which can hardly be explained except with the assistance of purely
technical drawings, but it may be remarked that weights are still the
sole motive power of large clocks, and the escapement alluded to has
been alone employed throughout the world until the end of the
seventeenth century. Notwithstanding the importance of these two
inventions, little use was made of them during the eleventh, twelfth,
and thirteenth centuries. The water-clock and hour-glass (Fig. 144)
continued exclusively in use. Some were ornamented and engraved with
much taste; and they contributed to the decoration of apartments, as at
present do our bronzes and clocks more or less costly.
[Illustration: Fig. 144.--An Hour-glass of the Sixteenth
Century,--French Work.]
History does not inform us who was the inventor of the striking
machinery; but it is at least averred that it existed at the
commencement of the twelfth century. The first mention of it is found in
the “Usages de l’Ordre de Cîteaux,” compiled about 1120. It is there
prescribed to the sacristan so to regulate the clock, that it “sounds
and awakens him before matins;” in another chapter the monk is ordered
to prolong the lecture until “the clock strikes.” At first, in the
monasteries, the monks took it in turn to watch, and warn the community
of the hours for prayer; and, in the towns, there were night watchmen,
who, moreover, were maintained in many places to announce in the streets
the hour denoted by the clocks, the water-clocks, or the hour-glasses.
The machinery for striking once invented, we do not find that horology
had attained to any perfection before the end of the thirteenth century;
but, in the commencement of the following it received its impulse, and
the art from that time continued to progress.
To give an idea of what was effected at that time, we will borrow a
passage from the earliest writings in which horology is mentioned; that
is, from an unpublished book by Philip de Maizières, entitled “Le Songe
du Vieil Pélerin:”--“It is known that in Italy there is at present
(about 1350) a man generally celebrated in philosophy, in medicine, and
in astronomy; in his station, by common report, singular and grave,
excelling in the above three sciences, and of the city of Padua. His
surname is lost, and he is called ‘Maistre Jehan des Orloges,’ residing
at present with the Comte de Vertus; and, for the treble sciences, he
has for yearly wages and perquisites two thousand florins, or
thereabouts. This Maistre Jean des Orloges has made an instrument, by
some called a _sphere_ or clock, of the movement of the heavens, in
which instrument are all the motions of the signs (zodiacal), and of the
planets, with their circles and epicycles, and multiplied differences,
wheels (_roes_) without number, with all their parts, and each planet in
the said sphere, distinctly. On any given night, we see clearly in what
sign and degree are the planets and the stars of the heavens; and this
sphere is so cunningly made, that notwithstanding the multitude of
wheels, which cannot well be numbered without taking the machinery to
pieces, their entire mechanism is governed by one single counterpoise,
so marvellous that the grave astronomers from distant regions come with
great reverence to visit the said Maistre Jean and the work of his
hands; and all the great clerks of astronomy, of philosophy, and of
medicine, declare that there is no recollection of a man, either in
written document or otherwise, who in this world has made so ingenious
or so important an instrument of the heavenly movements as the said
clock.... Maistre Jean made the said clock with his own hands, all of
brass and of copper, without the assistance of any other person, and did
nothing else during sixteen entire years, if the writer of the book, who
had a great friendship for the said Maistre Jean, has been rightly
informed.”
It is known, on the other hand, that the famous clockmaker, whose real
name Maizières assumes to be lost, was called Jaques de Dondis; and
that, in spite of the assertion of the writer, he had only to arrange
the clock, the parts of which had been executed by an excellent workman
named Antoine. However this may be, placed at the top of one of the
towers of the palace of Padua, the clock of Jaques de Dondis, or of
“Maistre Jean des Orloges,” excited general admiration, and several
princes of Europe being desirous to have similar clocks, many workmen
tried to imitate it. In fact, churches or monasteries were soon able to
pride themselves on possessing similar _chefs-d’œuvre_.
Among the most remarkable clocks of that period, we must refer to that
of which Froissart speaks, and which was carried away from the town of
Courtray by Philip the Bold after the battle of Rosbecque in 1382. “The
Duke of Burgundy,” says our author, “caused to be carried away from the
market-place a clock that struck the hours, one of the finest which
could be found on either side the sea; and he conveyed it piece by piece
in carts, and the bell also. Which clock was brought and carted into the
town of Dijon, in Burgundy, was there deposited and put up, and there
strikes the twenty-four hours between day and night.”
