The Birth of Time

March has two of the year’s most important anniversaries: the creation of the world and the creation of time.

Eleanor Parker | Published in History Today Volume 73 Issue 3 March 2023

creation of the world, decoration from the Ål Stavkirke, Norway, late 13th century. — Creation of the world, decoration from the Ål Stavkirke, Norway, late 13th century © A. Dagli Orti/NPL - DeA Picture Library/Bridgeman Images.

‘Though all the months are adorned with various kinds of joy and honour, March is the most so.’ That was the opinion of an 11th-century English expert on the calculation of time, Byrhtferth of Ramsey, and many medieval scholars would have agreed with his view. What makes March a superlative month? The answer to that question lies in one of the most complex and perplexing areas of medieval attitudes to time and history – one very foreign from a modern scientific perspective, but carefully reasoned, coherent on its own terms, and intriguing.

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