Podcast Summary:

New Books Network
Guest: Dr. Gillian Adler
Host: Moteza Hajizadeh
Book: Alle Thyng Hath Tyme: Time and Medieval Life (co-authored with Paul Strohm, Reaktion, 2023)
Date: December 26, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode explores the complexities of how time was understood and navigated in medieval Europe, based on Dr. Gillian Adler and Paul Strohm's book Alle Thyng Hath Tyme: Time and Medieval Life. Through an engaging interview, Dr. Adler discusses overlapping temporal systems, the interplay between religious, natural, and mechanical time, and the profound cultural implications of shifting attitudes toward time. She also considers what modern listeners might learn from the medieval approach to temporality amid our own fast-paced, efficiency-driven world.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introduction & Author Background

• Dr. Adler’s Profile: Assistant Professor at Sarah Lawrence College; specialist in Medieval literature, with a focus on time and temporality.
• Genesis of the Book:
  • Interest sparked by moments in Chaucer's poetry revealing multiple temporalities (narrative, rhetorical, quantitative, interior/sensory).
  • Purpose: “To dismantle the misconception that medieval people had some monolithic, naive view of time before the invention of the mechanical clock.” (03:11–05:15)

Medieval Conceptions of Time

• Temporal Fabric:
  • Medieval people did not view time as a single continuum but as “a fabric of time made of temporal threads and frameworks.”
  • “A single person might have followed all three of these systems at once”: natural/astronomical time, liturgical time, and (later) mechanical time. (07:09–08:30)
• Interior Time:
  • Time as lived, “an interior sensation … experienced and perceived, the subjective experience of waiting or remembering or the spiritual rapture that can pull a person out of the present entirely.” (04:40–05:30)

Modern vs. Medieval Temporalities

• Simultaneity vs. Singularity:
  • Medieval life: simultaneous awareness of multiple temporalities.
  • Modern life: “We are a bit trapped by the strictures of time, right, because we adhere to a singular standardized system.” (08:30–09:10)
• Qualitative vs. Quantitative:
  • Medieval time could be “measured by the intensity of conviction and not just duration.” She notes, “We’ve inherited a really fiscal emphasis on time, where we try to maximize quantifiable every quantifiable minute.” (09:50–11:45)

Liturgical & Natural Rhythms

• Liturgical Time:
  • Central to medieval consciousness; qualitative, measured by intensity rather than pure quantity.
  • Paradox: “Hours of prayer were practical means of scheduling daily life, but they also directed the devotee toward eternity, right to the escape from time to the calendar.” (13:00–13:40)
• Natural Rhythms:
  • Agricultural calendars linked with the heavens via zodiac signs; labor depicted alongside celestial movements in manuscript iconography.
  • “The mundane labor of the field [was] connected to these eternal motions.” (14:00–15:35)

Impact of Mechanical Time

• The introduction and spread of mechanical clocks, especially after 1270–1320, signals a major shift:
  • “The clock in the world of labor allowed for the setting of precise work hours. There were fines for lateness that were introduced to ensure new working hours. It was impactful, particularly in towns.” (16:10–17:10)
  • Shift is gradual, supplementing prior models (variable/unequal hours) with “equal hours.”
  • Mechanical clocks initially serve monastic needs for orderly prayer before moving to city towers—becoming “a real engine of commerce.” (16:30–18:30)

The Concept of Wasting Time

• Roots in Theology:
  • “Wasting time is a concept…with theological roots in Genesis… Early Christian thinkers… condemned idleness. So you do see a concern with wasting time, with misusing time, misusing the life you've been given.” (21:38–22:25)
• From Spiritual to Economic:
  • Notion of idleness moves from monastic/spiritual (sloth as a deadly sin) to the civic/economic realm: “Time begins to mean economic profit. The phrase ‘time is money’—it's a worldly problem now” as clocks set the new benchmark. (22:50–24:10)

Literature & Art as Records of Time-Concepts

• Literature captures interior temporality: “Medieval poem[s] might show how grief, the experience of grief, can stretch a moment, or how prayer or religious vision can seem again, to take one out of time.”
• Allegory and personification—e.g., Temperance with an hourglass, the Wheel of Fortune—make time “tangible,” depicting both cyclical and linear dimensions. (24:54–27:18)

