tratados mecânicos que preservaram o saber grego e romano, e o ampliaram, no mundo árabe. Fala-nos do costume oriental de criar elaborados autómatos cujo movimento simulava vida, para maravilhar os visitantes das cortes como símbolos da sabedoria, costume esse também adotado pela nobreza europeia como forma de mostrar a sua riqueza, como relatos de elaboradas decorações do que hoje consideramos animatrónica nos palácios.
Mitos, cruzados com a evolução do saber científifico e tecnológico, que acabam por ter a sua maior expressão num objeto que raramente relacionamos com a robótica, mas que está na sua origem direta: o relógio. Primeiro, como expressão e aplicação do saber mecânico no estabelecimento de métodos de registo da passagem do tempo, mas também como artefacto de maravilha, com o desenvolvimento de dioramas animados progressivamente mais elaborados, que representavam cenas das tradições locais ou mitos religiosos. Algo que hoje ainda nos deslumbra, nos famosos relógios mecânicos que para além de registar a passagem do tempo, nos maravilham com os seus autómatos, condenados a repetir os mesmos gestos mecanizados a cada marco temporal.
A história não termina aqui, os mecanismos de relojoaria encontraram a sua máxima expressão nos autómatos do século XVII e XVIII, onde a sofisiticação evoluiu até tocar nos rudimentos do que hoje designamos por programação. Se os cartões perfurados do tear de Jacqard são considerados os antecessores do computador programável, que dizer dos autómatos de Jacquet e Drosz, com intricados mecanismos que permitiam programar diferentes ações? Mas estas, são outras histórias. Truitt detém-se na idade média, nos seus mitos, visões de maravilha, mas também na forma como o saber mecânico evoluiu nesses tempos.
Este livro cruza diversas vertentes. Uma é eminentemente mítica e mística, com uma análise à literatura medieva que nos mostra muitas referências a seres artificiais e artefactos mecânicos maravilhosos. Textos que se encontram em obras religiosas ou no imenso manancial de gestas cavaleirescas, que descrevem maravilhas mecânicas, das quais o trono mecânico de Bizâncio é o mais icónico.
Para mostrar que há uma raiz nos mitos e fantasias, Truitt vira-se para a história da ciência, recordando-nos da tradição de criação de elaborados mecanismos que nos vem da antiguidade clássica, dos tratados mecânicos que preservaram o saber grego e romano, e o ampliaram, no mundo árabe. Fala-nos do costume oriental de criar elaborados autómatos cujo movimento simulava vida, para maravilhar os visitantes das cortes como símbolos da sabedoria, costume esse também adotado pela nobreza europeia como forma de mostrar a sua riqueza, como relatos de elaboradas decorações do que hoje consideramos animatrónica nos palácios.
Mitos, cruzados com a evolução do saber científifico e tecnológico, que acabam por ter a sua maior expressão num objeto que raramente relacionamos com a robótica, mas que está na sua origem direta: o relógio. Primeiro, como expressão e aplicação do saber mecânico no estabelecimento de métodos de registo da passagem do tempo, mas também como artefacto de maravilha, com o desenvolvimento de dioramas animados progressivamente mais elaborados, que representavam cenas das tradições locais ou mitos religiosos. Algo que hoje ainda nos deslumbra, nos famosos relógios mecânicos que para além de registar a passagem do tempo, nos maravilham com os seus autómatos, condenados a repetir os mesmos gestos mecanizados a cada marco temporal.
A história não termina aqui, os mecanismos de relojoaria encontraram a sua máxima expressão nos autómatos do século XVII e XVIII, onde a sofisiticação evoluiu até tocar nos rudimentos do que hoje designamos por programação. Se os cartões perfurados do tear de Jacqard são considerados os antecessores do computador programável, que dizer dos autómatos de Jacquet e Drosz, com intricados mecanismos que permitiam programar diferentes ações? Mas estas, são outras histórias. Truitt detém-se na idade média, nos seus mitos, visões de maravilha, mas também na forma como o saber mecânico evoluiu nesses tempos.
June 18, 2019
Fantastic work of research! Amazing! The amount of information in this book regarding medieval automata is surprising. Of course, it only deals with the beginning of this kind of machines in Europe, and to have a broader context one must read "Gods and Robots", and look for a book about early modern automata, but it's so interesting to note the function of these machines, how they had a symbolic purpose, from prophetic to entertainment, and how they appear in literature as enchanted machines from far away lands. Awesome!
September 22, 2016
The whole time I was reading this book I was thinking about Clarke's third law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” It really hits the difficulty that people of any era have in reconciling the bounds of current knowledge with our experiences in a world full of marvels.
Medieval Robots is a fascinating investigation of role of automata in the culture of the medieval Latin west. It traces the story of automata from their early appearance in France “as gifts of foreign courts," to the "literary manifestations of these objects" (i.e. in all kinds of stories, travelogues, chronicles, natural histories, etc.), "to the eventual creation of elaborate mechanical automata” in the middle of the thirteenth century--i.e. populating a French pleasure garden with dancing sexy monkeys. Along the way, this history examines “the nature of marvels, the constitution of natural knowledge, the text-based transformation of Latin intellectual culture, definitions of life and death, the spectacle of court, and the mechanics of the universe” (8, 9). So it's broad in scope, but it's really not a big book. About 180 pages of text that tells the various stories in a readable academic voice. If you want more than that, there's an additional like 50 pages or so of great footnotes--most of them are detailed, annotated source notes but there are also some interesting asides to the main argument.
