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00:00:48,178 --> 00:00:50,477
Without long distance communication,

2
00:00:50,625 --> 00:00:52,636
the modern world
would not function as it does.

3
00:00:52,779 --> 00:00:53,427
That's obvious.

4
00:00:53,765 --> 00:00:55,384
Take this equipment,
for instance:

5
00:00:55,537 --> 00:00:56,800
It's a "receiving system"

6
00:00:56,930 --> 00:01:00,513
in contact with a navigation
satellites 600 miles up,

7
00:01:00,653 --> 00:01:02,626
circling the Earth
north-south,

8
00:01:02,770 --> 00:01:05,242
so that as the Earth
turns beneath it,

9
00:01:05,374 --> 00:01:07,413
the satellite covers
the entire globe.

10
00:01:07,549 --> 00:01:10,518
Now, as it comes over,
it broadcasts two things:

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1. It says where it is.

12
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2. And it sends out cotinuous
note at a very precise frequency.

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Now if you compare that note
to the sound say, of uhh...

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00:01:19,426 --> 00:01:20,426
the whistle of a train
as a train comes toward you

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00:01:19,561 --> 00:01:23,302
and goes away
the note rises and then falls,

16
00:01:23,430 --> 00:01:27,531
like this:
[Whihistling]

17
00:01:28,784 --> 00:01:34,056
Now, the way the note rises or falls,
depens on where you "hear it from".

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00:01:34,060 --> 00:01:36,390
if you knew exactly where
the train "was",

19
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then what you were listening
to would tell you where you were

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because you'd only hear it
"that way" in "that place".

21
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And that's what this equipment does.

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There's the receiver locking into
the signal from the satellite,

23
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now, the computer is working out
the one location on Earth

24
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where a satellite at that particular
point in space

25
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would give it
the noise it's hearing.

26
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Okay, here's where we are:

27
00:02:03,368 --> 00:02:08,072
North: 43 degrees,
42 minutes, 12.1 seconds

28
00:02:09,890 --> 00:02:14,225
East: 4 degrees,
43 minutes, 18.8 seconds

29
00:02:15,201 --> 00:02:19,076
Right, you check those numbers
out on a map, and this is
where it says we are:

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00:02:19,218 --> 00:02:21,789
south of France
near the town of Arles,

31
00:02:21,928 --> 00:02:24,492
at a position accurate
to within 30 feet,

32
00:02:24,626 --> 00:02:28,825
precisely there, where it says
there is an ancient aqueduct.

33
00:02:28,973 --> 00:02:31,090
There it is.

34
00:02:35,754 --> 00:02:39,444
Telecommunications can pinpoint
somebody, like that did,

35
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or because he picked up a telephone,
or because he's on a computer databank.

36
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We organize ourselves better
"because" of that.

37
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The question is,
how well organized will we become?

38
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Too well?

39
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To a certain extent,
the modern world would fall apart

40
00:02:58,964 --> 00:03:00,835
without that organizational ability,

41
00:03:00,976 --> 00:03:03,897
the new "community of nations"
that had grow up

42
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from the bits and pieces
of the old European empires

43
00:03:06,215 --> 00:03:09,212
the French, the English, the Dutch,
the Spanish, Portuguese

44
00:03:09,355 --> 00:03:12,616
is "held together"
because we can organize.

45
00:03:12,750 --> 00:03:16,123
But, what will
that organizational network,

46
00:03:16,272 --> 00:03:18,974
that communications network
do to us next?

47
00:03:21,394 --> 00:03:23,862
Well, the answer to that question
may lie in the past,

48
00:03:24,004 --> 00:03:26,052
because those kind of situations
happened before.

49
00:03:26,183 --> 00:03:31,341
The last time a world empire
fell apart
was about 1500 years ago.

50
00:03:31,491 --> 00:03:33,727
Then, the empire was roman.

51
00:03:34,614 --> 00:03:39,731
[dramatic]

52
00:03:40,422 --> 00:03:43,878
Now, this is the accepted view
of the fall of Rome, ...you know...

53
00:03:44,020 --> 00:03:46,855
rape and pillage,
destruction the way Holllywood does it.

54
00:03:47,007 --> 00:03:50,242
But what really the barbarians walk
all over the Romans.

55
00:03:50,386 --> 00:03:53,505
was something it won't take you 
a second to sympathize with.

56
00:03:53,656 --> 00:03:56,373
The taxes were too high,
to pay for the army

57
00:03:56,373 --> 00:03:57,724
that was losing all the battles,

58
00:03:57,871 --> 00:03:59,803
and a bunch of freeloaders
in government,

59
00:03:59,955 --> 00:04:02,837
and, of course, to pay
for thousands of civil servants.

60
00:04:02,988 --> 00:04:06,691
So, for the western romans,
better the barbarian you didn't know,

61
00:04:06,830 --> 00:04:10,528
than the tax collector you did,
so, the place fell apart.

62
00:04:11,268 --> 00:04:15,979
The imperial provinces cracked up
into small barbarian kingdoms,

63
00:04:16,123 --> 00:04:19,690
and all that big-time stuff you
have to have with imperial government

64
00:04:19,690 --> 00:04:22,426
you know, super highways,
theaters, aqueducts -

65
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were no longer worth the upkeep.

66
00:04:24,448 --> 00:04:26,942
That's why we're here, outside Arles.

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00:04:27,081 --> 00:04:30,721
This aqueduct fed the biggest
industrial complex in Europe with water

68
00:04:30,867 --> 00:04:34,547
to run the wheels of the great
grain mills at Barbegal.

69
00:04:34,690 --> 00:04:37,862
28 tons of flower a day,
a technological marvel,

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00:04:37,997 --> 00:04:39,893
perhaps to be lost forever
in the chaos.

71
00:04:41,105 --> 00:04:43,842
All through this period,
the so-called Dark Ages,

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the one organization that still
functioned internationally,

73
00:04:46,722 --> 00:04:49,380
still traveled the roman roads
when nobody else would,

74
00:04:49,522 --> 00:04:51,561
handling the king's local
and foreign affairs,

75
00:04:51,700 --> 00:04:54,738
because its members could still
read and write, was the church.

76
00:04:54,880 --> 00:04:57,663
It had a fully operational
network of communications

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00:04:57,813 --> 00:04:59,603
from bishop to bishop
throughout Europe,

78
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and that's
what held things together.

79
00:05:01,798 --> 00:05:05,508
The church then was like
our telecommunications now.

80
00:05:06,102 --> 00:05:09,510
And so, the knowledge
that the monk had accumulated
gradually spread,

81
00:05:09,662 --> 00:05:13,539
knowledge like how
Barbegal had worked with
the great water wheel,

82
00:05:13,702 --> 00:05:15,641
and the gearing system
that made it so efficient.

83
00:05:16,041 --> 00:05:20,293
And, in the end, by the middle ages,
look what they did with that wheel.

84
00:05:21,846 --> 00:05:23,857
Here's the wheel
being operated by water,

85
00:05:23,996 --> 00:05:27,812
and here's the gearing system turning
the horizontal movement vertical,

86
00:05:27,940 --> 00:05:30,197
then horizontal again,
and then vertical again

87
00:05:30,197 --> 00:05:32,347
in order to operate
the millstones.

88
00:05:32,497 --> 00:05:34,937
Here's another system
operating a trip hammer

89
00:05:35,080 --> 00:05:38,539
for bashing things like
mineral oil, or cloth, or
leather, to soften it up.

90
00:05:38,674 --> 00:05:41,216
Here's a system that operates
a similar trip hammer device,

91
00:05:41,363 --> 00:05:44,152
but it's to work a suction pump
for a water supply.

92
00:05:44,295 --> 00:05:47,033
The same system, again,
operating two levels,

93
00:05:47,169 --> 00:05:49,717
pressing on bellows
for a blast furnace,

94
00:05:49,857 --> 00:05:53,623
and finally over here,
a crank that turn a circular movement -

95
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it's a back and forward movement -
for a sawmill.

96
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Beautiful system.

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So, put yourself
in their position.

98
00:06:00,743 --> 00:06:01,649
The wars are all over.

99
00:06:01,796 --> 00:06:03,594
There's loads of
productive land everywhere.

100
00:06:03,738 --> 00:06:05,264
You've got water
coming out of your ears,

101
00:06:05,404 --> 00:06:07,742
and an amazing machine to use
to harness the power.

102
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What would you do?
Yes.

103
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You'd have yourself a medieval
industrial revolution.

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00:06:22,573 --> 00:06:25,564
The great thing
about these wheels was that
they were easy to make,

105
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and they'd work
almost anywhere.

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If you lived up a mountain
hollow a few trees out,

107
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and you had yourself
a wooden aqueduct.

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Horizontal wheels didn't need gears,

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00:06:39,648 --> 00:06:41,928
because they spun millstones
directly above.

