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Metallurgists throughout medieval Europe were generally free to move within different regions. For instance, German metallurgists in search of rich precious metal ores took the lead in mining and influenced the course of metal production, not only in East and South Germany but also in almost all of Central Europe and the Eastern Alps.
The Economics of English Mining in the Middle Ages is the economic history of English mining from the Norman invasion in 1066, to the death of Henry VII in 1509. England's economy was fundamentally agricultural throughout the period, but the mining of iron, tin, lead and silver, and later coal, played an important part within the English medieval economy.
European metal workers continued to produce iron in bloomeries. However, the Medieval period brought two developments—the use of water power in the bloomery process in various places (outlined above), and the first European production in cast iron.
At its peak around the mid-2nd century AD, Roman stock is estimated at 10,000 t, five to ten times larger than the combined silver mass of medieval Europe and the Caliphate around 800 AD. [21] Gold. 9 t [22] Production in Asturia, Callaecia, and Lusitania (all Iberian Peninsula) alone.
Early European bloomeries were relatively small, primarily due to the mechanical limits of human-powered bellows and the amount of force possible to apply with hand-driven sledge hammers. Those known archaeologically from the pre-Roman Iron Age tend to be in the 2 kg range, produced in low shaft furnaces.
Medieval technology is the technology in medieval Europe under Christian rule. After the Renaissance of the 12th century , medieval Europe saw a radical change in the rate of new inventions, innovations in the ways of managing traditional means of production, and economic growth. [ 2 ]
The main cause for the bullion famine was outflow of silver to the East unequaled by European mining output. [1] [2] The historian John Day supports this theory, stating the loss of gold and silver was due to large-scale trading with the Levant, which provided Europe spices, silks, rare dyestuffs, pearls, and precious gems. [3]
Iron production continued to increase; the Weald in the South-East began to make increased use of water-power, and overtook the Forest of Dean in the 15th century as England's main iron-producing region. [200] The first blast furnace in England, a major technical step forward in metal smelting, was created in 1496 in Newbridge in the Weald. [201]