Portland Public Library

Medieval robots, mechanism, magic, nature, and art, E.R. Truitt

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-239) and index

government publication of a state province territory dependency etc

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Medieval robots

bibliography

893455590

E.R. Truitt

The Middle Ages series

mechanism, magic, nature, and art

A thousand years before Isaac Asimov set down his Three Laws of Robotics, real and imagined automata appeared in European courts, liturgies, and literacy texts. Medieval robots took such forms as talking statues, mechanical animals, and silent metal guardians; some served to entertain or instruct while others performed disciplinary or surveillance functions. Variously ascribed to artisanal genius, inexplicable cosmic forces, or demonic powers, these marvelous fabrications raised fundamental questions about knowledge, nature, and divine purpose in the Middle Ages. Medieval Robots recovers the forgotten history of fantastical, aspirational, and terrifying machines that especially captivated Europe in imagination and reality between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. E.R. Truitt traces the different forms of self-moving or self-sustaining manufactured objects from their earliest appearances in the Latin West through centuries of mechanical and literary invention. Chronicled in romances and song as well as histories and encyclopedias, medieval automata were powerful cultural objects that probed the limits of natural philosophy, illuminated and challenged definitions of life and death, and epitomized the transformative and threatening potential of foreign knowledge and culture. This original and wide-ranging study reveals the convergence of science, technology, and imagination in the medieval world and demonstrates the striking similarities between medieval and modern robotic and cybernetic visions. -- from dust jacket

Introduction. The persistence of robots: an archaeology of automata -- Rare devices: geography and technology -- Between art and nature: Natura artifex, neoplatonism, and literary automata -- Talking heads: astral science, divination, and legends of medieval philosophers -- The quick and the dead: corpses, memorial statues, and automata -- From texts to technology: mechanical marvels in courtly and public pageantry -- The clockwork universe: keeping sacred and secular time