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Spectacles Marked Distinction Among 17th Century Monks
"Brother, put on your spectacles!"
That order, issued in 17th century Europe by the leader of a religious sect, was considered by the young student to whom it was addressed as the highest honor that could have been bestowed on him for faithful service. He felt as though he had been knighted.
Spectacles, in the 17th century, were a mark of superior learning and social status. Proportionately as a person's fortunes rose, he increased the size of his spectacles, and wore them higher on his nose.
As man progressed through the ages, so did the art of making lenses and spectacles. The modern eyeglasses 60 million Americans wear today are the end product of thousands of years, according to a history of the art of spectacle making compiled by an American optical company.
Although there is no definite proof of the exact time or place of the origin of spectacles and lenses, the history indicates that it is believed that as early as 2233 B.C. a Chinese emperor used lenses made of rock crystal, quartz, topaz, or amethyst to observe the stars.
No one is certain how far into antiquity the conception of glasses as a means of protecting the eyes goes, but it has been established that primitive tribes in various parts of the world decorated their bodies with goggles, with an external slits to admit a minimum of light, before they had knowledge of glass.
The existence of many specimens of ancient glass, dating back several thousand years,places manufacture of the product as one of the oldest of men's industries.
The ancients employed bulbs of glass filled with water to concentrate the rays of the sun for cauterization and for kindling fires. The use of the bulb, placed before the eye, to magnify small and difficult lettering was mentioned by early historians. The earliest lenses known were used as hand glasses, held close to the object viewed. Only gradually were methods devised to
support the lenses before the eyes.
But, because the need was not felt,
no further steps were taken in antiquity to develop lenses. And in
the dark ages, spectacles were all but forgotten.
The first historical data pointing
to the revival of spectacles is that glasses were known in China and Europe in the 13th century. During this period, old people in China used lenses to distinguish small lettering. These glasses were of different design than the early European forms. They were large and oval shape, rather than round.
necessarily imply lenses. Even until recent times frames without lenses were used as an affectation, and denoted social success.
It was at this time in China that the tortoise shell frames gained prominence. The tortoise was a sacred reptile to the Chinese, and tortoise shell frames were considered symbols of good fortune and long life. Frames, however, did not
In Spain in the middle of the 17th century, young ladies wore great spectacles on their noses and fastened to their ears, but, as one observer wrote: "They made no use of them where it was necessary; they only discused while they had them on." This was done to help the young ladies to appear grave.
Roger Bacon, English monk-philosopher, is credited as a pioneer lens designer. In his Opus Magnus (1268) he treated on the science of optics in general and lenses in particular.
Spectacle making as an industry did not get under way until after the invention of printing in 1440.
Ability to read and write was possessed by the learned few, and costiness of glasses made them prohibitive. But, with the advent of printing, a constantly increasing number of persons demanded the instruments that could help them to a better understanding of the times in which they lived.
through the land, keeping the spectacle industry alive, selling their wares to alleviate visual faults.
The similarity of spectacles in Europe after this time shows that while they may not have been derived from a common source, they must have developed under the same influences. As early as 1465, the Spectacle Maker's guild took part in a review of merchants and craftsmen before the French king. With the elimination of guilds, peddlers became the chief source of glasses for the public. They traveled
In the early 19th century, a great advance was made in the application of lenses for correction of errors in refraction, when a British scientist, Thomas Young, demonstrated the condition of astigmatism in 1801.
Shortly thereafter, in 1804, Wollaston, an Englishman, advocated the use of meniscus form lenses. He gave them the name "perisopic" because such form provided a wider, useful field of view.
Other developments, including the standardization of curves for meniscus lenses, brought the making of spectacles up to the fine precision known today.
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