Watermills

Rafał Kubicki (University of Gdańsk)
Water mills and rural settlement in the Dominion of the Teutonic Order in Prussia
The study is devoted to the closer discussion of the issue of location, economic function and the legal status of water mills in the Dominion of the Teutonic Order in Prussia. The aim of it was also to indicate factors having the largest impact on the shape of the water mills network existing here in the Medieval period. The situation in Prussia was determined by the policy of the Teutonic Order. The Order not only did it control the right for building water mills in knight’s estates but also, except in several cases, constituted the sole owner of water mills situated in towns. It was indeed possible only due to the fact that the Teutonic Order, as the biggest land owner in the state, had water regale at its own disposal. It would give it the opportunity to plan a network of mills relevant to the needs of the settlement network in foundation.
The location of a watermill resulted above all from the real occurring economic needs and adequate water conditions. Authorities tried to keep the largest possible influence on the decisions on locating new buildings. Owing to that, on one hand, in the content of documents detailed provisions banning constructions of new mills in a given distance from the already existing ones would be included, and on the other, a system of incentives was applied in the form of milling coercion enforcing specific settlements to use only the designated mill. Town and villages location laws are abundant with references to the existence of mills or, even more often, just the plans of building them. The Order, bishops and chapters, while issuing the documents, often reserved for themselves the right to construct such a machinery, excluding parts of the terrain needed for that purpose from general location laws. Issuing a permit to build and utilise water mills in exchange for rent and the system of reservation, had a considerable impact on the way mill networks were created and the rules of their functioning. Planning the economy of rural area in terms of water mills allocation was also manifested by establishing separate mill hamlets, which enjoyed the status of independent settlement units.
Water mills constituted an important element of the economic infrastructure of rural areas, and that their functions were closely related to the organisation of villages as well as the farms production profile, thus with the scale of grain cultivation in juxtaposition to animal husbandry. It also meant that millers had to cooperate closely with the village community, sometimes by means of regulations included in mill laws and location documents of individual settlements. Within the framework of colonisation campaign conducted by the Teutonic Order in Prussia, based on locating towns and villages, also a development of a whole economic infrastructure commenced, of which an important part, the water mill was. Attempts to control that process occurred already at the stage of town or village location, which is indicated in the mentioned clauses of reserving the places for anticipated milling facilities. Later, analogical control was exercised over newly built or redeveloped mills. The economic crisis of the state observed in the middle of the 15th century, indicated by the phenomenon of desolation of villages, would also result in water mill network regression.

This study analyses how and for what purpose water-construction works were carried out in the Kingdom of Hungary ín light of sources from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. The study aims to determine how the masters who took part ín these works acquired the necessary skills. The most important source studied is an account of the reconstruction of a mill in Sopron (Hungary) in 1540, which along with other sources is used to analyse the tasks of millers, ditch-diggers and pond masters.

This paper examines the relationship between the design and use of mechanical technology, patronage and investment, and economic return, using three main case studies: water-lifting devices, the water-powered grain mill, and the diverse uses of water-power in mining. Water-power was used on a wide scale and in diversified forms at an early date (by the first century A.D.), and the use of mechanical technology to perform economically critical work had an important impact on economic performance and the potential for per capita growth, especially in the latter centuries B.C. and the first two centuries A.D. Conversely, in the third century A.D. the cessation of the employment of hydraulic mining techniques enabling large-scale extraction of gold and other metals may have had an adverse impact on the economy as a whole. Growth and progress do not necessarily follow a linear pattern of advance; technologies are lost as well as adopted.

