The Clock: A Medieval Invention That Changed Everything

The clock as an invention is more than anything else a discovery of time. But how did it really happen?

The art of creating clocks did not arise, like so much else, in Western Europe. Muslim civilization and the Chinese discovered the mysteries of timekeeping long before the Europeans.

However, the astronomically inspired water bells in the East did not bring about the social change that mechanical bells did in the West.

As the French historian Jacques Le Goff said, the time of a merchant is not the same as the time of a farmer.

The measurement of the days is as old as the observation of the stars.

But the service provided by the sun and the moon is at the same time a form of slavery. Just as electricity put an end to the tyranny of the night, the clock freed busy people from the rhythm of the sun.

This new freedom brought with it new values.

Country time and city time

The Middle Ages were the time of agriculture. Most Europeans lived off the land, either by growing crops or by livestock. They followed the natural cycles of the seasons and days.

All other activities, both religious and secular, had to be adapted to the rhythm of agriculture. The watch as an invention was neither ordinary, well-known nor necessary.

But some end to the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries that changed everything. Central and Western Europe saw an influx of different types of mechanical clocks. From public bells in Padua and Bologna to church bells in Chartres and Wells.

People began to look at time in a different way. The key elements of this change were neo-monasticism and city life.

A clock for god

The new monastic rules, much stricter than before, forced people to live a way of life that revolved around prayer. In contrast to farmers, the monks had to adapt their work around prayer.

This led to more stable schedules in the monasteries. For medieval theologians, time was as important as it was irreplaceable. To waste time was to waste a gift from God. The time was meant for meditation – a sign of virtue.

A watch for money

If the bells were originally designed to serve God, it did not take long for them to be used to serve other purposes.

The rhythm of life for the city’s merchants and artists did not adapt to the endless dance of the sun and moon.

The demands of trade forced on them new values, such as punctuality and efficiency. Public squares started ringing bells every hour.

The city was alive, money changed hands and industrial residents could not be late for meetings or wait for other people unnecessarily.

The cities were echoed by ringing bells announcing various types of events. The new era had a metallic tone.

The clock as an invention

Changes in clock technology were symptomatic of their time. The oriental style was left at the roadside, because no one was interested in using water because it was not accurate and consistent enough.

The various systems of cables, shafts, gears and weights developed into true masterpieces, such as the Prague Astronomical Clock (1410).

In the 15th century, watchmakers developed a wristwatch that only became obsolete when digital watches were invented.

Bridges and spirals replaced counterweights, and clocks began to be less about metalwork and more about art.

A wristwatch was the definitive individualization of time, vital to liberal professions. In the same century, schedules became a way of life thanks to these little bells. Not much has changed in 600 years.

It is an ubiquitous capitalist system, and it is difficult to imagine a life where we are not slaves to the clock.

But there was a time, not so long ago, when we were not dominated by the incessantly ticking hand.

We can not dominate time, and our attempts to control the rhythm of the stars ended with us dominating ourselves.