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You could turn a vertical wheel
with water falling from above

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00:06:46,094 --> 00:06:47,819
or flowing past below in a river.

112
00:06:47,956 --> 00:06:51,237
And with gears, you could slow
down the effect of a fast stream,

113
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or speed up a slow one.

114
00:06:55,047 --> 00:06:57,953
Water power made you a lot of bread
in both senses.

115
00:06:59,542 --> 00:07:02,067
But the star of the show
was THIS, the cam.

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00:07:03,743 --> 00:07:06,525
With a cam, you can trip hammers
to pound things with,

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harder and faster
than any human being.

118
00:07:13,177 --> 00:07:16,876
And build yourself mills to work,
timber, oil, grain, leather,

119
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cloth, iron, beer, wire,
sugar, coin, you name it.

120
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It took a lot of energetic
monks to get it all together.

121
00:07:49,196 --> 00:07:52,431
now, they were energetic,
because in 1098,

122
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a bunch of benedictines,
fed up with the luxury
and the ritual,

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lit out for the wild country
and the simple life,

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and sir Benedict's original idea
that hard work
was good for the soul.

125
00:08:02,980 --> 00:08:05,953
But it was the way these cistercians
organized themselves

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00:08:06,110 --> 00:08:08,745
that turned them into
a medieval multinational,

127
00:08:08,891 --> 00:08:11,376
and gave Europe systems management.

128
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See, each monastery had to be
self sufficient in food,

129
00:08:17,130 --> 00:08:21,244
so they cut back on the praying,
and added six hours labor a day.

130
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They went into rearing animals,
clearing and draining land.

131
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They went out looking for
new plants they could grow,

132
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and they wrote each reports
on the latest developments,

133
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like this one:
'Growing vines on bad land,
hillside terraces.'

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They used all the technology
available:

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00:08:42,799 --> 00:08:44,957
wine presses, water mills,
iron foundries.

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A cistercian abbey was like
a corporation,

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With the special advantage
that at the end of
a hard day's business,

138
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they served the house wine
in the company canteen.

139
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Mind you, the food
wasn't that hot - no meat.

140
00:09:02,323 --> 00:09:04,060
They sold all that -
just vegetables.

141
00:09:04,218 --> 00:09:06,594
Nettle soup, a few roots, bread,

142
00:09:06,745 --> 00:09:09,984
and silence while you listened to
instructive selections

143
00:09:10,137 --> 00:09:13,936
from the corporation handbook
on getting spiritual and
managerial strategy right,

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00:09:14,093 --> 00:09:15,926
otherwise known as
the rule of st. Benedict.

145
00:09:16,680 --> 00:09:20,354
[Monk speaking in latin]

146
00:09:25,287 --> 00:09:26,907
Well, with this kind of
organization,

147
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how could you fail?

148
00:09:28,080 --> 00:09:31,506
Within a century, there were nearly
600 cistercian monasteries.

149
00:09:32,392 --> 00:09:36,001
[Monks singing]

150
00:09:41,141 --> 00:09:43,900
These monks did everything
with fanatical discipline.

151
00:09:44,044 --> 00:09:47,782
Nothing got in the way,
no fancy architecture,
or ritual, or color

152
00:09:47,928 --> 00:09:50,043
to distract from the corporate image
of efficiency.

153
00:09:50,188 --> 00:09:53,241
And, as their lands and their
management techniques developed,

154
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the news spread
to the world outside.

155
00:10:03,549 --> 00:10:07,152
Maybe their single
biggest success was their
sheep rearing techniques,

156
00:10:07,293 --> 00:10:10,817
because by the 13th century,
they were producing
the best wool in Europe.

157
00:10:13,303 --> 00:10:17,986
So, there were the europeans
of the 12th century

158
00:10:18,131 --> 00:10:20,725
all that amazing
water power technology,

159
00:10:20,865 --> 00:10:26,204
and the red hot industrial
management systems worked out
by the cistercians

160
00:10:26,355 --> 00:10:29,323
almost waiting
for something to happen,

161
00:10:29,472 --> 00:10:33,109
something that would
generate enough money

162
00:10:33,256 --> 00:10:35,814
to trigger the economy off
into high gear.

163
00:10:37,570 --> 00:10:40,039
And, when that something
happened,

164
00:10:40,191 --> 00:10:46,695
it was one of those examples of
the way change can come about
quite unexpectedly,

165
00:10:46,842 --> 00:10:52,197
because the two inventions
that were to trigger
the great leap forward

166
00:10:52,340 --> 00:10:55,156
could never have been
foreseen here in Europe,

167
00:10:55,303 --> 00:10:57,162
because they came from China.

168
00:10:57,961 --> 00:11:02,095
The arabs brought them to us,
and what a gift they were.

169
00:11:04,621 --> 00:11:07,706
The first one of those chinese gifts
was a new loom,

170
00:11:08,830 --> 00:11:10,576
and it immediately caused a problem.

171
00:11:10,754 --> 00:11:12,012
It speeded up weaving,

172
00:11:12,158 --> 00:11:15,744
because the thread lifting business
was now done by foot pedals,

173
00:11:15,894 --> 00:11:17,392
not by the weaver's
hands anymore.

174
00:11:17,926 --> 00:11:19,933
The new loom
produced cloth so fast,

175
00:11:20,095 --> 00:11:22,808
they ran into the problem
of not enough yarn.

176
00:11:22,960 --> 00:11:27,509
See, up to then, you spun yarn
in a way that hadn't changed
for centuries.

177
00:11:27,665 --> 00:11:29,605
You teased the fibers
out of the mass,

178
00:11:32,358 --> 00:11:33,432
It took hours.

179
00:11:33,905 --> 00:11:39,126
Then, in the 13th century,
the second chinese idea arrived
and solved the problem,

180
00:11:39,270 --> 00:11:42,300
because it produced yarn
fast enough to keep up
with the new loom.

181
00:11:42,455 --> 00:11:44,056
It was the spinning wheel.

182
00:11:45,365 --> 00:11:48,245
Early on, they didn't have much
more than the wheel and the spindle.

183
00:11:48,401 --> 00:11:49,554
Foot pedals came later.

184
00:11:49,708 --> 00:11:55,217
But, these two simple bits
of machinery fitted together
like bits of a jigsaw.

185
00:11:55,370 --> 00:12:00,311
And when they did,
the places they were used
got very, very rich.

186
00:12:07,131 --> 00:12:08,460
Places like Bruges.

187
00:12:30,387 --> 00:12:33,953
Bruges was one of the richest
of the medieval cities
built by the woolen trade.

188
00:12:34,124 --> 00:12:36,031
And, if you know
anybody called Draper,

189
00:12:36,189 --> 00:12:37,889
boy, were his ancestors well of.

190
00:12:38,297 --> 00:12:40,474
The cloth merchants
made so much loot,

191
00:12:40,640 --> 00:12:41,954
they didn't know
what to do with it.

192
00:12:42,139 --> 00:12:44,975
They build roads, canals,
guild halls, cathedrals.

193
00:12:45,140 --> 00:12:46,547
They even had their own laws.

194
00:12:46,723 --> 00:12:51,850
And in spite of all that, they
still had enough money left for
high technology music.

195
00:12:59,134 --> 00:13:01,991
Not just this kind of toy,
the kind you can still hear

196
00:13:02,183 --> 00:13:06,884
in the cathedral towers
all over Belgium,
where the carillon still plays.

197
00:13:10,544 --> 00:13:11,759
Recognize the mechanism?

198
00:13:11,945 --> 00:13:15,019
It's the cam again, tripping levers
that pulled wires

199
00:13:15,205 --> 00:13:16,704
that eventually
pulled the clapper

200
00:13:16,876 --> 00:13:19,611
on one or other of a number
of differently tuned bells.

201
00:13:21,325 --> 00:13:25,574
You set the cams in like pegs
to trip certain levels,
and ring certain bells.

202
00:13:28,742 --> 00:13:31,375
Now, the reason
all the good burgers had
all these extra goodies

203
00:13:31,529 --> 00:13:33,988
was because they'd found
a new market for their wool.

204
00:13:40,252 --> 00:13:43,247
See, all over Europe,
people now had surplus,

205
00:13:43,423 --> 00:13:45,643
and surplus always looks
for a ready market.

206
00:13:46,450 --> 00:13:48,985
South from Scandinavia,
and England, and Flanders

207
00:13:50,615 --> 00:13:50,615
came fur, and wool, and cloth.

208
00:13:51,600 --> 00:13:54,400
North through the Mediterranean,
through Genoa and Venice

209
00:13:54,587 --> 00:13:56,244
came silk and spices
from the far east.

210
00:13:56,466 --> 00:13:58,145
East from France and Spain

211
00:13:58,272 --> 00:14:00,352
came salt, wine,
and Cordovan leather.

212
00:14:00,524 --> 00:14:03,183
And from Russia,
fur, i suppose.

