by Adam Frank
The English monk known as the Venerable Bede was, for example, a man of considerable learning and imagination. Having worked hard to provide reliable adjustments to the Julian calendar, he turned his attention to cosmology and the nature of the world as a whole in a text called De natura rerum (On the Nature of Things). Bede had the intellectual sophistication to understand the five consistently appearing cosmological questions detailed in the last chapter.22 He was also wise enough to acknowledge the validity of arguments for a spherical Earth. Still, the lack of access to the majority of Greek thinkers left Bede, and most other European natural philosophers, without the tools to venture far from established Christian doctrine.
Light first broke into the Dark Ages in Spain. After centuries of relatively tolerant Moorish rule, Spain in the twelfth century had become a crossroads of Islamic, Christian and Jewish cultures. The Greek texts that had been kept and copied in Islamic libraries, as well as the many Arabic translations of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Hipparchus and other Greek thinkers, had found their way to Spain. In the city of Toledo, Gerard of Cremona began to translate Arabic versions of Greek texts into Latin. Through his and others’ efforts, the so-called translation movement was launched.23 Soon Latin versions of everything from Aristotle’s cosmological text De Caelo to Euclid’s mathematical masterpiece Elements began to spread through Europe.
By the 1200s, European astronomical and cosmological thinking was again illuminated by the progress of Greek thinkers.24 Once more in Europe, the fine scalpel of human reason would be used to separate subtle issues on the nature of time, space and existence. The shadow of Christian dogma, however, lay heavy on this revival. Aristotle’s natural philosophy was fine as long as it could be squeezed into a Church-sanctioned conception of God and his creation. As scholars began to revisit issues such as the Earth’s location in the cosmos, the spatial extent of the universe and the ever-present question of time and its geometry, their imaginations remained constrained by the fear of heresy charges.
As was true of the Greek era, cosmology and astronomy were known to be related but often were pursued without reference to each other. Astronomers made mathematical models for accurate predictions of celestial motions. The reality of these models was considered debatable. Many scholars saw the models, with their circles within circles, as nothing more than computational tools. They were good for determining the positions of planets in the sky but they were not descriptions of reality. Cosmology, therefore, could be pursued without deference to astronomy. From the perspective of these scholars, reason alone could infer the true structure of the universe in both space and time. But reason would have to defer to scripture. During this epoch, cosmological thinking was allowed only if it passed biblical muster.
Thus Ptolemaic astronomy became the poster child for the synthesis of Greek-based learning with the longstanding biblically based authority of the Church. A geocentric universe with the corruptible Earth placed at the centre of a perfect celestial realm dovetailed neatly with the Church’s theological vision. In this way, both Ptolemy and Aristotle became Christianized. By the 1300s most reasonable scholars accepted a spherical Earth but few were willing to imagine the globe twisting in daily rotation. After all, the Bible told of Joshua commanding the sun to stand still, not the Earth.
The Church and the new scholarship found agreement on the geometry and physical extent of the universe—the second and third of the five cosmological questions. Most scholars believed the physical world must be finite. A nonmaterial, spiritual domain beyond the last of Aristotle’s crystalline shells was accepted by some, but it was almost universally agreed that the created material world must be of limited extent. Thus most scholars believed a true vacuum, an emptiness beyond the last celestial sphere, was impossible.25 Arguments appearing in this era against the vacuum and for the finite universe demonstrated how much sophistication in physical reasoning had returned. For example, the fourteenth-century Parisian scholar Jean Buridan argued that an infinite body in circular motion must have infinite rotational speed far from the centre, and since this was clearly impossible, he reasoned that the physical universe must be finite.26
Time was, however, a problem. Aristotle’s importance had surged as translations of his works spread across Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and he was soon referred to as “the philosopher”. Scholars were loath to disagree with his writings. But in De Caelo, Aristotle argued that the universe was infinite in time—it always had existed and always would exist. How could scholars square this view with the Church’s official doctrine of creation ex nihilo? The Church had, after all, decided that both time and the universe began with God’s act of creation.
Then, at the University of Paris, a group of radical scholars declared that they were willing to “carry Aristotle’s rationalism and naturalism as far as possible”.27 Faculty members Siger of Brabant and Boethius of Dacia challenged Church authority on issues such as eternity and the age of the cosmos. The Church responded by issuing a list of propositions that were “declared false and heretical”. Of the 219 positions the Church warned against, at least twenty were directly related to cosmology. All five of the great cosmological questions came into play. Scholars were warned against arguing that God could not create more than one universe. The Church reiterated that something could be created from nothing (if God was the creator) and scolded scholars for thinking that a vacuum must have existed before God created the universe. Chief among the heretical views, however, was number 87: “That the world is eternal as to all species in it; and that time is eternal.”28
The question of “before” had returned. Even in this deeply Christian era there were Christian scholars who could not abide a cosmic beginning. In the thirteenth century what came before creation was an issue that remained vibrantly alive.