For the European colonists of NSW, bread remained an essential staple of their diets and a link to home as they struggled with life in a new place.  While successful grain production took several years to establish, developing processes which efficiently and economically milled local and imported wheat and oats into flour remained a problem for far longer.  The adaptation of European technologies to the alien Australian environment, a limited pool of skilled labour, as well as the peculiarities of a largely unfree convict workforce, added to the complications and in many cases attempts to engage in milling proved unsuccessful.
This thesis explores the efforts of one colonial entrepreneur, John Lucas, to establish two watermills on the Georges and Woronora Rivers south of Sydney during the 1820s. Although the broad pattern of the history of Lucas and his mills is known, there has not been a detailed study of this colonial enterprise or the operations of these industrial sites. This study aims to understand how the two mills, separated by a considerable distance, functioned as a single economic unit integrating with Lucas' broader mercantile interests.  It will consider the issues of technological transfer and environmental adaptation, as well the role and efficiency of a predominantly convict industrial labour force.  It will also consider the environmental, technological and commercial reasons for the decline and collapse of the milling operations.
Lucas’ Brisbane and Woronora Mills were recently located by the author in the Georges River basin, south of Sydney. Their archaeological study allows us to answer some important questions about how these mills operated as early industrial sites using convict labour.

Η μεταπτυχιακή αυτή εργασία, που εκπονήθηκε στο πλαίσιο του Α΄ Μεταπτυχιακού Κύκλου Σπουδών του Κλάδου Βυζαντινής Αρχαιολογίας, του Τομέα Αρχαιολογίας, του Τμήματος Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, της Φιλοσοφικής Σχολής του Αριστοτελείου Πανεπιστημίου Θεσσαλονίκης, αποσκοπεί στην συγκέντρωση την επεξεργασία και την συγκριτική παρουσίαση των ανασκαμμένων παλαιοχριστιανικών και βυζαντινών εργαστηρίων που έχουν εντοπιστεί στον Ελλαδικό χώρο και που κατά καιρούς έχουν παρουσιαστεί σε μεμονωμένες δημοσιεύσεις είτε ως πρωτεύον εύρημα, είτε ως δευτερεύον στοιχείο μιας ευρύτερης ανασκαφής.
Το πρώτο μέρος της εργασίας καταλαμβάνει ο κατάλογος των εντοπισμένων και δημοσιευμένων εργαστηριακών χώρων, ο οποίος συντάσσεται βάσει του τεχνολογικού χαρακτήρα και του προϊόντος της παραγωγικής διαδικασίας των εργαστηρίων. Βασική πηγή υλικού, ελλείψει συνολικών δημοσιεύσεων, είναι οι μεμονωμένες δημοσιεύσεις ανασκαφών εργαστηριακών χώρων σε αρχαιολογικά περιοδικά και πρακτικά συνεδρίων. 
Στο σημείο αυτό πρέπει να σημειωθεί η δυσκολία που παρουσιάστηκε στην συλλογή του υλικού, καθώς το μεγαλύτερο μέρος των εργαστηρίων της περιόδου που εξετάζεται, δεν δημοσιεύεται αναλυτικά ενώ πολλές φορές αποτελεί αντικείμενο δευτερευόντων σημειώσεων σε δημοσιεύσεις οικοδομικών συνόλων παλαιότερων εποχών.
Ο κατάλογος των δημοσιευμένων εργαστηριακών χώρων που εντοπίστηκαν ανασκαφικά στον ελλαδικό χώρο, χωρίζεται σε δύο κεφαλαιώδη μέρη, βάσει του τεχνολογικού χαρακτήρα των εργαστηρίων.
Στο πρώτο μέρος του καταλόγου εντάσσονται εργαστηριακές εγκαταστάσεις, κατά τη διαδικασία επεξεργασίας και παραγωγής των προϊόντων των οποίων είναι αναγκαία η ανάπτυξη υψηλών θερμοκρασιών μέσω λειτουργίας κλιβάνου για την τήξη ή την όπτηση της ύλης.
Στο δεύτερο μέρος του καταλόγου καταγράφονται εργαστήρια, κύριο χαρακτηριστικό των οποίων είναι η ανάπτυξη της παραγωγικής διαδικασίας μέσω ενός συστήματος υδραυλικών κατασκευών, αγωγών και αυτοτελών ή συγκοινωνούντων δεξαμενών.
Τα δύο κύρια μέρη του καταλόγου έχουν συνεχή αρίθμηση και συντάσσονται με βάσει το είδος της παραγωγής των εργαστηρίων, τα οποία καταρτίζουν μικρότερες θεματικές ομάδες. Τα λήμματα κάθε ομάδας εργαστηρίων καταγράφονται με γεωγραφική σειρά . Εργαστήρια που εντοπίζονται στην ίδια γεωγραφική περιοχή, καταχωρούνται με σχετική χρονολογική σειρά από τα πιο πρώιμα στα οψιμότερα παραδείγματα.
Ακολουθεί μια απόπειρα ανίχνευσης της οργάνωσης του χώρου των βιοτεχνικών εργαστηριακών εγκαταστάσεων βάσει των σταδίων της παραγωγικής διαδικασίας, καθώς και της επιλογής του χώρου οργάνωσής του, βάσει των δυνατοτήτων προμήθειας πρώτης ύλης, όπου αυτή είναι δυνατή, της δυνατότητας διοχέτευσης του παραγόμενου προϊόντος στην αγορά και της δυνατότητας οργάνωσης του εργαστηριακού συνόλου στο πλαίσιο ενός ήδη οργανωμένου ή υπό οργάνωση αστικού ή αγροτικού τοπίου. Γίνεται τέλος μια προσπάθεια  ανίχνευσης της εξέλιξης των τεχνολογικών στοιχείων της παραγωγικής διαδικασίας και του τρόπου οργάνωσης των χώρων των εργαστηριακών εγκαταστάσεων από το τέλος της αρχαιότητας και την παλαιοχριστιανική εποχή στην μεταβατική περίοδο και μέσω αυτής στους βυζαντινούς χρόνους.

