Medieval people did not ‘tell’ or understand time in the same way we do. While we are able to conceptualise past, present and future, and understand that our present is vastly different to past societies (even if we might not completely know those past societies), medieval people couldn’t do that. They almost literally lived in islands of time, unable to conceptualise a world before their parents’ time, or a world beyond five or six years into the future (if that). Why? Part of the reason lies in the kind of vehicles they used to locate themselves within time; that is, how they ‘told’ time.

Medieval people did not use calendar dates (apart from a very few scribes). No peasant or noble ever said, “My youngest child was born on 15th July 1324”. Instead, he or she would have said something like, “My youngest child was born about Rogationtide in the year that Edward was crowned king.” A peasant might not even know of the coronation, so he or she would say something like, “My youngest was born about Rogationtide in the year that the storm blew the church steeple off.”

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image: Prague, of course