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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) > > %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%