Link please.
The monks could not have "invented" steel. Quite good, even exceptional, steel had been made for many centuries at this time, for instance by the Romans, Indians and Japanese. It just wasn't made in quantities that allowed it to be used for purposes other than for the most part arms and armor.
What the Industrial Revolution (eventually) provided was not steel, but rather cheap steel, cheap enough that it could be used for structural purposes.
Steel didn't really become cheap until the invention of the Bessemer process in 1855, by which time the Industrial Revolution was well established, "And Iron -- Cold Iron -- was master of it all!"
Info is from a paper magazine I read some time back. Don't know if there is a link.
"The monks could not have "invented" steel. Quite good, even exceptional, steel had been made for many centuries at this time, for instance by the Romans, Indians and Japanese. It just wasn't made in quantities that allowed it to be used for purposes other than for the most part arms and armor. What the Industrial Revolution (eventually) provided was not steel, but rather cheap steel, cheap enough that it could be used for structural purposes.
Which, as I recall the article, was precisely what the monks had almost perfected--large-scale production methodology (relative to the times). They were "on the cusp" of inventing the steel revolution. Henry screwed that. If he could have kept it in his pants, we'd probably have interplanetary travel today.