Time in History: Views of Time From Prehistory to the Present Day

by G. J. Whitrow

  The social influence of the mechanical clock

  An important consequence of the introduction of mechanical clocks was that in much of western Europe it led to the adoption of the uniform hour of sixty minutes. The earliest recorded clocks, such as the St Alban's clock and that erected in the Palace Chapel of the Visconti in Milan in 1335, struck up to twenty-four. Dante would appear to have seen a striking clock at least fifteen years before the Visconti clock of 1335 was installed; he may have seen the iron clock placed in the campanile of the church of Sant' Eustorgio in Milan in 1309--the first Italian

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  public clock of which we have knowledge. In Paradiso, composed between 1317 and 1320, he made a famous reference (24. 13-15) to the striking-train of a clock:

  E come cerchi in tempra d'oriuoli si giran si che il primo, a chi pon mente, quieto pare, e l'ultimo che voli . . .

  ('And even as wheels in harmony of clockwork so turn that the first, to whoso noteth it, seemeth still, and the last to fly . . .')

  Despite the inconvenience of counting large numbers the twenty- four-hour system persisted for centuries in Italy, but most other countries of western Europe soon adopted the system in which the hours were counted in two sets of twelve from midnight and from noon, respectively. The uniform hour of sixty minutes soon tended to replace the day as the fundamental unit of labour time in the textile industry. For example, in 1335 the governor of Artois authorized the inhabitants of Aire-sur-la-Lys to build a belfry whose bell would chime the working hours of textile employees.12 The problem of the length of the working day was particularly important in the textile industry, where wages were a considerable part of production costs.

  Despite the invention of the mechanical clock, for most people time remained uneven in quality. Nothing had done more to encourage this belief than the Church with its ecclesiastical calendar and regulations concerning what could or could not be done on specific days. Rules, or canons, were also established for the recital of prayers at definite times of the day. Known as the Canonical Hours, these followed the system of seasonal hours: Matins before dawn, Prime at sunrise, Tierce at 3. Sext at 6, Nones at 9, Vespers at 11 (the last four being reckoned from sunrise), and Compline after sunset. In due course Nones was set back three hours to midday, and this is the origin of the word 'noon'. Devout lay folk who wished to participate in this daily programme, however, needed their own prayerbooks. A 'Book of Hours' was the name given to such a prayerbook intended for private or family devotion, the term 'hours' indicating not an interval of sixty minutes, but less precise parts of the day that were set aside for religious and other duties. Originally, books of this type were commissioned only by kings and the highest nobility, but by the fifteenth century secular workshops had been set up, particularly in Paris and other cities in France and the Low Countries, so as to provide such books for a wider public. They form the largest single cat

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  egory of medieval manuscripts that have come down to us, and all later prayerbooks derive from them.13 They usually begin with pictures of the occupations of the different months, followed by passages from the Gospels and the liturgical hours from Matins (and Lauds) to Vespers and Compline, and completed by miniatures of the life of the Virgin. The most celebrated of all these books is the Très riches heures, painted early in the fifteenth century by the Limbourg brothers for the Duc de Berry, third son of King John II of France.14

  Popular superstitions concerning lucky and unlucky days, the existence of which has already been referred to in connection with the Romans, were reinforced in the Middle Ages by the recognition of black-letter days in the ecclesiastical calendar. For example, the day commemorating the massacre of the Holy Innocents, 28 December, was regarded as a day of particular ill-omen, especially in the fifteenth century. Moreover, throughout the year the particular day of the week on which Innocents' Day had fallen the previous year was also regarded as a black-letter day, and was also called Innocents' Day. Those who were influenced by this belief refrained from setting out on a journey or from starting a major task on that day of the week. An interesting example of this superstition concerns the coronation of Edward IV on 4 March 1461. In the preceding year 28 December fell on a Sunday and as the coronation took place on that day of the week it had to be repeated on another day!15 Even as late as the last quarter of the sixteenth century Queen Elizabeth's chief minister Lord Burghley warned his son to avoid undertaking new enterprises on three particularly ominous anniversaries in the ecclesiastical calendar: the first Monday in April (the murder of Abel), the first Monday in August (the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah), and the last Monday in December (the birthday of Judas Iscariot).

  A class of special days (and weeks) that has survived in both the Roman and Anglican Churches is that of 'Ember Days' and 'Ember Weeks'. Associated with the four seasons, the weeks concerned begin, respectively, on St Lucy's Day (13 December), the First Sunday in Lent, Whitsunday, and Holy Cross Day (14 September). Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays in these weeks are the Ember Days. Traditionally, these days were set apart for special prayer and fasting. The following Sundays, for example Trinity Sunday, are the days specially fixed for the ordination of the clergy. This ancient custom was finally established as a law of the Church. c. 1085, by Pope Gregory VII.