213
00:14:03,454 --> 00:14:06,316
Everybody's crossroads
lay in the country of champagne,

214
00:14:06,516 --> 00:14:07,632
at four little towns,

215
00:14:07,803 --> 00:14:12,879
where they set up
the first international markets
called the champagne fairs.

216
00:14:18,815 --> 00:14:22,639
The biggest fair was held at Troyes -
in those days, half the size of London.

217
00:14:22,818 --> 00:14:26,897
And merchants turned up,
because they got a special
safe conduct from the King,

218
00:14:27,048 --> 00:14:28,520
and armed guards along the roads,

219
00:14:28,658 --> 00:14:31,099
of course,
the town made a bit out of it, too.

220
00:14:31,276 --> 00:14:33,487
You had to pay a license
to set up your stall,

221
00:14:33,658 --> 00:14:36,318
and there was a sales tax.
Isn't there always?

222
00:14:36,478 --> 00:14:38,438
And you had to pay
to come in and out of town.

223
00:14:38,593 --> 00:14:40,689
Not that any of this
bothered the merchants.

224
00:14:40,883 --> 00:14:42,407
They just upped the price.

225
00:14:42,575 --> 00:14:44,443
Funny how some things don't change.

226
00:14:44,588 --> 00:14:49,352
Anyway, this international
money-making went like a house on fire,

227
00:14:49,505 --> 00:14:55,624
especially among those able to
turn up with the very, very
rare stuff like silk,

228
00:14:55,795 --> 00:14:57,843
where you really made a packet.

229
00:15:05,739 --> 00:15:10,593
Most of the really fancy stuff
was brought by the italians,
who practically ran the place.

230
00:15:10,758 --> 00:15:17,183
By 1275, there were no less
than 15 italian cities
who had consulates here in Troyes.

231
00:15:22,162 --> 00:15:24,648
The reason the italians
mattered so much

232
00:15:24,822 --> 00:15:29,072
was because when everybody
got back from a crusade
in the middle east,

233
00:15:29,256 --> 00:15:31,994
to their rather dull
northern European town,


234
00:15:32,181 --> 00:15:33,659
all they could talk about

235
00:15:33,829 --> 00:15:36,613
were the amazing luxuries
of the mysterious orient.

236
00:15:36,788 --> 00:15:40,787
With silk, cinnamon,
pepper, elephant tusks,

237
00:15:40,940 --> 00:15:45,089
things which the italians
were very well placed
to provide at the fairs.

238
00:15:45,257 --> 00:15:49,725
The venetians, the genoese
and the pisans all had

239
00:15:49,725 --> 00:15:51,579
trading colonies all
around the eastern mediterranean,

240
00:15:51,751 --> 00:15:54,149
where they could pick up stuff
from as far away as China.

241
00:15:55,116 --> 00:15:57,295
Well, there was so much
money to be made here,

242
00:15:57,464 --> 00:16:00,093
and, given the fact that the Genoese

243
00:16:00,093 --> 00:16:02,461
have always had a reputation
for being where the profits are,

244
00:16:02,633 --> 00:16:06,897
it's not surprising
that it was probably they
who came up with a way

245
00:16:07,059 --> 00:16:10,299
to keep the financial ball
rolling, so to speak, with this thing:

246
00:16:10,472 --> 00:16:14,559
it's an investment contract
called a commender.
This is a copy.

247
00:16:14,787 --> 00:16:19,596
But this particular one
was written on the
14th of november, 1244,

248
00:16:19,791 --> 00:16:22,667
and it's a contract between
a traveling merchant called

249
00:16:22,667 --> 00:16:27,159
John of the Parish of San Genesius,
and a draper called Otto.

250
00:16:27,357 --> 00:16:34,434
There's Otto, who is investing
81 genoese pounds as a share in a loan

251
00:16:34,434 --> 00:16:37,000
of purple cloth and gold silk
that John, the merchant

252
00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:38,447
is bringing up here
to the champagne fairs.

253
00:16:39,283 --> 00:16:40,271
The agreement goes on to say

254
00:16:40,271 --> 00:16:42,720
that John can use his discretion
as to where and when he trades,

255
00:16:42,883 --> 00:16:45,342
on condition that when
he gets back to Genoa

256
00:16:45,516 --> 00:16:48,185
Otto get detailed accounts
and his share of the profits.

257
00:16:48,316 --> 00:16:53,351
This tatty bit of paper,
which looks like
an everyday affair thing

258
00:16:53,351 --> 00:16:55,034
you write in the back
of an envelope practically,

259
00:16:55,468 --> 00:16:58,777
represents a really
fundamental innovation,

260
00:16:59,771 --> 00:17:02,023
because it brought everybody,
rich and poor,

261
00:17:02,188 --> 00:17:03,879
who had any spare cash,
in on the act.

262
00:17:04,050 --> 00:17:05,382
And that spread the risk,

263
00:17:05,548 --> 00:17:08,306
and that encouraged
more merchants to go
to more places.

264
00:17:08,481 --> 00:17:11,340
so, the champagne fairs and others,

265
00:17:11,477 --> 00:17:14,034
places like this, really boomed.

266
00:17:14,189 --> 00:17:16,855
[Bells toll]

267
00:17:20,903 --> 00:17:21,194
[Crowds cheering]

268
00:17:23,205 --> 00:17:25,552
It looked as if good times
were here to stay.

269
00:17:26,624 --> 00:17:27,969
[Crowds cheering]

270
00:17:29,848 --> 00:17:33,731
And then,  of the 14th century,
came a change in the weather:

271
00:17:33,890 --> 00:17:36,384
freezing winters and rainy summers.

272
00:17:36,543 --> 00:17:39,729
Bad harvests followed,
and then, famine.

273
00:17:39,910 --> 00:17:46,682
With little or no crop to sell
money became tight,
and the fairs began to fail.

274
00:17:46,855 --> 00:17:49,297
All over Europe,
people tightened their belts.

275
00:17:49,454 --> 00:17:54,105
And in this weakened condition,
they were virtually
defenseless against attack.

276
00:17:55,125 --> 00:17:59,572
And, when it came in 1347,
the effect was devastating,

277
00:17:59,735 --> 00:18:03,234
all the more so, because
they had no defense against the enemy.

278
00:18:03,388 --> 00:18:05,382
It was a flea.

279
00:18:11,929 --> 00:18:14,150
The flea carried the black death,

280
00:18:14,354 --> 00:18:16,829
and from when it arrived
in Europe in 1347,

281
00:18:17,015 --> 00:18:20,926
on board ship from the Crimea,
to when it receded
only four years later,

282
00:18:21,082 --> 00:18:23,412
it killed maybe 40 million people.

283
00:18:23,596 --> 00:18:26,820
200.000 villages
were totally wiped out.

284
00:18:26,996 --> 00:18:30,442
At the height of the plague,
there weren't enough living
to bury the dead.

285
00:18:30,852 --> 00:18:33,411
The flea sucked the disease
in rat's blood,

286
00:18:33,411 --> 00:18:36,326
and when the rat died,
it jumped onto people and bit them.

287
00:18:36,502 --> 00:18:38,334
The effect was appalling,

288
00:18:38,509 --> 00:18:40,961
from fever, to abscesses
in the groin and armpits,

289
00:18:41,152 --> 00:18:43,105
to death inside 24 hours.

290
00:18:43,261 --> 00:18:45,855
Black pustules spread
all over the body,

291
00:18:45,981 --> 00:18:47,575
which was why they called it
the black death.

292
00:18:47,709 --> 00:18:50,163
The effects were
particularly bad in the towns,

293
00:18:50,327 --> 00:18:52,665
packed with people
busy making all that money.

294
00:18:52,822 --> 00:18:55,136
The plague ripped through them.

295
00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:05,577
And a new face appeared
in all the pictures,

296
00:19:05,740 --> 00:19:08,688
and all those with itchy feet,
a new kind of dance

297
00:19:08,869 --> 00:19:10,984
you could unexpectedly
find yourself swinging to:

298
00:19:11,142 --> 00:19:12,528
the dance of death.

299
00:19:23,561 --> 00:19:26,276
One grimly enjoyable thing
came out of it all.

300
00:19:26,439 --> 00:19:29,073
The people who died
left their money to
the people who lived.

301
00:19:30,038 --> 00:19:32,754
All they could hope for
was that they'd survive
to enjoy it.

302
00:19:36,776 --> 00:19:38,827
Well, no nightmare lasts forever.

303
00:19:38,959 --> 00:19:41,523
By 1351, the worst was over.

304
00:19:41,681 --> 00:19:44,024
[Bells ringing]

305
00:19:48,274 --> 00:19:51,051
When it was all over,
the survivors went insane,

306
00:19:51,228 --> 00:19:52,941
trying to forget the horros
they'd lived through.

307
00:19:53,113 --> 00:19:57,233
Life everywhere in Europe
became one long, hysterical shindig.

308
00:20:02,857 --> 00:20:04,649
People spent the money
the plague had given them

309
00:20:04,822 --> 00:20:06,872
on the wildest outfit
they could buy.

310
00:20:06,872 --> 00:20:10,785
If you were rich, silk
embroidered with gold wire
was the thing.

311
00:20:10,785 --> 00:20:14,630
The middle classes went
into expensive little numbers
in wool and velvet.

312
00:20:14,817 --> 00:20:15,652
And the peasants?

313
00:20:15,816 --> 00:20:18,016
Well, thanks
to that loom way back

314
00:20:18,180 --> 00:20:21,807
and the fact
that flax is cheap to grow,
linen was their thing.

315
00:20:21,978 --> 00:20:23,561
Well, it was
everybody's thing, really.

316
00:20:23,733 --> 00:20:26,295
In hats, and shirts, and bed sheets,

317
00:20:26,474 --> 00:20:31,670
and especially,
if you take an indiscreet look
up the nearest girl's skirt,

318
00:20:31,843 --> 00:20:35,942
that underwear -
and just this once -

319
00:20:36,141 --> 00:20:38,293
that's the great historical
trigger of change.

320
00:20:38,470 --> 00:20:39,381
What you're looking at now.

321
00:20:39,573 --> 00:20:41,748
Yes, frilly knickers.

322
00:20:52,948 --> 00:20:57,810
This is the first result
of the great 14th century
bed linen and underwear boom.

323
00:20:57,979 --> 00:21:01,164
The guy who used to go
around collecting bones for fertilizer,

324
00:21:01,374 --> 00:21:03,355
now started collecting linen, too.

325
00:21:03,534 --> 00:21:05,459
He became a rag and bone man.

326
00:21:05,631 --> 00:21:06,689
Why?

327
00:21:06,835 --> 00:21:09,552
Well, that's the second result
of everybody wearing linen,

328
00:21:09,751 --> 00:21:12,397
because when they wore it out,
they threw it away.

329
00:21:12,577 --> 00:21:15,072
So, there was this great
pile of linen rag.

330
00:21:15,255 --> 00:21:17,420
And guess who went bananas
about that?

331
00:21:19,922 --> 00:21:21,317
Okay, let me give you a clue.

332
00:21:21,489 --> 00:21:24,379
The first thing that happens
to the linen in this process

333
00:21:24,552 --> 00:21:27,075
it that they take it
and rip it against a knife

334
00:21:27,237 --> 00:21:28,629
to make the rags even smaller.

335
00:21:28,781 --> 00:21:33,305
And what is shredded linen rag
absolutely perfect for making?

336
00:21:33,480 --> 00:21:35,467
Yes, paper.

337
00:21:37,906 --> 00:21:41,521
So, the paper makers got an
unexpected linen rag bonanza,

338
00:21:41,707 --> 00:21:45,863
pounded by hammers,
tripped again by the cam.

339
00:21:47,152 --> 00:21:48,450
[Hammers pounding]

340
00:21:52,433 --> 00:21:55,289
You bash the rag in water
and gum for 48 hours,

341
00:21:55,471 --> 00:21:57,421
and the sludge you get
is paper pulp.

342
00:21:57,610 --> 00:22:01,147
Slosh that onto a wire mesh frame,
count five,

343
00:22:01,342 --> 00:22:02,948
and you've got yourself
a sheet of paper.

344
00:22:03,119 --> 00:22:04,726
Well, a sheet
of very wet paper.

345
00:22:04,892 --> 00:22:08,503
So, the next thing you do,
no prizes, is dry it.

346
00:22:08,653 --> 00:22:11,480
Funny coincidence,
the wire mesh frame.

347
00:22:11,644 --> 00:22:12,995
a lot of wire makers about,

348
00:22:13,165 --> 00:22:15,936
making all that gold embroidery
people had started wearing.

349
00:22:16,107 --> 00:22:17,002
Anyway, the paper -

350
00:22:17,166 --> 00:22:20,047
you lay each sheet between
layers of wool and cloth,

351
00:22:20,182 --> 00:22:21,221
to soak up the moisture.

352
00:22:21,402 --> 00:22:23,729
It looks more like
a sheet of porridge, doesn't it?

353
00:22:28,621 --> 00:22:31,541
And, when you've got a big
pile of wool and wet paper
sandwiches stacked up,

354
00:22:31,703 --> 00:22:32,729
you called the lads.

355
00:22:36,623 --> 00:22:39,298
All you do now is
squeeze the pile in a press

356
00:22:39,489 --> 00:22:41,600
until you've got
nearly all the water
out of the paper,

357
00:22:41,600 --> 00:22:44,911
when you hang it up to dry,
and that's all there is to it.

358
00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:48,183
Funny how it all comes together
here in the paper mill.

359
00:22:48,365 --> 00:22:51,554
The water power to run
the cams tripping the hammers
to make the pulp,

360
00:22:51,727 --> 00:22:55,289
the wine press cum linen press
to squeeze out the water,

361
00:22:55,470 --> 00:22:57,430
and thanks
to the automatic loom,

362
00:22:57,584 --> 00:22:59,050
the linen that makes the pulp.

363
00:22:59,210 --> 00:23:04,582
And, because of all that free linen,
suddenly, the cheapest thing
around was paper.

364
00:23:18,673 --> 00:23:21,441
This is one of
those moments in history

365
00:23:21,607 --> 00:23:23,771
when things come together
like a jigsaw,

366
00:23:23,925 --> 00:23:26,692
to produce something entirely new.

367
00:23:26,847 --> 00:23:28,648
Look at the bits we've got so far.

368
00:23:28,796 --> 00:23:31,708
Because of the linen,
we have cheap paper.

369
00:23:31,893 --> 00:23:33,936
The black death is just over,

370
00:23:34,113 --> 00:23:38,010
so, the economy of Europe
is on the up and up.

371
00:23:38,010 --> 00:23:40,226
Administration is expanding.

372
00:23:40,397 --> 00:23:42,695
There are many more clerks
needed to do all the paperwork.

373
00:23:42,854 --> 00:23:45,672
However, the black death
has killed half the clerks off,

374
00:23:45,841 --> 00:23:48,267
So, they cost a great deal.

375
00:23:48,446 --> 00:23:53,653
So, we have extremely cheap paper,
and the cost of the man who
writes it has gone up astronomically.

376
00:23:53,858 --> 00:23:56,660
What do you need
to solve that problem?

377
00:23:56,848 --> 00:23:59,440
Yes, printing.

378
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:01,260
And that's exactly what happened.

379
00:24:01,432 --> 00:24:04,878
But, before the final
bit of the jigsaw could
be put into place,

380
00:24:05,074 --> 00:24:07,154
you needed one particular skill,

381
00:24:07,313 --> 00:24:09,817
the kind of skill,
say, a goldsmith has.

382
00:24:09,997 --> 00:24:12,854
If you'll come upstairs with me,
I'll show you what I mean.

383
00:24:17,398 --> 00:24:21,178
You see, printing had
been around for centuries,

384
00:24:21,364 --> 00:24:23,068
in the case of the chinese,
for 1.000 years.

385
00:24:23,225 --> 00:24:25,291
But it was printing
with blocks like this.

386
00:24:26,598 --> 00:24:29,741
The trouble was those blocks,
being made of wood,

387
00:24:29,888 --> 00:24:32,667
would tend to wear down,
and in any case, they only
did the one thing.

388
00:24:32,826 --> 00:24:36,646
Now, what our goldsmith friend did -

389
00:24:36,828 --> 00:24:38,574
and by the way,
his name was Johann Gutenberg,

390
00:24:38,734 --> 00:24:41,689
and he lived in Mainz
in Germany in 1450's.

391
00:24:41,838 --> 00:24:44,493
He used his expertise
with precious metal.

392
00:24:44,677 --> 00:24:47,544
He knew what that was,
the hallmark,

393
00:24:47,748 --> 00:24:49,868
and he knew that the hallmark
was made with a punch.

394
00:24:50,039 --> 00:24:53,659
So he took a punch,
and he carved a letter
on the end of it,

395
00:24:53,866 --> 00:24:57,243
and using the punch,
he punched that letter
into a soft copper bar.

396
00:24:57,441 --> 00:25:03,708
Then, he designed
a mold in two bits,
so that it comes apart.

397
00:25:03,883 --> 00:25:05,293
You put the mold
together like that,

398
00:25:05,462 --> 00:25:09,069
you slide into the mold
the letter you want to make,
any letter -

399
00:25:09,256 --> 00:25:14,521
close it tight with a big spring -
turn it over,

400
00:25:14,681 --> 00:25:17,586
and then, very, very carefully,

401
00:25:17,753 --> 00:25:24,709
you put molten lead alloy
into the mold like this.

402
00:25:26,583 --> 00:25:28,076
Leave it for just a few seconds,

403
00:25:28,237 --> 00:25:30,613
and then, you break the mold -

404
00:25:30,827 --> 00:25:40,323
and the letter is there,
ready to print with.

