The windmill was a Medieval European innovation and both wind and water mills were not just used for grinding flour but also fuilling cloth, making leather and driving bellows and trip-hammers.
Contrary to myth, medieval Europe was a font of innovation: water- and wind-powered mills, clocks, eyeglasses, chimneys and the wheelbarrow, as well as advances in shipbuilding, compassmaking and ironmongery (making wagon axles sturdier).