9781852854515

God's Clockmaker is a biography of England's greatest medieval scientist, a man who solved major practical and theoretical problems to build an extraordinary and pioneering astronomical and astrological clock. Richard of Wallingford (1292-1336), the son of a blacksmith, was a brilliant mathematician with a genius for the practical solution of technical problems. Trained at Oxford, he became a monk and then abbot of the great abbey of St. Albans, where he designed his clock. His achievement is a striking example of the sophistication of medieval science, based on knowledge handed down from the Greeks and the Arabs.

John North is Professor Emeritus of History of Philosophy and the Exact Sciences, University of Groningen, the Netherlands and the author of numerous books including Stonehenge: A New Interpretation of Prehistoric Man and the Cosmos and The Ambassadors' Secret.

Illustrations

ix

Preface

xv

PART ONE: Foundations

Eclipse

3

(4)

The Black Monks

7

(10)

The Order

8

(2)

Federation

10

(2)

The Monastery

12

(5)

Wallingford

17

(10)

The Borough

17

(1)

Son of the Smithy

18

(4)

The Priory

22

(5)

Oxford

27

(24)

The Beginnings of the University

28

(2)

Grosseteste: The Forming of the University

30

(3)

Theology and the Sciences

33

(5)

Gloucester College

38

(4)

Rival Institutions

42

(5)

Nine Long Years and More

47

(4)

An Astronomer Among Theologians

51

(18)

Cause for Regret

51

(2)

Oxford Theologians Abroad

53

(3)

`Mathematical Pursuits'

56

(2)

Astrology and the Calendar

58

(2)

New Instruments: Rectangulus and Albion

60

(4)

The Astrolabe

64

(5)

The State of the Kingdom

69

(8)

The Fall of Edward II

69

(3)

Edward III and the Downfall of Isabella

72

(5)

PART TWO: An Abbot's Rule

A New Abbot

77

(16)

Goliath

78

(1)

Avignon

79

(1)

Why Avignon?

80

(2)

Pope John XXII (1316-34)

82

(2)

The Road

84

(2)

The Throne of Costly Grace

86

(4)

Fortune's Wheel

90

(3)

Reprove, Persuade, Rebuke

93

(14)

Discordant Notes

94

(2)

A Visitation

96

(2)

The Abbot's Dues

98

(1)

The Leper

99

(3)

A Good Shepherd?

102

(2)

Rights

104

(3)

The Visitor Visited

107

(8)

An Abbot in Parliament

107

(3)

Balancing the Books

110

(1)

Enemies and Friends in Adversity

111

(4)

The Litigious Abbot

115

(24)

Justice Within Whose Law?

118

(1)

The Mills of St Albans

119

(4)

Hand-Mills and Liberties

123

(2)

Morality and Bloodshed

125

(2)

Trials by Jury

127

(2)

The Men of Redbourn

129

(1)

Isabella's Mill

130

(1)

Mills, Malt, and Mast

131

(3)

Windmills

134

(1)

Unflagging Aspirations

135

(4)

PART THREE: Time and the Man

Builders and Clockmakers

139

(6)

The Builder

139

(2)

Roger and Laurence of Stoke

141

(4)

Horologe and History

145

(26)

Time and the Hour

145

(2)

Water Clocks

147

(6)

The First Cluster of Records

153

(1)

Perpetual Motion

154

(6)

Mechanisms and Motives

160

(1)

Astronomical Motives

160

(4)

Astronomical Motives Questioned

164

(2)

The Mechanical Escapement's First Application?

166

(5)

The St Albans Clock

171

(30)

The Treatise

172

(1)

The Manuscripts

173

(2)

The Escapement

175

(7)

The Order of Invention

182

(3)

The St Albans Striking Mechanism

185

(5)

Developments in Italy

190

(4)

Richard of Wallingford as Engineer

194

(3)

The Building of the Clock

197

(4)

Machina Mundi

201

(18)

The Clock as Instrument

202

(4)

Tides and Fortune

206

(2)

On Reading an Astrolabe Dial

208

(3)

The Sun's Variable Motion

211

(5)

The Moon and Dragon

216

(3)

Legacy

219

(10)

Time the Controller

219

(2)

Time's Fell Hand

221

(1)

The Man

221

(3)

Dissolution and Survival

224

(5)

PART FOUR: The Springs of Western Science

The Migration of Ideas

229

(20)

The Latin Tradition

230

(1)

From Cordoba to Western Monasteries

231

(2)

Al-Khwarizmi in England

233

(2)

The High Tide of Translation

235

(2)

Approaches to the Greek Aristotle

237

(3)

Jewish Contributions

240

(2)

Parallel Worlds: Theology as Censor

242

(1)

Provence and Profatius

243

(6)

A Primer in Aristotelian Natural Philosophy

249

(10)

Natural Philosophy in Oxford

259

(24)

A Metaphysics of Light

260

(2)

Grosseteste and Thirteenth-Century Optics

262

(4)

Aristotle and Geomety

266

(1)

Aristotle and Scientific System

267

(4)

Rationalists, Empiricists, and God

271

(4)

A New Dynamics

275

(3)

A New Kinematics: The Mertonians

278

(2)

The Rise and Fall of Aristotelian Science

280

(3)

The Astronomers

283

(36)

Early Western Astronomy

284

(3)

The Renaissance of the Greek Tradition

287

(1)

Ptolemy's Almagest

288

(4)

A Painful Climb: Student Texts

292

(4)

Ptolemaic Planetary Theory

296

(6)

Astronomical Tables and Techniques

302

(6)

Natural Philosophy and the Astronomers

308

(4)

Heaven and the Heavens

312

(7)

The Astrologers

319

(14)

Early History

320

(4)

Oxford Astrology

324

(3)

Exafrenon

327

(6)

Instruments of Thought

333

(18)

Mathematics as Instrument

333

(7)

Material Instruments

340

(5)

The Rectangulus

345

(6)

Albion

351

(30)

Early Equatoria

351

(7)

Tacit Geometry

358

(3)

New Ways with Old Theory

361

(6)

Sun, Moon, and Eclipse

367

(5)

Curves for Functional Relationships

372

(1)

The Fortunes of Albion

373

(8)

Epilogue

381

(4)

Notes

385

(26)

Bibliography

411

(14)

Index

425

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

1852854510

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