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Watchman’s clock, Austria (?), 1st half of the 15th century
Height: 55 cm, width: 20 cm, depth: 18 cm Movement: weight-driven movement with rope-suspended weights, mounted on a frame made of forged strip iron; the bearings for the main wheel and escape wheel are fixed by wedges on the sides; verge-and-foliot escapement, ceramic figures on the foliot date from the 1st half of the 17th century; hourly alarm mechanism with a small bell; the alarm is wound with a fixed handle and triggered by pins (now missing) on the hour wheel; single hour hand; duration: twelve hours. Inv. no. U 785 Purchased as part of the Rudolf Kaftan collection, 1917
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A look back into an era when only very few towns could afford a tower clock – and even if they could, it was possibly one without a striking mechanism. In those days, it was the watchman who not only kept a lookout for signs of fire or approaching enemies from the town’s highest tower, but who also signalled the passing of the hours to the town inhabitants. For this purpose, the watchman had a wall-mounted clock in his room high up in the tower. Whenever it indicated that a full hour had passed, the watchman would go and sound the big tower bell, striking the correct number of hours, or he would blow his horn. The watchman’s clocks were simple and robust timepieces whose accuracy was quite sufficient for the needs of medieval life: gaining or losing a quarter or half an hour per day was nothing to worry about in an era when mechanical clocks were still fitted with an hour hand only. To correct for the inevitably accumulating error, sundials – and for longer overcast periods, large sandglasses – were used. Although watchman’s clocks of this type were in widespread use, only few of them have survived over the centuries: they were objects of everyday use, not prized collectors’ items; once damaged or dysfunctional, they were as a rule dismantled and the metal melted down. Thus, items of medieval mass production have today become rare antiques. However rare, the item described here could be returned to active service at any time: it functions today as it did five centuries ago.