ABSTRACT
SINCE a clear description of the inventors of clocks and the division of the hours can be found almost anywhere in the would, it would be more troublesome than fruitful for me to repeat something so obvious 71here. Nevertheless I shall have to confess that the division of days and hours which other nations employ today (and with the use of bells, too) came very late to the peoples of the North, because of our ancestors’ ignorance and the simplicity of ancient times. Yet now, in almost the whole of the northern region such well-finished clocks, easy to use and accurate, have been constructed by the skill of both foreigners and natives, that clearly nothing more is needed for them than shrewd management. In the metropolitan church of Uppsala (where, or near which, on certain hills idols were worshipped six hundred years ago) is kept a marvellous clock of great value, through whose daily and nightly movement the approach and regression of the planets, the sun, and the moon are observed by a most cunning method. 1 The clock was made in recent years, when Archbishop Jakob was in office 2 (who also set up a university by charter in this city of his), at a cost that was considerable but never to be regretted, since all the learned men of those parts, just as they are inclined to favour other excellences, are extremely eager to discover the courses, properties, and effects of the stars and constellations. I should like this statement to be understood also of other clerics in the cathedral churches, to whom our gracious God has granted distinguished abilities in the highest degree. Björn, a man of great intelligence who came from Västergötland, was employed before all others by King Frederick III in his most weighty deliberations. 3 In the same way Pope Alexander VI used Gadh from Östergötland, who was afterwards ensnared and killed by the Danes. 4
would
Use of clocks came late to the North
Bells
The excellent clock at Uppsala
University at Uppsala
Distinguished abilities of Northerners
Frederick III
Gadh