Human Life Cycles & Cosmic Rhythms

• Microcosm & Macrocosm:
  • “Medieval thinkers… saw an important correspondence between the human self and the cosmos.”
  • Human life modeled on cosmic ages; both moved through “ages” (childhood, youth, old age; creation to Last Judgment). (27:54–28:50)
• Women’s Temporalities:
  • Linear, restrictive “ages” for women (virginity, marriage, widowhood)—but some (like mystic Margery Kempe) “subverted prescriptive timelines” to create new cycles of meaning in their lives. (29:40–30:43)

Modern Lessons from Medieval Time

• Efficiency as a Single Thread:
  • “We’ve sort of flattened the medieval tapestry or fabric of time into that single thread of efficiency you just mentioned.” (31:28)
• Embracing Temporal Multiplicity:
  • Suggests letting “subjective time, qualitative time, exist a bit more fully alongside the clock.”
• Role of Community:
  • Medieval public time (church bells, canonical hours) provided communal, shared rhythms; “To heal, we have to prioritize communal rituals that make us step outside the logic of personal success.” (32:49–34:10)
• Cyclical Perspective:
  • “To readopt a sort of cyclical perspective of time that might counter the linear one or try to… balance both the linear and cyclical paradigms and see what happens.” (35:15–35:25)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Subjective Experience:

  “We ultimately wanted to dismantle the misconception that medieval people had some monolithic, naive view of time before the invention of the mechanical clock… they lived within a fabric of time made of… temporal threads and frameworks.”
  — Dr. Gillian Adler (04:55)

• Modern Application:

  “We are a bit trapped by the strictures of time, right, because we adhere to a singular standardized system… Maybe we need to be reminded that time is also a precious gift to be used for more than productivity or acquiring information.”
  — Dr. Gillian Adler (09:00, 11:45)

• On the Advent of Mechanical Time:

  “The clock shifts from the monastery wall to the city tower, and it became a real engine of commerce… what the mechanical clock does is, is supplement this kind of variable or unequal hours model of time with an equal hours model.”
  — Dr. Gillian Adler (17:10–18:10)

• On Wasting Time:

  “Wasting time is a concept… with theological roots in Genesis… Sloth is so severe… in the spiritual context, it’s giving up on prayer and devotion to the life you’ve been gifted… then a new sense of wasting time developed with the shift toward valuing efficiency and industry; the phrase ‘time is money’—it’s a worldly problem now.”
  — Dr. Gillian Adler (21:38–24:10)

• On Community and Time:

  “One important facet of medieval life is the emphasis on community, which we could reclaim. We might reclaim shared rhythms to counter any loss of community that’s been imposed by digital schedules or AI, which have isolated us.”
  — Dr. Gillian Adler (33:40)

Important Timestamps

• 03:11 – Dr. Adler’s background and development of the book
• 04:55 – Dismantling the monolithic view of medieval time
• 07:09 – Overlapping medieval temporal systems
• 09:50 – Time as qualitative vs. quantitative
• 13:00 – Liturgical and natural rhythms
• 16:10 – The arrival and impact of the mechanical clock
• 21:38 – Origins and evolution of “wasting time”
• 24:54 – Representation of time in literature and art
• 27:54 – Human life cycles, genders, and cosmic time
• 31:28 – Modern vs. medieval time and reclaiming multiplicity
• 33:40 – Community rhythms and the loss of shared time

Conclusion

Dr. Adler’s insights show that medieval people lived within a profoundly multifaceted sense of time, balancing cosmic, communal, religious, and personal rhythms. The arrival of the mechanical clock began the process of standardizing and commodifying time, a trend that has reached its peak in the digital present. Yet, as Dr. Adler suggests, revisiting the medieval temporal tapestry might help us reclaim a richer, more communal, and humane approach to life today.

Recommendation:
Alle Thyng Hath Tyme: Time and Medieval Life offers both historical scholarship and meditative provocations relevant to anyone feeling rushed or atomized in our own quantified era. As Dr. Adler says, “It has a lot of implications for our everyday life in 2025 or 2026 as well.” (36:35)