Jacobi gives an overview of the use of saddle querns, rotary querns and mills. He describes remains of a wooden construction of a mill and millstones from the third century AD, found in a well of the Roman fort at Zugmantel.

For his introduction, Jacobi uses largely the book "The history of corn milling" by Richard Bennett & John Elton (4 vol., London & Liverpool, 1898, 1899, 1900, 1904) which ist to found here:

https://archive.org/details/historyofcornmil01bennuoft

https://archive.org/details/historyofcornmil02bennuoft

http://www.survivorlibrary.com/library/history_of_corn_milling_vol_3_1898.pdf

https://archive.org/details/historyofcornmil04bennuoft

The present survey analyzes the watermills network of New Castile during the 16th century using the data from the Relaciones Topograficas of Philip II. This document demonstrates what the localization of watermills depends on several variables such as the volume of population, the corn production and mainly the hydric resources. Then the watermills tipology and technology are studied
from a sample with the best documentary evidence available. Later the power and capacity of mil of these establishments is analyzed. Last the structure of property and operation forms of flour enterprises is studied.

The author, a consultant in archaeology and heritage management, presents a physical survey of the
production technology and processes preserved at five nineteenth-century water-powered flourmills in
Tasmania. These mills were included in data collected for comparative analyses of nineteenth-century
watermills in Britain and Australia for a recently completed Ph.D. in historical archaeology at the University
of New England, Armidale N.S.W. The aim of the research was to construct a model for technology transfer
between the two countries in the nineteenth century. The results of the research have been published
previously in this journal.

Roman technology medieval used: in the presumably oldest watermill “mule de Werden” (first mentioned 1318) found aground the River Lahn near Wetzlar

In an underwater archaeological survey of the Bavarian Society for Underwater Archaeology e.V. (BGfU, Dr. Tobias Pflederer, Jürgen Reitz, and Gerd Knepel, Philipps University Mar-burg/Lahn) in cooperation with the Förderverein Römisches Forum Waldgirmes e.V. and ap-proved by the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Hessen (State Conservation Office Hessen), the first archaeological evidence of the existence of the historical "Werth-Mill" in the River Lahn at Wetzlar-Garbenheim was proved in 2014.
Prior to this, in 2013, the corresponding weir, the "Werth-Furt", was detected by side-scan sonar (Dr. Tobias Pflederer) and tachymetrically measured by Roman Scholz (German Ar-chaeological Institute (DAI) Department Roman-Germanic Commission (RGK) Frank-furt/Main). It was found in river kilometer 6.4 between the district Lahnau-Dorlar and Wetz-lar-Garbenheim below the bridge of the A45 across the Lahn valley. There could also be lo-cated some processed oak piles that belonged to the former mill building. The existence of  the "mule zu werde" resp. "zu Wyrde", mentioned firstly in the year 1322, could be dated dendrochronologically to the year 1106 nearly 216 years earlier, (Dr. Thorsten Westphal, RGK).
An early medieval millstone made from Eifel basalt (similar to the type Avenches B) confir-med the discovery of a mill. The investigation of the tracks upon the millstone suggests a multiple use of the original runner stone in later years as an axle layer, a composite grounds-tone, a counterweight or an anchor. This underlines the value of the up to 60% relic stone for its owners. An analysis of the document books of Wetzlar suggests the destruction during Magdalene flood in July 1342 vice versa its occurance in the area of the Middle Lahn.

