E. R. Truitt

I can’t help wondering whether this was originally titled “Medieval Automata” and it was the publisher who beefed it up to the slightly misleading “Robots”. Anyway, what we’re really dealing with here are automata in general: self-moving and self-sustaining manufactured objects, in both fiction and the real world; in fiction they are powered by magic or unknown means, in real life by flowing water, air pressure, or weights, springs and so on. The book covers the period from the 9th through to the 15th Centuries, and in Europe only, so there were essentially three waves: first, automata in literature; then, as real marvels reported by early European travellers or as gifts from foreign khans and emperors; and finally, their construction by European craftsmen themselves.
    In stories they’re often found defending things (guarding ideas as much as buildings I think, “enforcing boundaries” is how Truitt puts it), such as Lancelot’s battle with the two mechanical knights, made of copper, blocking his way into Doloreuse Castle. In the hazy world of astrology there were talking brass heads which would supposedly foretell the future. In real life automata were deployed as entertainment and spectacle (pleasure gardens with moving statues, musical fountains and artificial trees filled with hydraulically-powered birds singing); or as demonstrations of wealth (the mediaeval equivalent of owning a big yacht maybe); or even occasionally as practical jokes (hidden devices which drenched your guests to the skin, or bombarded them with soot and flour). Finally there were the purely practical machines, particularly clocks with toothed gear-wheels, escapements and so on.
    Overall, far from giving the impression I’d been half expecting that “robots” are an age-old idea, the examples given here are so few and far between they reinforce the truth that it’s overwhelmingly a modern one—further emphasised by the simple fact that the mediaeval world itself had no word for them (even “automata” dating from the Renaissance). This is a detailed and scholarly book all the same, an interesting read.… (más)