WORDS OF TECHNOLOGICAL VIRTUE: 'THE BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH' AND ANGLO-SAXON SWORD MANUFACTURE

摘要

Technology may be used for good or evil, but a belief in the intrinsic goodness of technology is a trait that Western culture seems to have inherited from the Middle Ages. Although there is some evidence for medieval suspicions of technology, the surviving sources suggest that the positive view far outweighed the negative. Lynn White, jr., noticed evidence for a link between technological superiority and virtuousness "in the Utrecht Psalter, illuminated near Rheims between 816 and 834.... On the right is the Psalmist being blessed by God.... On the left are the evil-doers.... The central interest of the picture lies in the sharpening of a sword in each camp, but by very different means. The iniquitous are content to employ an old-fashioned whetstone. The virtuous, in spectacular contrast are using the first known example of the rotary grindstone."