THE SOUNDING of Time

Our experience has led us to think that the chiming of time is a complication built upon the regular running train of a timepiece. Indeed, it is universally and correctly seen as an exquisite embellishment, signaling that the timepiece is among the rarest, most elaborate, most enchanting, most impressive and, yes, most expensive of all horological creations. In contrast with our modern view that sonneries play subsidiary roles in timekeeping, history and the foundations for the sounding of time teach otherwise. Centuries ago, born of village clocks, chiming, rather than being an embellishment of visual presentations of time, was seen as fundamental, with the dials and hands playing but a secondary role.

Keep in mind the rhythms of life in early agrarian societies. What mattered was the rising and setting of the sun, the changes of seasons, and, to a lesser extent, the phases of the moon. Hours and minutes simply were not important factors. There were two primary developments that drastically altered both lives and awareness of units of time. At the debut of the 14th century, in the European monasteries, regular calls to prayer at strictly determined set times became a fixture of the monastic day taking precedence over other daily routines. Roughly coincident with this change in daily life was the invention of large gear driven clocks which, of course, obsoleted constructions dating from centuries before, such as water clocks.

These mechanisms allowed for the chiming of time including the counting of hours. In order to summon the monks, often working at a distance, chiming which sounded and counted the hours became seen as essential. Rapidly, this function spread to monasteries throughout Europe. As the monks’ days became organized around these large striking clocks, so did that of the citizens living within audible range who likewise adapted their activities to the church soundings.¹

By the 14th and 15th centuries as village and city life supplanted isolated farming, in municipal buildings and public squares, cities undertook the installation of mechanical clocks capable of counting the hours in passing. One example illustrates the degree to which self-chiming clocks were prized. In the town of Tulln, Austria, the sentence of a convicted murderer, a blacksmith, was commuted on the condition that he construct a large clock for the village square that would “ring itself ”.

Not surprisingly, the businesses, legal systems, and, most importantly, the culture itself adapted to and took advantage of these installations counting and sounding the time. Punctuality became a feature of life. Payment of wages based upon hours worked spread widely. In England the “Statute of Apprentices” enacted in 1563 during the reign of Elizabeth 1 mandated payment of an hourly wage, making time keeping a business imperative. Central to all of this was the chiming au passage (automatically as time passed)² of hours, later adding quarters. This, of course, established the patterns for sounding that we now know as that of grande and petite sonneries.

Co-incidentally, chiming of bells in this formative period was so interwoven with notions of time, that the word “clock” was derived from the word “clocca”, Latin for bell.

WESTMINSTER 
Oddly the most widely re­ cognized chiming melody in the world, today bearing the moniker “Westminster”, did not actually originate in London’s Westminster. Rather, commissioned by Joseph Jowett, a professor of civil law, it was composed in 1793 in Cambridge by Professor of Music John Randall, assisted by an undergraduate ­ pupil, William Crotch. It debuted in the University Church of St. Mary’s the Great.

Widespread popularity as well as renown came when Edmund Beckett Denison used the composition for the Palace of Westminster. That prominence, greatly eclipsing that of Cambridge, not only fueled its spread but gave it the name by which it is known today.

_{1 Indeed, there is an Italian expression “campanilismo” which roughly translated means identifying your community as that being within the sounding range of the village clock.} 

_{2 The terms “au passage” and “au passant” are used interchangeably.}