Compilation of the
COSTER-FROMANTEEL
notarial act.
Table of contents:
Introduction.
The
Notarial Act (links to transcripts and translations).
Contract summary.
About Coster
and Fromanteel.
Who
promised to disclose a secret.
Daags
dienvolgend' versus 'Soo is dienvolgens.
About
the
Piggott paper.
Acknowledgments.
Footnotes.
Links:
Source document,
P1.
P2.
Chr.
Huygens' Œuvres Complètes.
(pdf)
Chr.
Huygens Horologium 1658.
(pdf)
26
The
Piggott paper.
Speculations
on the historical backgrounds of the contract.
Note: Yellow characters indicate
bookmarks or 'clickable' links to relevant pages or bookmarks.
"I am aware of the fact that we will never be absolutely certain about
the incentives of the
visit by Coster and Fromanteel to Mr. de Putter's
(notarial)
office." Frits van Kersen.
"The
historic Contract, between Salomon Coster and John Fromanteel, remains
curious and by no means understood, but is only one of the many
unresolved enigmas in the history of European horology."
Keith Piggott.
INTRODUCTION
It is commonly believed that Christiaan Huygens was
the first to combine a
pendulum with a verge clock in 1656. In June 1657 he had a pendulum clock
most likely made by Salomon Coster and
patented in the United Provinces (the Netherlands),
and it was published in his 'Horologium' in 1658.
Fig. 1 (click for more)
Christian Huygens. 1629-1695
The improvement was so dramatic that
other clockmakers followed suit. It is assumed that Huygens permitted Salomon Coster to
provide training on pendulum clocks to foreign clockmakers, one
of them was John Fromanteel son of Ahasuerus
a London clockmaker of repute.
This compilation is about the Notarial Act (contract)
between Coster and Fromanteel (Sept. 1657) which, as commonly
understood, enabled Fromanteel
to learn about Huygens' new and famous pendulum clocks.
THE
CONTRACT
Fig. 1a (click to enlarge)
Coster-Fromanteel contract
,
facsimile of the first page.
(view
high resolution version)
© Municipal
Archives, The Hague.
Fig. 1b (click to enlarge)
Coster-Fromanteel contract
,
facsimile of the second page.
(view
high resolution version)
© Municipal
Archives, The Hague.
CONTRACT SUMMARY
|
John Fromanteel was:
|
|
● |
to work for Salomon Coster from
September 3rd 1657 until May 1st 1658. |
|
● |
to make clocks, as he did
before, either in the shop
or in the house of Coster’s. |
|
● |
already a capable clockmaker. |
|
|
Salomon Coster was:
|
|
● |
to pay 20 caroli guilders15.
for each clock produced by Fromanteel. |
|
● |
to pay 18-10-0 caroli guilders
for each clock produced by Fromanteel when Coster supplies the
brass and steel. |
|
● |
to pay for Fromanteel's heat, light
and beer during this period of time. |
|
● |
to disclose, before May 1st 1658,
the secret
16
existing in the clocks made by Fromanteel, provided that the
clocks made by Fromanteel will remain at Coster’s. |
ABOUT COSTER AND FROMANTEEL
Salomon
Coster, ante 1623 - 1659.
Salomon was born in Haarlem in the United Provinces (the Netherlands)
before 1623 and moved to The Hague shortly after his marriage in 1643.
Like several Haarlem clockmakers, he was a Baptist. In 1646 Pieter Visbagh
was apprenticed to him for six years, and in 1657 Christiaan Reijnaert
for ten years. In the same year Christiaan Huygens allowed him ('met
privilege') to make and sell pendulum clocks. In this year John Fromanteel
came from London and worked with Coster, followed by Nicolas Hanet from
Paris in 1658. Salomon Coster died suddenly in December of 1659 and
the following year the shop was taken over from Coster’s widow by Pieter
Visbagh.
2
End
John Fromanteel, 1638 - ante 1692.
John was apprenticed to his father in 1652. Part of his apprenticeship
was spent in the Hague with Salomon Coster where he was trained to make
pendulum clocks. After he brought the new skills back to London in 1658,
the Fromanteel family made the first clocks, using a verge and a short
pendulum. He became a Freeman of the Clockmakers’ Company in 1663. He
took four apprentices between 1663 and 1679, one of whom was his son
Ahasuerus III. He appears to have worked in the family business until
about 1680 when he went to Holland with Ahasuerus II to pursue the family
clock making business there and may well have died there before his
father’s will was made in 1692.