The cast of characters, both fictional and factual, includes writers, travelers, and natural philosophers ranging from Liudprand of Cremona (c. 920 – 972), Pope Sylvester II (c. 946 – 1003) and Fr. William of Rubruck (c. 1220 – 1293), to Sir John Mandeville, heroic traveling figure and witness of marvels mechanical and divine, and a Charlemagne whose journey to Constantinople brings him face to face with pagan king Hugo's powers of astral science that are so cool they hurt Charlemagne’s feelings to the point that he decides he needs God to kick Hugo's tuchus so he'll know that French Christians are the real bosses.
I recently interviewed Dr. Truitt for the New Books Network, and our conversation ranged over C-3PO’s medieval forebears in the alabaster chamber, the religious rehabilitation of disembodied talking heads, the role of clocks and clockwork in the discourse shift from natural philosophy to mechanical engineering, and the political significance of lewd mechanical monkeys covered in rotting badger pelts. Like I said, great stories, great scholarship, a really excellent book. If you're interested in the interview, you can find that here:
http://newbooksnetwork.com/e-r-truitt...
Medieval Robots is a fascinating investigation of role of automata in the culture of the medieval Latin west. It traces the story of automata from their early appearance in France “as gifts of foreign courts," to the "literary manifestations of these objects" (i.e. in all kinds of stories, travelogues, chronicles, natural histories, etc.), "to the eventual creation of elaborate mechanical automata” in the middle of the thirteenth century--i.e. populating a French pleasure garden with dancing sexy monkeys. Along the way, this history examines “the nature of marvels, the constitution of natural knowledge, the text-based transformation of Latin intellectual culture, definitions of life and death, the spectacle of court, and the mechanics of the universe” (8, 9). So it's broad in scope, but it's really not a big book. About 180 pages of text that tells the various stories in a readable academic voice. If you want more than that, there's an additional like 50 pages or so of great footnotes--most of them are detailed, annotated source notes but there are also some interesting asides to the main argument.
The cast of characters, both fictional and factual, includes writers, travelers, and natural philosophers ranging from Liudprand of Cremona (c. 920 – 972), Pope Sylvester II (c. 946 – 1003) and Fr. William of Rubruck (c. 1220 – 1293), to Sir John Mandeville, heroic traveling figure and witness of marvels mechanical and divine, and a Charlemagne whose journey to Constantinople brings him face to face with pagan king Hugo's powers of astral science that are so cool they hurt Charlemagne’s feelings to the point that he decides he needs God to kick Hugo's tuchus so he'll know that French Christians are the real bosses.
I recently interviewed Dr. Truitt for the New Books Network, and our conversation ranged over C-3PO’s medieval forebears in the alabaster chamber, the religious rehabilitation of disembodied talking heads, the role of clocks and clockwork in the discourse shift from natural philosophy to mechanical engineering, and the political significance of lewd mechanical monkeys covered in rotting badger pelts. Like I said, great stories, great scholarship, a really excellent book. If you're interested in the interview, you can find that here:
http://newbooksnetwork.com/e-r-truitt...
May 30, 2017
This is a niche book for anybody interested in mechanics and robots. It is deeply researched and you will not find a story of this kind easily. Set between 900-1400 it is a fascinating insight to the Latin Christian west and Islamic east and how automatons advanced over time.
As an aside I love gerbert - amazing person who lived around 1000. Love the guy :)
Highly recommend for my geeky friends
As an aside I love gerbert - amazing person who lived around 1000. Love the guy :)
Highly recommend for my geeky friends
November 3, 2018
An interesting, scholarly and wide-ranging (if fairly short) book on how medieval "robots" went from science fiction, in the form of references to magical automata in far off lands in romances and travelogues, to reality, when medieval European artisans began making mechanical and clockwork figures for amusement and pageantry. The chapter "Talking Heads" on the legends about Pope Sylvester, Albertus Magnus, Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon making magical brass heads which could answer any question was worth the price of admission on its own.
July 22, 2024
In terms of automata, medieval Europe was clueless, I guess all the knowledge of the Greeks was lost during this period. Instead there are legends of magical creatures, bronze men, potion dispensers, etc.
I was hoping for more details on construction and the like, not in this book. Half of this book was bibliography, it was a bit overwhelming. This book should prove useful to those searching for historical context on the subject but that's not me.
I was hoping for more details on construction and the like, not in this book. Half of this book was bibliography, it was a bit overwhelming. This book should prove useful to those searching for historical context on the subject but that's not me.
October 10, 2017
Well cited and researched
Interesting book that provides many examples of how automata or mechanical devices were not invented in Europe but made their way there.
Interesting book that provides many examples of how automata or mechanical devices were not invented in Europe but made their way there.
December 12, 2022
Even the amount of references is valuable on its own.
June 20, 2016
While written for a scholarly audience (which I am not) rather than the general interest reader (which I am), this nonetheless manages to be not only a well-researched book but a captivating journey through the history of automata, both textual and actual. A version of robots that begins only in science fiction of the twentieth, or even nineteenth, century has always been off the mark, and this examines the breadth and scope of the phenomena in much earlier times.
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September 28, 2015629.8 T8668 2015
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews