How did medieval monks tell the time?

Answer 1

Clocks as we know them were not invented until almost the end of the Middle Ages, so other systems were used to keep track of the passing hours.

Time was viewed very differently in the monasteries than it is today - there was no concept of minutes or seconds and the hours could only be roughly estimated. Accuracy was not important; what mattered was fitting in all 8 church services every day at roughly the correct times.

Water clocks were one of the methods used. These were far from accurate, but measured time by allowing water to drip slowly from a tank and measuring the water level in a vertical tube above. Some had a "float" which struck a small bell at the appropriate time - a monk was alerted by this to ring the church bell for services.

Another system was a set of equally-sized large beeswax candles, each marked with lines to represent the hours. As one candle burned down another would be lit to replace it and the correct hour could be read by checking the level against the lines.

A third system used "scratch sundials" marked on a south-facing wall. These were usually a circular carved line and a central hole, with a few radiating lines from the centre to the lower part of the circle. A bronze or iron pin was set in the hole and this cast a shadow along the lines in turn. As a particular line was reached, the monks would know it was approximately time for one of the services.

None of these systems gave an accurate reading, but that didn't matter. The sundial system also varied at each season - daylight hours would be much longer in summer than in winter, spreading out or contracting the total "day".

Answer 2

At that time, in most parts of the world, ordinary people told the time roughly by observing shadows. When it got dark it was time to head home.

Answer 3

Actually, they did have a form of a clock. It didn't look like ours. Clocks were invented by the ancient Chinese and the clock that the Saxons had probably would have been a water clock.

Answer 4

They used a sundial or they looked for where the sun is in the sky. That tells u the time of day, but if they wanted precise time they could check the sundial

Answer 5

By the sun, to the extent they cared. They didn't bother much with hours or minutes. Morning, moon, afternoon, evening, night was about what they managed.