  In England, belief in the uniformity of time was greatly influenced by

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  the Puritans in their strong opposition to the practices of the Roman Church, in particular to the idea of special days in the ecclesiastical calendar. Instead, the Puritans advocated a regular routine of six days of work followed by a day of rest on the Sabbath, the famous Non- conformist ethic. During the course of the seventeenth century, despite the reaction against Puritanism which followed the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, this point of view became increasingly influential, so that by the end of the century it had come to be generally accepted. As Keith Thomas has pointed out, 'This change in working habits constituted an important step towards the social acceptance of the modern notion of time as even in quality, as opposed to the primitive sense of time's unevenness and irregularity.'16

  In France, a step towards ending the dominance of the liturgical practices of the Church was taken as early as 1370 by King Charles V when he ordered all the bells in Paris to be regulated by the recently installed clock of the royal palace, designed by Heinrich von Wiek (Henri de Vic), and to be rung at hourly intervals. Although the practical difficulties of time measurement were such that until the middle of the seventeenth century most clocks had but one hand and the dial was divided only into hours and quarters, the abstract framework of uniformly divided time gradually became the new medium of daily existence.

  This important development, which began in the towns, was fostered by the mercantile class and the rise of a money economy. As long as power was concentrated in the ownership of land, time was felt to be plentiful and was primarily associated with the unchanging cycle of the soft. With the increased circulation of money and the organization of commercial networks, however, the emphasis was on mobility. Time was no longer associated just with cataclysms and festivals but rather with everyday life. It was soon realized by many of the middle class that 'time is money' and consequently must be carefully regulated and used economically. As Lewis Mumford has pointed out, 'Time-keeping passed into time-saving and time-accounting and time-rationing. As this took place, Eternity gradually ceased to serve as the measure and focus of human actions.'17

  A typical instance of late medieval anxiety about time occurs in a letter of 1399 written by the wife of the 'Merchant of Prato', Francesco di Marco Datini, to her ageing husband: 'In view of all you have to do, when you waste an hour, it seems to me a thousand. . . . For I deem naught so precious to you, both for body and soul, as time, and methinks

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  you value it too little.'18 Two years later we find Datini himself writing in the same vein to one of his partners in Spain, Cristofano di Bartolo, whom he
wished to persuade to come home. A similar note was struck by Chaucer in the Host introduction to the "'Man of Law's Tale'" in The Canterbury Tales, written about 1400:

  And therefor by the shadwe he took his wit

  That Phebus, which that shoon so clere and brighte,

  Degrees was fyve and fourty clombe on highte;

  And for that day, as in that latitude,

  It was ten of the clokke, he gan conclude,

  And sodeynly he plighte his hors aboute.

  'Lordinges,' quod he, 'I warne yow, al this route,

  The fourthe party of this day is goon;

  Now, for the love of god and of Seint John,

  Leseth no tyme, as ferforth as ye may;

  Lordinges, the tyme wasteth night and day,

  And steleth from us, what prively slepinge,

  And what thurgh necligence in our wakynge,

  As dooth the streem, that turneth never agayn,

  Descending fro the montaigne into playn.'

  Before long there were many activities for which time came to be increasingly regarded as valuable. In the early and high Middle Ages it had been possible to spend many tens and even hundreds of years on erecting a single building, be it a cathedral, a castle, or a town hall. This 'was possible because human life was regarded as primarily the life of the community in which one generation quietly succeeded another, so that there was no pressing need for rapid construction. All this was destined to change in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance period. Even in painting the time factor made itself felt. For although we frequently find in paintings of this period that a number of consecutive scenes are represented simultaneously in one picture, in other ways temporal considerations came to exert a decisive influence--in particular, causing painting a secco to replace al fresco, or true fresco, since the very long apprenticeship that pupils had to serve before they became proficient in fresco painting could not be maintained, and a successful painter had to work fast in order to handle all the commissions that he received. Even as great an artist as Michelangelo ( 1475- 1564) was unable to turn the tide. Originally it had been planned that the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel should be painted a secco in oil, but he insisted on carrying out the

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  work al fresco since he considered oil painting to be only 'fit for women and slovenly people'! His point of view conflicted with the spirit of the age and, despite his example, the glorious art of true fresco died out, its practice being incompatible with the new social attitude to time.

  This attitude was also responsible for a new horological invention that was ultimately to be of far-reaching social significance. The first mechanical clocks were large and unwieldy, and there was soon a desire for smaller and more portable mechanisms. To meet this demand springs began to be used in the fifteenth century in place of weights as the source of motive power in clocks. This development was important because it made possible the invention of the domestic clock and also the watch. One of the earliest references to a watch is the gold pomander 'wherein is a clocke' that was presented in 1540 by Henry VIII to Catherine Howard, his fifth wife.19 The public clock, whether installed in a church or in a town square, was only an intermittent reminder of the passage of time, but a domestic clock or a watch was a continually visible indicator. As D. S. Landes has pointed out, whereas the public clock could be used to open and close markets, to signal the start and end of work and to move people around, it signalled only moments rather than the continual passage of time. A chamber clock or watch, on the other hand, was an ever-visible reminder of 'time used, time spent, time wasted, time lost'. As such it was prod and key to personal achievement and productivity.20

