John H. Lienhard - Men actually flew 1000 years ago…. An important

Men actually flew 1000 years ago…. An important thing about Eilmer's and Ibn Firnas's inventions of the glider is that both occurred in intellectual environments that fostered invention. Ibn Firnas lived during the Golden Age of Islamic art and science, and Eilmer belonged to the Benedictine order, which saw God Himself as a master craftsman.

Context

Ibn Firnas was an Islamic Moor who first invented the glider and flew. Eilmer’s—see {588974}–achievement came afterward and may have been influenced by Crusader stories brought back about Ibn Firnas’s achievement.

Topics

Citations

John H. Lienhard, Technological Historian & Radio Producer, Radio Program, Engines of Our Ingenuity, Episode 3: The Flying Monk

Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations

Linked Quotes

William of Malmsbury

Eilmer ... was a man learned for those times ..., and in his youth had hazarded a deed of remarkable boldness. He had by some means, I scarcely know what, fastened wings to his hands and feet so that, mistaking fable for truth, he might fly like Daedalus, and, collecting the breeze on the summit of a tower, he flew for more than the distance of a furlong. But, agitated by the violence of the wind and the swirling of air, as well as by awareness of his rashness, he fell, broke his legs, and was lame ever after. He himself used to say that the cause of his failure was forgetting to put a tail on the back part.

This was made by an Anglo-Saxon monk, Eilmer of Wiltshire Abbey. A Spanish Islamic Moor from Cordoba, Ibn Firnas, was the first to have a successful glider flight.