>At 16:48 20/12/98 -0600, you wrote:
>Hello, listmembers. I have a question regarding the canonical hours: How
>was time
>measured in the middle ages and renaissance, especially at night? I've
heard
>something about the existence of candles with marks on them to indicate
>hours. Also,
>that in winter night hours were longer than sixty minutes and day hours
>shorter to
>account for twelve hour days and nights.
>
Some early monastic rules (notably the Rule of Columbanus) provided a very
elaborate time table for the regular rounds of psalm singing that marked the
monastic year. The "hours" varied in length between summer and winter so
that the day time offices were more lengthy than the night time ones in
summer and vice versa in winter. This is an obvious device to even out the
allotted numbers of psalms for each day.
Without going into devices for measuring time, I would also like to point
out that all of us travellers know that the body has a clock. Animals know
this too. I never had a pet who was not accurage about the feeding
schedule. My present cat even adjusts to daylight savings within a day or
two.
Jo Ann
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