Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages

Download or read book Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages written by Jacques Le Goff and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1980 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "When I studied these manuals, a source then little exploited, I noticed that the academic, like the merchant, was justified by reference to the labor he accomplished. The novelty of the academics thus ultimately appeared to lie in their role as intellectual workers. My attention was therefore drawn to two notions whose ideological avatars I attempted to trace through the concrete social conditions in which they developed. These notions were labor and time. Under these two heads I maintain two open files, from which some of the articles collected here are drawn. I am still persuaded that attitudes toward work and time are essential aspects of social structure and function, and that the study of such attitudes offers a useful tool for the historian who wishes to examine the societies in which they develop."--Preface, page xii