366 Reviews

JEAN GIMPEL, The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages. New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976. Pp. xiv, 274; illustrated. $12.95. First
published in 1974 in French, La Revolution industrieUe du moyen age. English version
now also in Penguin Books, 1977.

SEVERAL unusual problems surround this book and make reviewing it somewhat
difficult. First, it is a popular history, well written and reasonably well informed, but
decidedly not aimed at an audience of professional medievalists. Second, though
individual parts of die work are admirable, Gimpel seeks to advance a neo-
Spenglerian, "decline-of-the-West" thesis in the work as a whole, and he does a
strikingly bad job of it to boot. Third, the history of medieval technology is too young
and unformed a field to allow itself the luxury of discarding any serious contribution,
even one so badly flawed as Gimpel's. Which aspects of the book, therefore, ought to
be emphasized, and by what criteria should it be judged?
Jean Gimpel is probably not well known to most medievalists, and some biographi-
cal background might be helpful. Though the dust jacket of The Medieval Machine
identifies him as a "medieval scholar and social historian," Gimpel's previous works
have dealt widi die history and dieory of art or architecture (The Cathedral Builders;
The Cult of Art). I am informed that he earns his primary living as a London
import-export dealer. The son of an English mother and a French father, Gimpel (b.
1918) seems quite at home in both his ancestral cultures, and all his books have
appeared in French as well as English. La Revolution industrieUe du moyen age appeared
in 1974, diough die English version was apparently written first. The French version
is not a precise translation of the English, by the way. Gimpel has twice taught in die
United States for brief periods, in 1956 (at Yale University, I believe) and in 1972 at
the University of Soudiern California.
At first glance, The Medieval Machine looks as if it might serve as a popular
companion piece to Lynn White's Medieval Technology and Social Change. In die early
chapters Gimpel discusses energy resources and medieval man's use of diem, agricul-
tural changes and their impact, mining, and labor conditions. Specialists would
probably want to argue many points in each of these, but Gimpel does well in having
digested a stream of scholarship that goes back at least to Marc Bloch. His little
chapter on "Environment and Pollution" is fascinating in itself, and has been sepa-
rately published. The later chapters on Villard de Honnecourt, medieval architec-
ture, and die mechanical clock impressed me as slightly weaker than die early
sections, but still acceptable. The book changes character quickly with the penulti-
mate chapter, "Reason, Madiemetics, and Experimental Science," which does not
belong widi die rest of die book and is too superficial to be of much value. Its French
counterpart, "L'invention intellectuelle," sounds better related, but fares just as badly.
The final chapter on die end of die Middle Ages is really a means of getting to the
epilogue, whose French tide, "Bref essai sur les cycles de civilisation," reveals Gim-
pel's main purpose.
As a popular writer, Gimpel is quite talented. He has die knack so many scholars
lack — this reviewer included — of selective omission of material diat would weigh
down his narrative. His chapters read smoothly and almost without effort from start
to finish. like a good undergraduate teacher, Gimpel assumes no prior knowledge
on his readers' part, and he carefully joins together all die pieces of his tale. He is
particularly impressive in his use of exemplary anecdotes and vivid, if sometimes
minor, details. (Did you know, for example, that die first recorded victim of a coal
mining accident was Ralph Ulger, son of Roger, who was drowned in an open pit in
 Reviews 367
1243?) Gimpel says little in this book that is new to specialists — indeed that is not his
purpose — but he does a good job of synthesizing into a cohesive narrative a fair
amount of scattered material available in the literature.
His sins as an historian are generally those of an amateur. The worst of these is a
tendentious, hyperbolic quality that drifts toward a sort of aggressive simple-
mindedness in many of his passages. This is apart from his major Spenglerian
argument to be discussed below, and it reveals itself in his bold claims about the
attitudes of medieval men toward machines, for example, or the degree of environ-
mental damage done by the medieval "industrialization." The work's title itself gives
some notion of this quality in Gimpel's prose. I found especially irritating Gimpel's
tendency to write as if he were revealing a hitherto unknown aspect of the medieval
world, but perhaps this is more appropriate for his intended audience than I would
care to admit. At times Gimpel is simply wrong, either because he has not checked his
facts carefully enough or because he relies on outdated scholarship. His range of
sources is moderately broad, though almost totally confined to French, British, and
American material. None of these problems is of sufficient magnitude to vitiate the
book's good qualities, especially if one judges it by the standards of popular historical
writing.
Gimpel comes close to sinking his book, however, when he loads on it the weight of
his neo-Spenglerian views about contemporary trends. Like a number of European
intellectuals, Gimpel believes that Euro-American civilization is on the skids. Very
well, one is entitled to such views, but Gimpel's reasoning in support of them and his
use of historical evidence is utterly appalling. Medieval Europe, we are told, went
through a period of "dynamic" growth in technology, economics, and intellectual life,
but this peaked and declined after the thirteenth century. Technological stagnation
set in during the fourteenth century, and with it came economic depression and
"mysticism," the latter being especially deplorable. There are strong parallels, Gimpel
asserts, between the medieval period and the present; both show progress through an
"Era of Growth" into an "Era of Maturity" and thence to an "Aging Era." Lengthy lists
of parallels and differences between contemporary history and the medieval period in
various "eras" are offered in support of this thesis, all of which point to the inevitable
decline and fall of practically everything. (These lists differ in the English and French
editions; it seems the science of making parallels is still inexact.) Needless to say,
everything must be made to fit the pre-conceived schema, whatever adjustments may
be necessary. Lever House, for example, which was completed in 1953, marks the
transition of America from her "Era of Growth" to her "Era of Maturity." Late
medieval technical treatises, which can be viewed as manifesting a number of positive
intellectual and cultural trends, are treated by Gimpel as symptoms of a general
decline into militarism and warfare. Whatever Gimpel happens to like in this period
is assigned to the "Renaissance," which as everyone knows was the period of rebirth
after the decline of medieval civilization. (Thus via neo-Burckhardtism Gimpel's
neo-Spenglerism is saved.) We have here, of course, an advanced case of hypostatized
categories, both chronological and qualitative, which says exceedingly little that is of
interest to the serious historian. One can only suppose that Gimpel does not find
medieval technology of sufficient interest in itself to merit his full concern unless it
can somehow be forced to yield predictive meanings for the contemporary situation.
It really is a pity that all this intellectual baggage had to be included in what is
otherwise a welcome contribution to the popularization of medieval history. A not
very systematic sample of local bookstores indicates that The Medieval Machine is
selling at a reasonable pace, and thus even if we might wish to reject it utterly, it will
 368 Reviews
probably come back to haunt us in the questions and conversations of our students
and colleagues. For this reason alone we had better be prepared to deal with its ideas.
Moreover as mentioned above, the history of medieval technology is too young a field
to throw away any useful piece of work. Under these circumstances, the best attitude
toward the book is probably patient forebearance toward its difficulties and a willing-
ness to use it to generate interest where none may have existed before. Anyone
wishing to employ The Medieval Machine in the classroom will probably have to deal
with certain unwanted issues arising from Gimpel's Spenglerism, but with moderate
skill, he can probably make the book serve as a bridge leading to more advanced
works. We badly need an acceptable popular treatment of medieval technology, and
until something better comes along The Medieval Machine will have to do.
BERT S. HALL
University of Toronto

