Research Catalog

Title

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

Author

Truitt, Elly Rachel,

Publication

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2015]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 255 pages : color illustrations; 24 cm.

Summary

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.

Series Statement

The Middle Ages series

Uniform Title

Middle Ages series.

Subjects

• Magic
• Robots
• Mechanical engineering
• Imagination
• Machine theory
• Nature and civilization
• Mechanical toys
• Fantasi > historia
• Automat
• Magic > History > To 1500
• Robots > History > To 1500
• Mekaniska leksaker > historia
• Roboter
• To 1500
• Maskinteknik > historia
• Mechanical engineering > History > To 1500
• Imagination > History > To 1500
• Robotar > historia
• Civilization, Medieval
• Magi > historia
• Medeltiden
• Machine theory > History > To 1500
• Nature and civilization > History > To 1500
• History
• Mechanical toys > History > To 1500

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-239) and index.

Contents

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.

ISBN

• 9780812246971
• 0812246977
• 0812223578
• 9780812223576

LCCN

2015008085

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library