从人力、畜力到水力、风力：欧洲中世纪磨坊的发展历程

在中世纪漫长的一千年中,整个欧洲社会生产力发展极其缓慢,但是磨坊的使用和不断改进对提高社会生产力水平和改善人们的生活均起到了积极的作用。12世纪开始磨坊在欧洲遍地开花,磨坊的技术也在不断地革新,从而拓宽了磨坊的应用范围——从传统的农业生产到工业生产,同时磨坊的投资规模不断扩大、投资渠道也日趋多样化。中世纪后期,在货币经济的冲击下,磨坊的经营方式也在发生着变化,预示着欧洲一个新的历史发展阶段的到来。

From Human and Animal Power to Hydro-wind Power: A Study on the Development of Medieval Mills in Europe

During the long period of one thousand years in the middle ages, the social productive forces in Europe developed very slowly, but the use and continuous improvement of mills played a positive role in improving the level of social productive forces and people’s life. The mills spread throughout the Europe since the the 12th century, and the technology of mills has been constantly innovated, which expands the application range of mills-from the traditional agricultural production to industrial production and the investment scale of mills is expanding and the investment channels are increasingly diversified at the same time. In the late middle ages, under the impact of monetary economy, the model of mills management was also changing, which indicated the arrival of a new historical development stage in Europe.