The Day the Universe Changed - James Burke [42]
What medieval man called ‘fact’ we would call opinion, and there were few people who travelled enough to know the difference. The average daily journey was seven miles, which was the distance most riders could cover and be sure of return before dark.
There was much intermarriage in these isolated communities, and each had its share of idiots. In an age when experience was what counted most, power was in the hands of the elders. They approved local customs and practice, and in matters of legal dispute they were the judges. They resisted change: things were done because the elders confirmed that they had always been done so.
The dialect spoken in one community was all but incomprehensible fifty miles away. As Chaucer relates, a group of fourteenth-century London merchants shipwrecked on the north coast of England were jailed as foreign spies. Without frequent social or economic exchange between communities, the language remained fragmented in local forms.
For the illiterate dialect-speaking villager, the church was the main source of information. The scriptures illustrated holy themes, recalled the work of the seasons and pointed morals. Biblical tales glowed from the stained-glass windows. Gothic cathedrals have been called ‘encyclopedias in stone and glass’. The news of the world, both ecclesiastical and civil, came from the pulpit.
In communities that had for centuries been isolated and self-sufficient, the social structure was feudal. There were three classes: noble, priest and peasant. The noble fought for all. The peasant worked for all. The priest prayed for all.
On the very rare occasions when news arrived from outside, it was shouted through the community by a crier. For this reason few villages were bigger than the range of the human voice, and towns were administratively subdivided on the same scale. Village laws and customs were passed on by word of mouth. Living memory was the ultimate judge. It was a legal commonplace, even in town courts, that a live witness deserved more credence than words on parchment.
Manuscripts were rare. They were, after all, little more than marks of doubtful significance on dead animal skins. To the illiterate, documents were worthless as proof because they were easy to forge. A living witness told the truth because he wanted to go on living. Legal proceedings were conducted orally, a practice that continues to this day. Parties were summoned by word of mouth, sometimes with the aid of a bell. Charges were read aloud to the defendant. In the late Middle Ages the litigant was obliged to speak for himself, so there was little justice for the deaf and dumb. The court ‘heard’ the evidence. Guilt or innocence was a matter for debate.
The importance of agriculture is shown in this twelfth-century church calendar, where, after the signs of the zodiac, the months are depicted by their appropriate seasonal work. Bottom right, September harvests the grapes.
Without calendars and clocks or written records, the passage of time was marked by memorable events. In villages it was, of course, identified by seasonal activity: ‘When the woodcock fly’, ‘At harvest time’, and so on. Country people were intensely aware of the passage of the year. But between these seasonal cues, time, in the modern sense, did not exist. Even in rich villages which could afford a water clock or a sun dial, a watchman would call out the passing hours, shouting them from the church tower. The hours would echo through the surrounding countryside, shouted along by the workers in the fields. Units of time smaller than an hour were rarely used. They would have had no purpose in a world that moved at the pace of nature.
Months were measured only approximately, since major divisions of the calendar such as the spring equinox happened at different times each year. Easter was a source of considerable confusion because its