Although church ritual had sustained an interest in timekeeping throughout the centuries of urban collapse that followed the fall of Rome, church time was nature's time.

尽管在罗马帝国灭亡后的城市崩溃的几个世纪里，教堂的仪式一直保持着人们对计时的兴趣，但教堂的时间是自然的时间。