Modern facilities with medieval technology?

Question

The question about a self-sufficient medieval city got me wondering about what modern facilities and functions one could build into a city with technology available in medieval times.

The Romans had quite a bit of technology that Europe just forgot for about a thousand years, including rudimentary concrete. Frankly, many technologies had been previously developed (B.C. even), but not used, including steel and glass. Given a small focus (50 years or so) to advance concrete, they could have been building modern skyscrapers if they weren't so busy waging war.

So, what sort of city might "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" devise if given free range to do so?

Some starter ideas include porcelain fixtures, copper piping, and concrete waste lines to implement indoor toilet facilities; plaster sandwiched between sheets of paper to create wallboard; and sheets of glass formed by floating on molten tin. I've also considered lodestones and copper wire to make generators and an electrical grid. But what else is there? And are these ideas practical?

Edit: To be clear, my question of "...are these ideas practical?" stems not from whether or not anyone would care, or whether or not there's enough money in some Lord's pocket to do so, but whether or not it could reasonably be done. Take the idea of a porcelain toilet: if they knew they wanted such a thing, there were factories in China (even back then) that could have produced them in volume. Porcelain technology existed, and the porcelain was good enough to be used in a toilet.

Answer 1

When you ask this question I think there's a bunch of things you're not taking into consideration. Sure, some technologies were lost, then rediscovered, however you need to take the historic, technological, and cultural setting in which they were used into consideration.

Cultural Setting

Your common medieval peasant is extremely illiterate. In fact, so are most lords and nobles, with many not being able to do much more than sign their name, and requiring the services of some kind of scribe to write letters for them, etc.

This would be especially applicable in the times of King Arthur.

Furthermore, you have to realize that these people often lived hand to mouth. Disease would claim them - or their children - often. Famines were a very real threat. Plagues as well. Raiders? War? Oh, yes.

They lived in a world full of dangers and insecurity. Life was a heck of a lot more difficult for them - which really serves to mess with your priorities when you have to choose between putting food on the table or taking a bath.

Economy

And so, you've got a whole bunch of illiterate people scraping a living in the dirt. Only very, very rich people can afford big houses, or castles, because it's very difficult to maintain the things.

You build them because you want people to recognize your status, or because you need to defend yourself. However, keeping them in a state of repair is indecently expensive. Heating them, in particular, is a pain in the behind! Someone needs to cut the wood, stockpile it, keep it dry, etc. It's a lot of hard work, and that's expensive. There's only so many trees nearby, and everyone needs wood to survive the winter. Additionally, they're also the easiert material for people to build their houses out of, many of their tools, etc. There's a lot of competition for lumber. Running a fire in every room of your castle is an expense even lords could not afford.

The Situation

And so, your American travels to the past, and meets King Arthur. He proposes a whole lot of incredible upgrades to his medieval castle. Brilliant!

Now then, how does one manufacture porcelain in the 6th century A.D.? More importantly, even if you've got the ability, how expensive is it?

Now that we're discussing porcelain thrones, we need piping to go with it. Unless your yank is an accomplished plumber you're out of luck anyway, as few people understand how the whole system works off the top of their minds. However, let's assume that our hero does know.

Well, you need metal to make those pipes. You need blacksmiths, and other craftsmen. However, these people are also needed to fix the tools and weapons your people require to survive on a day to day basis. Are you going to take them away from those vital responsibilities in order to build you plumbing? You could, but it'll cost you (for example when your enemy invades and your weapons/defenses are in a state of disrepair).

So now you've got this super fancy, expensive as heck, toilet installed. Congratulations, you may now do your business in style. However, was it worth it? Is this system feasible to be implemented in more than one glorious case? Probably not, because your average farmer has much bigger problems than that.

The problem with implementing many other large scale changes is the same: priorities.

The Romans had sewer system, complex baths, etc., however they were a very large and powerful civilization. They could afford those luxuries. Even then, you can imagine that not just anyone had a large, heated bath with water being pumped in and out of it, like some have been discovered. No, my friend, only the super-rich had those!

The reason we later embraced all these inventions is because it became economically viable.

For example, when we got better at farming, and our techniques allowed us to manufacture more food, we could spare more people to advance our societies in other ways.

When our cities grew, and the lack of hygiene spawned disease after disease, we once again figured out why Romans implemented a sewage system.

Sometimes these technologies simply need to wait for their time to come.

Answer 2

This is a bit of a stretch, but it is hard to define "medieval technology". A lot of principles we know today were known in the medieval era, but no one practiced them, either caused by a lack of interest (i.e. A merchant would be able to earn money and not starve, but physicist that creates useless rolling ball would starve) or a lack of resources (literacy rates were very very low).

If people had the time and energy, really the cities wouldn't be that different from now, since humans created very large and complex architecture since a long time BC (i.e. pyramids, stonehenge, cathedrals, Colosseum, etc). One of the factors preventing or rather inhibiting the medieval times from building skyscrapers were the lack of population. Why build higher when you can easily build further?

So basically, anything is possible, except structures based on modern technology (plastics, aluminium, reinforced steel, tempered glass, carbon composites, etc)

Answer 3

I remember a book with double-entry bookkeeping and bicycles being introduced to the Romans [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lest_Darkness_Fall]. I agree with AndreiROM that the economics have to work as well; it isn't enough that something is technologically possible, it has to also be useful to someone (preferably someone with money) before it will become widespread. The Greeks had simple steam engines, but they not very efficient and so they were never used as other than toys. Concrete, in contrast, was very useful for Roman construction.

I personally would look at introducing methods of thinking before introducing specific inventions, such as the germ theory of disease or the scientific approach to discovery. A different view of the universe doesn't require any technological precursors. If you are able to improve the efficiency of a society in this way, any economic surplus generated can then be applied to your inventions.

Answer 4

Ancient electricity is an interesting concept - there is no particular reason why it couldn't have been discovered in antiquity. Basic batteries and perhaps even a rudimentary generator (magnets were known and understood, and Heron created a simple steam engine) - but the question is really what would they do with it? High voltage AC to drive motors seems very unlikely (and very dangerous), so usefully driving motors or powering a heating element wouldn't be an option; electric lights need inert gasses and most other uses for electricity involve high-tech electronics.

It would be very interesting to see where things could have gone with more development of the steam engine in those days though...