Spinning wheel
Rueca de rueda (torno de hilar)
- Date
- c. 1280 · confidence medium
- Place
- Speyer, Germany (1280 ordinance); Indian or Chinese origin
- Credited to
- Anonymous; India or China (11th century), reaching Europe via the Islamic world
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A hand-turned wheel that spins the spindle by means of a belt, tripling spinning speed compared with the hand spindle. The first mechanisation of spinning.
Its origin is disputed between India (charkha) and China; the earliest European mention is the Speyer ordinance (1280) and manuscript miniatures of c. 1338.
What it led to
- cheaper thread and the boom of the Flemish and Italian cloth trade
- female domestic piecework (the putting-out system)
- the treadle spinning wheel (16th century) and the spinning machines of the Industrial Revolution
Built on
- Spinning wheel of the Islamic world (al-Wasiti's Maqamat)1237
- spindle and whorl
- Chinese silk reeling wheel
Made possible
- Water-powered multi-spindle ramie spinning frame1313
- Spinning jennyc. 1764
- treadle spinning wheel