Mills make economic history
Until the dawn of the industrial age, mills were the largest and most important machines known to man. Myths and legends surrounded the grinding wheels. Millers were often considered mysterious figures[1]. In a flour mill, deflagration could suddenly cause explosions that were completely inexplicable to people. Some legends about the devil taking a miller may have originated there.
In the Early Middle Ages, mill technology was used to grind grain. From the High Middle Ages onwards, this changed increasingly, with mill technology also finding its way into other trades. The circular motion in the facility could be used for polishing and grinding. However, from the 12th and 13th centuries onwards, gears were increasingly used to convert circular motion into linear motion. Mills could now be used for stamping and fulling, for operating bellows, for sawing and for many other purposes. This diverse use of mills becomes evident in a text written at the beginning of the 13th century in the monastery of Clairvaux:
»One arm of this river flows through the numerous workshops of the abbey, (…) its bed (…) has not been hollowed out by nature, but by the work of the monks (…) Admitted into the abbey (…), it first rushes impetuously into the mill, where it is very busy and stirs up a great deal, both to crush the grain between the millstones and to separate the flour from the bran with a fine sieve. It is already filling the cauldrons in the neighbouring building and entrusting itself to the fire to be boiled, so that it can prepare the drink for the brothers (…) But the river is not yet done with; the fullers, who are near the mill, invite it to join them (…) It alternately lifts and lowers the heavy stampers, the wooden feet, (…) it saves the fullers a lot of hard work (…) As it turns so many fast wheels with accelerated swirling, it leaves them, foaming (…). It enters the tannery, where it offers its diligent work to prepare the necessary materials for the brothers’ footwear. Then it divides itself into a multitude of small arms (…) and attentively seeks out those who need its services (…) whether it be cooking, sifting, lathing, grinding, watering, washing, milling or soaking; it never refuses to offer its assistance. Finally, (…) it removes the rubbish and leaves everything clean behind.«[2]
The nettle ditch of the Cistercian monastery in Chorin
Here, the millrace is associated with other functions of water use. It transports the water to the monastery’s workshops, to the kitchen, and finally the artificial stream crosses through the latrine. Impressive remains of such water systems for multiple use in mills and monasteries can still be seen, for example, at Neuzelle Abbey in the northern part of Lower Lusatia. For Pforta Monastery near Naumburg, an artificial arm of the Saale river was created, branching off from the Saale in Bad Kösen, running through the monastery and returning to the river before Naumburg.
In Brandenburg, the Nieplitz river near and in Treuenbrietzen is largely such an artificial stream. Its construction is likely to be related to the activities of the Cistercian monks from Zinna Abbey:
»The mills in Treuenbrietzen were a particularly important source of income for Zinna. Around 1300, the abbey gained sole control over the flowing waters within a mile of the town for several decades, allegedly even over wind and all water, as stated in the recent translation of one of the margraves’ documents (from 1304/05) in the so-called White Book, a chartulary of the town of Treuenbrietzen. Shortly before, the Archbishop of Magdeburg had sold the monastery the Nieplitz, which flows through Brietzen, from its mouth to below the Havelbruch forest and inside the town, along with all its feeder streams. […] Zinna established at least one mill yard. The Zinna mill master (1331: Magister molendinorum in Brytzna), a monk with the relevant technical knowledge, also took up residence in the town.«[3]
Without being the inventors of mill technology themselves – water mills have been known since antiquity – monasteries nevertheless made an important contribution to the implementation of this technology in many respects. The French historian Marc Bloch (1886–1944) gives a lot of evidence for this in a seminal essay on the emergence and triumph of the water mill. The monasteries absolutely had »a sense of saving on labour«. »The wise abbot of Loches preferred that a watermill, where one brother did the work of several, set free an entire devout host of brothers, probably for prayer. «[4]
Often, the monks did not make any fuss about enforcing the use of mill technology in their villages. Many farmers still used hand mills in their homes. In order for the investment in a watermill to be worthwhile, it was sometimes necessary to help things make happen: »Confiscation or even destruction of (hand) millstones, even inside houses, by the lord’s footmen; rebellions by women; lawsuits in which the tenants, repeatedly taking up a hopeless fight, regularly lost out: the noise of these disputes still fills the monastic chronicles and documents of the 13th and 14th centuries.«[5] However, recent research has become somewhat more cautious about viewing the enforcement of water mills solely as a constant aggressive struggle in which the landlord vigorously enforced the mill ban, »i.e. the obligation for the inhabitants of a manor to use the landlord’s mill. More recent research suggests that this labour-saving machine was rather used voluntarily, even by users outside the respective manor.«[6]
Medieval mill
Ponds and monks
Where there were no strong rivers available, a pond belonged to the mill. It served as a water and thus energy reservoir for dry periods. When water became scarce in the country, the important mills could continue to operate.