EDWARD A. GOSSELIN, The King's Progress to Jerusalem: Some Interpretations of David

during the Reformation Period and Their Patristic and Medieval Background. (Humana
Civilitas, 2.) Malibu, California: Undena Publications, published under the auspices
of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of California, Los
Angeles, 1976. Paper. Pp. x, 131. $12.
PROFESSOR Gosselin describes the stages by which successive commentators trans-
formed David the psalmist from a prophet and mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit,
promising the coming of Christ, to a character in his own right, a real king of
Jerusalem. The Reformers resurrected the historical David and went on to see him as
a brother, speaking to them across the centuries. David inspired persecuted Protes-
tants with faith and hope. All true Christians could identify with David in his human
failings and in his constant appeal to divine mercy to withstand his enemies. "A
religious pigmy" grows into a Protestant giant.
The author draws his evidence from selected exegetes: St. Augustine, Nicholas of
Lyre, Lefevre d'Etaples, Luther, and Calvin, glancing at Aquinas, Melancthon and
others by the way. He warns us that selective treatment of commentators makes for
an impressionistic picture, but argues reasonably that a comprehensive study would
call for a lifetime's research. His limited framework encloses an exciting and valuable
picture of the psalmist's history through St. Augustine to Luther's volte-face and
Calvin's steadier vision. The picture would be more convincing if he had filled in his
background and read his selected texts more carefully. We miss in his background
even a hint at the Reformers' attitudes to the Old Testament in general. Luther and
Calvin differed on it, and the difference affected their approaches to the psalms. The
central figures in Gosselin's picture all overlook the crucial question facing exegetes
from the fourth century to the sixteenth and later. Patristic tradition presented the
patriarchs and prophets, the psalmist included, as an elite, who foreshadowed and
foretold the New Testament dispensation in word and deed. They understood their
message, though dimly, but hid it from the Jewish people, too blind or childish to
grasp hidden meanings. Gosselin does not grapple with the consequence of this
tradition. As soon as exegetes began to distinguish between the literal and spiritual
senses more precisely, they had to ask: which prophecies must be classed as Chris-
tological in their literal sense, intended by the prophet himself, and which prophecies
needed to be allegorized, so as to enable the exegete to deduce a Christological sense
from the "letter"? Some psalms posed the problem more sharply than others.
Aquinas knew that the Council of Constantinople, 553, condemned Theodore of