It is the celebrated clock of Dijon which then as now was surmounted by
two automata of iron, a man and a woman, striking the hours on the bell.
The origin of the name of _Jacquemart_ given to these figures has been
much disputed. Ménage believes that the word is derived from the Latin
_jaccomarchiardus_ (coat of mail--attire of war); and he reminds us
that, in the Middle Ages, it was the custom to station, on the summit of
the towers, men (soldiers wearing the _jacque_) to give warning of the
approach of the enemy, of fires, &c. Ménage adds that, when more
efficient watchers occasioned the discontinuance of these nocturnal
sentinels, it was probably considered desirable to preserve the
remembrance of them by putting in the place they had occupied iron
figures which struck the hours. Other writers trace the name even to the
inventor of this description of clocks, who, according to them, lived in
the fourteenth century, and was called Jacques Marck. Finally, Gabriel
Peignot, who has written a dissertation on the _jacquemart_ of Dijon,
asserts that in 1422 a person named Jacquemart, clockmaker and
locksmith, residing in the town of Lille, received twenty-two livres
from the Duke of Burgundy, for repairing the clock of Dijon; and from
that he concludes, seeing how short the distance is from Lille to
Courtray, whence the clock of Dijon had been taken, that this Jacquemart
might well be the son or the grandson of the clockmaker who had
constructed it about 1360; consequently the name of the _jacquemart_ of
Dijon is derived from that of its maker, old Jacquemart, the clockmaker
of Lille (Fig. 145).
[Illustration: Fig. 145.--Jacquemart of Notre-Dame at Dijon, made at
Courtray in the Fourteenth Century.]
Giving to each of these opinions its due weight, we confine ourselves to
stating that, from the end of the fourteenth century to the beginning
of the fifteenth, numerous churches in Germany, Italy, and France
already had _jacquemarts_.
The first clock possessed by Paris was that in the turret of the Palais
de Justice. Charles V. had it constructed in 1370 by a German artisan,
Henri de Vic. It contained a weight for moving power, an oscillating
piece for regulator, and an escapement. It was adorned with carvings by
Germain Pilon, and was destroyed in the eighteenth century.
In 1389, the clockmaker Jean Jouvence made one for the Castle of
Montargis. Those of Sens and of Auxerre, as well as that of Lund in
Sweden, date from the same period. In the last, every hour two cavaliers
met and gave each other as many blows as the hours to be struck: then a
door opened, and the Virgin Mary appeared sitting on a throne, with the
Infant Jesus in her arms, receiving the visit of the Magi followed by
their retinue; the Magi prostrating themselves and tendering their
presents. During the ceremony two trumpets sounded: then all vanished,
to re-appear the following hour.
[Illustration: Fig. 146.--Clock with Wheels and Weights. Fifteenth
Century. (Cabinet of Antiquities, Bibl. Imp., Paris.)]
Until the end of the thirteenth century, clocks were destined
exclusively
[Illustration: Fig. 147.--A portable Clock of the time of the Valois.]
to public buildings; or they at least affected, if we may say so, a
monumental character which precluded their admission into private
houses. The first clocks with weights and the flywheel made for private
use appeared in France, in Italy, and in Germany, about the commencement
of the fourteenth century; but naturally they were at first so costly
that only nobles and wealthy persons could obtain them. But an impulse
was given which led to the manufacture of these objects more
economically. In fact, it was not long before portable clocks were seen
in the most unpretentious abodes. This of course did not prevent the
production of expensive examples, either as regards ornamentation or
carving, or in placing the clock on costly pedestals or cases, within
which were suspended the weights (Fig. 146).
The fifteenth century has distinctly left its mark on the progress of
horology. In 1401 the Cathedral of Seville was enriched with a
magnificent clock which struck the hours. In 1404, Lazare, a Servian by
birth, constructed a similar one for Moscow. That of Lubeck, which was
embellished with the figures of the twelve Apostles, dates from 1405. It
is proper to notice also the famous clock which Jean-Galeas Visconti had
made for Pavia; and more especially that of St. Marc of Venice, which
was not executed until 1495.
