It is a low explosive, as distinct from a high explosive, that burns comparatively slowly by modern standards. Gunpowder was, therefore, the archetypical technology of its time.Ĭhemically, gunpowder is a mixture of sulfur, carbon, and potassium nitrate (usually known as niter or saltpeter).

It’s important that we understand that the Renaissance period was a period of dialectical interface between the West and Middle Eastern and East Asian cultures, where a constellation of technologies, goods, and ideas were exchanged back and forth, shaping all of these societies and changing world history. The other three were the compass, paper, and printmaking, which were all also key components of the technological revolution which characterized Renaissance Western Europe. Most people with an interest in Medieval history know that gunpowder was an invention from Medieval China - one of the “Four Great Inventions” that Chinese scholars perfected in the Imperial age. The critical ingredient for the rise of the first guns in the Renaissance era was gunpowder. Gunpowder: Lifeblood of the First Guns Fictional German monk Berthold Schwarz “invents” gunpowder in this illustration, from Le Petit Journal, 1901, via Britannica