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Analysis of Working Hours
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
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A part of European cultural patrimony rests on the relationships our ancestors had with time. A few examples chosen at random will suffice to show how their attitude toward this point evolved over the ages. The famous Carpe Diem by Horace was an invitation to take advantage of the present moment. In Jewish tradition man‘s obligation to work was considered a curse. Similarly a saying attributed by Pliny to the painter Appelles emphasized the necessity of daily labor. In still other ages time appeared as the great destroyer of all things, and Christianity promised its enemies tortures that were no less eternal than the joys it reserved for its disciples.
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- Copyright © 1990 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
References
1 Horace, Odes, I, XI.8.
2 Genesis, 2, 2-3.
3 Pliny, Natural History, 35-36.
4 Ovid, Metamorphoses, XV, 234.
5 See Kristof Glamann, "Il logorio del tempo", Città e Architettura nella Roma Imperiale - Analecta Romana Instituti Danici Supplementum X, Rome-Odense, 1983, pp. 9-10.
6 Michel Mollat, La vie quotidienne des gens de mer en Atlantique IXe -XVIe siè cle, Paris, 1983, p. 186. In Scandinavian countries, the quarter hours are subdivid ed into eight glas (glasses), indicating the importance of the timeglas (hourglass) on board a vessel.
7 Cf. Jacques Le Goff, "Le temps de travail dans la ‘crise' du XIVe siècle: du temps médiéval au temps moderne", Le Moyen Age, LXIX, 1963, especially pp. 597-600. The author notes the fact that the prayers of none were moved up in order to fall near noon, and he sees in this the result of pressure from urban workers. Our example of a Greek monastery mentioned later shows that there, too, agricul tural necessities forced the monks to adapt themselves, particularly since the shift of none occurred from the tenth to the end of the thirteenth centuries when monas tic life was especially linked to agriculture and animals (with the exception, however, of the development of the mendicant orders after 1200).
8 This was the rhythm followed in the monastery of Longobardas on the Greek island of Paros (Cyclades) in May 1964 when I stayed there. I would like to thank Father James Williams, monk of this monastery, who explained the basic elements of the Orthodox ritual and their meaning to me. Today as in 1964 the monks them selves cultivate the monastery's land.
9 Cf. Acts, 3, 1; Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexikon XI, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1899, col. 1347-1348; S.D. Gotein, A Mediterranean Society, The Jewish Commu nities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza II: The Community, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London, 1971, pp. 157-58.
10 Matthew, 20, 1-16.
11 The Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. H.A.R. Gibb and J.W. Kramers, Ley den, 1974, pp. 379-80 and 492-93; Edward William Lane, An Account of the Man ners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, I, London, 1836, p. 82; Alex Russel, The Natural History of Aleppo, 2nd ed. I, London 1794, p. 193 n. 8.
12 Matthew 20, 1-16.
13 Herman van der Wee, The Growth of the Antwerp Market and the European Economy (Fourteenth-Sixteenth Centuries) I, Louvain, 1963, p. 50; in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the maximum was 260 to 270 working days (190-195 in sum mer and 75-80 in winter), according to information available from Antwerp and Lier.
14 Ibid. I, pp. 336-432 (appendices 27/1-33/2).
15 Helga Schultz, Berlin 1650-1800. Sozialgeschichte einer Residenz, East Berlin, 1987, p. 47.
16 "Købmand Ejnar Baagøe, Svendborg, fortaeller om sin laeretid hos Plum's i Assens fra 2. sept. 1889-1892", transcription of a recording made in September 1960.
17 The city seems to have reached its demographic maximum of 90,000 inhabi tants between 1557 and 1564; see Thomas Riis, "Some types of towns in the 14th-16th century Netherlands", The Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt Delta: Historical Perspectives, Present Situation and Future Prospects, ed. P.W. Klein and J.H.P. Paelinck, Rot terdam 1979, p. 27.
18 H. Soly, "De Brouwerijenonderneming van Gilbert van Schoonbeke (1552-1562), Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, XLVI, 1968, pp. 1166 and 1201.
19 Van der Wee, op. cit., p. 462: E. Scholliers, "Un indice du loyer. Les loyers anversois de 1500 à 1873", Studi in onore di Amintore Fanfani V, Milan 1962, pp. 605 and 611.
20 Richard Gascon, "Économie et pauvreté aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles: Lyon, ville exemplaire et prophétique", Études sur l'histoire de la pauvreté II, ed. M. Mollat, Paris, 1974, p. 749.
21 O. Lutfi Barkan, "L'organisation du travail dans le chantier d'une grande mosquée à Istanbul au XVIe siècle", Annales. Économies - Sociétés - Civilisations XVII, 1962, pp. 1103-1105.
22 Ibid., p. 1101.
23 RA (Rigsarkivet) Copenhagen: Bilag til Rentemesterregnskaber udgiftskonto Fa: Klaededammerregnskab 1607-1608, fol. 78 r. - 88 v.
24 Aberdeen City Archives, Shore Work Accounts 1698 29/9-1699 29/9.
25 Ibid. 1699 29/9-1700 29/9.
26 Helga Schultz, op. cit., p. 214.
27 Ibid., p. 151.
28 According to the calendar for this year, the number of work days was 25.
29 J. Huizinga, L'Automne du Moyen Age, Paris, Payot, Petite Bibliothèque Payot, 1989 (translated from the Dutch).
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