The spiral spring was invented in the time of Charles VII.: a band of
very fine steel, rolled up into a small drum or barrel, produced, in
unrolling, the effect of the weights on the primitive movements. To the
possibility of enclosing that moving power in a confined space is due
the facility of manufacturing very small clocks. In fact, one finds in
certain collections, clocks of the time of Louis XI., remarkable not
only for the artistic richness of their decoration, but still more so
for the small space they occupy, although they are generally of very
complicated mechanism; some marking the date of the month, striking the
hour, and serving also as alarm-clocks.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the exact date of the
invention of watches. But, in truth, we ought perhaps to regard the
watch, especially after the invention of the spiral spring, as only the
last step taken towards a portable form of clock. It is however true,
according to the statements found in Pancirole and Du Verdier by the
authors of the “Encyclopædia of Sciences,” that at the end of the
fifteenth century watches were made no larger than an almond. Even the
names Myrmécides and Carovagius are cited as those of two celebrated
artisans in such work. It was said that the latter made an alarm-watch
which not only sounded the hour required, but even struck a light to
ignite a candle. Besides, we know for certain that, in the time of Louis
XI., there were watches very small yet perfectly manufactured; and it is
proved that, in 1500, at Nuremberg, Peter Hele made them of the form of
an egg, and consequently the watches of that country were long known as
_Nuremberg eggs_.
We learn, moreover, from history that in 1542, a watch which struck the
hours, set in a ring, was offered to Guidobaldo of Rovere; and that in
1575, Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, bequeathed to his brother
Richard a cane of Indian wood having a watch placed in its head; and,
finally, that Henry VIII. of England wore a very small watch requiring
to be wound up only every eighth day.
It is not inappropriate here to remark that the time kept by these
little machines was not regular until an ingenious workman, whose name
has not come down to us, invented the fusee, a kind of truncated cone;
to the base of this was attached a small piece of catgut which, spirally
rolling itself up to the top, became fastened to the barrel that
enclosed the spring. The advantage of this arrangement is, that owing to
the conical form of the fusee, the traction of the spring acting as it
relaxes on a greater radius of the cone, it results in establishing
equilibrium of power between the first and the last movements of the
spring. Subsequently a clockmaker named Gruet substituted jointed
(_articulées_) chains for catgut; the latter having the great
disadvantage of being hygrometric and varying in tension with the state
of the atmosphere.
The use of watches spread rapidly in France. In the reigns of the
Valois, a large number were made of very diminutive size, to which the
clockmakers gave all sorts of forms, especially those of an acorn, an
almond, a Latin cross, a shell (Figs. 148 to 150). They were engraved,
chased, enamelled; the hand which marked the hour was very frequently of
delicate workmanship, and sometimes ornamented with precious stones.
Some of these watches set in motion symbolic figures, as well as Time,
Apollo, Diana, the Virgin, the Apostles, and the saints.
It may be conceived that all these complicated works required numerous
craftsmen. It was therefore considered proper to unite these artisans in
a community. The statutes which they had received from Louis XI. in 1483
were confirmed by Francis I. They contained a succession of laws,
intended to protect at the same time the interests of members of the
corporation and the dignity of their profession.
No one was admitted as master but on proof of having served eight years
of apprenticeship, and after having produced a _chef-d’œuvre_ in the
[Illustration: CLOCK OF DAMASCENED IRON AND WATCHES Of the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Centuries.]
house, or under the supervision, of one of the inspectors of the
corporation. The visiting inspectors, elected by all the members, as
well as by the trustees and the syndics, were authorised when
introducing themselves into the workshops, to look after the proper
construction of watches and clocks; and if it happened that they found
such as did not appear to be made according to the rules of art, they
could not only seize and destroy them, but also impose a fine on the
maker for the benefit of the corporation. The statutes also gave
exclusive right to the accredited masters to trade, directly or
otherwise, with all the stock, new or second-hand, finished or
unfinished.
[Illustration: Figs. 148 to 150.--Watches of the Valois Epoch.
(Sixteenth Century.)]
