European post windmill
Molino de viento de poste (eje horizontal)
- Date
- c. 1180 · confidence high
- Place
- Weedley, Yorkshire, England / Flanders
- Credited to
- Anonymous, north-western Europe
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
A mill whose whole body turns on a post to face four horizontal-axis sails into the wind, with gears transmitting the rotation to the millstone. A design independent of the Persian one and far more efficient.
The oldest documents are English and Flemish, from 1180-1190; there is no evidence of direct transmission from Persia.
What it led to
- mechanical energy on plains without rivers (Flanders, East Anglia, Castile)
- drainage of lowlands and the creation of polders in the Netherlands
- fixed manorial capital and milling monopolies (banalities)
Built on
- Persian vertical-axis windmillc. century IX
- vertical waterwheel mill
- Persian vertical-axis windmill
Made possible
- Dike and polderc. 1100
- Water-powered paper mill1276
- Halladay's self-governing wind pump1854
- Dike and polder
- Water-powered paper mill