The old adage that there is no bad publicity was just as true in the 1200s as it is today. The Church’s 219 articles of heresy merely brought more attention to the new cosmological debates. To avoid trouble with the Church, many scholars adopted literary devices when discussing forbidden topics such as infinite time, the existence of other universes or even the reality of Earth’s rotation. After analysing new cosmological or astronomical ideas in great detail, writers quickly backtracked, bowing to scriptural authority. Nicole Oresme used this trick in his impressive analysis of arguments for a rotating Earth. After working his way to the very edge of convincing his reader that our planet rotates, he stopped and doubled back:
However, everyone maintains, and I think myself, that the heavens do move and not the Earth: For God hath established the world which shall not be moved . . . What I have said by way of diversion of intellectual exercise can in this manner serve as a valuable means of refuting and checking those who would like to impugn our faith by argument.29
Within two centuries, these kinds of half steps would no longer be needed. The wheels of creative investigation were turning, and with new intellectual daring, Europe was preparing for a tectonic shift in astronomical perspective. But this turn of mind could not occur in a vacuum. Once again material engagement—the specific details of the human encounter with the world as embodied in the stuff we built—would lay the groundwork. The wheels of the coming revolution turned not on chariots or trebuchets but within the clock towers of cities across the continent. Clocks and clockwork were remaking the European experience of time, and the universe would have to follow.
MONS, FRANCE • 1188
“The coward does not come,” said the knight. “I have prevailed and I demand justice now!”
Gerardus of St Obert was cousin to local royalty, the count of Hainault, and not a man to be denied. He was arrogant and prone to spasms of violence. Still, it was not Gerardus who had demanded the duel he and the other nobles had assembled for that morning. Robert of Beaurain, a knight known for his valorous acts and his pride, had insisted on the duel. Robert claimed that Gerardus had insulted his honour, ignoring his freeman status and boasting to others
that Robert had been a serf. The count of Hainault had no choice but to allow a duel so that right might be made of the situation.30
The day had broken warm and clear. As the monks assembled for prayers at prime, the first hour of the day, the count and his nobles arrived at the central square of Mons. There, before the monastery, Gerardus and his retinue were already assembled and waiting. Robert of Beaurain, however, was nowhere in sight. The sun rose higher into the sky and still he did not show. As the wait continued, Gerardus grew impatient and angry. Finally the bells of the monastery rang announcing none, the third division of the day and the end of the period when duelling was allowed.
“The coward fails to show himself,” cried Gerardus. “I am victorious.”
“Not yet,” said the count’s councillor. “The time of none has not yet passed.”
“But the bells,” insisted Gerardus. “They have rung for none.”
In a low, patient voice the councillor explained to Gerardus that the time for prayer called none, which was recognized by the monastics, and the time of day called none recognized by the court were two different things. “At court we have always used different understanding of none. The monks have their hours, we have ours and the two are not the same. In legal matters I am afraid our time is what matters.”31 With Gerardus standing to the side, the councillor and clerics from the monastery huddled together and pointed to the sun, now beginning to sink in the west. They pointed to the bell in the bell tower. They argued and drew figures in the dirt. Finally Gerard could stand it no longer.
“I have waited long enough. Can none of you fools tell the hour?”
VICTORY OF THE CLOCKS
While a consensus on the hour would be hard to achieve in a square at Mons in 1193, within a few hundred years it would be as easy to find as a glance towards the centre of town. In 1193 the majority of humans had no need for, or access to, accurate time reckoning. But by 1393, many cities in Europe would be equipped with that most modern of devices: a mechanical clock. With its prominent face showing the hour and bells demarcating the time in loud peals, the clock towers left no facet of European life untouched. The day was divided, never to become whole again.
But for hunter-gatherers and farmers living outside the immediate influence of a city, there was little need for accurate divisions of the day. It was good enough to indicate the time by the event that defined it. The Konso people of southwest Ethiopia, for example, still break the day into six unequal divisions. Each of the six sections is given a name describing what is scheduled to happen in that time. Thus, for example, the interval from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. is called kakalseema, or “when the cattle return home”.32 Such a rough parcelling of the day is all that is required. As Anthony Aveni observes,
Though simple morning, noon, and afternoon can easily be sorted out simply by observing which side of the sky the sun is in, even 8- or 10-, perhaps even 12-, fold divisions of the day can be reckoned unambiguously simply by gesturing with the arms. Were an hour’s accuracy all we ever needed, the entire world might be completely devoid of clocks today.33
The need for greater accuracy occurs only in more complex societies. These needs, however, do not arise on their own. Instead, material engagement allows the culture as a whole to imagine such accuracy and what to do with it. Culture evolves with these imaginative innovations by creating new institutional facts that then demand temporal accuracy. As always, the enigmatic entanglement between cosmic (or scientific) time and personal (or experienced) time meant both would be implicated in the evolution of a new time consciousness. This braiding is exactly what occurred in the history of the clock and the hour.
