God's Clockmaker: Richard of Wallingford and the Invention of Time

462 Pages·2007·17.77 MB·English

by  John North

God's Clockmaker
1. Richard of Wallingford shown as abbot, in the act of dividing
a circular instrument, probably meant to be his albion. Hanging
in the alcove is a quadrant, while the books on the floor perhaps
symbolise his many writings. British Library, MS Cotton Claud.
E.iv, fol. 201 r. (British Library)
God's Clockmaker
Richard of Wallingford
and the Invention of Time
John North
hambledon
continuum
CONTINUUM
The Tower Building
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New York, NY 10038
First Published 2005, Reprinted 2006
ISBN 1 85285451 0 HB
ISBN 1 85285 571 1 PB
© J. D. North, 2005
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyrights
reserved above, no part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior
written permission of both the copyright owner and
the above publisher of this book.
A description of this book is available from
the British Library and from the Library of Congress.
Typeset by Van den Linden
Printed on acid-free paper and bound in
Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall
Contents
Illustrations ix
Preface xv
PART ONE : Foundations
1 Eclipse 3
2 The Black Monks 7
The Order 8
Federation 10
The Monastery 12
3 Wallingford 17
The Borough 17
Son of the Smithy 18
The Priory 22
4 Oxford 27
The Beginnings of the University 28
Grosseteste: The Forming of the University 30
Theology and the Sciences 33
Gloucester College 38
Rival Institutions 42
Nine Long Years and More 47
5 An Astronomer Among Theologians 51
Cause for Regret 51
Oxford Theologians Abroad 53
'Mathematical Pursuits' 56
Astrology and the Calendar 58
New Instruments: Rectangulus and Albion 60
The Astrolabe 64
6 The State of the Kingdom 69
The Fall of Edward II 69
Edward III and the Downfall of Isabella 72
vi GOD'S CLOCKMAKER
PART TWO : An Abbot's Rule
7 A New Abbot 77
Goliath 78
Avignon 79
Why Avignon? 80
Pope John XXII (1316–34) 82
The Road 84
The Throne of Costly Grace 86
Fortune's Wheel 90
8 Reprove, Persuade, Rebuke 93
Discordant Notes 94
A Visitation 96
The Abbot's Dues 98
The Leper 99
A Good Shepherd? 102
Rights 104
9 The Visitor Visited 107
An Abbot in Parliament 107
Balancing the Books 110
Enemies and Friends in Adversity 111
10 The Litigious Abbot 115
Justice Within Whose Law? 118
The Mills of StAlbans 119
Hand-Mills and Liberties 123
Morality and Bloodshed 125
Trials by Jury 127
The Men of Redbourn 129
Isabella's Mill 130
Mills, Malt, and Mast 131
Windmills 134
Unflagging Aspirations 135
PART THREE : Time and the Man
11 Builders and Clockmakers 139
The Builder 139
Roger and Laurence of Stoke 141
12 Horologe and History 145
Time and the Hour 145
Water Clocks 147
CONTENTS vii
The First Cluster of Records 153
Perpetual Motion 154
Mechanisms and Motives 160
Astronomical Motives 160
Astronomical Motives Questioned 164
The Mechanical Escapement's First Application? 166
13 The St Albans Clock 171
The Treatise 172
The Manuscripts 173
The Escapement 175
The Order of Invention 182
The St Albans Striking Mechanism 185
Developments in Italy 190
Richard of Wallingford as Engineer 194
The Building of the Clock 197
14 Machina Mundi 201
The Clock as Instrument 202
Tides and Fortune 206
On Reading an Astrolabe Dial 208
The Sun's Variable Motion 211
The Moon and Dragon 216
15 Legacy 219
Time the Controller 219
Time's Fell Hand 221
The Man 221
Dissolution and Survival 224
PART FOUR : The Springs of Western Science
16 The Migration of Ideas 229
The Latin Tradition 230
From Cordoba to Western Monasteries 231
Al-Khwārizmī in England 233
The High Tide of Translation 235
Approaches to the Greek Aristotle 237
Jewish Contributions 240
Parallel Worlds: Theology as Censor 242
Provence and Profatius 243
17 A Primer in Aristotelian Natural Philosophy 249
18 Natural Philosophy in Oxford 259
A Metaphysics of Light 260
viii GOD'S CLOCKMAKER
Grosseteste and Thirteenth-Century Optics 262
Aristotle and Geometry 266
Aristotle and Scientific System 267
Rationalists, Empiricists, and God 271
A New Dynamics 275
A New Kinematics: The Mertonians 278
The Rise and Fall of Aristotelian Science 280
19 The Astronomers 283
Early Western Astronomy 284
The Renaissance of the Greek Tradition 287
Ptolemy's Almagest 288
A Painful Climb: Student Texts 292
Ptolemaic Planetary Theory 296
Astronomical Tables and Techniques 302
Natural Philosophy and the Astronomers 308
Heaven and the Heavens 312
20 The Astrologers 319
Early History 320
Oxford Astrology 324
Exafrenon 327
21 Instruments of Thought 333
Mathematics as Instrument 333
Material Instruments 340
The Rectangulus 345
22 Albion 351
Early Equatoria 351
Tacit Geometry 358
New Ways with Old Theory 361
Sun, Moon, and Eclipse 367
Curves for Functional Relationships 372
The Fortunes of Albion 373
23 Epilogue 381
Notes 385
Bibliography 411
Index 425
Illustrations
1 Richard of Wallingford inscribing an astronomical instru-
ment (British Library, MS Cotton Claud. E.iv, fol. 201r) ii
2 The region with which Richard of Wallingford was most
closely associated 19
3 A smithy, as illustrated in Georgius Agricola, De re
metallica (Basel, 1556) 21
4 The university church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford 26
5 A bird's-eye view of the Gloucester College buildings,
after Ralph Agas 40
6 Gloucester Hall, and surviving buildings of Gloucester
College, engraved by David Loggan 41
7 Part of Wenceslaus Hollar's view of Oxford, 1643 44
8 Some points of reference in the Oxford known to Richard
of Wallingford 45
9 Merton College looking south, engraved by David Loggan 54
10 The rectangulus 60
11 The albion 61
12 Exploded view of an astrolabe 65
13 A fourteenth-century astrolabe 67
14 The house of Plantagenet and the French royal house 68
15 Plan of the abbey church of St Alban 76
16 A corn-mill driven by an undershot wheel, after a drawing
in the twelfth-century Hortus deliciarum 120
17 An overshot water wheel, from Georgius Agricola, De re
metallica (Basel, 1556) 121
18 A simple hand-mill, or quern 122