405
00:25:41,460 --> 00:25:44,720
That letter 'A'
will go anywhere on the page
you want to put a letter 'A'.

406
00:25:44,720 --> 00:25:46,440
It will go in the place
of any other letter 'A'.

407
00:25:46,648 --> 00:25:49,403
The mold makes all the letters,
so they're all the same size.

408
00:25:49,564 --> 00:25:53,030
It makes all the spaces,
so, they're all the same size,
so, the printing is uniform.

409
00:25:53,191 --> 00:25:55,545
But it's the interchangeability
of the letters

410
00:25:55,730 --> 00:25:57,939
that is at the heart
of Gutenberg's invention.

411
00:26:00,053 --> 00:26:02,715
If you think about it,
it was a good deal easier

412
00:26:02,716 --> 00:26:05,562
for a european to do
than, say, for a chinese,

413
00:26:05,715 --> 00:26:08,999
because the chinese language
has thousands of characters,

414
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:10,941
and if you made every one of them,

415
00:26:10,941 --> 00:26:14,916
you'd need a space as big as
this printing room in Antwerp
just to store them in,

416
00:26:15,090 --> 00:26:17,472
whereas the latin alphabet
of the time

417
00:26:17,632 --> 00:26:19,926
only had 23 letters to be made.

418
00:26:20,864 --> 00:26:24,051
As for the printing itself,
well, that was a bit of a cinch.

419
00:26:24,226 --> 00:26:28,997
This press was just an adaptation
of a linen press

420
00:26:29,187 --> 00:26:31,301
that had been around for centuries,

421
00:26:31,301 --> 00:26:35,028
as had the ink and the paper.

422
00:26:36,484 --> 00:26:42,590
This is the first dated piece
of printing we know of.

423
00:26:42,768 --> 00:26:45,866
There may be earlier ones,
but this one has a date on it.

424
00:26:46,041 --> 00:26:49,141
And the people who
did it were very proud of
what they'd done.

425
00:26:49,141 --> 00:26:51,505
It's the introduction
to a book of psalms,

426
00:26:51,505 --> 00:26:58,238
and the text says,
"This work adorned with the
magnificence of capital letters

427
00:26:58,404 --> 00:27:02,164
was fashioned with
the use of a mechanical
process for printing,

428
00:27:02,348 --> 00:27:04,482
and making letters
without the use of a pen."

429
00:27:05,165 --> 00:27:07,652
And then, it says the name of
the two men who were so proud
what they'd done:

430
00:27:07,652 --> 00:27:11,481
Johann Faust
and Peter Schoffer.

431
00:27:11,655 --> 00:27:16,220
And then, the date,
14th of August, 1457.

432
00:27:22,904 --> 00:27:25,464
The coming of the book
changed everything.

433
00:27:25,665 --> 00:27:29,600
Perhaps the most obvious
change was the appearance of the bookshop,

434
00:27:29,822 --> 00:27:31,675
where you could come in
and buy anything you wanted to read.

435
00:27:32,498 --> 00:27:35,572
Knowledge was no longer
the private property of the priest,

436
00:27:35,759 --> 00:27:37,747
or the prince, or the scholar.

437
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:41,959
If you could pay,
and you could read,
it was all yours.

438
00:27:43,822 --> 00:27:46,440
The new books also
standardized spelling

439
00:27:46,441 --> 00:27:50,775
they carried an author's name,
and they encouraged accuracy,

440
00:27:50,775 --> 00:27:53,168
because the books
could be widely read by people

441
00:27:53,168 --> 00:27:55,501
who knew more about the subject,
perhaps, than the author himself.

442
00:27:55,663 --> 00:27:58,489
But perhaps the most fundamental
of all,

443
00:27:58,489 --> 00:28:01,229
the new books gave birth
to the specialization,

444
00:28:01,229 --> 00:28:04,078
that is the blessing
or the bane,

445
00:28:04,078 --> 00:28:06,672
depending on your point of view,
of our modern world.

446
00:28:06,839 --> 00:28:09,304
Because, you see,
the architects and the engineers

447
00:28:09,304 --> 00:28:10,742
started to write about what they knew,

448
00:28:10,742 --> 00:28:13,829
in terms that only their
co-professionals would understand.

449
00:28:14,946 --> 00:28:17,399
The generation that first
read these new books,

450
00:28:17,577 --> 00:28:20,143
could as easily turn its hand
to the lute,

451
00:28:20,302 --> 00:28:22,454
or the sword,
or the architect's drawing.

452
00:28:23,461 --> 00:28:27,197
And because of printing,
they were the last generation
to be able to do that.

453
00:28:28,321 --> 00:28:30,031
The coming of the books
must have seemed

454
00:28:30,031 --> 00:28:32,258
as if it was going to turn
the world upside down

455
00:28:32,442 --> 00:28:35,848
in the way it spread
and democratized knowledge.

456
00:28:36,723 --> 00:28:40,406
And, one of the few men
responsible for that spread

457
00:28:40,573 --> 00:28:43,190
was an italian called
Aldus Manutius.

458
00:28:43,362 --> 00:28:45,813
Now, he realized that
what people needed and wanted

459
00:28:45,990 --> 00:28:49,710
was cheap standard books
that they could carry with them

460
00:28:49,844 --> 00:28:51,353
anywhere they went
in their saddlebags,

461
00:28:51,499 --> 00:28:54,188
and so, he produced the world's
first pocket edition.

462
00:28:54,344 --> 00:28:57,028
And he did so in what
by 1500,

463
00:28:57,028 --> 00:29:00,309
was the printing capital
of Europe: Venice.

464
00:29:18,831 --> 00:29:20,169
They used to blow
their own trumpet a lot,

465
00:29:20,169 --> 00:29:21,799
the 16th century venetians.

466
00:29:21,979 --> 00:29:23,603
Well, you couldn't blame them.

467
00:29:23,774 --> 00:29:27,062
There were, after all,
more millioniare
per square inch here

468
00:29:27,062 --> 00:29:28,175
than anywhere else
in Europe.

469
00:29:28,353 --> 00:29:31,078
Biggest navy, biggest
overseas commercial empire,

470
00:29:31,261 --> 00:29:32,623
biggest bank balance.

471
00:29:32,786 --> 00:29:34,550
Venice was queen
of the seas.

472
00:29:34,719 --> 00:29:37,316
Of course, there was
nowhere else she could have
been queen of -

473
00:29:37,504 --> 00:29:39,094
not much land in Venice.

474
00:29:42,827 --> 00:29:45,027
She was a city
full of businessmen,

475
00:29:45,197 --> 00:29:47,383
and because of her connections
with Constantinople,

476
00:29:47,383 --> 00:29:48,891
she was also full of greeks,

477
00:29:49,064 --> 00:29:52,518
refugees from when
the turks invaded it in 1453.

478
00:29:52,713 --> 00:29:54,494
And it was
the greek connection

479
00:29:54,691 --> 00:29:57,395
that gave the printer
Aldus Manutius his big chance.

480
00:30:04,757 --> 00:30:08,185
Because Aldus got the greek refugees
to work for him,

481
00:30:08,185 --> 00:30:10,458
and because of that,
his books gave the world

482
00:30:10,458 --> 00:30:13,321
a taste for the knowledge
and the style of ancient Greece.

483
00:30:15,851 --> 00:30:18,325
He turned out dictionaries
and grammar books first,

484
00:30:18,325 --> 00:30:21,748
so his customers could learn greek,
and the, of course,
they could move on

485
00:30:21,748 --> 00:31:07,029
to reading the greek books
he could sell them.

486
00:30:23,827 --> 00:30:24,753
No fool he.

487
00:30:24,905 --> 00:30:29,244
Well, the new books
got everybody turned on
to matters ancient.

488
00:30:29,411 --> 00:30:32,828
One of the earliest
bestsellers was a roman thing
on architecture

489
00:30:32,978 --> 00:30:36,130
that got people into big
prestige building projects.

490
00:30:36,314 --> 00:30:38,135
People like Michelangelo.

491
00:30:47,653 --> 00:30:50,291
Thanks to Aldus, and the venetian
printing presses,

492
00:30:50,291 --> 00:30:53,165
in 1500, only 50 years
after Gutenberg,

493
00:30:53,165 --> 00:30:55,846
there were no less than
20 million books in existence.

494
00:30:56,852 --> 00:30:59,153
In 1515, Aldus died.

495
00:31:10,408 --> 00:31:13,798
Aldus Manutius was laid
to rest with his books
heaped around him

496
00:31:14,052 --> 00:31:15,950
as a mark of respect
for what he'd done,

497
00:31:16,122 --> 00:31:19,353
which was to print
every major greek classic
in existence,

498
00:31:19,518 --> 00:31:22,452
and invent a new
kind of letter type for
his pocket editions.

