ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a summary of analytical work on medieval brassmaking crucibles, spanning more than half a millennium and tracing what is believed to be a gradual development of increasing skill and efficiency of the craftspeople who used these crucibles. This summary is then contrasted to a similarly diachronic sequence of textual sources concerned with brassmaking, illuminating the discrepancy between the matter-of-fact practitioners’ reports and the somewhat befuddled attempts of philosophers of nature to understand and explain the essence of brass as opposed to copper. The different strands of knowledge generation and transfer, namely, observation and apprenticeship versus theoretical consideration and text, are placed into the changing scholarly environment from the High Middle Ages to the Renaissance. This exercise provides fresh insight not only into the development of brassmaking technology but also into the driving, or otherwise, forces in technological developments in general. The comparison of archaeological, scientific, and historical evidence is used to demonstrate the potential of such multisource studies.
