From magic to mechanism: Medieval automata, 1100–1550

"From Magic to Mechanism: Medieval Automata, 1100-1550," is an examination of the intellectual understandings and cultural meanings of medieval automata—apparently self-moving objects, most often in the form of humans and animals. This study traces the shift in the ways in which automata were (or were imagined to be) created from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, and how these shifts relate to developments in medieval natural philosophy and ideas about the relationship between humankind and nature. This project draws on the history of science, literary theory, art history, and historiography relating to courtly culture and the relations between the East and West. "From Magic to Mechanism" provides new insight into the legacy of medieval science in the early modern period and the relationship between intellectual developments and cultural artifacts.

I begin my study with an examination of the link between automata and the Islamic or Byzantine East, places which western Christians saw as repositories of scientific and natural knowledge, but also of moral weakness and religious taint. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, automata appeared much more frequently in texts as imagined constructions than they appear in real life. I examine the ways in which these imaginary automata were usually presented as the products of great learning, long study, and the mastery of occult knowledge, including the manipulation of demons, as opposed to artisanal, craft knowledge. The creators of fictional automata were often characterized as philosophers or wise men, who used celestial, demonic, or natural magic. I compare this depiction with the posthumous reputations of actual philosophers who were believed to have created automata using knowledge that was, at least in part, associated with the un-Christian "East." By the middle of the fourteenth century, in contrast, imaginary automata were less likely to be described as moved by demons or occult action than by hydraulics or pneumatics. More widespread understanding of mechanical principles led to developments in horological technology and engineering, and allowed for the fabrication of increasingly complex, real automata in religious and courtly settings.