Norman dials

[Frank Evans]

  Greetings, fellow dialists,
It has long puzzled me as to why the making of "D" dials in England 
faded after the Norman invasion of 1066. By "D" dials I mean vertical 
dials of half circular outline with a (presumed) horizontal gnomon sited 
at the centre of the diameter. Anglo-Saxon dials are commonly of this 
type and in mainland Europe this form continued well into later centuries.

But as David Scott and Mike Cowham note in their "Time Reckoning in the 
Medieval World", BSS Monograph 8, the often carefully made "D" dials of 
the pre-Conquest years were replaced by the much cruder mass or scratch 
dials. Why?

Following a recent television series about the Normans my view of the 
ruthless displacement of Anglo-Saxon culture by the Normans has been 
reinforced. (They gathered to themselves virtually all the English 
earldoms, bishoprics and abbacies, for instance). The Normans are 
renowned for their buildings, especially castles, churches and 
cathedrals. But they seem to have had no feeling at all for sundials. I 
know of a handsome A-S dial deliberately built into the inside west wall 
of a Norman church (at Hart in Durham). So "D" dials were suppressed in 
Norman territory. But they seem to have commonly persisted elsewhere in 
Europe. And presumably in England the simple scratch dial of later times 
was the best that a parson having no dialling tradition could come up with.

It would be interesting to know whether there are post-eleventh century 
"D" dials in the Norman heartland of Normandy and whether there are any 
in the territories that they conquered in Italy and Sicily.

Any suggestions?
Frank 55N 1W

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