499
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:25,475
It was the kind of print
that would pack a lot
into a tight space.

500
00:31:25,622 --> 00:31:27,011
<i>We call it italic.</i>

501
00:31:27,185 --> 00:31:29,971
So now, the world could start
worrying about something

502
00:31:29,971 --> 00:31:31,420
it had never
had to worry about before:

503
00:31:32,323 --> 00:31:33,405
the small print.

504
00:31:46,232 --> 00:31:47,840
But above all,
thanks to books,

505
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:49,853
the world learned
about greek science.

506
00:31:51,401 --> 00:31:52,155
This was one of the books

507
00:31:52,155 --> 00:31:53,530
that made the greatest impact
of all

508
00:31:53,530 --> 00:31:55,288
by the greek hero
of Alexandria.

509
00:31:55,442 --> 00:31:59,145
It details how to make
machines using the natural forces

510
00:31:59,145 --> 00:32:02,693
of air, or steam, or water
as power sources.

511
00:32:02,693 --> 00:32:04,745
It's reallly talking
about complicated toys,

512
00:32:04,745 --> 00:32:07,731
but, this book
and others like it,

513
00:32:08,074 --> 00:32:10,652
put the world of greek
science and the ancient past

514
00:32:10,652 --> 00:32:13,031
into the hand of the armorers,
and the architects,

515
00:32:13,031 --> 00:32:17,471
and the engineers working
for the princes and bishops
of 16th century Italy.

516
00:32:17,629 --> 00:32:21,041
And, look how the armorers
immediately begin to work
in the antique style.

517
00:32:21,201 --> 00:32:22,871
on this tapestry,
this bunch of soldiers,

518
00:32:22,871 --> 00:32:24,395
they're using
the latest in handguns,

519
00:32:24,575 --> 00:32:28,274
and yet, they themselves
are dressed like
Caesar's centurions.

520
00:32:29,105 --> 00:32:32,406
As the wealth of the
mysterious east and west

521
00:32:32,550 --> 00:32:35,882
began to pour into Europe,
and the population began to soar,

522
00:32:36,020 --> 00:32:38,933
the princes also began to
embellish their growing cities

523
00:32:39,082 --> 00:32:41,235
with elaborate
water supply systems,

524
00:32:41,402 --> 00:32:44,308
operated by the same
mechanical devices

525
00:32:44,437 --> 00:32:46,632
as were shown
in the Greek and Roman books.

526
00:32:46,765 --> 00:32:50,790
And, in their homes,
the aristocrats would hang
tapestries like this one,

527
00:32:50,914 --> 00:32:52,850
containing scenes of
fantastic inventions

528
00:32:52,983 --> 00:32:56,470
like the flying throne
being carried into the sky
by winged beasts

529
00:32:56,602 --> 00:32:59,429
that can never quite make the
piece of ham above their heads,

530
00:32:59,572 --> 00:33:02,381
or, the mythical story of
Alexander the Great

531
00:33:02,518 --> 00:33:05,533
exploring the oceans
on board a submarine.

532
00:33:05,682 --> 00:33:08,001
What the princes wanted
were things,

533
00:33:08,128 --> 00:33:11,128
toys that would show off
their wealth and position

534
00:33:11,263 --> 00:33:13,888
in a way that would amuse
and impress their friends.

535
00:33:14,027 --> 00:33:18,048
And now, their armorers
and their engineers
had the techniques to do it.

536
00:33:18,176 --> 00:33:21,186
One of the most famous
armorers of the time,

537
00:33:21,318 --> 00:33:23,097
a fella called
Bartolomeo Campi,

538
00:33:23,238 --> 00:33:26,600
switched, for example,
from making this rather
complex armor,

539
00:33:26,737 --> 00:33:29,232
a gauntlet,
to making things like this.

540
00:33:29,379 --> 00:33:33,671
It's a clockwork tortoise
carrying the god Poseidon,

541
00:33:33,801 --> 00:33:35,695
and it was used
at the dinner table,

542
00:33:35,823 --> 00:33:41,185
because they would set it down,
and it would take toothpicks

543
00:33:41,330 --> 00:33:43,126
from one guest to another
around the table.

544
00:33:44,206 --> 00:33:47,829
The vogue for automatic
machines spread everywhere.

545
00:33:47,967 --> 00:33:49,787
And with the help of
the hydraulic engineers,

546
00:33:49,930 --> 00:33:53,486
it spread in a form
that would bring people
hundreds of miles

547
00:33:53,611 --> 00:33:54,720
just to take a look.

548
00:34:05,543 --> 00:34:07,858
This is one of the best ones
still working.

549
00:34:07,997 --> 00:34:10,315
The castle of Hellbrunn
outside Salzburg,

550
00:34:10,463 --> 00:34:13,946
built in 1615, so the prince,
archbishop and his guests,

551
00:34:14,077 --> 00:34:16,222
could have a little
water-powered fun and games.

552
00:34:17,368 --> 00:34:19,307
The whole place
works on water turbines

553
00:34:19,450 --> 00:34:21,755
running the familiar
cylinder with pegs in it,

554
00:34:21,755 --> 00:34:23,921
operating 16th-Century Disneyland.

555
00:34:32,285 --> 00:34:35,103
The name of the game
was to get the most
unexpected things

556
00:34:35,103 --> 00:34:37,802
to spurt water
all over the suckers
who'd come to dinner

557
00:34:37,947 --> 00:34:40,713
Everybody would laugh, Ha-Ha,
because the host was a prince.

558
00:34:41,024 --> 00:34:43,855
And besides, you got
a free meal out of it all.

559
00:34:43,855 --> 00:34:45,831
Well, that's not all
you got out of it.

560
00:34:58,010 --> 00:35:00,353
Of course, Ha-Ha,
you couldn't get up
until the prince did,

561
00:35:00,353 --> 00:35:03,137
and, of course, Ha-Ha,
he didn't need to.

562
00:35:05,825 --> 00:35:08,618
The craze for automatic
machinery that spread
through Europe,

563
00:35:08,618 --> 00:35:09,951
came here, too,
of course.

564
00:35:10,091 --> 00:35:13,979
Here, the peg cylinders
run an entire village
of mechanical puppets

565
00:35:14,118 --> 00:35:17,375
working like
the carrion in Belgium did,
on wires and levers.

566
00:35:17,507 --> 00:35:19,543
The whole thing
is only 18 feet wide,

567
00:35:19,543 --> 00:35:22,629
and they packed 113
little people into that space.

568
00:35:25,655 --> 00:35:28,143
Over the top of all this
water-powered wizardry,

569
00:35:28,143 --> 00:35:30,581
there was a mechanical organ
to drown the machinery noise.

570
00:35:30,716 --> 00:35:35,528
And, as you left,
the prince woulp politely
raise his hat.

571
00:35:50,323 --> 00:35:52,878
Mechanical organs and things
might have stayed just that,

572
00:35:52,878 --> 00:35:55,342
if it hadn't been for
another craze sweeping Europe:

573
00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:58,349
a mania for chinese fashions,
particulary in dress.

574
00:35:58,488 --> 00:36:00,342
When, at the beginning
of the 18th century,

575
00:36:00,342 --> 00:36:02,887
very complicated patterns
became all the rage,

576
00:36:03,029 --> 00:36:06,375
especially in France,
and particularly in silk.

577
00:36:08,023 --> 00:36:10,264
By the beginning
of the 18th century,

578
00:36:10,414 --> 00:36:14,073
the demand for this
kind of pattern was giving
the silk weavers of Lyon

579
00:36:14,210 --> 00:36:16,185
a real headache,
because silk weaving

580
00:36:16,185 --> 00:36:18,943
isn't just the simple
over and under business
of ordinary weaving.

581
00:36:18,943 --> 00:36:20,950
It's much more complicated.
I mean, take a look at this.

582
00:36:20,950 --> 00:36:23,852
This already complicated
pattern, if you follow
it across,

583
00:36:23,852 --> 00:36:28,988
there you see suddenly
for about five threads
that particular orange.

584
00:36:29,392 --> 00:36:32,437
So it comes in, say,
at thread 530,

585
00:36:32,437 --> 00:36:34,859
and it disappears again
at thread 535.

586
00:36:34,859 --> 00:36:38,279
Now, if you get
that one thread wrong,
you've blown it.

587
00:36:39,375 --> 00:36:43,033
Let me show you on this little
model loom here, how they
cracked that problem.

588
00:36:43,454 --> 00:36:47,858
Every thread runs through
a tiny ring on a cord,

589
00:36:47,989 --> 00:36:49,875
so that if you want to
lift the thread,

590
00:36:50,014 --> 00:36:51,985
you pull the cord up,
the thread lifts,

591
00:36:51,985 --> 00:36:54,615
and in this case,
the crossing thread
would go underneath,

592
00:36:54,615 --> 00:36:56,400
and in the final pattern,
not be seen.

