God's Clockmaker Richard of Wallingford and the Invention of Time [Paperback]

Clocks became common in late medieval Europe and the measurement of time began to rule everyday life.God's Clockmakeris 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 built his clock. Although as abbot he held great power, he was also a tragic figure, becoming a leper. His achievement, nevertheless, is a striking example of the sophistication of medieval science, based on knowledge handed down from the Greeks via the Arabs.

IllustrationsPART ONE: Foundations1 Eclipse2 The Black Monks The Order Federation The Monastery3 Wallingford The Borough Son of the Smithy The Priory4 Oxford The Beginnings of the University Grosseteste: The Forming of the University Theology and the Sciences Gloucester College Rival Institutions Nine Long Years and More5 An Astronomer Among Theologians Cause for Regret Oxford Theologians Abroad 'Mathematical Pursuits' Astrology and the Calendar New Instruments: Rectangulus and Albion The Astrolabe6 The State of the Kingdom The Fall of Edward II Edward III and the Downfall of IsabellaPART TWO: An Abbot's Rule7 A New Abbot Goliath Avignon Why Avignon? Pope John XXII (1316-34) The Road The Throne of Costly Grace Fortune's Wheel8 Reprove, Persuade, Rebuke Discordant Notes A Visitation The Abbot's Dues The Leper A Good Shepherd? Rights9 The Visitor Visited An Abbot in Parliament Balancing the Books Enemies and Friends in Adversity10 The Litigious Abbot Justice Within Whose Law? The Mills of St Albans Hand-Mills and Liberties Morality and Bloodshed Trials by Jury The ló%