To consider the definitions of temporal and equal hours in the context of western technological progress is to consider the utility of a relative and absolute means of time standardization. That is, until the twilight of the English fifteenth century, the measure of days was dictated relative to the number of daylight hours and in accordance with times and dates of practical or holy significance. Naturally the enumeration of minutes and seconds was not so discrete as what modern citizens have become accustomed to. In fact, these metrics would not have been applicable until the development of European mechanical clocks near the end of the middle ages. Furthermore, the addition of a measurable second was not introduced until the sixteenth century. In the age of atomic clocks and ultra-precise standards by which to account for even the slightest time intervals. It may appear surreal that for much of human history there was not a truly reliable means by which to define the passage of time.
Those present during and prior to sixteenth century Europe would have been witness to a very different concept of time. Time was not so much an unfailing and constant rhythm as contemporary individuals understand it. Time would have been an approximate, almost aqueous progression. As it is noted in Time and Urban Culture in Late Medieval England by Chris Humphrey, “This passage makes use of several different schemes for reckoning daily time, including sunrise, estimates of how long it is appropriate to be away from work…” These “measurements” are distinct from standard metrics because they differ depending on the season or are themselves subjective. In that, temporal hours may consist of a typical twenty-four hours separated into sections which were intended to be utilized performing certain household or community tasks. Considering time in this fashion would be a profoundly different experience than under the gaze of an unfailing march as we have since constructed. One would have risen with the sun. Referring to no other alarm than that of nature or the human circadian rhythm. Depending on your regional authority, equal periods would have been crude and possibly even stratified into system of broad sections. King Alfred of Wessex is credited to have proposed a three-period day, each period comprising eight hours – “eight for reading and praying, eight for caring for his body, eight for dispatching the affairs of the realm.” Equal units of time were present in other forms, granted these too were consistent albeit imprecise divisions to go by. Evidence of sundials and water clocks are the most well documented examples of objective time during the era.
The function of daylight periods in pre-standard time England served a similar purpose to that of our modern concept of time. The idea was to organize the periods of the day into workable hours as to achieve maximum efficiency with respect to agriculture and religious customs. Contemporary work hours are structured in a like manner. Simply, an individual is to work from time [x] to time [y]. This function is constant. What has not remained is the notion that time is founded in practical means – such as crops yields. Rather, our recent adjustments to metrics of time transcend specific application and lend themselves universally to the collective regiment of time on Earth.
