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Clockwork Mechanics, Maintenance, and Metaphors in the Late Middle Ages

27 points benbreen 3 days ago 8 comments

Schlagbohrer 1 day ago | parent

"In his advice book for married women, the learned knight, diplomat, and royal advisor Philippe de Mézières (1327–1405) links the image of the clock with the exemplary figure of the Virgin Mary. As conveyed in Le livre de la vertu du sacrement de mariage (1389), the clock’s wheel represents nature at work in Mary’s body, turning at a measured pace only through her unique chastity and sobriety; the escapement, moving to and fro, is likened to her mediation between Christ and humanity, by which she restrains the weight of divine justice (Mézières 1389, 170–171)."

The confinement of the medieval European imagination to such a narrow range of metaphors is why I also find the paintings of the period so incredibly boring. Every single painting is Mary holding the baby Christ or one of the other 2 or 3 approved things to paint, all of Jesus. What a stultifying time that must have been. Although peasant culture / working class culture was probably more colorful and varied, but unfortunately illiterate and seldom recorded.

ggambetta 1 day ago | parent

I love that, though! The same approved theme and pose, say the annunciation, painted by so many people over so many centuries lets you compare styles and trace their evolution much more directly than if they were painting random stuff. It's like watching different martial artists executing the same kata.

throw0101c 19 hours ago | parent

A lot of Renaissance music was set for Church services (Missa this, Missa that), and there's all sort of variations:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_(music)

There's a bit of a debate on whether rules/restrictions help or hinder creativity.

ButlerianJihad 19 hours ago | parent

Here is the really crazy part: for 500 years, the Latin text of the Mass was always fixed. So whatever music anyone wrote or arranged, was always adapted to exactly the same words.

Now that the Vatican II Mass is authorized in the vernacular, that means there are hundreds of permutations of official translations, and therefore hundreds of permutations of official texts, that composers worldwide can adapt their music to.

Imagine the money-printing possibilities of reinventing, and then copyrighting your liturgical music, hundreds of times over, instead of “one and done” for a singular Latin text‽

pelcg 1 day ago | parent

This is great technical read.

SwtCyber 1 day ago | parent

I never really thought about how unreliable early mechanical clocks must have been....

throw0101c 19 hours ago | parent

With regards to maintenance, Tom Scott just released a video about a clock company that does it all over the UK:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxXfeotgVVA

ButlerianJihad 19 hours ago | parent

An interesting point to note is that various Catholic pastors broached the idea of building “clockwork images” of saints: little automatons that would engage in sacred movements and be installed in churches, just like stained glass or statues.

The bishops contemplated that briefly, extrapolated to some very logical conclusions, and decreed “oh hell no!” and that was the end of clockwork saints.