skip.knox submitted a new blog post:
History for Fantasy Writers: Do You Have a Moment?
by E.L. Skip Knox
This is the second part of a two-part article on how time was perceived and measured in ancient and medieval Europe.
In the last installment of History for Fantasy Writers I addressed years, months, weeks, and days. Now I turn to shorter lengths: days, hours and still shorter periods. I’ll close with a more general consideration of time and the awareness of time.
Hours
We carve the day into twenty-four hours, but in the past the hour was a malleable thing. There were twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of night, regardless of the season. The day began with zero at sunrise. Then came the first hour, the second, and so on. The twelfth hour fell at sunset. A winter daylight hour was therefore shorter than a summer hour.
This feels a little nuts at first, but it’s actually pretty sensible. At least the word midnight makes sense in that system—it’s the mid-point of the night, regardless of how long is the night. All we have to do is abandon the notion that an hour is a unit of time, to consider it as marking portions of a day. The first part, second, third, and so on.
The malleability of the hour could cause difficulties, sometimes. The historian Marc Bloch tells the story of two men who agreed to have a duel at...
Continue reading the Original Blog Post.
History for Fantasy Writers: Do You Have a Moment?
by E.L. Skip Knox
This is the second part of a two-part article on how time was perceived and measured in ancient and medieval Europe.
In the last installment of History for Fantasy Writers I addressed years, months, weeks, and days. Now I turn to shorter lengths: days, hours and still shorter periods. I’ll close with a more general consideration of time and the awareness of time.
Hours
We carve the day into twenty-four hours, but in the past the hour was a malleable thing. There were twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of night, regardless of the season. The day began with zero at sunrise. Then came the first hour, the second, and so on. The twelfth hour fell at sunset. A winter daylight hour was therefore shorter than a summer hour.
This feels a little nuts at first, but it’s actually pretty sensible. At least the word midnight makes sense in that system—it’s the mid-point of the night, regardless of how long is the night. All we have to do is abandon the notion that an hour is a unit of time, to consider it as marking portions of a day. The first part, second, third, and so on.
The malleability of the hour could cause difficulties, sometimes. The historian Marc Bloch tells the story of two men who agreed to have a duel at...
Continue reading the Original Blog Post.
Myth Weaver