“Under the influence of these wise institutions,” M. Dubois remarks,
“the master-clockmakers had no fear of the competition of persons not
belonging to the corporation. If they were affected by the artistic
superiority of some of their colleagues, it was with the laudable desire
to contend with them for the first places. The work of one day, superior
to that of the preceding, was surpassed by that of the day following. It
was by this incessant competition of intelligence and knowledge, by this
legitimate and invigorating rivalry of all the members of the same
industrious community, that science itself attained by degrees the
zenith of the excellent and the sublime of the beautiful. The ambition
of workmen was to rise to the mastership, and they attained that only by
force of labour and assiduous efforts. The ambition of the masters was
to acquire the honours of the syndicate--that consular magistracy the
most honourable of all, for it was the result of election, and the
recompense of services rendered to art and to the community.”
Having thus reached the middle of the sixteenth century, and not wishing
to exceed the compass assigned to this sketch, we may limit ourselves to
the mention of some of the remarkable works produced during a century by
an art that had already manifested itself with a power never to be
diminished.
The clock which Henry II. had constructed for the château of Anet has
long been regarded as very curious. Every time the hand denotes the
hour, a stag appears from the inside of the clock, and darts away
followed by a pack of hounds; but soon the pack and the stag stop, and
the latter, by means of very ingenious mechanism, strikes the hours with
one of his feet.
The clock of Jena (Fig. 151), which is still in existence, is not less
famous. Above the dial is a bronze head presumed to represent a buffoon
of Ernest, Elector of Saxony, who died in 1486. When the hour is about
to strike, the head--so remarkably ugly as to have given the clock the
name of the _monstrous head_--opens its very large mouth. A figure
representing an old pilgrim offers it a golden apple on the end of a
stick; but just when poor Hans (so was the fool called) is about to
close his mouth to masticate and swallow the apple, the pilgrim suddenly
withdraws it. On the left of the head is an angel singing (the arms of
the city of Jena), holding in one hand a book, which he raises towards
his eyes whenever the hours strike, and with the other he rings a
hand-bell.
The town of Niort, in Poitou, possessed also an extraordinary clock,
ornamented with a great number of allegorical figures--the work of
Bouhain,
[Illustration: Fig. 151.--Clock of Jena, in Germany. (Fifteenth
Century.)]
in 1570. A much more famous clock was that of Strasburg (Fig. 152),
constructed in 1573, and which was long considered to be the greatest of
all wonders. It was entirely restored in 1842 by M. Schwilgué. Angelo
Rocca, in his “Commentarium de Campanis,” gives a description of it. Its
most important feature was a moving sphere, whereon were represented the
planets and the constellations, and which completed its rotation in
three hundred and sixty-five days. On two sides of the dial and below it
the principal festivals of the year and the solemnities of the Church
were represented by allegorical figures. Other dials, distributed
symmetrically on the façade of the tower in which the clock is situated,
marked the days of the week, the date of the month, the signs of the
zodiac, the phases of the moon, the rising and setting of the sun, &c.
Every hour two angels
[Illustration: Fig. 152.--Astronomical Clock of the Cathedral at
Strasburg, constructed in 1573.]
sounded the trumpet. When the concert was finished, the bell tolled;
then immediately a cock, perched on the summit, spread his wings
noisily, and made his crowing to be heard. The striking machinery, by
means of movable trap-doors, cylinders, and springs concealed in the
interior of the clock, set in motion a considerable number of automata,
executed with much skill. Angelo Rocca adds that the completion of this
_chef-d’œuvre_ was attributed to Nicolas Copernicus; and that when this
able mechanician had finished his work, the sheriffs and consuls of the
city had his eyes put out in order to render it impossible for him to
execute a similar clock for any other city. This last statement is the
more deserving to rank among mere legends from the fact that,
independent of existing proof of the clock being made by Conrad
Dasypodius, it would be very difficult to prove that Copernicus ever
visited Alsace, or had his eyes put out.
A similar tradition is attached to the history of another clock still in
existence, and which was not less celebrated than that of Strasburg. We
refer to that of the Church of St. John at Lyons, made in 1598 by
Nicholas Lippius, a clockmaker of Basle; repaired and enlarged
subsequently by Nourisson, an artisan of Lyons. Only the horary
mechanism now acts; but the clock is not on that account neglected by
visitors, to whom the worthy attendants still repeat, in perfect faith,
that Lippius was put to death as soon as he had finished his
_chef-d’œuvre_. To show the improbability of this pretended penalty it
is sufficient to remark, with M. Dubois, that even in the sixteenth
century persons were not killed for the crime of making _chefs-d’œuvre_;
and there is, besides, proof that Lippius died in peace, and honoured,
in his native country.
