The Clock: The Invention That Changed Everything

The invention of the clock is above all a discovery of time. As the French historian Jacques Le Goff said, time for a trader is not the same as time for a farmer.

However, the art of clock making, like so many other things, does not originate in Western Europe. Islamic civilization and the Chinese discovered the mysteries of timekeeping long before Europeans.

However, the astronomically inspired Eastern water clocks did not bring about the same kind of social change as the mechanized clocks in the West.

The custom of measuring days is as old as the custom of observing the stars. At the same time, however, the service that the sun and the moon render us also chains us in a certain way.

Just as electricity in cities ended the tyranny of the night, the clock freed busy men from the rhythm of the sun. This new freedom brought with it new values.

Time in the countryside and time in big cities

The Middle Ages were agricultural. Most Europeans lived off the land, growing crops or raising animals. They followed the natural cycles of the seasons and the days.

All other activities, both religious and secular, had to adapt to the rhythm of the agricultural work. Clocks were not common, nor known, nor necessary.

In the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, however, something happened that changed everything. Central and Western Europe were invaded by all kinds of mechanical clocks.

From public bells in Padua and Bologna to church bells in Chartres and Wells. As a result, people began to look at time in a completely different way. The main elements of this change were the new monastic life and city life.

A clock for God

The new monastic rules, much stricter than before, imposed a way of life centered on prayer. Unlike farmers, monks had to adapt their work around prayer. This led to more stable schedules in the monasteries.

Once the prayer schedule was established, the monks were forced to watch the time. Suddenly the common areas were filled with bells, letting everyone in the community know when it was time to pray. This is how future ingenuity was born.

For medieval theologians, time was as important as it was irreplaceable. Wasting time meant wasting a gift from God. Time was to be devoted to meditation, a sign of virtue.

A clock for money

If the clock was originally designed to serve God, it was not long before it was also used in the service of other gods. For merchants and craftsmen, the rhythm of life in the city does not adapt to the endless dance of the sun and the moon.

Business demands made it necessary to develop new values such as punctuality and efficiency. In public squares a bell began to ring every hour. The city was bustling, money passed from one person to another, and the industrious citizens could not be late for an appointment or wait in vain for other people.

Cities became echoes of tolling bells announcing all kinds of events. The new era was marked by the tinkling of metal.

The clock

Changes in clock technology were symptomatic of their time. The oriental style lagged far behind. No one was interested in using water because it wasn’t precise or consistent enough. The different systems of cables, shafts, gears and weights evolved into some true masterpieces, such as the Old Town Clock in Prague (1410).

In the fifteenth century, clockmakers developed a wristwatch model that only became obsolete when digital clocks were invented. Bridges and spirals replaced counterweights and the clock had less to do with metalwork and more and more to do with art.

The invention of the wristwatch was the definitive individualization of time. And wristwatches were therefore essential for people who had a liberal profession. At the same time, these little clocks made schedules a way of life. Not much has changed in the last 600 years.

In this ubiquitous capitalist system, it’s probably hard to imagine a life where we’re not all slaves to the clock. Once upon a time, however, not so long ago, there was a time when we were not dominated by the incessant ticking of the hands on a clock.

We can’t control time, and our attempt to control the rhythm of the stars eventually made time rule us.