Medieval Astronomical Clocks

These Astronomical Clocks Were a Wonder of the Medieval World.

I have a wee bit of an issue with an article that talks about these devices being around for over 1000 years and then not giving an example older than the 14th century, but the pictures are nevertheless marvelous and are testament to the sorts of cool things going on in the time period.

My area is primarily the middle ages (or the mid-evil period, as essay exams repeatedly say, which I can only presume occurred somewhere between the lesser-evil and greater-evil periods), formerly known as the Dark Ages.  They were named that by Renaissance jack-asses who decided Greece and Rome were the only cultures worthy of being called civilization.  The Renaissance was the time of Greco-Roman rebirth, while the time between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance was the Dark Ages, that time no one need bother studying because it’s all just too barbaric.

These clocks are medieval.  So are gothic (i.e. barbaric, named by the same Renaissance intellectuals) churches like Notre Dame in Paris and Westminster Abbey in Britain.  So is Magna Carta.  So is the Charter of Liberties, which Magna Carta mostly repeats.

Dark Ages my ass.

Leave a Reply