4
Fig. 2 (click to enlarge)
Facsimile of Ahasuerus Fromanteel's advertisement in "Mercurius Politicus"
October 1658.
End
of this section, click here to continue.
Footnotes & Further reading.
1.
Municipal Archives, The Hague, Notarial Archive.
Beheers №372, Inventaris №322, Folio 409 & 409 verso.
2.
Dr. R.
Plomp, Spring driven Dutch pendulum clocks 1657-1710.
(Schiedam: Interbook International B.V., 1979)
3. R. D. Dobson.
‘Huygens. the Secret in the Coster-Fromanteel Contract, the
Thirty-Hour C1ock, in: Antiquarian Horology. Vol. 12. No. 2.
Summer 1980. P. 193-196.
4.
Hans van den Ende, Dr Frits van Kersen, Maria F. van Kersen-Halbertsma,
Dr John C. Taylor and Neil R. Taylor, Huygens’ Legacy, catalogue of
an exhibition held at Paleis Het Loo, (Castletown, Isle of Man: Fromanteel
Ltd, 2004), 5.
Chr. Huygens, Œuvres Complètes de Christiaan Huygens,
(The Hague: M. Nijhofl’, 1888-1950), Vol.17, pp.21-22.
(go
to)
5a Chr.
Huygens, Œuvres Complètes de Christiaan Huygens, (The Hague: M.
Nijhofl’, 1888-1950), 2 no. 565.
6.
E.L. Edwardes, the suspended Foliot and new Lights
on early Pendulum Clocks’, Antiquarian Horology, 12/6, June, 1981.
7.
E.L. Edwardes and R. D. Dobson, ‘The Fromanteels and the Pendulum Clock’,
Antiquarian Horology, 14/3, September, 1983. |
|
Back to previous section.
Go to
section end
WHO
PROMISED TO DISCLOSE A SECRET ?
Fig. 3 (click to view full transcription)
Error in Vollgraff's transcription of the contract,
as discovered by
B. van Lieshout .
It appeared that the printed transcription in
Huygens
'Oeuvres Complètes' Vol XVII.5
contains an error. According to Leopold14 and van Kersen,
correcting this error
does not really change the meaning of the text.
However according to Piggott and van Lieshout it
causes the meaning of the text to change significantly.
Piggott's
paper reads: "...,
the noted Dutch horologist Berry van Lieshout made the first
forensic verbatim transcript of the famous 1657 Contract; including
marginal notes, deletions and amendments. He found errors in former
transcripts all scholars relied on,......
Berry and I long debated the significance of Coster's
name being reinstated into the 'secret clause'; finally we both
surmised it gave a new mirror-image of all previous understandings.
The 'common' (Leopold/van Kersen?) and 'revised' (Piggott/van Lieshout?)
interpretations could
possibly be
distinguished as follows:
In Dutch:
Transcription: Wijders soo heeft hij Coster
belooft hetzelve werck dat hij fromanteel sal maecken, ׀ (ende het
secreet daerinne bestaende), hem voor den voorsz. geexpereerden tyt
te openbaren mits...
common understanding: Wijders soo heeft hij Coster belooft
[hij = Coster die
belooft] hetzelve werck dat hij fromanteel [hij
= Fromanteel] sal maecken, ׀
(ende het secreet daerinne
bestaende]), hem [hem
= Fromanteel] voor den
voorsz. geexpereerden tyt te openbaren mits..
revised understanding:
.. wijders soo heeft hij Coster belooft
[hij = Fromanteel
die belooft] hetzelve werck dat hij fromanteel [hij =
Fromanteel] sal maecken, ׀ (ende het secreet daerinne
bestaende), hem [hem =
Coster]
voor den voorsz. geexpereerden tyt te openbaren mits...
Translated:
transcription10: Further so has he Coster promised to reveal the same work that
he Fromanteel will make (and the secret therein existing) to him before the
aforementioned expired time, provided.....
common understanding:
Further so has he Coster
[he = Coster who promised] promised to reveal the same work that he
Fromanteel
[he = Fromanteel] will make
(and the secret therein existing) to him
[him = Fromanteel]
before the aforementioned expired time,
provided...
