The iron industry and the printing press

In the Middle Ages, ploughs, knives, spades, and scythes all had iron blades. Horses needed iron shoes, held on by iron nails. Spears and arrows had iron heads. Knights wore iron armour. The best swords were steel, which is made mainly from iron.

Miners dug iron ore from the ground, then smelters used charcoal-burning furnaces to extract iron from the ore. Blacksmiths worked, or wrought, the iron - they heated it to make it soft, then hammered it into the right shapes. Every village had its smith.

After about the year 1300, some smiths used water-wheels to drive the bellows which blew air into their furnaces. A mechanical bellows meant a much hotter furnace, so the iron could be melted and poured into moulds. The objects made this way were called cast iron. The guns that were used in the wars after 1350 had cast-iron barrels.

In the Middle Ages, books were written out slowly by hand, often by monks. They were expensive because they took such a long time to make. So monasteries took great care of the books in their libraries.

Books became cheaper when printing began. The Chinese invented printing in the eleventh century. But no books were printed in Europe until 1445. William Caxton, who learned how to print in Germany and Flanders, published England's first printed books in 1477. After that, more books were on sale, and more people learned to read. One result was that news and ideas spread more quickly.

Walter Robson: Medieval Britain; Oxford University Press, 1991/2000, page 78