In his 1748 Advice to a Young Tradesman, Benjamin Franklin famously wrote that “time is money.” Today, the phrase feels almost self-evident. Businesses buy labor by the hour, employees sell their time for wages, and technology promises to help us squeeze more productivity out of every minute. Yet for much of Western history, people wouldn’t have understood what Franklin meant. Time wasn’t something you could buy, sell, or precisely measure. It was experienced through sunrise and sunset, the time to sow and the time to reap, and the ubiquitous ringing of church bells.
Long before Franklin’s aphorism, work followed a very different rhythm. For much of medieval Europe, there was not a universally accepted 9 a.m., no eight-hour workday, and no expectation that every hour held the same economic value. Most people experienced time through the natural world. Sunrise signaled the beginning of work. Sunset brought it to an end. Seasons determined when labor intensified or slowed, with harvests demanding grueling days and the depth of winter inducing idleness. “Rest was woven into the natural calendar rather than negotiated with an employer,” said Paolo Aversa, Professor of Strategy at King’s College London.
The church played a central role in organizing daily life and was “the first institution to impose an artificial order on the day,” according to Aversa. Bells marked the canonical hours for prayer — not precise clock time as we understand it today, but...
By Doris Obinna The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) has warned against reports declaring Nigeria Ebola-free, insisting that although the country currently has no confirmed...