27
revised understanding:
.. further so has he Coster
[he = Fromanteel who
promised] promised to reveal the same work that he
Fromanteel
[he = Fromanteel] will make
(and the secret therein existing) to him
[him = Coster]
before the aforementioned expired time,
provided...
DAAGS DIENVOLGEND
versus SOO IS DIENVOLGENS
'The following day...' versus
'So is subsequently...'
('Daags
dienvolgend..' versus 'Soo Is dienvolgens..')
Most differences between the Van Kersen and the Van der
Horst transcriptions do not really affect the meaning of the text. However
there is a striking difference at the last line of page 1.
Fig. 4 (click to view source document)
'Daags dienvolgend..' versus 'Soo Is dienvolgens ...'
Van Kersen's 'The following day..' transcription,
apparently leads him to his 'first day concept' and 'second day
additional agreement' theory. Accordingly he concludes:
10
"Obviously, as the first draft clearly reveals, it
was on the following day that an additional agreement was written
down, .."
10
"The fact that the joint agreements on Coster's
promise to reveal something and the clocks staying in Coster's
workshop, apparently were made on a second day, after the primary
conditions of Fromanteel's employment by Coster were recorded, suggests
that the revelation of the secret was not the main object of the
contract in its first day-concept."
However the Van Kersen theory is not supported by the Van der
Horst's transcription which reads: 'Soo Is dienvolgens ...' (So is
subsequently...) in stead of 'Daags dienvolgend...' (The following
day...)
Salomon Coster
Soo heeft
Schout
Fig. 5
The first character in fig 4 being an 'S' seems to be consistent with
other transcriptions, supported by
both Van Kersen and Van der
Horst.
The full, scored out, lines in Dutch
are:
Van Kersen:
10
"Daags dienvolgend
tusschen seij contrahenten noch wordt versproocken, dat"
Van der Horst:
Soo is dienvolgens tusschen hen contrahenten noch verder
versproocken, dat
30
ABOUT
THE PIGGOTT PAPER
'The
Coster Fromanteel Contract its continued place in modern
scholarship'.
........... is the
title of Keith Piggott's paper on the possible pre-1657 introduction of pendulum clocks in England.
Some quotes:
section end
"Enthusiasts can contribute to the history by
private research. Any tyro might find gold, where experts too
familiar with old wisdoms do not. Our absorbing arena of antiquarian
horology needs new blood, we must inspire and challenge younger
minds to accept our roles so the definitive story of the 1657
Contract may one day be written."
"Orthodox dogma regards any contractual 'secreet' (be it remontoire?
pendulum? escapement?
theoretical calculation? endless rope?
OP-gear?) as being solely in Coster's
gift ...."
"Second perspective regards a fatal error in Dereham’s chronology, shown
by the Royal Society’s minutes for 1662 (Birch’s history, 1756). The RS
pendulum clock is lost, but the chosen excerpt is misleading and a
canard... Personally, I hold the link made is also
fallacious."
(click
here to view his
thought-provoking
paper)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.
We are indebted to Forum antiquariaat Bas Hesselink & Drs. Koert van
der Horst, Wim van Klaveren, Berry van Lieshout, Keith Piggott, Drs.
Ester Lels, Drs. Karel Nicolas, Hans Kreft, Achterland Verlagscompagnie,
Dr. Frits van Kersen, The UK National Maritime Museum, The
UK Science museum, Scheepvaartmuseum Amsterdam and The municipal
archives of the Hague and Rotterdam for their contributions, consent
or services.
The
Horological Foundation. 22-10-2005.
Project editor: Fred Kats.
This compilation is subject to further extentions
and revisions.
Footnotes & Further reading. (cont.)
8. R. D. Dobson, † 2005. De slinger als tijdmeter. Een nieuwe visie op de
ontwikkeling van de slinger als tijdmeter in de periode van
1602-1660. Galileo Galilei- Ahasuerus Fromanteel -
Christiaan Huygens. Achterland Verlagscompagnie. Bocholt
Bredevoort/Uitgeverij Fagus, Aalten. p.41.
9. E.L. Edwardes, The Story of
the Pendulum (‘lock, (Altrincham, John Shcrrart & Son Ltd., 1977), p.58-59
10, Frits van Kersen, ‘The Coster-Fromanteel
Contract Re-examined’, Antiquarian Horology,
28/5, March 2005, p.561-567.
