Hi all, Two years ago there was a discussion on this list about various types of hours, from which I cite the following fragments, about canonical (ecclesiastical) hours.
Fer de Vries described the canonical hour as: Draw half a circle on a south facing vertical plane and devide the circle in 12 ( or 8 or 6 ) [equal] parts and then you have a dial with the canonical hours. A rod perpendicular to the wall is used to produce the shadow line to read the dial. Mario Arnaldi added: I would like to improve the definition of the canonical hour. Fer described quickly the shape of an usual so called mass-dial, but not all the mass-dial are always showing canonical hours, I mean canonical hours are only seven moments of the ancient lenght of the day (from sunrise to sunset), they were prime, terce, sext, nones, vespers and compline. Only these moments are canonical hours, but we use to consider them grouped by three hours a time. Because this kind of sundial were used by the Church we use to call them canonical sundials Hence, in a canonical sundial with 12 divisions, some but not all hours are canonical hours. My question then is: is there a general name for the hours shown on a canonical dial? Regards, Frans Maes 53.1N, 6.5E -
