Wormhout

Here in Wormhout stood a remarkable technological invention: the windmill. 'In Wormhout a mill that is powered by the wind,' it says in the deed of the count of Flanders from around 1183. It is one of the very first mentions of a windmill in the North Sea region. The wooden constructions brought about a revolution in medieval agriculture. The post mills like that of Wormhout were complex machines that could rotate completely around their axis. With their blades, they harnessed the changing wind to drive two millstones. These ground grain into flour. Thus, there was no longer a need for manual labor in regions where there were insufficient height differences to operate watermills – manual labor that became available for other work. The post mill was just one of the technological innovations that made the impressive population growth in medieval Western Europe possible.

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