Hours of the day were named for the hours of prayer: matins around midnight; lauds around three A.M.; prime, the first hour of daylight, at sunrise or about six A.M.; vespers at six in the evening; and compline at bedtime. The reckoning of time was based on the movements of sun and stars, nature’s timekeepers, which were familiar and carefully observed. About the time Enguerrand VII was born, the mechanical clock was coming into use on town-hall towers and in homes of the rich, bringing precision with all its possibilities for scientific observation.
