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Originally Posted by The Ace  Cheers Mosaix, I'd forgotten that one. Only if you're rich, though. |
It depends on what you mean by rich, Ace. A sundial would be beyond the means of a peasant, certainly, but a moderately prosperous merchant or craftsman could have afforded one. And there were sundials in towns -- on the sides of buildings, or above doorways -- which might be read by anyone passing by.
Also around the 1300's there began to be clock towers in some of the larger towns, and very beautiful and complex those clocks were, too.
So really, Spectrum, it depends on which part of the medieval period you are interested in.
Generally speaking, life moved at a different pace, and most of the time measuring by minutes and seconds would have been irrelevant anyway. For someone working the land, sunrise, noon, sundown pretty much covered it. In churchs and monasteries they had the canonical hours, which were hours of prayer and divided the day into nine (rarely equal) parts. Anyone who lived close to a church or who had resident clergy (for instance in a castle) would be aware of those hours passing as the bells rang, and they might use the canonical hours to commence their own prayers or other activities; additionally, it gave a sense of order and rhythm to their day. But typically people went about their tasks until they were completed (or the light failed), they did things when they needed to be done; so they weren't ruled by the clock, even when there was one.