They had nothing to compare the clocks against, and I don’t think the stars and the sun would have made an useful target for comparison.
In: 17
There were ways such as comparing the shadows at Noon, but it’s also important to state that schedules were only ever as precise as the time keeping devices at the time.
Before clocks, the best someone could tell you was “be here mid-day tomorrow,” or something similar. Being 20 minutes late wasn’t really a thing since people couldn’t measure time that accurately. Once we got clocks, suddenly we could start scheduling things a little more tightly. The big “Town Clock,” on city hall or whatever was a good way for a town to all sync their clocks and watches together, but might be off compared to a neighboring town so nobody would ever expect someone to arrive after a 3 day journey precisely at 1:45.
As telegraph, radio, satellites, and digital communications became available, it allowed clocks from wider and wider areas to be synced, hence we gained the ability to keep (and expect others to keep) tighter and tighter schedules.
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