To this day, ponds often shape landscapes beyond the limited purpose of milling economy. Anyone wandering through such pond landscapes will still encounter him at every turn: the monk. This is the name of the technical device that regulates the water in the pond or ultimately drains all the water. The name pond monk (both in German and English) for this important device suggests that monks were the original creators of pond economies in the medieval monastery landscapes. Therefore, one could for example read in the newspaper Berliner Zeitung in December 2004 about the oldest monastery in Lower Lusatia:
»The oldest artificial pond near Doberlug-Kirchhain dates back to the 13th century. (…) In order to be able to breed fish all year round, artificial ponds were then created, especially near monasteries. The name of the plugs used to close the pond drains still reminds us of this today: Mönche (monks).«
This explanation can also be found in the Alpine region, in Styria: because fish was needed as a Lenten fare in the monasteries, »it was obvious that monks would have hundreds of ponds built here. The term (pond) monk, which is now the most common form of pond drain used to gradually regulate the water level, preserves the memory of Christianity’s importance for the development and spread of pond farming.«[7]Thus, the name ‘pond monk’ is often considered the decisive evidence for the assumption that immigrant monks created ponds in certain landscapes and introduced carp farming.
This raises questions: How extensive actually were the traces that were left by the monasteries’ water engineering in various landscapes? Or more simply: How did the monk get into the water? What else could the name mean?
Ponds are artificially created water reservoirs, mainly for fish farming or for generating energy at a watermill, as a watering place for livestock or as a reservoir for fire-fighting water. Pond construction required digging, in German this indicates the close linguistic relationship between the word Teich (pond) and Deich (dyke). Both are artificial structures for retaining water. In southern Germany, the word Weiher is used instead. This is a borrowing from Latin, derived from vivarium and translated as animal container or fish container.
The oldest written evidence of the existence of such ponds is often found in connection with monasteries. However, the monks did not create the ponds. Rather, the monasteries were given existing ponds as endowments. For the Dobrilugk monastery in Lower Lusatia, the first genuine evidence of pond farming is found in a document from 1269, (although a document forged in recent times dates from 1199), in which a count grants the monastery, among other things, ownership of two and a half ponds near the village of Knissen near Bad Liebenwerda. Previously, a count’s ministerial official had been the owner of the ponds. It therefore stands to reason that the pond systems were established on the initiative of secular rulers and that local expertise in bank and dam construction was likely to have been the basis for this. Thus, the first evidence of regional pond farming can be found in the context of the lower nobility. The monks of Dobrilugk merely came into possession of ponds that were already in use. Shortly afterwards, in 1276, we learn of a legal dispute over a pond that was transferred to the monks after it has already existed and apparently yielded a considerable profit.
From all this, it can be concluded that the oldest ponds in the area of the Dobrilugk monastery were not created under the direct influence of the monks, but were given to them as endowments. Similar findings can be found in the oldest documents for other monasteries, too, which does not exclude the possibility that monks were also involved in the creation of ponds here and there. It is important to note, however, that the art of pond construction was not only practised in monasteries, but clearly was widespread beyond them.