593
00:36:56,536 --> 00:36:59,647
Now, if you tie together
all the cords

594
00:36:59,786 --> 00:37:03,018
for all the threads
that you want to lift
into one bunch,

595
00:37:03,018 --> 00:37:04,935
then, one pull
will lift them all like this.

596
00:37:10,396 --> 00:37:12,768
Now, in our complicated pattern,

597
00:37:12,768 --> 00:37:14,658
there would be a lot
of those cords to pull,

598
00:37:14,811 --> 00:37:17,417
and the children,
whose job it was to do it,
would get tired,

599
00:37:17,417 --> 00:37:19,504
and pull the wrong cords,
and maybe ruin a week's work.

600
00:37:19,638 --> 00:37:24,458
So, in 1725,
a lyonese weaver called
Basile Bouchon

601
00:37:24,458 --> 00:37:27,458
solved the problem,
because his father
was an organ builder,

602
00:37:28,328 --> 00:37:31,634
Because his father used these
things for his automated organs.

603
00:37:32,222 --> 00:37:33,161
Remember the organs?

604
00:37:33,301 --> 00:37:36,159
He used the same cylinder
with pigs in it to make music,

605
00:37:36,304 --> 00:37:40,061
as they'd used in Belgium to
work their bell-ringing
carrion.

606
00:37:40,211 --> 00:37:42,901
And they'd originally
got that idea from the cams

607
00:37:42,901 --> 00:37:44,602
set onto the shaft
of the paper mill.

608
00:37:45,329 --> 00:37:47,644
Bouchon saw
that the piece of paper

609
00:37:47,789 --> 00:37:49,053
that you give to the carpenter

610
00:37:49,053 --> 00:37:51,066
to tell him where to put
these pegs on the cylinder

611
00:37:51,066 --> 00:37:55,010
was, in fact, a kind of
control mechanism.

612
00:37:55,150 --> 00:37:56,548
So he put it on a loom.

613
00:37:57,395 --> 00:38:02,379
Look, each control cord
comes over and down here.

614
00:38:02,847 --> 00:38:07,341
And whether or not it's moved
depends on this horizontal
needle here.

615
00:38:11,664 --> 00:38:13,289
Okay, now for the control
mechanism part.

616
00:38:14,459 --> 00:38:18,921
What Basile Bouchon did was
put a roll of perforated paper

617
00:38:20,129 --> 00:38:21,930
up against the needle,
the cross needles.

618
00:38:22,073 --> 00:38:24,754
And, where there was a hole,
the needles stayed put,

619
00:38:24,754 --> 00:38:25,847
because they came
through the holes.

620
00:38:25,847 --> 00:38:27,081
And where
there was not a hole,

621
00:38:27,081 --> 00:38:29,225
as in the case of
these four needles here,

622
00:38:29,225 --> 00:38:31,627
the paper pushed
the cross needles

623
00:38:32,158 --> 00:38:34,232
so that all four needles
and all their threads

624
00:38:34,232 --> 00:38:36,257
operated simultaneously
like this.

625
00:38:42,003 --> 00:38:43,442
And, to change the pattern,

626
00:38:43,442 --> 00:38:45,273
you simple moved the paper
along one row of holes.

627
00:38:45,420 --> 00:38:49,449
But the paper tore,
and the weavers placed it
in the wrong position.

628
00:38:49,873 --> 00:38:53,453
So, around 1740,
another weaver from Lyon
called Falcone,

629
00:38:54,073 --> 00:38:55,171
came up with this idea.

630
00:38:55,311 --> 00:38:57,500
He put each pattern
on a separate card.

631
00:38:57,646 --> 00:38:59,359
Now, the card
was more durable,

632
00:38:59,497 --> 00:39:02,179
And you couldn't really mistake
how you should position it.

633
00:39:02,331 --> 00:39:06,590
Around 1750, one of the great
machine makers of all time,

634
00:39:06,590 --> 00:39:10,072
a man called Vaucanson,
who was also the inspector
for silk factories,

635
00:39:10,473 --> 00:39:11,653
automated
the entire process.

636
00:39:11,804 --> 00:39:14,790
He put the perforated role
around a cylinder,

637
00:39:14,790 --> 00:39:16,470
and mounted the cylinder
on a chassis

638
00:39:16,470 --> 00:39:18,770
which went backwards
and forwards on
water-power like this.

639
00:39:18,910 --> 00:39:22,726
And, as you did so,
it clicked forward
one row of holes,

640
00:39:22,726 --> 00:39:24,288
automatically each time.

641
00:39:25,176 --> 00:39:29,083
Now, that was limited
to how much paper you could
put around the cylinder,

642
00:39:29,083 --> 00:39:30,616
and it put men out of work.

643
00:39:30,759 --> 00:39:33,645
So, for nearly 50 years,
this loom

644
00:39:33,645 --> 00:39:37,605
moldered, unnoticed here in the
Paris museum of arts and crafts.

645
00:39:37,754 --> 00:39:40,253
Until, just after 1800,
another weaver,

646
00:39:40,253 --> 00:39:42,541
who happened to be here
at the time, was asked to
put it together.

647
00:39:42,697 --> 00:39:44,751
And in doing so,
he made a few changes.

648
00:39:45,272 --> 00:39:48,608
He put Vaucanson's idea
together with Falcone's cards,

649
00:39:48,608 --> 00:39:50,046
and came up with this.

650
00:39:51,226 --> 00:39:52,643
It's automated,

651
00:39:52,785 --> 00:39:54,530
And it has the advantage
that if you want

652
00:39:54,530 --> 00:39:57,141
to increase the pattern
you simply add more cards.

653
00:39:57,283 --> 00:40:00,543
Now, for that minor amendment,
he got all the glory,

654
00:40:00,694 --> 00:40:05,080
Because to this day, the entire
concept is named after this man.

655
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:06,504
This is a Jacquard loom.

656
00:40:06,504 --> 00:40:08,769
And boy,
what a success that was.

657
00:40:10,821 --> 00:40:13,368
Well, not in France,
because the revolutionaries

658
00:40:13,368 --> 00:40:15,866
decided they didn't like
fancy aristocratic patterns.

659
00:40:16,016 --> 00:40:18,066
But in England,
where the loom ended up

660
00:40:18,066 --> 00:40:20,857
making things like
paisley shawls very popular,

661
00:40:21,818 --> 00:40:25,468
and where these cards
got picked up for a
very different reason.

662
00:40:25,606 --> 00:40:28,850
They got used to control
automatic riveting machines,

663
00:40:28,993 --> 00:40:32,069
that by the mid-19th century,
helped to build

664
00:40:32,208 --> 00:40:34,022
the great new iron ships
that were to make

665
00:40:34,022 --> 00:40:36,549
the crossing of the Atlantic
safer and faster,

666
00:40:37,169 --> 00:40:39,895
just in time to handle
the biggest load of passengers

667
00:40:39,895 --> 00:40:45,048
that any shipping lines
had ever carried: the poor,
huddled masses of Europe.

668
00:40:48,904 --> 00:40:50,706
And though they didn't know it,

669
00:40:50,706 --> 00:40:53,129
these immigrants were to
trigger off the development

670
00:40:53,129 --> 00:40:56,029
of one of the modern world's
most extraordinary inventions.

671
00:40:58,769 --> 00:41:02,478
By the 1870s, the immigrants
were stepping ashore
on american soil

672
00:41:02,478 --> 00:41:04,722
at a rate of over 7,000 every day.

673
00:41:04,722 --> 00:41:09,727
The journey across the Atlantic
had taken anything from 12 days
to three weeks,

674
00:41:09,727 --> 00:41:14,308
and most of them
traveled in conditions
that varied from bad to appalling.

675
00:41:14,464 --> 00:41:17,192
Many of the bigger ships
were designed with only
one thing in mind:

676
00:41:17,338 --> 00:41:19,742
to carry as many immigrants
as possible.

677
00:41:20,687 --> 00:41:24,784
And so, they came
in filth and degradation,

678
00:41:24,784 --> 00:41:27,609
packed in like cattle,
treated much the same.

679
00:41:27,761 --> 00:41:30,210
The vast majority came to New York,

680
00:41:30,362 --> 00:41:33,795
at first to the immigration
depot at Castle Garden,

681
00:41:33,927 --> 00:41:37,982
and then, later here,
to the place that was to
become a symbol,

682
00:41:37,982 --> 00:41:40,446
both of everything
that America offered,

683
00:41:41,057 --> 00:41:44,809
and the terrible fear
that at the very gates
of freedom,

684
00:41:44,809 --> 00:41:49,581
they would be turned away,
here at Ellis Island.

685
00:41:59,091 --> 00:42:02,397
It took only a few hours
to be accepted or rejected,

686
00:42:02,397 --> 00:42:06,103
and much of that time
was spent confused and bewildered,

687
00:42:06,103 --> 00:42:10,435
waiting, clutching
their cardboard suitcases
tied up with string,

688
00:42:11,205 --> 00:42:12,979
everything they possessed.

