RECONSTRUCTION OF MILLING APPARATUS
The reconstruction of the milling apparatus poses no
major problem, since both Herrade de Landsberg (1195)[497]
and the Hausbuch Master (ca. 1480)[498]
have furnished us
with very detailed drawings of water-driven milling mechanisms
(figs. 445 and 447). Herrade's mill is undershot. A
large waterwheel transmits its rotation through an axle to
a smaller wheel, the cogs of which are geared into a vertical
drum. The vertical power of the driving wheel is thus converted
into the horizontal motion of the millstone. A hopper
feeds the grain from overhead into a hole in the center of
the upper stone, the so-called "runner". This system is
essentially the same as that of the so-called Vitruvian mill,
except for a difference in the speed of transmitting power.
The Vitruvian mill is relatively small and moves faster
than the wheel that turns the millstone. In the medieval
mill, with its larger waterwheel, the transmission is from
slower to faster.[499]
In our reconstruction of the Mill of the
Plan (fig. 448A-E) we have adopted the latter system.
The Mill of the Plan would have taken care only of those
milling operations which were performed within the monastic
enclosure. On its outlying estates a monastery usually
operated a great number of additional mills. According to
Guérard's calculations, at the time of Abbot Irminon (ca.
800-826) the Abbey of St.-Germain des Prés managed as
many as eighty-four mills on its outlying estates.[500]
The
status of the millers in charge of these installations, to
judge from the Administrative Directives of Adalhard of
Corbie, differed from that of the other monastic tenants in
that they were exempt from the manual labor to which the
other tenants were held, such as "plowing, sowing, harvesting
grain or hay, making malt or hops, delivering wood
or anything else in the service of the lord" (
ad opus
dominicum).
[501]
Adalhard stipulates that each miller was to
be provided with a pair of oxen and other things necessary
for the sustenance of himself and his entire family, so that
he could raise pigs, geese, and chickens, and set up his
mill, and might obtain or manufacture all such materials
as he needed in order to improve his mill, repair his sluice,
transport his millstone, and everything else that he might
need to own or manufacture.
[502]
