God's Clockmaker: Richard Of Wallingford And The Invention Of Time

by John North

Clocks became common in late medieval Europe and the measurement of time began to rule everyday life. God's Clockmaker is a biography of England's greatest medieval scientist, a man who solved major practical and theoretical problems to build an extraordinary and pioneering astronomical and astrological clock. Richard of Wallingford (1292-1336), the son of a blacksmith, was a brilliant mathematician with a genius for the practical solution of technical problems. Trained at Oxford, he became a monk and then abbot of the great abbey of St Albans, where he built his clock. Although as abbot he held great power, he was also a tragic figure, becoming a leper. His achievement, nevertheless, is a striking example of the sophistication of medieval science, based on knowledge handed down from the Greeks via the Arabs.

Genres: History, Science

462 pages, Hardcover

First published May 20, 2005

About the author

John David North, FBA (19 May 1934 – 31 October 2008) was an historian of science, whose speciality was the history of astronomy and cosmology, publishing strikingly original interpretations of Chaucer, Holbein and Richard of Wallingford as well as numerous works on archaeology, literature and art. He was appointed Librarian and Assistant Curator at the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, 1968-77, and served as Professor of History of Philosophy and the Exact Sciences at the University of Groningen, Netherlands, 1977-1999.

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

An obsession with time; an observation of the stars.

When I was younger, on Sunday’s I would set my watch to the radio at 11 am. On CBC, they announced the “official mountain time” set to the atomic clock in eastern Canada. One needed to get through the day with the correct time.

Now we simply check our phones for the correct time. But what did one do in the fourteenth century? How did they tell time other than guessing the position of the sun in the sky.

For the monks at the Abbey Albans in Oxford, England, time was needed for their daily prayer routines (there were five or six prayer times). Prime was dawn; vespers was sunset. But the others? And the sun changed through the year? Harvest time brought about other issues. Time was a challenge.

Richard of Wallingford, upon being elected as Abbott, paid a visit to the pope in Avignon in 1308. This was the time that the papacy had moved from Rome to the south of France. While there he saw the riches of the time, and more importantly, was put into contact with others of a scientific mind, like his. And he saw a horloge, a time piece, a clock.

Time was not on his side. After returning to England, he discovered he had leprosy. He returned and made a name for himself. On one hand, he had a nasty temper, he ruled the abbey with authoritarian rule, but also set out to create the first astronomical and astrological clock in England.

Richard was also fascinated in the movement of the stars and implemented the concept of an “astrolabe” device into his design of an Albion. The monks would be able to tell time, hear the bells ring, and check out the position of the sun and moon all in one place.

Where did he get the wisdom to create this? For a starter, he went to Oxford University before becoming an Abbot. This is where Richard began his fascination with astronomy. Oxford in the Middle Ages was an interesting place. On one hand, one needed to respect (and deal) with the Catholic church; on the other, look towards the enlightenment of science. This was all thanks to the Muslim conquest of Spain, who drew from the ancient Greeks and helped by the Jewish Cabala.

You had astrologers and astronomers who were all ruled by religion. And of course, one needed to pay tax to the king. Richard played a tricky role of maintaining the Abbey and yet pushing his ideas in a time when this was not the norm. Talk about pushing the envelope.

On one hand, I was impressed and enlightened with most of this book. On the other, the last section is more like a series of appendices. Some information went way over my head, and some was more to my liking. Of course, being an Oxford professor, John North does praise his school a lot. If you have a knack to learn something new, this will be your book.

Just imagine what Richard would say about time today?

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/nhw/555709.html[return][return]John North, who published the definitive edition of Richard of Wallingford's works thirty years ago, here attempts to give a more accessible account (at a cost of