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A drawing of a hand mill
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Building

Hand mill

A hand mill, or rotary quern, was a pair of round stones: the upper one, with a central hole for grain and a handle, was turned by hand over the fixed lower stone, and flour spilled from between them. Quernstones of Rhineland lava were imported into London by the 11th century. Lords with watermills tried to force tenants to grind at the lord's mill ('suit of mill'), and in the 13th century St Albans Abbey confiscated tenants' handmills.

Caveats (confidence: high)

Domestic quern use is hard to measure because lords suppressed it; evidence of confiscation is mostly 13th century and later.

Sources: millsarchive.org · medievallondon.ace.fordham.edu

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