Vâdi-i Meram, günümüzde Konya’nın Meram
İlçesinin batısında yer alan ve aynı adı taşıyan
bir vadi içinde yer almaktadır. Akarsu ve yer altı
su kaynaklarıyla beslenen Meram Çayının bu vadi
üzerinde olması sebebiyle burada bulunan çok sayıda
su değirmeni sadece yörenin değil Konya ve
ilçelerinin önemli ölçüde un ihtiyacını karşılamıştır.
Değirmenciliğin yeni teknolojilere ayak uydurması,
bu sektördeki üretim kolaylıkları ve su kaynaklarının
zaman içinde azalması eski değirmenlere olan
rağbeti azaltmış, yok olma noktasına getirmiştir.
Vâdi-i Meram sınırları içinde günümüze kalan
hiçbir değirmen yoktur. Bu değirmenler hakkındaki
bilgilere de ancak vakıf kayıtları, salyane ve
temettuat defterleri ile sayıları oldukça azalmış
yaşlı kimselerin verdiği bilgiler doğrultusunda ulaşılmaktadır.
Vâdi-i Meram’da sayıları 22’yi bulan
su değirmenlerinin çoğunun yeri belli değildir. Değirmenlerin
önemli bir kısmının Konya şehir merkezindeki
cami ve türbelere vakfiyenin durumuna
göre gelir getirdiği, bir kısım gelirlerinin şahıslar
arasında pay edildiği ve işletmecilere hak olarak
bırakıldığı bu bilgiler vasıtasıyla öğrenilmektedir.
164 Vâdi-i Meram sakinlerinin tarih boyunca sahip
oldukları coğrafyanın imkânlarını en üst düzeyde
kullandıkları görülmektedir. Yöre halkının yaylacılık,
bahçecilik, besicilik ve çiftçiliğin yanında
değirmen işletmeciliği, değirmen kurma ve zahire
ticaretiyle uğraştıkları görülmektedir. İhtimal bu
durum göçü önlemiş, mevcut belgelere göre yöreyi
18. ve 20. yüzyıllar arasında Konya şehir merkezinin
nüfus bakımından en kalabalık bölgesi haline
getirmiştir. Buna bağlı olarak da devlete ödenen
vergi kalemlerinin de üst düzeyde seyrettiği anlaşılmaktadır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Konya, Vâdi-i Meram,Tarih, Değirmencilik

Abstract: This document refers to the historical watermill whose ruins were found by the writer at the stream Langada, not so far from the Monastery of Ipsilo (St. John the Theologian). On the face of its watertower are inbuilt four stone slabs with engraved or embossed crosses, other symbols, its renovation dates 1859, 1908, 1947 and the names of two monks, Gabriel and Gregorios, which are included in the monk list and in papers of Ipsilo abbey’s archive. A fifth slab with a relief of abstractly formatted human feet, positioned in second use at the top of the edifice, was a votive offering to ancient sanctuary. A total of seventeen similar slabs with embossed human feet have been found so far in regions of the ancient city-state Eresos, in whose territory the area of Langada belonged. Although offerings of this type have been found in many parts of the ancient Greek and Roman World, they are not mentioned at the same period by the other five ancient cities of Lesbos. This impressive and important monument is testified, as Paliomilos (old mill in English), in all four land registers of this monastery, the oldest of which dates back to 1595. In the same ravine, about 600 m. NE of the watermill are located the ruins of an ancient farm, dated probably in the Roman and Late Antiquity periods; three monoliths of olive (or grape) presses are found among the remains.
In the detailed (analytical) Ottoman tax register of the island of Lesbos of 1548, the Ipsilo Monastery is recorded in the production list of the - unknown today - village Gorina; the author considers it highly probable and proposes the identification of this  village with the plentiful  Byzantine and Ottoman residential traces found in the current area of Gourna, located at the edge of the Sigri village plain  about 5 km. W-NW of the Monastery; in abbey’ s  land registers are included several fields and pastures of this fertile region.
(The article includes 15 photos and a map).
E mail: drkumva@gmail.com

