Message text written by INTERNET:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >A question I am often asked is why do English clocks with Roman numerals have IIII (instead of IV) at the '4' position and most Continental and American clocks appear to have the correct IV?<
This is something which has been around for a very long time indeed. The first clocks with dials (c 1400s or possibly earlier) used the 'IIII' form of the numeral four and it is possible that this was a common usage at the time. However, It is thought by others that the use of 'IIII' more nearly balances the equally heavy 'VIII' on the other side of the dial and that is the most usual explanation. It does imply an emphasis on appearance which might be overstated for the earliest years of clock manufacture though that was certainly not the case in later times. So my guess is that it may have been in quite common usage originally and was carried forward because of the way in which the appearance seemed more balanced. Early clocks using the 'IV' form do exist. In the days when bracket clocks were popular nearly all were made to go for 8 days or more (some continental designs even ran for a couple of weeks). It proved difficult to design a striking mechanism that would stay powered for such a long time and Joseph Knibb (I think) developed what is called 'Roman Striking' which followed the Roman numeral system. It used two bells of different pitch. A time involving a Roman 'I' was struck on one bell and a time involving a 'V' was struck on another bell. Thus hours were struck in a sort of 'ting-tang' way. 'X' was regarded as two 'V's. To make things tie up Knibb used a 'IV' on his chapter ring instead of 'IIII' but it was recognised that it looked (and still looks!) unbalanced. Incidentally clocks by Knibb are rare enough but clocks with Roman Striking are very rare indeed. Patrick
