Alle Thyng Hath Tyme

The point of this brisk book, the latest addition to Reaktion’s Medieval Lives series, is not to give a comprehensive account of medieval people’s experiences of time or to propose any radical new theory. Rather, it offers a lively, insightful overview for the general reader, filled with wonderful nuggets. -- Pablo Scheffer * Times Literary Supplement *
"What is time?" St. Augustus wondered . . . Gillian Adler and Paul Strohm explore the many answers proposed by writers, artists and visionaries in the Middle Ages . . . They argue that innovations in the measurement of time tended to be driven by religious institutions, and emphasise the coincidence of many rhythms of medieval temporality. * London Review of Books *
. . . conceptions of time are evocatively and accessibly detailed in this new work by two eminent Chaucer scholars, published as part of Reaktion’s Medieval Lives series. Across a succinct 214 pages Gillian Adler and Paul Strohm convey the complexity and sophistication with which medieval people considered the passing – or cycling, or climaxing – days . . . these slim Reaktion volumes [are] beautifully produced [with] plenty to excite any readers or students wanting a new perspective on the canon of medieval literature. -- Seb Falk * History Today *
Alle Thyng Hath Tyme is a gentle journey through medieval society's, and people's, experience of time. From the secular to the divine, it considers the various frameworks through which people living in the High to Late Middle Ages perceived time . . . Literary and visual sources combine to create a kaleidoscope of colour and thought, and a momentary sense of the medieval mindset in its many forms . . . this book is not straight history, with its cause and effect and its linear progression. It is, instead, as nebulous an idea as time itself - a fleeting image both haunting and enchanting. It can linger, and it can accelerate, but it still ensnares: the reader will still be caught by its web. In its own way, Alle Thyng Hath Time rests between the tick and the tock, just as time did for medieval people. -- Debbie Kilroy * Get History *
Located at the intersection of history, literature and the wider humanities, the book investigates the nuanced and expansive approach to time evident in this period. Diverse literary and broader cultural sources inform the analysis, epitomised in the book's title which features a line found in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. These sources are drawn upon to expertly paint a picture of the experience of time in medieval society and can also stimulate reflection on our own relationship to time in the current context. -- Kathryn McNeilly * International Journal of Law in Context *
In the Middle Ages, time didn’t just pass. Medieval people were "temporal virtuosos", this book argues, living within great natural cycles, under shifting planetary influence, regulated by clock time with liturgical hours ringing in the air, generations succeeding generations while experiencing constant renewal and change. Alle Thyng Hath Tyme shows that an active experience of time – then as now – is an engagement with life itself. Make time for this book! * Carolyn Dinshaw, Julius Silver Professor, New York University, and author of How Soon Is Now? Medieval Texts, Amateur Readers, and the Queerness of Time *