The history of John Lucas’ watermills in the Georges River Basin Sydney has been well covered in previous articles by the authors. These 2 watermills, built on Williams Creek in 1822 and the Woronora River in 1825 had a linage going back to the first fleet with John Lucas’ father; convict Nathaniel Lucas, building a watermill and then a windmill on Norfolk Island in 1795, becoming the colonies first miller.

The Agdal is a royal estate founded in Almohad times located South of Marrakech. Its walled perimeter contains 340 Hectares of orchards. This paper discusses the evidence obtained by an archaeological survey of the site carried out in early 2012. The archeological prospection of the Tasltante plain, where the Agdal is located, has also allowed a preliminary  reconstruction of the peri-urban landscape of Marrakech in the XIXth Century.

The article concerns the subject which has been  so  far  poorly  studied,  namely  the  process  of the formation of a network of water mills. The studies conducted up till now have either been constructed on an uncertain source basis (Zofi a Podwińska) or they have been too general to capture the small changes which could also significantly aff ect the increase or decline in the number of milling facilities (Rafał Kubicki). The author of the present paper made an attempt at describing detailed mechanisms governing this phenomenon on the example of the Konin district in the period of the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Times. The source basis was provided by lists of extraordinary conscriptions, inventories  of  bishops’  and  royal  properties, records  of  the  lands  tribunals,  the  diplomatic material  or  even  supplications  directed  to  the 16th century  chapter  of  Gniezno.  Besides,  the oaths of the lands tribunals published in Wielkopolskie roty sądowe (Court oaths in Wielkopolska  region)  were  also  fairly  extensively  used. The present article analyzes not only the development of a network of water mills itself but also the economic and natural factors that could have  created  it.  Moreover,  on  the  example  of the Konin district analyses were made related to the development of properties belonging to the lords (on the example of the Brudzewski family of Pomian coat-of-arms) and royal properties.

Dr. Birutė Rūta Vitkauskienė, Vilniaus dailės akademijos dėstytoja, docentė. Lietuvos mokslų akademijos Vrublevskių bibliotekoje aptikti Vilnios brėžiniai paskatino parašyti šį straipsnį.
Dr. Birutė Rūta Vitkauskienė, Vilnius Academy of Art.
"What supplied water to the Royal Watermill in Vilnius or the question of the Vilnia riverbed and channel".
This paper summaries the written sources and cartography of Vilnia river near the Vilnius Castle and Royal Watermill.

The water-mill is one of the earliest examples of human efforts to harness natural forces to do mechanical work, and stands as the ancestor of a long line of machines. Water-milling greatly increased per capita  productivity in the time-consuming and widely needed grinding of grain into flour, and enabled greater specialisation in labour, with the water-miller (molendinarius) emerging as a separate figure from the miller-baker (pistor) of the earlier Roman period. The spread and uptake of the water-mill is therefore important to questions of economic development and the relationship of capital investment in technology to economic growth

Of the many ships that must have been associated with moving wheat and flour between John Lucas’ watermills in the Georges River basin and market there is only 2 for which we have a name. The Olivia, a schooner of 60 tons, owned by the Lucas family was used to take wheat from the family farms in Van Diemen’s Land to his mill’s and the Alligator, a schooner of 198 tons stranded in the entrance of the Georges River when trying to deliver wheat to Lucas’ mills. The newspapers of the day reported their tonnage and the sailing rig but nothing else is known about them as records of ships registered prior to 1840 are incomplete. This article discusses what we can learn about the size of these ships.

