It has been often asserted that these mills were first invented in the East, and introduced into Europe by the crusaders; but this also is improbable; for mills of this kind are not at all, or very seldom, found in the East. There are none of them in Persia, Palestine, or Arabia, and even water-mills are there uncommon, and constructed on a small scale. Besides, we find wind-mills before the crusades, or at least at the time when they were first undertaken. It is probable that these buildings may have been made known to a great part of Europe, and particularly in France and England[426], by those who returned from these expeditions; but it does not thence follow that they were invented in the East[427]. The crusaders perhaps saw such mills in the course of their travels through Europe; very probably in Germany, which is the original country of most large machines. In the like manner, the knowledge of several useful things has been introduced into Germany by soldiers who have returned from different wars; as the English and French, after their return from the last war, made known in their respective countries many of our useful implements of husbandry, such as our straw-chopper, scythe, &c. Mabillon mentions a diploma of the year 1105, in which a convent in France is allowed to erect water- and wind-mills, _molendina ad ventum_[428]. In the year 1143, there was in Northamptonshire an abbey (Pipewell) situated in a wood, which in the course of 180 years was entirely destroyed. One cause of its destruction was said to be, that in the whole neighbourhood there was no house, wind- or water-mill built, for which timber was not taken from this wood[429]. In the twelfth century, when these mills began to be more common, a dispute arose whether the tithes of them belonged to the clergy; and Pope Celestine III. determined the question in favour of the church[430]. In the year 1332, one Bartolomeo Verde proposed to the Venetians to build a wind-mill. When his plan had been examined, a piece of ground was assigned to him, which he was to retain in case his undertaking should succeed within a time specified[431]. In the year 1393, the city of Spires caused a wind-mill to be erected, and sent to the Netherlands for a person acquainted with the method of grinding by it[432]. A wind-mill was also constructed at Frankfort in 1442, but I do not know whether there had not been such there before.