Page 19 - Historic Churches 2013

BCD Special Report on Historic Churches 20th annual edition 19 CATHEDRALC O M M U N I C A T I O N S
EARLY MASS DIALS
The Anglo-Saxons divided the night and
day into eight artificial divisions know
in Old English as Tid, or Tides. The four
daylight divisions were called morgen, more
or less 6am to 9am; undern, 9am to noon;
middaeg, noon to 3pm; and gelotendaeg,
3pm to 6pm. Morning, noon and evening are
remnants of this division still in use today,
as are moontide, yuletide and shrovetide.
Generally, mass dials were about the
size of a side plate and consisted of a simple
indicator – a short wooden peg or ‘gnomon’
projecting at right angles from a hole in
the south wall of a church to cast the sun’s
shadow – and a series of scratched or carved
lines radiating from the centre point, which
the shadow traversed. One such mass dial
can be seen on the south wall of the Saxon
church (c700) at Escombe, County Durham.
Another example, above the entrance
at St Andrew’s Church, Bishopstone, East
Sussex, bears the name ‘EADRIC’ (King of
Kent, 685–6) and a cross (right). A number of
Anglo-Saxon mass dials show evidence of runic
inscriptions. Some later examples had Roman
numerals indicating the division of hours.
These early timekeeping instruments
were used specifically in an ecclesiastical
context. Throughout the Middle Ages the
church emphasised the reciting of prayers
at fixed times during the day, known as the
Divine Offices. These canonical hours were
known as Matins (before dawn), Prime
(6am), Terce (9am), Sext (12pm), None
(3pm), Vespers (sunset) and Nocturnes (after
sunset). Although by the Norman period
the day was divided into 12 hours, it was
the significant canonical hours which were
emphasised by an extended line with a
cross-bar on 8th century dials like the one
at St Andrew’s, Bishopstone, East Sussex.
As sunrise at Dover occurred before
sunrise at Penzance, the time given was
‘local time’ for each individual church and
community, and local variations could
occur if the sun did not shine for a few days.
Furthermore, a miscalculation could easily lead
to a parish priest celebrating certain feasts on
different days to a neighbouring parish. It was
not until 1880, in response to the complexity of
railway timetabling, that British Standard Time
or ‘GMT’, was legally adopted in Great Britain.
While it seems a haphazard way of
carrying on today, medieval life was planned
within the limits of sunrise and sunset.
The medieval liturgical and agricultural
routines, or those of the household, happily
accommodated the inconsistencies.
TRANSITIONAL MASS DIALS
By the 14th century the appearance of
mechanical clocks allowed for a regulated
24 hour time period and ecclesiastical
timekeeping was no longer reliant on daylight.
The old medieval system was being displaced.
The cathedrals of both Salisbury and Wells had
clock mechanisms by c1377 (although some
dispute this date). The manor of Cotehele in
Cornwall has probably the earliest secular
turret clock, dated to c1500. Throughout the
14th and 15th centuries mass dials were still
in use alongside the new mechanical clocks.
Since most churches were enlarged or rebuilt
in this period, it may be difficult to estimate
how many earlier mass dials there were.
The later or transitional mass dials are
easily recognised as they normally form a
complete circle with lines radiating from
the central gnomon. They were probably
feeble attempts at competing with the
24 hour mechanical clock. The radiating
lines in the top half of the circle would not
have recorded the time as it would have
been night. Why the upper lines of the
circle were marked remains a mystery.
As a greater scientific understanding of the
relative rotation of the sun to the earth’s axis
developed, the true sundial began to emerge,
with the gnomon tilted to the true celestial
north in relation to the local latitude. Each
location requires a different set of calculations
and the lines on the vertical sundial were
graduated to give an accurate time, as may
be seen at the churches of St Michael the
Archangel, Litlington, Sussex, and All Saints,
Londesborough, Yorkshire. By the middle of
the 16th century the mass dial had surrendered
to the sundial proper and to the mechanical
clock. So too had the liturgy of the church.
POSITIONING
Mass dials are generally sited on churches’
exterior south walls to catch the sun. They
may be on the smooth cornerstone or
quoin of the tower, nave or chancel, above
a porch or on door and window jambs.
They are normally set at eye level. In the
case of St Andrew, Aldborough, Yorkshire,
the dial is cut into the window ledge.
However, mass dials may be found
anywhere on a church even inside the
building as at St Peter’s Church, Pirton,
Worcestershire. If a mass dial is found
anywhere other than the south elevation of
a church, this usually means that it has been
moved from its original location, often as part
of a Victorian ‘restoration’. In such cases the
dials were sometimes rebuilt into the fabric
upside down, making them unreadable.
TYPES OF MASS DIAL
The earlier mass dials are, on the whole, of
the half-circle type and exhibit a multitude
of variations across Britain. Common to
all, however, is the central gnomon or peg
to cast the sun’s shadow and the ability to
show the principal religious services of
the day. The basic type would have had a
gnomon with three radiating lines giving
the time of the services as may be seen
with the primitive mass dial at St John
Jerusalem, Sutton-at-Hone, Kent, a Knights
Hospitaller Commandery. In this case the
Terce and Sext canonical hours are shown
as the longer lines with the Nones hour
Anglo-Saxon mass dial above the entrance of St Andrew’s Church, Bishopstone, East Sussex bearing the name
‘Eadric’, a 7th-century king of Kent (Photo: British Sundial Society)
(Image adapted from TW Cole’s Origin and Use of
Church Scratch-dials, 1935)