Similar findings were revealed by a ‘dive’ for the pond monk.[8] In German the meaning of the term Mönch (monk) can be varied and often has nothing to do with monastic clergymen. As a technical term – according to the Grimm Brothers’ dictionary – it is found in construction, as »a vertical spindle on a spiral staircase; also the spindle at the top of a tower or other building that supports the finial.«[9] The Mönch is also known as a roof tile, as a nut in weapon manufacturing and in various contexts in metallurgy. It appears not only as a pale spot in letterpress printing, but also in casting processes as a kind of stamp that is struck with a wooden hammer: »Hit the monk with one blow or four with a wooden mallet into the frame (…),« it reads in a 16th-century mining book.[10] In silk manufacturing, the pupated caterpillars could be referred to as monks.
The Austrian author Wolf Helmhardt von Hohberg (1612-1688) writes about the monk (Mönch) in pond construction: »(…) if you don’t want to make flood channels at the end of the dam, you should place a few monks (these are hollow, broad pieces of wood) on the dam.« An 18th-century technological dictionary points out that the monk is the »upward-pointing plug or cone in the outlet of a pond; and sometimes also the entire outlet itself.« This spindle, once pointing upwards and thus standing alone, could therefore have been the inspiration for the name, as in the case of the stair spindle, the roof tile Mönch or the pale spot on a printed product caused by a protruding letter.
The Greek word μοναχος, from which the word Mönch (monk) in the North Germanic languages is derived, can also be found in these technical devices in its original meaning of standing alone/solitary, without the use of the word providing the slightest indication of the activity of monastic clergymen as inventors of the respective technology.
Now that the widespread opinion of the Cistercians as pioneers of civilisation, as expressed in the writings of Theodor Fontane, for example, has been declared questionable by many researchers, we must not fall into the opposite trap and deny the monks any cultural achievements. Winfried Schich, for example, rejected the doctrine of the Cistercians as pioneers of civilisation, but argued for a more nuanced view of the historical contexts. This »is ignored in some older and popular accounts, which attribute to the Cistercians the merit of having carried Christian culture and civilisation to the East in German guise.«[11]
Now, it should be noted that fish did indeed play an extraordinary role as a Lenten fare in monasteries. The appreciation of fish is evident, for example, in its mention in the work Didascalicon de studio legendi by the Augustinian canon Hugh of St. Victor (died 1141). Monasteries certainly played an important role in establishing such Lenten fare in society. The renunciation of meat became a cultural phenomenon far beyond the monasteries. In his cultural history of food in Europe, Massimo Montanari explains that the cultural appreciation of fish in Christianity certainly also meant that it was
»(…) associated with a certain pagan idea of meat consumption as well as with the convention – scientifically reinforced by medical writings – that the consumption of meat encouraged sexual debauchery (…). (…) The struggle between meat and fish, between carnival and Lent, is a stratagem that has been widespread since the beginning of the 13th century, embodying a profound cultural integration of the consumption of meat and fish, which are opposed to each other but also complement each other and alternate chivalrously throughout the year.«[12]
In this process, the monks also became actively innovative. In large fish farms, higher yields were achieved by introducing a differentiated use of the ponds and by disseminating this in specialist texts. An important text of this kind is the work De piscinis Libri V by the Bishop of Olomouc and former canon Jan Dubravius (c. 1486-1553). In addition to explanations of the water engineering aspects of pond farming, there are detailed instructions on how to differentiate between different types of ponds and increase their yields. The nursery ponds are used to breed young fish, the young fish grow up in the rearing ponds, and the two large ponds, also known as stocking ponds in pond farming, are used for carp fattening. After two to three years in these ponds, the animals are sold.
Such texts and their use were obviously the focus of monastic innovation. The clergymen were able to systematise existing techniques in political and organisational ways, not least by being able to benefit from the rational use of writing. The activities of the monks have left an extensive legacy in many archives.
