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Not Available Not Available Time, early 16th century, French or Flemish. Tapestry weave, silk and wool. 338.9 x 439.1 cm. Courtesy of The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio (http://www.clevelandart.org); Leonard C. Hanna Jr Fund.

During the Middle Ages, time, as now, was a major preoccupation. On the other hand, the concept of time, as well as its measurement, was vastly different. We think in split seconds, they thought in centuries, even millennia. As the French medievalist Jacques Le Goff has so elegantly described it, there was church time, merchant time, and work time; each had its own measure and meaning. Religious feasts, for example, were moveable, the exact time of their celebration determined by a phase of the moon; accurate, predictive calendars were essential, since the dates for observance were set by law. For merchants, time had a quantitative element, and calendars, at least daily calendars, . . . [Full Text of this Article]