Secular Activities
Also in the abbey, about the middle of the 11th century, William composed learned treatises on astronomy and music, disciplines that formed part of the quadrivium, in the knowledge of which William was considered unsurpassed in his day.
He constructed various astronomical instruments, made a sun-dial which showed the variations of the heavenly bodies, the solstices, equinoxes and other sidereal phenomena. His famous stone astrolabe can still be seen today in Regensburg: more than 2.5 metres high, it is engraved on the front with an astrolabe sphere, while on the reverse side is the figure of a man gazing into the heavens, presumed to be the Greek astronomer and poet Aratos of Soloi (of the 3rd century B.C.).
He was also a skilled musician and made various improvements on the flute.
Read more about this topic: William Of Hirsau
Famous quotes containing the words secular and/or activities:
“As high as mind stands above nature, so high does the state stand above physical life. Man must therefore venerate the state as a secular deity.... The march of God in the world, that is what the State is.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)