time-art

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time-art - 7/17/94

"A Question of Time... " by Nicolaa de Bracton of Leicester

Article on the medieval concepts of time.

NOTE: See also the files: bells-msg, sundials-msg, calenders-msg, clocks-msg,

A-Gear-o-Time-art, Watches-art, med-calender-art, Sandglass-art.

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NOTICE -

This article was submitted to me by the author for inclusion in this set

of files, called Stefan’s Florilegium.

These files are available on the Internet at:

http://www.florilegium.org

While the author will likely give permission for this work to be

reprinted in SCA type publications, please check with the author first

or check for any permissions granted at the end of this file.

Thank you,

Mark S. Harris

AKA: Stefan li Rous

stefan at florilegium.org

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A Question of Time...

--- Nicolaa de Bracton of Leicester

What day is it? What year? How old are you?

These questions are not so easy as you might think. Take the first

one, for example. As I sit here typing this out, it is 7:30 on a

January Friday evening. For most medieval people, however, it would

be Saturday evening, not Friday. Some of you may be aware of the fact

that the day begins at sundown in the Jewish calendar. Same thing for

the medieval day. (Ever wonder why Christmas eve is the night before

Christmas day? Now you know). Furthermore, if I were writing this in

1239 ( the right year for me), I would probably not really know

exactly what time it was. The day was divided into two halves, light

and dark, rather than two twelve-hour periods; thus, in winter, an "hour"

would be longer at night than during the day. I would probably

be aware of the seven "canonical hours" (Matins, Prime, Terce, Sext,

None, Vespers, and Compline), but how these corresponded with the

actual hour of the day would vary with the seasons and the length of

the day. These canonical hours were selected by St. Benedict as the

hours the monks would observe the daily offices: three ( terce --the

third hour of the morning; sext -- the sixth hour, around midday;

and none -- the ninth hour, in the afternoon) were the publicly

announced changing of the Roman guards, and four ( matins -- the

dawning sky; prime -- sunrise; vespers --sunset; and compline --

complete darkness) were tied to nature. Bells were rung at these

hours to call the monks to prayers; those in towns or near a

monastery would doubtless be familiar with them. You will note that

it is possible to tell time in a medieval manner at Pennsic, even on a

cloudy day: the "canonical hours" consist of the thrice-daily cry of

the camp at 10 am, 1 pm, and 4 pm (these are last year's hours), along

with the medieval hours of lightening sky, dawn, sunset, and complete darkness.

I would probably also be aware of sundials and their usefulness in

daylight hours and might have marked candles to help me at night. It

seems that before the introduction of mechanical clocks, the precise

ordering of time by equal hours was not only impossible, it was simply

not part of the way of thinking. Things do change, though. In the

fourteenth century, a device called a "century clock" with bells on a

regular system began to be more common, so people began to know a bit

more what hour it was.

What day it was also depended on what calendar you were on. Luckily

for us, the changeover to the Gregorian calendar did not happen until

fairly late -- 1582. But here's the rub: Are you in a Protestant or

Catholic country? Only Catholic countries adopted the new calendar at

this time; and in these countries in this year the day 15 October

immediately followed 4 October. You have to take care in these cases.

After this, what's June 1 in England is June 12 in France; eventually

the Julian lag reaches thirteen days. England doesn't adopt the

Gregorian calendar until the eighteenth century; a few fierce and

independent Swiss cantons (where the old new year, January 13, known

as "old Sylvester" is still celebrated) held out until the twentieth

century, as did, of course, Russia (though the Russian Orthodox Church

is still on the Julian calendar.) Could you imagine the confusion

that would result if every Laurel Kingdom was on a different calendar?

Attending events could be a real adventure.

Now for the fun part. What year is it? For me, (writing this in

January) it's 1239. Christmas 1239 was two months ago. And 1240

starts on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation (or Lady Day, as

it's called in England). The idea behind this is that if we're

reckoning time from the Incarnation of Jesus, we should do it from the

moment Mary became pregnant. Count back nine months from December

25...and you get March 25. Now this is just England. Other countries

started their year at different points. The Holy Roman Empire used

December 25 until the thirteenth century, as did France, England

(before the Plantagenets), and most of Western Europe. In the early

thirteenth century, Philip Augustus of France switched the beginning

of the year to Easter, which adds the difficulty that the year begins

on a different day every year. This seems to have really only have

caught on in Paris and in court circles, but since most of our French

records are products of these circles, it is important. Other dates

found local favour, as R.L. Poole observes: " If we suppose a traveler

sets out from Venice on March 1, 1245, the first day of the Venetian

year, he would find himself in 1244 when he reached Florence; and, if

after a short stay he went on to Pisa, the year 1246 would already

have begun there. Continuing his journey westward, he would find

himself again in 1245 when he reached Provence, and on arriving in

Paris before Easter (April 16) he would once more be in 1244." To

add the confusion, Spanish custom dated the beginning of the anno

domini (year of grace) to 38 B.C. To find this date, add 38 to the

A.D. year. This was used in Spain until the middle of the fourteenth

century and in Portugal until 1420. Sometime in the sixteenth century

almost everyone switched to January 1 as the beginning of the new

year, which had marked the beginning of the Roman civil year and had

survived long after this in Spain, as well as being generally

recognized as the beginning of the fiscal and civil year around Europe

for centuries.