The division of the day into twenty-four equal hours was a Babylonian invention and may be linked to the division of the zodiac into twelve constellations.34 It was likely a response to the well-known fact that simple sun dials (such as a stick placed upright in the ground) show divisions of the day of unequal length—the shadow moves slower at midday then it does in the late afternoon or early morning. But the equally spaced twenty-four-hour Babylonian day was used only by astronomers—a scientific elite—and did not gain widespread acceptance until the appearance of mechanical clocks.35
In ancient Rome, a timekeeper announced noon based on the sun’s location between the city’s most prominent buildings.36 Crude sun dials were also placed in public spaces, allowing some measure of public time. Still, what these measures offered was a far cry from the accurate, abstracted and omnipresent time we live with today. That time would have to wait for the creation of clocks.
FIGURE 3.3. The wheel of time of common folk. Each month is associated with activity set against the natural world. The zodiac surrounds the cycle of the year, creating its cosmic frame.
While it is important to note that attempts to create accurate divisions of the day—as well as mechanical timepieces that could monitor them—predated the European invention of the clock, they were limited to small segments of the population. Slow-burning candles with colour-coded wicks were employed both in monasteries and in the courts of kings such as Alfred of England.37 Water clocks driven by the flow from a large tank were cumbersome and inaccurate and they belonged only to the wealthy and powerful. Thus most of the European population, and indeed most of the world’s population, “floated” on a time that was still directly enmeshed with the physicality of daily life. The shift from temporal flotation to rigid regimentation began in the monasteries, where a holy cosmic order would find reflection in the hours of the day.
“One is not straining the facts when one suggests that the monasteries . . . helped to give human enterprise the regular collective beat and rhythm of the machine.” So wrote Lewis Mumford in his famous essay “The Monastery and the Clock”.38 The Church initially adopted the unequal Roman divisions of the day, and with the development of monasteries and the so-called Rule for ordering the day, prayer times were fit into seven periods: matins, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers and compline.39 Matins began with sunrise, sext was approximately midday, none fell around midafternoon, vespers marked the workday’s end and compline set the evening prayers. It’s worth noting that the twelve-hour division of the day was rarely used, either inside or outside the monastery.40
In the monastery, the hours of prayer were the metronome that ordered monastic life. As Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum puts it in his History of the Hour, “The monastic day was divided into an almost unbroken sequence of divine offices, meditation, reading, work, meals, and periods of sleep.”41 While authors such as Lewis Mumford may have gone too far in seeing the “iron discipline” of the monasteries as a metaphor for the machine age to come, the monks’ vigour and vigilance in ordering the day likely provided an example others hoped to follow as western Europe awoke from its Dark Ages slumbers. The greatest influence of the monasteries may have been the simple act of keeping their regular offices of prayer in a world that had little use for regulated, complex time. In other words, it was the example of order rather than a demand for accuracy that may be their most important legacy when it comes to time.
For the centuries that make up the Middle Ages there was no rigid rule or technical capacity to say when, exactly, terce might end or none begin. In general, monasteries used natural (and naturally vague) time signals such as the crowing of the cock to determine the hours. Thus considerable latitude existed in timekeeping within monasteries. “If the monks rose late”, Dohrn-van Rossum explains, “the liturgy of Vigils would be shortened.”42
What mattered was not the act of keeping exact units of measured time; instead, monasteries were developing a fundamentally new role for time as a background to an ordered life. A new sense of time was being established. “The monastic time system was meant to set itself apart”, writes Dohrn-von Rossum. “Regularity and repetitiveness in regard to year and day and the collectively lived life produced a special rationality and required a special discipline. . . .”43 Regularity and repetitiveness also demanded a submission to a temporal order that was impo
sed by the collective. Note that the idea of an “order imposed by the collective” is an excellent definition for the institutional facts that had changed millennia before in both the Neolithic and urban revolutions’ response to material engagement’s evolution. What emerged from those changes were new forms of human time (and new visions of cosmic architecture). The same process was beginning once more in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. For many scholars looking at the change in time consciousness destined to emerge in the Renaissance and then permeate the industrial revolution, the medieval age serves as a bridge linking one temporal order to the other.
While the monastics were developing a new form of time-ordered life within their walls, the outside world was mostly tuned to the activity of their bell towers. As European cities became more complex and wealthier in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, bells took on a great role in regulating civil time and its uses.
Bells were used to signal the beginning of the workday for different guilds.44 A bell pealed for the sheep shearers to start work. A different set of bells, or a differently timed bell signal, rang for the carpenters, the joiners and the armourers. There were bells used to signal the beginning of market and bells used to announce the end of market. In some cases there were separate bells to tell different groups, such as the nobility or the Jews, when to enter the market.45 Bells rang to regulate the political life of the city, from the start of court to the public announcements of its verdicts. The bell and the bell tower became the pulse of the city.
The braiding of material engagement and institutional facts became explicit as the bell towers turned into a direct symbol of economic and political vitality. Whoever “can ring the bells at will can easily rule over the city”, wrote Galvano Fiammo of Milan in the fourteenth century.46 When the French town of Hesdin used its bells to call peasants to revolt against local authority in 1179, the count of Flanders toppled the bell tower in retribution.47 The bells ruled time and time ruled the new urban enterprise.
