Mechanical weight-driven clock
Reloj mecánico de pesas con escape
- Date
- c. 1283 · confidence medium
- Place
- Dunstable Priory, England / northern Italy
- Credited to
- Anonymous monastic clockmakers
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A machine driven by descending weights regulated by an escapement, converting continuous motion into discrete ticks. The first fully mechanical clock, independent of water or the sun.
The first Chinese clock with an escapement (Yi Xing, 725; Su Song, 1092) was hydromechanical; the European verge escapement appears to have been an independent development. The exact date is unknown, somewhere between 1270 and 1300.
What it led to
- abstract, uniform time (equal hours) that disciplined urban labour
- the clockmaking industry and European mechanical precision
- the concept of the universe as a machine and the metaphor of the divine clockmaker
Built on
- Toothed gearc. 270 BCE
- Public striking tower clock1335
- Su Song's escapement water clock (1092)
- gears
- bells
Made possible
- Verge and foliot escapementc. 1300
- Public striking tower clock1335
- Astronomical clock (Astrarium)1364
- Mainspring and fuseec. 1430-1450
- Pocket watchc. 1510
- Taqi al-Din's precision clocks1577
- Tycho Brahe's precision instruments1582
- Japanese temporal-hour clock (wadokei)c. 1600-1650
- Pendulum clock1656
- Honcheon Sigye armillary clock1669
- Chronograph1816-1821
- Verge and foliot escapement
- Public striking tower clock
- Astronomical clock (Astrarium)
- spring-driven clock