The paper presents a study on the mills on the Tordino river in the Abruzzo region (Italy). They are
analysed as a synthesis of architecture, hydraulic works and mechanisms. Watermills are related to the geographic and
economic historical system, therefore they present characteristics and typologies that changes both in relation to the
development of manufacturing technologies, both in function of the landscape

While the performance of industrial convicts working for the government has been well documented (e.g. Tuffin 2015) the convicts and ex-convicts employed by early industrialists has not been studied in any detail. This paper looks at the workforces of miller John Lucas and industrialist Simeon Lord. Starting from humble beginnings these industrialists used assigned convicts and former convicts almost exclusively to staff their various enterprises. 
While Tasmanian convict records are well preserved in NSW few individual convict records have survived. It was reported by Walsh (2007 p11) that most of the records of the office of the Principal Superintendent of Convicts (NSW) were destroyed in 1882. Thus, landmark studies of Australian convicts, such as those of Walsh, were based largely on generic records for NSW convicts such as shipping indents, Ticket of Leave records, musters, census and various aggregated returns on secondary punishment. These same record sources have been used to firstly identify the convicts of industrialists John Lucas and Simeon Lord and then to compare their characteristics and behaviour.

This paper presents a historical and archaeological survey of the technology of nineteenth-century water
powered flourmills in the New England region of New South Wales. This is informative on a number of aspects
of the use and adaptation of water-power in the flourmilling industry in nineteenth-century Australia. Significant
among these were the inability of the New England climate to provide a reliable water supply, its relative
isolation from the nineteenth-century industrial economy, and limitations on the skills available for the
construction of sophisticated watermill technology. These factors are reflected in the materials and methods
used in the construction of the mills in the area. The single most important influence on the basic form of the
technology and the scale on which it was used was the economic climate into which it was introduced. The
troubled history and abrupt demise of some of the mills discussed is indicative of the fact that they faced
competition from steam mills and were built at a time when the New England grain and flour industry as a
whole was entering a decline caused by competition from imports from other parts of the country from which it
never recovered.

Rozwój młynarstwa w okresie funkcjonowania państwa zakonu krzyżackiego, [w:] Młyny wodne w dorzeczu dolnej Wisły od początku XVIII do początku XXI wieku. Materiały Konferencyjne Interdyscyplinarnego Seminarium Naukowego Toruń 26.05.2017 r., red. D. Brykała, M. Prarat, P. Lamparski, Warszawa 2017, s. 10.
dokument elektroniczny
Numer DOI publikacji:
https://doi.org/10.7163/Konf.0001

Purpose-The paper presents a techno-economic analysis of the electromechanical equipment of traditional vertical axis water mills (VAWMs) to help investors, mill owners and engineers to preliminary estimate related benefits and costs of a VAWM repowering. Design/methodology/approach-Two sustainable repowering solutions were examined with the additional aim to preserve the original status and aesthetics of a VAWM: the use of a vertical axis water wheel (VAWW) and a vertical axis impulse turbine. The analysis was applied to a database of 714 VAWMs in Basilicata (Italy), with known head and flow. Findings-Expeditious equations were proposed for both solutions to determine: (1) a suitable diameter as a function of the flow rate; (2) the costs of the electromechanical equipment; (3) achievable power. The common operating hydraulic range of a VAWM (head and flow) was also identified. Reality checks on the obtained results are shown, in particular by examining two Spanish case studies and the available literature. The power generated by the impulse turbine (Turgo type) is twice that of a VAWW, but it is one order of magnitude more expensive. Therefore, the impulse turbine should be used for higher power requirements (>3 kW), or when the electricity is delivered to the grid, maximizing the long-term profit. Originality/value-Since there is not enough evidence about the achievable performance and cost of a VAWM repowering, this work provides expeditious tools for their evaluation.

This paper presents the results of research for a Doctorate undertaken from 1991 to 1995 in the Department
of Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology at the University of New England, Armidale, NSW. The aim of the
research was to construct a model for the transfer and adaptation of industrial technology from Britain to
Australia in the nineteenth century. The paper considers what factors were important for the process of
international technology transfer. This leads to hypotheses about how it should have been adapted as a result
of its transfer. These are then tested by a comparison of the physical remains of the technology preserved in
both countries. A generalised model for the transfer and adaption of industrial technology from Britain to
Australia in the nineteenth century is then put forward.