Message text written by "Frank Evans" >Can this concept be applied to such dials as the Anglo-Saxon dial at Escomb, County Durham (Bull. BSS, 11,2, 1999, p. 100). This dial is six metres above the ground and at this distance, and given its size, could hardly have been used as a timekeeper. Both David Scott and I have wondered whether the explanation proposed for York Minster could equally apply elsewhere, as at Esconb.<
Hi Frank. I'm not sure I should be commenting because I don't really know what I am talking about! Also I haven't actually seen the Escomb Dial - though looking at that side of the church and its two dials as shown at http://web.ukonline.co.uk/cj.tolley/ctm/ctm-escomb.htm I do think it might (just!) have been possible to read the dial - at least to the accuracy of the four gaps and three lines. Still, it's easy to say that from my desk here! Your idea of designing to the greater glory of God is interesting and you might well be right. I am reminded that in those early times details and accuracy were not regarded as important. So, for example building followed local irregularities without thought that this was somehow 'unsatisfactory' - even in Tudor times house walls were rarely straight and some cathedrals (?Malmesbury Abbey?) even had bends in their E-W alignment - all usually attributed to God's will. We are much more tuned to details these days and maybe we are wrong to assume that the window makers of the day would have bothered about such things - they would I suspect simply have attributed it to God's Will and as you suggest, being done for God. A particularly important 'detail' - that of perspective in painting - was virtually unknown until 1400 (and then only in Florence) so that sort of detail escaped many people of that period. The various windows at York are dated (I think) to 1340 - 1420 (East window 1422 I think) and so perhaps we might forgive a little lack of recognition that all the detail may not have been visible from the ground - after all it would have been God's wouldn't it? Patrick -
