The Strasbourg weather-gods obviously have it in for me. It was pouring rain when I left the hotel for the tram to the University this morning. I spent most of the day indoors, in a sun-splashed library, looking out over the fields. It was sunny for about half-an-hour after I left the library, and then the clouds rolled in and it poured again. And, it's been pouring all evening!
It's been a reasonably successful day of research. Lots of material at the archives, but most of it points toward the construction and details of the Strasbourg Cathedral Astronomical Clock. While that's interesting, I'm also looking for some of the ecclesiastical / theological context. In talking with the archivist, he immediately noted that the motivation was primarily prestige and competition with other cities. That seems obvious, but nowhere in any documentation is that actually articulated. Maybe it is / was so patently obvious, it didn't need to be said. Still, I'd like to find some explanation why they built what was probably the most sophisticated clock of its time -- in three different centuries (the first was built in the late 1300's, the second in the mid 1500's, and the current clock in the mid 1800's).
For those of us that spend too much time in church business, it may be either comforting or disconcerting that congregational politics never change. Back in the 1860's the church council for the cathedral complained to the Bishop that the crowds of curious onlookers who came to 'gawk' at the astronomical clock were unruly, and that they were treating the church as if it were a public place! They wanted the bishop to move the clock to another place in town where it wouldn't be such a nuisance. This, of course never happened; moving a clock that's more than 40 feet tall and weighs many tons is not undertaken lightly. The clock remains in its original location to this day. Without it, there wouldn't be half the traffic to the church!
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