689
00:42:12,979 --> 00:42:15,809
Some of them,
those who could write,

690
00:42:15,809 --> 00:42:17,721
even left their names
on the walls,

691
00:42:18,219 --> 00:42:23,091
As if to say,
"Look, I made it."

692
00:42:34,105 --> 00:42:36,204
And then, came
the momenth of truth,

693
00:42:36,751 --> 00:42:39,174
the point at which they
either passed or failed

694
00:42:39,933 --> 00:42:41,379
the test to become american.

695
00:42:41,995 --> 00:42:44,751
What none of them
could have known was
how easy that test was.

696
00:42:45,085 --> 00:42:47,489
A quick look at the eyes,
the hands, and the throat,

697
00:42:47,828 --> 00:42:50,084
and then, the writting down
of their particular details:

698
00:42:51,314 --> 00:42:52,951
the point at which many of them
lost their old names,

699
00:42:52,951 --> 00:42:54,815
because the inspectors
couldn't spell them,

700
00:42:54,815 --> 00:42:56,255
and they couldn't write them,

701
00:42:56,255 --> 00:43:00,001
so they became Smith, Brown, Jones.

702
00:43:01,492 --> 00:43:03,412
Eight out of ten people
passed the test,

703
00:43:03,885 --> 00:43:06,451
but with one inspector
handling 500 people a day,

704
00:43:06,451 --> 00:43:09,369
it's almost a case of,
if you could walk,
you were in.

705
00:43:11,937 --> 00:43:14,945
In the 30 years
between 1850 and 1880,

706
00:43:14,945 --> 00:43:16,652
nearly eight million
people got in.

707
00:43:16,989 --> 00:43:19,412
And, as the country grew
and the frontiers pushed west,

708
00:43:19,412 --> 00:43:21,843
the immigrants
were swallowed up,

709
00:43:21,843 --> 00:43:25,233
to dissparear
the vast open spaces
of this enormous country.

710
00:43:25,678 --> 00:43:27,193
The trouble was, every ten years,

711
00:43:27,193 --> 00:43:30,445
the government
had to find them all again,
for the national census.

712
00:43:31,158 --> 00:43:32,544
And, as the population soared,

713
00:43:32,544 --> 00:43:35,175
the paperwork for doing
that became unbelievable.

714
00:43:35,752 --> 00:43:40,589
And then, in 1880,
an army surgeon called
John Shaw Billings,

715
00:43:40,589 --> 00:43:41,608
who was working
on the census,

716
00:43:41,608 --> 00:43:44,789
was watching the mountains
of paperwork being shuffled,

717
00:43:44,789 --> 00:43:47,359
when he happened to mention
to his young engineer assistant

718
00:43:47,359 --> 00:43:51,256
that he reckoned
that the Jacquard cards
with their punched holes

719
00:43:51,256 --> 00:43:52,665
ought to be able to
carry information.

720
00:43:52,665 --> 00:43:54,718
You know,
if a man was married,
you'd punch a hole,

721
00:43:54,718 --> 00:43:56,547
and if he wasn't,
you wouldn't.

722
00:43:58,392 --> 00:44:00,061
The young engineer,
Herman Hollerith,

723
00:44:00,061 --> 00:44:02,276
worked on the idea
and came up with this.

724
00:44:03,708 --> 00:44:07,158
It's called a tabulator,
and it works on cards like this,

725
00:44:07,158 --> 00:44:09,109
the size of a dollar bill
of the period.

726
00:44:09,109 --> 00:44:10,435
Now, Hollerith chose that size

727
00:44:10,435 --> 00:44:13,136
because they already had
holders for dollar bills,

728
00:44:13,136 --> 00:44:14,934
and what that meant was,
he wouldn't have

729
00:44:14,934 --> 00:44:16,308
to design and build one
himself.

730
00:44:17,123 --> 00:44:17,992
No fool.

731
00:44:18,336 --> 00:44:20,664
So, you put the card in here.

732
00:44:21,221 --> 00:44:24,018
Now, let's say
we're talking about
a white male,

733
00:44:24,018 --> 00:44:27,189
aged 35, who is single,
lives in Maine,

734
00:44:27,189 --> 00:44:30,289
and came originally
from Russia, right.

735
00:44:30,289 --> 00:44:39,969
You punch white,
male, 35, single,

736
00:44:39,969 --> 00:44:49,111
the code for the state,
Maine, and finally Russia.

737
00:44:49,111 --> 00:44:52,700
Now, you take the card out.
See the little holes?

738
00:44:53,488 --> 00:44:54,943
And put it into this press.

739
00:44:54,943 --> 00:44:56,975
Now, when you push
this press down,

740
00:44:56,975 --> 00:44:59,575
these little needles here
with springs on them,

741
00:44:59,575 --> 00:45:03,528
either go through a hole,
or they don't.

742
00:45:05,256 --> 00:45:06,259
Remember Jacquard?

743
00:45:07,033 --> 00:45:08,537
And if they do go
through a hole,

744
00:45:08,537 --> 00:45:11,408
they make electrical contact
down there.

745
00:45:12,841 --> 00:45:16,083
And that triggers
these counters up here
one click forward.

746
00:45:16,083 --> 00:45:19,675
Now, depending on
what you want to count,
you program the counters.

747
00:45:19,675 --> 00:45:21,974
Say you just want
a general population figure,

748
00:45:21,974 --> 00:45:25,699
then, all these are the states and
territories, of which that is Maine,

749
00:45:25,699 --> 00:45:27,891
and that one in the corner
is the grand total.

750
00:45:28,808 --> 00:45:32,097
So our man in Maine
would add one to Maine,

751
00:45:32,097 --> 00:45:34,484
and one to the grand total,
like this.

752
00:45:34,484 --> 00:45:40,159
[Bell ringing]
And the bell told you
you'd done it.

753
00:45:40,159 --> 00:45:44,440
Now, the census
involved much more detailed
analysis than that,

754
00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:47,343
so, Hollerith
also designed a sorter,

755
00:45:47,343 --> 00:45:49,047
this cabinet,
with lot of boxes in it,

756
00:45:49,047 --> 00:45:50,369
connected to the tabulator.

757
00:45:50,369 --> 00:45:54,856
Now, let's say you want
to take a particular look
at all 35-year-old men.

758
00:45:55,132 --> 00:45:56,745
What you do is
program the tabulator,

759
00:45:56,745 --> 00:45:59,171
so that when one of them
comes under the press,

760
00:45:59,171 --> 00:46:03,102
it causes a particular box
to flip open like this.

761
00:46:03,102 --> 00:46:06,285
and you pop the card
into the box,

762
00:46:06,285 --> 00:46:12,592
and, at the end of the day,
you took out
all the 35-year-olds,

763
00:46:12,747 --> 00:46:15,058
and ran them
back under the press,

764
00:46:15,058 --> 00:46:18,332
to see where they are lived,
and to see how many of them
there were.

765
00:46:18,458 --> 00:46:21,771
And you could do that
with any bit of information
on a card,

766
00:46:21,771 --> 00:46:24,505
or any mixture of
bits of information
on a card.

767
00:46:25,656 --> 00:46:30,359
Well, the 1880 census
had taken over seven years
to complete.

768
00:46:30,359 --> 00:46:34,714
With the new tabulator,
the 1890 census was finished
in half that time,

769
00:46:34,714 --> 00:46:41,431
and they checked the total
twice: 62.947.714.

770
00:46:52,388 --> 00:46:56,859
So, the trial has brought us
from the water wheel,
to the loom,

771
00:46:56,989 --> 00:47:00,333
and the linen it produced
that made paper so cheap,

772
00:47:00,333 --> 00:47:02,991
it spurred the development
of printing of books

773
00:47:03,122 --> 00:47:05,550
that interested people
in things like automated organs,

774
00:47:05,550 --> 00:47:09,083
whose pegged cylinders
gave the french silk weavers

775
00:47:09,083 --> 00:47:12,545
the opportunity to run their
looms with perforated cards

776
00:47:12,545 --> 00:47:14,841
that Hollerith used
to count americans

777
00:47:14,841 --> 00:47:17,776
who had once passed through
this hall in Ellis Island

778
00:47:17,776 --> 00:47:21,652
gateway to the one country
that, more than any other,

779
00:47:21,652 --> 00:47:23,911
would fall apart if it weren't
for Hollerith's card,

780
00:47:23,911 --> 00:47:27,563
used to program the computers,
without whose help,

781
00:47:27,563 --> 00:47:31,265
the entire massive structure
of the modern world
would fall down.

782
00:47:32,514 --> 00:47:35,750
Most of the ancestors
of the computer
brought people pleasure.

783
00:47:36,149 --> 00:47:37,966
What will it bring us?

784
00:49:26,665 --> 00:49:28,630
[End]