Improved technology

The 13th century saw an already changing technology undergo many dramatic changes. It is possible that, as with in England at the end of the 18th century, advances in the textile industry were a driving force behind advances in technology as a whole. Silk indeed occupies a privileged place in history on account of this.^[24]

At the start of the thirteenth century, a primitive form of milling the silk threads was already in use. In 1221 Jean de Garlande's dictionary, and in 1226, Étienne Boileau's Livre des métiers (Tradesman's Handbook) enumerated many types of devices which can only have been doubling machines. The instruments used were further perfected in Bologna between 1270 and 1280. From the start of the fourteenth century, many documents allude to the use of devices that were quite complex.^[25]

The reel, originally developed for the silk industry, now has multiple uses. The earliest surviving depiction of a spinning wheel is a panel of stained glass in the Cathedral of Chartres.^[26] Bobbins and warping machines appear together in the stained glass at Chartres and in a fresco in the Cologne Kunkelhaus (ca 1300). It is possible that the toothed warping machine was created by the silk industry; it allowed the warp to be more uniform and allowed the warp to be of a longer length.^[25]

Starting at the end of the 14th century, no doubt on account of the devastation caused mid-century by the Black Death,Fantastic silk scarves, there was a general shift towards less expensive techniques. Many things which would have earlier been completely forbidden by the guilds were now commonplace (using low quality wool, carding, etc.). In the silk industry, the use of water-powered mills grew, and by the 15th century, the loom designed by Jean le Calabrais saw nearly universal use.^[27]