The smallest divisions of time: terminological and lexicographical aspects

Abstract

This study of the ancient divisible units of the hours of day (the terms borrowed from latin: átomo, cuadrante, momento, punto and uncia) use the principal sources of the medieval and Renaissance works. With regard to the former, an example of the cultural transmission of this specialized lexicon can be seen in its reception in The Etymologies of Saint Isidore (c. 560-636) and in the Libro de las propiedades de las cosas of Bartolomé Ánglico (1240), an encyclopaedia that had an extraordinary reception in Western Europe until the sixteenth century. Amongst the Renaissance sources several studies stand out: Chronographía or Reportorio de los tiempos (1545) by Jerónimo de Chaves, the anonymous book Repertorio de los tiempos (1554) and Chronographía y Repertorio de los tiempos (1585) by Francisco Vicente de Tornamira), a set of treatises which includes the knowledge compiled in the medieval encyclopaedias mentioned above. These works allow us to verify the transmission of this lexicon, in a stage marked by the growing interest in metrological issues. The analysis of this terminology reflects the semantic connections established between the various dimensions (weight, space and time) as its semantic reference moves from the spatial domain to the that of time and relationships are attested in the earliest dictionaries of the Spanish language.