This paper assembles a collection of images of clocks from the manuscript tradition of northern Europe across the long fifteenth century to investigate the possible relationships they suggest between sound, image and devotional practice. This was the period that the domestic wall clock became a commonplace in the interiors of courtly and urban elites, as is evident from the witness of wills and inventories, surviving objects and manuscript images themselves. These images of clocks testify to the clock’s rising importance in the practice of devotional time. They seem to provoke reflection on the gap between the silent image and the sounding bells of the clock and to signal the sensory complications of attempts to mediate time and eternity.

Presented by Matthew Champion. Medieval Round Table, University of Melbourne.