Christopher and the Clockmakers

by Sara Ware Bassett

"There was the Exeter clock, for instance, which Jacob Lovelace took thirty-four years to make, and which had thirteen different mechanisms. It did no end of ingenious things. Figures passed in procession at the arrival of the hour; tiny bell ringers rang miniature chimes. In fact, so many things went on that to see it was almost as good as a play. No wonder that when Jacob Lovelace died in 1716 it was called his masterpiece."

"Wasn't there some sort of wonderful clock at Venice?" Christopher asked timidly.

"Yes, indeed! There was a very celebrated seventeenth century clock there, with a blue and gold dial which had above it bronze figures that struck the hour on a bell. Moreover, when the noon of Ascension Day came, the people were reminded of this holy feast by seeing the Magi issue forth from a little door and how before the Virgin, who held in her arms the Christ Child. Every noontime for two weeks this scene was enacted, to the vast delight of a simple, childish people. This is the reason why most clocks of the period had only an hour hand and stressed events of the calendar rather than pointing the flight of the minutes."

"It seems funny to think of clocks without minute hands, doesn't it?" Christopher mused.

"Not so funny when you consider what life was at that time and how poorly equipped the public was in arithmetic. Many of them knew nothing of hours or quarter hours. But when the chimes in the village church played a different tune each day of the week—a tune they knew—they soon came to understand, for example, that the Blue Bells of Scotland meant Tuesday, and that Annie Laurie, perhaps, meant Thursday."

"You do get horribly mixed on the days of the week when you have no calendar and nothing especial to do," asserted Christopher quickly. "I remember once when I was in the Maine woods with dad, we both got so confused we hadn't a notion what day it was."

"Ah, then you have some understanding of the dilemma of your long-ago ancestors," smiled McPhearson, "and can comprehend why they were so thankful to have the cathedral clock set them right. Noblemen who owned outlying castles would send their servants to the village square, not only to find out the hour but to learn of the sun, moon, stars, and the religious feasts and fasts. For, you see, the majority of the clocks were put up by the clergy for the purpose not only of regulating their own monastic life, but to prod worshipers to remember the masses and prescribed feasts of the abbeys.

"Later on when clocks and watches came into more general use, and the making of them was done by artisans instead of monks, time-keeping passed out of the hands of the Church (just as the printing of books did later on) and into the hands of guild members and manufacturers. It was when this change became effective that the character of clocks shifted very materially. The religious figures disappeared together with the elaborate pantomimes that accompanied them, and the clockmakers directed their energies to making the clock primarily a time-telling agency. However, all that was not accomplished in a minute, and when you go abroad, as you will some day, and see some of the quaint old clocks with their procession of Biblical figures, just remember how it was they happened to be made, and what interesting curiosities they are."

"I'm afraid by the time I ever get to Europe there won't be any such clocks to be seen," sighed Christopher.

"Oh, yes, there will! You will see, for example, the great clock of Straasburg. Not, to be sure, the original one, for that was made in 1352; neither will you view its successor put up in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Both of those have long since disappeared. Still the third one, which succeeded them and is now well on to a hundred years old, is wonderful enough to excite your admiration. It was inaugurated October 2, 1842, and is one of the marvels of the Old World. Certainly it incidentally provides the people with all they could ask in the way of information and entertainment. On a level with the ground is a globe telling of the stars visible to the naked eye—their rising, setting, and passage over the meridian. Behind this is a calendar indicating the year, month, and day, together with all ecclesiastical feasts and holidays. Above these two is a gallery where allegorical figures passing from left to right symbolize the days of the week.