In Christian lands, it took a couple of hundred years after the

Conversion of Rome for scholars to settle on numerical dates for the

major events of the Bible: the practice of dating from the

Incarnation of Christ ("A.D" dating) was introduced around 525 but not

immedia tely universally adopted, and the length of history was

finally determined when Bede calculated the date of creation as March

18, 3952 B.C. However, even these norms were not adopted everywhere,

as the Spanish example I just noted makes clear. We also have

Byzantine reckoning (used in all Orthodox lands) which adds 5508 onto

the A.D. date: thus 1240=6748.

Of course, Islamic custom dates the year from 622 AD (the Hegira) and

features a lunar calendar. Thus, the year 86 in Muslim lands begins

on January 2, 705 (modern usage); the year 87 then commences on

December 23, 705. The Jewish calendar (also a lunar calendar) uses the

year 3761 BC (the beginning of Mosaic law) as a start date; seven

times in every nineteen years a thirteenth month of 29 days is added

so that unlike the Muslim holidays, Jewish holidays are always about

the same time of the year. Luckily for us, the translators of

Penguin classics and other such popular sources have usually put the

dates into modern usage; if they haven't, they usually let you know.

Now the beginning of the anno societatis reckoning at May 1, 1966

doesn't seem so odd, does it?

How about the calendar itself? Anyone who reads Bede knows that there

was a great eighth century debate about calculating the date of

Easter. The results were a bunch of nifty charts designed to let one

know when Easter fell in any particular year. The date of Easter was

important in the determination of "movable feasts" which were counted

in days after Easter. For example, Ascension day is forty days after

Easter, Corpus Christi day is 54 days after, etc. Most feasts

associated with particular saints were fixed, as were most of the

feasts associated with the Virgin Mary. Advent was a movable feast

which did not depend on Easter, but rather on Christmas day. (Pennsic

is also this type of "feast"-- in practice, Pennsic seems to be

arranged so that the third Saturday of the month falls in War

weekend). You might be interested to know that the practice of

observing "Leap Day" as February 29 is post-period; in the Middle

Ages, there were two February 26th's in the Leap Year; thus the usual

name for leap year in ecclesiastical calendars is annus bisextilus .

What to call the actual days of the month? Roman practice had based

dates around three dates in each month: the Kalends (always the first

day of the month), the Nones (either the seventh or the ninth day),

and the Ides (the thirteenth or the fifteenth day, depending on the

month). Dates were always reckoned as days before one of these

"landmarks", and Roman practice was to begin counting with the day you

were currently on: thus, April 28 was considered four days before

the Kalends of May, not three (as we would reckon). This system

continued to be used throughout the Middle Ages, but in the North

(particularly in Germany and Norman holdings), a new system began to

appear in the twelfth century: namely, numbering the days of the

month, the practice we still follow today. This practice only slowly

caught on; local practices still focused mainly on saint's days,

though this could become confusing as one traveled from place to

place, where different saints were revered. In this part of the

world, our SCA calendar is built around a number of "feasts": Locally

in Ealdormere, we have Coronet, Investiture, Murder Melee, Feast of

the Hare, Lady Mary Tourney, and Ealdormere Arts and Sciences as

major "feasts". Throughout the Middle, Crown Tourney, Coronation,

and Pennsic are major feasts. Traveling to the East Kingdom would see

different "feast days" in celebration, except for Pennsic. Perhaps

the only "feast" shared by the Society as a whole is Twelfth Night.

For legal and business purposes, the year was divided into quarters,

just as it is today. The quarters were named for the major feast day

nearest them: beginning in September with Michaelmas term (began Oct.

6), followed by Hilary term (January 20), Easter term (seventeen days

after Easter), and Trinity (eight days after Trinity Sunday, which

was the seventh Sunday after Easter). You will note, of course, that

these quarters are not all the same length; nor was business

transacted on every day. Sundays and major feast days, as well as

Lent and the Advent-Christmas season, were off limits for the courts

(and Parliament, later), though regular business probably was less

observant of these limitations. Legal records are usually arranged by

term. (Proof that quarterly reports are period, I suppose).

Now, to the final question: How old are you? It's easy if you're a

male member of a royal family; these things tended to get noted. It

wasn't until the advent of parish records in the fourteenth century

that written track of births and christenings for even high ranking

families was kept, and even into the nineteenth century there can be

questions as to a particular person's actual birthdate. This is in

retrospect, of course. Medieval people probably know how old they

were, though in some earlier societies (Icelandic for example) the

important factor was not your chronological age, but how many winters

you had survived. (One's "age" in the SCA might also be similarly

described as the number of Pennsics you have attended or could have

attended). We know that they must have kept track of these things,

since canon and civil law proscribed certain ages for marriage (12 for

girls, 14 for boys), the passage into adolescence (age 14) and the age

of majority (21, often earlier in practice.) The celebration of

birthdays was more a legal practice than a cause for a party, it seems

-- We are completely ignorant of the birthdays of a number of major

historical figures who are otherwise well attested in the documents.

Sources:

Borst, Arno. _The Ordering of Time _. Chicago, 1993.

Capelli, A. _Cronologia, Cronographia e Calendrio Perpetuo_, Milan 1988.

Cheney, C.R. _Handbook of Dates for Students of English History_.

London, 1945.

----

Toronto, Ontario M4H 1L1 CANADA. Permission granted for

republication in SCA-related publications, provided author is credited

and receives a copy.

If this article is reprinted in a publication, I would appreciate a notice in

the publication that you found this article in the Florilegium. I would also

appreciate an email to myself, so that I can track which articles are being

reprinted. Thanks. -Stefan.

Stefan's Florilegium

time-art