# Something that has been bugging me: Medieval Fantasy and the measurement of time



## Outiboros (Mar 18, 2012)

My question boils down to this: how does a medieval(ish) character, who has no idea what a clock even is, measure time? 

Now, a day is a very simple and easily measurable time unit, as is a year, a season or a moon. The problem arises when I try to write about something that took, say, half an hour. What words could I/a medieval character use? I already feel like I use 'a few moments' and 'a while' way too frequently.


----------



## Potty (Mar 18, 2012)

found this on a quick jaunt into cyber space, might be useful. Seems pretty logical.

How to Calculate Medieval Time

Edit: Another thought, if you're trying to get a person to cordinate some sort of attack "Wait 5 mins then follow me in!" or something, you could use the tried and tested "Wait for my signal then follow me in!"


----------



## Cefor (Mar 18, 2012)

There's always deciding upon a system of hourly bells or something that are rung by people with nothing better to do with their time. Monks, for example.

If it's fantasy, then refer to how long it takes for candles to melt down, or mention how far the sun moved across the sky, or for how long a spell lasts, or the length of time it took to say a prayer.. there's quite a few things you can latch time to


----------



## Outiboros (Mar 19, 2012)

Thanks for the idea. I just so happen to have some priests running around who could use something worthwhile to do. The problems, however, arise when the characters are out in the field, away from towns or cities. 

I'll try to think up some metaphors without bogging down into too flowerish speech.


----------



## Cefor (Mar 19, 2012)

If they've lived their whole lives with a system of rung bells, they'll have figured out at what point in the sky the sun needs to be for it to be the second bell (hour), so just do it like that... you won't get accurate measures of time, but you don't need accurate, you just need approximate, really. In that setting, people don't expect seconds, minutes and hours.


----------



## Potty (Mar 19, 2012)

If it isnt set in this reality just give em sun dails.


----------



## Potty (Mar 19, 2012)

Outiboros said:


> The problems, however, arise when the characters are out in the field, .



Have a big tree that casts a shadow over the field. "Feild start, mid field, end feild." "Work begins when the shadow is at field start" (One side of the field.) "During mid field the women bring us sustinence" "At end field it is time for our daily beating and bed."

Or some such thing.


----------



## SeverinR (Apr 16, 2012)

Sun dial, Hour glass, water drops through a set rate, the momentum of a pendulum can keep time, one author writes in candle marks, the time it takes to burn a (official mixed candle since different substances burn differently) candle a certain distance.

There is no quick instrument to carry with them to tell time. So probably sun position would be a good estimate of time. Sun rise, sunset, central high. (and probably quarters in between?) A quarter til high sun, quarter til sundown.

Time wasn't so important in the past. Farmers got up at sun up, went to bed at sundown(candles were expensive). I think craftsmen tended to open sometime after breakfast, just alittle after sun-up and worked until sundown.

Executions happened at sunrise so everyone knew when it was.
Probably court opened about the same time as Craftsmen worked maybe even later. They had to eat their courses of food, and then make themselves look presentable to the lower people.

Precise appointments probably didn't happen. (except for meetings at sunrise or sunset, because there was no precise way to tell time.)

Another author used Bells tolled hourly, but the official time keeper would have to monitor some device to tell time. But outside of town, past the audible sound of a bell, they would be on their own again.


----------



## Lawrence (May 30, 2012)

Hours in the Middle Ages aren't anachronistic. Churches had bells, mainly to call people to Mass, or other important things like an imminent danger to the town. I am not sure if every country parish priest did it for every hour, but cities had an ample number of canons (that is, priests attatched to the local cathedral) to do things like this. From my limited research, it seems that the clerics started counting hours from sunrise, which leads me to believe they used a sundial for the rest of the day.

But I digress, I don't think it is really outlandish that a medieval person would be able to roughly estimate the length of an hour on his own. But as a before poster said, I very much doubt they had meetings at 2:37 or anything. They probably used simpler means, like an hour after high noon or something.

Hour - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


----------



## SeverinR (Jun 12, 2012)

To show a different culture, one could have a day divided into 10's rather then 2-12's or 24. More of a metric clock.
Instead of 60 minutes for an hour unit it would be 144 minutes. (If I am thinking right, a day is 24h, each hour is 60 minutes, so a day is 1440 minutes, 1/10th would be 144 minutes.)  Each unit(hour) could be further divided, a "minute unit" would be 100th of a day or 14.4, and a second unit could be 1000th of a day or 1.44.
Each unit would have to have a unique name to make it real and not confuse the reader with traditional time.


----------



## LaughinJim (Jun 12, 2012)

As long as the sun is out, time can be measured consistently and quite accurately from day to day. A stick placed in the ground of a specific size pointed at the sun to reaveal no shadow, will produce a shadow of a certain length after a certain consistant amount of time. A little experimentation on your own will prove this to be true. In this way, a character out in the open field on a sunny day with some knowlege and foresight will be able to calculate an hour or whatever amount of time within reasonable accuracy.

As for other posts on this thread, I cannot think of a more worthy endeavor for a cleric than to keep accurate time for a community by tolling the bells of the church. There was always water clock technology and a man with that assignment could establish a method from scratch within a few of weeks of sunrise observations and a well a couple of clay vessels, one with a spout. It would not be Swiss Time but it would be much better than you imagine.


----------



## Potty (Jun 12, 2012)

Lately I've been able to tell the time by the position of the sun in the sky. I'm usually right give or take 10-20 mins....


----------