11,
B. Loomes, Complete British clocks, (Newton Abbot: 1978),
pp.43ff.
12. E.G.
Aghib and J.H. Leopold, ‘More About the Elusive Fromanteel’, Antiquarian
Horology, 8/8, September
1974, 890ff.
13. According to J.H.
Leopold Coster was a Baptist because he did not have his young children
baptized, and because his widow did the administration of the small
Baptist community in The Hague for many years (see: Municipal Archives
The Hague, Archief Doopsgezinde Gemeente). For more on Coster see: J.H.
Leopold, ‘Een Reishorloge door Salomon Coster’, Jaarverslag Kon. Oudheidkundig
Genootschap, 119-123 (1976-1981), 72-76. for Fromanteel’s religion see
note 12.14
14.
J.H. Leopold, 'Some more notes on the Coster-Fromanteel contract', Antiquarian
Horology, 28/5, March 2005, 568-570.
15. 1 Caroli Guilder =
20 sols = 1 Flemish pound (lb) = 1.8 guilder.
16. In spite of
various speculations, it most likely is to unfold the
secret engineering aspects on how to construct pendulum clockworks.
Editor's note.
(more
speculations on the secret)
17, Hans Kreft. Rediscovering
the Fromanteel story. Translated and adapted for the Horological Foundation
website by R.K.Piggott. (go
to)
18 ‘The Fromanteels and the Pendulum Clock’,
Antiquarian Horology. (June 1984), 632-633.
19
Dr. R. Plomp. The Dutch extraction of the Fromanteel family.
Antiquarian Horology, sept. 1971.
p 320-372.
20 R.D. Dobson, ‘The Development of the Pendulum
Clock. 1656-1659’, in: Antiquarian Horology, Vol. 13, No. 3,
March 1982, P. 270-281.
21 E.L. Edwardes and R.D. Dobson. ‘The Fromanteels and the
Pendulum Clock’, in: Antiquarian Horology, Vol. 14, No. 3,
Sept. 1983, p. 250-265.
22 R.D. Dobson, ‘Galileo Galilei and Christiaan Huygens’,
in: Antiquarian Horology. Vol. 15, No. 3, March l985,p.
261-270.
23 Dr. R. Plomp. The Dutch origin of
the French pendulum clock. What we can learn from Christiaan
Huygens' correspondence. 1657-1664. Antiquarian Horology,
sept. 1971. p 24-40.
24 Dr. R. Plomp. The Dutch
influences in French clockmaking and visa-versa in the
latter half of the seventeenth century. Antiquarian Horology,
dec. 1974. p 28-45.
25
Keith Piggott. The Coster Fromanteel contract, its continued place in
modern scholarship. A paper on the possible pre-1657
introduction of pendulum clocks in England. THF website
Sept. 2005. (go
to)
26
English translation by Ernest L. Edwardes in Antiquarian
Horology Volume 7, No. 1, December 1970.
27 Van
der Horst: 'he Coster' is in my view 'he (=Coster)', as in
the 'common interpretation'. Also with respect to the
preceding and following text.
28
Drs. Koert van der Horst (1944), curator of manuscripts at
the University Library Utrecht (retired). Now head of
bibliographical research and catalogue department with
Antiquariaat FORUM, ‘t Goy-Houten, the Netherlands.
www.forumrarebooks.com
29
W. A. van Klaveren, graduated at Rotterdam Polytechnic in
1971 as a mechanical engineer, acquired an MA in English
language and literature at the Free University of Amsterdam
(1979), became a lecturer at Leiden University, the Free
University and Delft University respectively, and at various
teaching training colleges specialising in Old and Middle
English Language and Literature (1979-1984); worked for the
European Commission, first as a translator, later as a
language coordinator. Got involved in antique clocks in 1985
and was trained as a restorer in the workshop of Mario
Crijns. 'Wim' was the editor of the recently published
'Clocks - Their origin and development, 1320-1880' by H.M.
Vehmeyer.
30
Drs Ester Lels' advice to consider the 'Soo is
dienvolgens' transcription caused the initiative to ask
Antiquariaat Forum for their professional 'van der
Horst' transcription of the entire manuscript. The
Horological Foundation is indebted to both experts for their
indispensable contributions. |
back to text.
|
)
)
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}