  Nevertheless, centuries were to elapse before this invention became widespread. Indeed, for a long while the possession of a domestic clock or a watch tended to be restricted to the wealthy and was looked upon more as a sign of affluence than as a social necessity. As late as the middle of the seventeenth century we find, for example, that even at the age of 30 Samuel Pepys ( 1633-1703), already an important government official, did not possess a watch. Instead, he lived by the church bells of London and occasionally a sundial, as did almost everyone else there. Consequently, very few specific appointments were made. Pepys moved around from public places to coffee houses and taverns hoping to do business. He often went to discuss matters with the Lord High Admiral, James, Duke of York, only to find that the Duke had gone hunting. Pepys never expresses surprise or resentment. Time had a different significance for him and most of his contemporaries than it has for us.

  Since watches were for long the toys of the rich, it is not surprising that often when ordinary folk encountered one they were extremely puzzled and were even inclined to look upon it as something evil and

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  dangerous. An amusing instance of this is related by John Aubrey concerning an Oxford don, Thomas Allen ( 1542-1632), who owned many mathematical and other scientific instruments. When staying one Long Vacation at a friend's place, 'at Hom Lacey in Herefordshire" he happened to leave his watch on the window-sir of his chamber. According to Aubrey,

  The maydes came in to make the bed, and hearing a thing in a case cry Tick, Tick, Tick, presently concluded that it was his Devill, and took it by the string with the tongues, and threw it out of the windowe into the mote (to drown the Deviff). It so happened that the string hung on a sprig of an elder that grew out of the mote, and this confirmed them that 'twas the Devill. [Consequently], the good old gentleman got his watch back.21

  When most people possessed no clocks or watches but lived more in the countryside than they do today, they took far more note than we do of the various timings associated with plants and animals. Indeed, some plants were even named thereby, for example, the 'day's eye' (daisy), so-called in allusion to its revealing its yellow disc in the morning and concealing it again in the evening. Most notable of natural timings was cock-crow, and a famous tribute to the cock Chauntecleer's horological skill was paid by Chaucer in the 'Nun's Priest's Tale':

  Wel sikerer was his crowying in his logge,

  Than is a clokke, or an abbey orlogge.

  By nature knew he ech ascenscioun

  Of equinoxial in thilke toun;

  For whan degrees fiftene were ascended,

  Thanne crew he, that it mighte nat ben amended.

  Although watches were extremely rare before the late seventeenth century, the influence of mechanical timekeeping had already made itself felt in a variety of ways, besides those already mentioned. By the sixteenth century mining operations had become closely regulated by the clock according to Agricola (Georg Bauer), who in his De re metallica, of 1555, noted the precise times of shifts. Many professional people, such as judges and teachers, commenced their duties at stated hours, and by the late Middle Ages even the often unruly undergraduates at universities such as Oxford were subjected to the discipline of fixed timetables. Lectures often began as early as 5 or 6 a.m. in the summer (7 a.m. in the winter), and sometimes the first lecture went on for three hours, no provision being made for any food before 10 a.m.22 It is interesting to

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  trace the way in which the times of meals have changed over the centuries, particularly because in everyday life it is not just the clock which tells us which part of the day we are in but the meals that we eat. Thus, in common parlance, 'afternoon' now begins an hour or more after 'noon' according to the clock. Also dinner has tended to get later and later in the day. The fascinating details of this historical trend have been described by Arnold Palmer.23 Although, the rule of the clock affected most people in the sixteenth century far less than it does us today, it was already sufficient to provoke Brother Jean in the Gargantua ( 1535) of Rabelais to complain that 'the hours are made for man and not man for the hours!'24

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  8. Time and History in the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution

  Reform of the calendar

  Throughout history the ultimate standard of time
has been derived from astronomical observations. In due course this led to the hour, minute, and second being defined as fractions of one rotation of the earth on its axis. Since it was found convenient in everyday life to determine this rotation by the orientation of the earth relative to the sun, the 'mean solar day' was defined as the period of rotation of the Earth on its axis relative to the Sun corrected for all known irregularities. Because the earth's orbit is only approximately circular, the relative speed of the sun is not quite uniform. Also the sun's apparent motion in the sky is not along the celestial equator (the projection of the earth's Equator on to the sky), and consequently the component of the sun's motion parallel to the Equator varies. As a result, for the purposes of ordinary timekeeping a 'mean sun' is defined as moving at a constant rate which is the average of that of the actual sun. The difference between mean solar time and apparent solar time (as given by a sundial) is called the 'equation of time'. The 'equation of time' vanishes four times a year, on or about 15 April, 15 June, 31 August, and 24 December. The maximum amount by which apparent (or sundial) noon precedes mean noon is about 16.5 minutes on or about 3 November, and the maximum amount by which mean noon precedes apparent noon is about 14.5 minutes on or about 12 February. The 'mean solar second' is defined as the appropriate fraction (1/86,400) of the mean solar day.