Madeleine Burgess, Bangor University
The sound of church bells has filled European landscapes for more than 800 years. During this period, numerous cathedral fires required the bells to be reinstalled.
In 1320, for example, the bell tower of Bangor Cathedral in North Wales burned down. Following this fire, the bishop of the cathedral requested to be exempted from the annual church tax.
Around the same time, the Bangor Pontifical, a religious document containing instructions and rules for the bishop, was created. It contains the only known medieval instructions for the blessing of bells in the United Kingdom.
The blessing of the bells, also called “baptism of the bells”, varies slightly from one religious denomination to another as well as from one country to another. Generally, it consists of anointing the outside and inside of the bells with oil, then lighting incense under them.
During this ceremony, the bells may be named, usually after the name of a saint. They sometimes receive a corresponding inscription. The choice of names generally depends on who paid for the bell: if it is the local community, the bell is often named after the saint to whom the church is dedicated, or dedicated to a saint associated with the region.
This is the case of Saint Bartholomew Priory in West Smithfield, London. Around 1510, its smallest bell bore the inscription Saint Bartholomew, Pray for Uswhich means “Saint Bartholomew prays for us”.
If an individual or guild funds the making of a bell, they may choose a saint who reflects their career, life, or private devotional practices. For example, a bell ringer may dedicate a bell to Saint Dunstan, who is the patron saint of bell ringers (he was the first to make bells in the early 1900se century).
Protection by bells
In the Middle Ages, people believed they could seek divine intervention by ringing a church bell. Everyone who heard the bell ringing benefited. By ringing a specific bell, people requested the intervention of the saint to whom it was dedicated.
In the event of death, church bells rang to protect the soul of the deceased from the demons who pursued him during his journey to purgatory.
During storms, the bells associated with Saint Agatha protected the soundscape (the area in which the bells can be heard) from evil spirits believed to be causing bad weather.
In 1230, in his book bringing together biographies of saints, The Golden Legendthe Italian chronicler and Archbishop of Genoa, Jacobus de Voragine, described this belief:
“The evil spirits which are in the regions of the air are troubled when they hear the trumpets of God which are the bells, and when they see the banners carried on high. This is why the bells are rung when it thunders, and when great storms and bad weather occur, so that demons and evil spirits may be frightened and flee, and the movements of the storms may cease. »
Because of their promise of divine intervention and supernatural protection against evil spirits, but also because of their key role in communication, church bells became essential in daily life in the Middle Ages.
Ubiquitous bells
In 1552, the Bishop of Worcester, Hugh Latimer, said:
“If all the bells in England were rung at the same time, I think there would be almost no place in the country where at least one bell could not be heard. »
In reality, the sound of bells may not have covered every corner of the countryside, however, a 2015 case study of a medieval village in Oxfordshire showed that the village boundary was almost exactly the boundary of the sound of bells. church bells. This underlines both the importance that the inhabitants of the Middle Ages gave to protection by the sound of church bells and the key nature of the latter for communication.
It is therefore not surprising that the absence of the bells of Notre-Dame was felt. With their powers of protection and communication, their reinstallation marks a moment rich in symbolism in the restoration of the cathedral.
Madeleine Burgess, PhD Candidate in History, Bangor University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
