Today, 23 December, is the feast of ...
* Theodulus, Saturninus and others, martyrs in Crete (c. 250)
* Victoria, virgin and martyr (253)
- following the exhortations of her friend St Anatolia, she refused to
marry a pagan
* Migdonius, Mardonius, and others, martyrs at Nicomedia (303)
* Servulus, confessor (590)
- a beggar afflicted with palsy from infancy, he lived in the porch of
St Clement's church in Rome, where he would preach to passers-by; when
people gathered around him at his death bed and sang hymns, he sang
along with them until he said, 'Be quiet now, I hear sweet music from
heaven!', at which point he died
* Mazota or Mayota, virgin (seventh century)
- a contemporary of St Columba, she lived in a church at Abernethy,
where the Irish king and all his family were baptized
* Ivo, confessor (1115)
- bishop of Chartres, and great canonist
* Thorlac, confessor (1193)
- apparently, the remains of his body in Skalholt cathedral show his
skeleton to be normal except for the skull; according to Baring-Gould,
this is in fact a coconut
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dr Carolyn Muessig
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
University of Bristol
Bristol BS8 1TB
UK
phone: +44(0)117-928-8168
fax: +44(0)117-929-7850
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
On Tue, 22 Dec 1998, Richard Landes wrote:
> At 11:13 AM 12/22/98 GMT, you wrote:
> >
> >>Modern humans think there is a problem because we have so many timepieces.
> >>Medieval people hadn't noticed that there was anything to solve, so they
> >>didn't.
> >
> >Exactly so. It doesn't really matter (so it seems to me, a secular) what
> >time monks do things, so long as they all do them at the same time. So long
> >as one monk has the responsibility for ringing the bell for vespers,
> >everyone will come to vespers when he rings.
>
> said as a secular, which our monks were not. A huge amount of energy went
> into getting it "right", and, when possible, getting it right everywhere
> (Benedict of Aniane and Louis Pious). the need for an alarm clock for the
> ringer, experienced in a northern clime where freezing water made time
> clocks unreliable, led to the development of the mechanical clock. note
> the slippage in the translation of frere Jacques into english: in the
> french, the alarm is to awaken the ringer. (D.S.Landes, *Revolution in Time).
>
> >The difficulty arises when two
> >monasteries, like Rievaulx and Old Byland, are within earshot of each other;
> >then the confusion arises. The monks couldn't look at their wrist-watches
> >to check if that was their bell ringing, or the other firm's.
>
> that's fascinating. do the sources discuss or allude to any differences?
> This, on a small scale is what provoked the fights over easter -- when the
> king and his wife celebrated it on different days.
>
> rlandes
>
> Richard Landes
> Department of History Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University
> Boston University Boston University
> 226 Bay State Road 704 Commonwealth Ave. Suite 205
> Boston MA 02215 Boston MA 02215
> 617-353-2558 (of) 617-358-0226 (tel)
> 617-353-2781 (fax) 617-358-0225 (fax)
> [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask]
> http://www.mille.org
>
> "Every millennium has the Apocalypse it deserves." -- Umberto Eco in
> Keynote Address to the "Apocalyptic Year 1000" Conference (11-96)
> "Every generation gets the millennium it deserves." -- Richard Landes
> remembering Umberto Eco's address (8-98)
>
>
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