Tijdsberekening en tijdsregimes in de kustgemeenschappen van het laatmiddeleeuws graafschap Vlaanderen
Dillen, K. (2022). Tijdsberekening en tijdsregimes in de kustgemeenschappen van het laatmiddeleeuws graafschap Vlaanderen. Rev. Belge Philol. Hist. 100(2): 305-323
In: Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis = Revue belge de Philologie et d'Histoire. Société pour le progrès des études philologiques et historiques: Bruxelles. ISSN 0035-0818, more
The concepts of time that can be observed in the written sources of the Flemish medieval port cities are witnesses of the powerful influence of the landscape on people. The rhythm of the sea materialised in the use of the tide as a unit of time calculation for the short term, and of the herring season for the long term. A confrontation between the written sources of the port cities Mude and Nieuwpoort demonstrates that the choice of the deployed time concepts depended on the documented activity, the perspective of time calculation (past, future) and the consumer of the time concepts. These time concepts were a mix of hard time units universally used in Northern Europe - such as year, month and day - and of soft units that were strongly linked to the cultural and landscape context of the ports. Scholars are inclined to view the use of hard units as an indicator of advancing civilisation, modernity and urbanization, and the use of soft units as a sign of backwardness, isolation and rusticity. This must be questioned as far as the medieval Flemish coast is concerned.
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