To these famous clocks must be added those of St. Lambert at Liège, of
Nuremberg, of Augsburg, and of Basle; that of Medina del Campo, in
Spain, and those which, in the reign of Charles I., or during the
Protectorship of Cromwell, were manufactured and placed in England, at
St. Dunstan’s in London,[21] and in the Cathedral of Canterbury, in
Edinburgh, and in Glasgow, &c.
Before concluding, and to do justice to a century to which we have
assigned a period of decline, we are bound to acknowledge that some
years before the death of Cardinal Richelieu--that is to say, from 1630
to 1640--artists of ability made praiseworthy efforts to create a new
era in horology. But the improvements they had in view were directed
much more to the processes of the construction of the several parts
composing the clockwork of watches and clocks than to the beauty and
ingenuity of the workmanship. This was progress of a purely professional
character, in order to create a more ready and inexpensive supply; a
progress which we may regard as services rendered by art to trade. The
period of great constructions and delicate marvels was past. Ornamental
_Jacquemarts_ were no longer placed in belfries. Mechanical
_chefs-d’œuvre_ were no longer set in frail gems. The time was still far
off when, laying down the sceptre of that empire on which “the sun never
sets,” the conqueror of Francis I., retiring to a cloister, employed
himself in the construction of the most complicated clockwork. Charles
V. had as assistant, if not as teacher, in his work the learned
mathematician, Jannellus Turianus, whom he had induced to join him in
his retreat. It is said that he enjoyed nothing so much as seeing the
monks of Saint-Just standing amazed before his alarum watches and
automaton clocks; but it is also stated that he manifested the greatest
despair when obliged to admit it was as impossible to establish perfect
concord among clocks as among men.
In truth, Galileo had not yet arrived to observe and formulate the laws
of the pendulum, which Huygens was happily to apply to the movements of
horology.
[Illustration: Fig. 153.--Top of an Hour-Glass, engraved and gilt. (A
French Work of the Sixteenth Century.)]
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.
Music in the Middle Ages.--Musical Instruments from the Fourth to
the Thirteenth Century.--Wind Instruments: the Single and Double
Flute, the Pandean Pipes, the Reed-pipe, the Hautboy, the
Flageolet, Trumpets, Horns, _Olifants_, the Hydraulic Organ, the
Bellows-Organ.--Instruments of Percussion: the Bell, the Hand-bell,
Cymbals, the Timbrel, the Triangle, the _Bombulum_,
Drums.--Stringed Instruments: the Lyre, the Cithern, the Harp, the
Psaltery, the _Nable_, the _Chorus_, the _Organistrum_, the Lute
and the Guitar, the _Crout_, the _Rote_, the Viola, the _Gigue_,
the Monochord.
The history of Music in the Middle Ages would commence about the fourth
century of our era. In the sixth century, Isidore of Seville, in his
“Sentiments sur la Musique,” writes as follows:--“Music is a modulation
of the voice, and also an accordance of several sounds and their
simultaneous union.”
About 384, St. Ambrose, who built the Cathedral of Milan, regulated the
mode in which psalms, hymns, and anthems should be performed, by
selecting from Greek chants those melodies he considered best adapted to
the Latin Church.
In 590, Gregory the Great, in order to remedy the disorder which had
crept into ecclesiastical singing, collected all that remained of the
ancient Greek melodies, with those of St. Ambrose and others, and formed
the antiphonary which is called the _Centonien_, because it is composed
of chants of his selection. Henceforward, ecclesiastical chanting
obtained the name of _Gregorian_; it was adopted into the whole of the
Western Church, and maintained its position almost unaltered down to the
middle of the eleventh century.
It is thought that originally the music of the antiphonary was noted in
accordance with Greek and Roman usage--a notation known as the
_Boethian_, from the name of Boethius the philosopher, by whom we are
informed that in his time (that is, about the end of the fifth century)
the notation was composed of the first fifteen letters of the alphabet.
The sounds of the octave were represented--the major by _capital_
letters, the minor by _small_ letters, as follows:--
Major mode A B C D E F G
Minor mode a b c d e f g