(236) For statements regarding Pope John and bell superstitions, see
Higgins's Anacalypsis, vol. ii, p. 70. See also Platina, Vitae Pontif.,
s. v. John XIII, and Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici, sub anno 968.
The conjecture of Baronius that the bell was named after St. John the
Baptist, is even more startling than the accepted tradition of the
Pope's sponsorship.
This idea was rapidly developed, and we soon find it supported in ponderous treatises, spread widely in sermons, and popularized in multitudes of inscriptions cast upon the bells themselves. This branch of theological literature may still be studied in multitudes of church towers throughout Europe. A bell at Basel bears the inscription, "Ad fugandos demones." Another, in Lugano, declares "The sound of this bell vanquishes tempests, repels demons, and summons men." Another, at the Cathedral of Erfurt, declares that it can "ward off lightning and malignant demons." A peal in the Jesuit church at the university town of Pont-a-Mousson bore the words, "They praise God, put to flight the clouds, affright the demons, and call the people." This is dated 1634. Another bell in that part of France declares, "It is I who dissipate the thunders"(Ego sum qui dissipo tonitrua).(237)
(237) For these illustrations, with others equally striking, see Meyer,
Der Aberglaube des Mittelalters, pp. 185, 186. For the later examples,
see Germain, Anciennes cloches lorraines (Nancy, 1885), pp. 23, 27.
Another, in one of the forest cantons of Switzerland, bears a doggerel couplet, which may be thus translated:
"On the devil my spite I'll vent, And, God helping, bad weather prevent."(238)
(238) "An dem Tufel will cih mich rachen, Mit der hilf gotz alle bosen
wetter erbrechen." (See Meyer, as above.)
Very common were inscriptions embodying this doctrine in sonorous Latin.
Naturally, then, there grew up a ritual for the consecration of bells. Knollys, in his quaint translation of the old chronicler Sleidan, gives us the usage in the simple English of the middle of the sixteenth century:
"In lyke sorte (as churches) are the belles used. And first, forsouth, they must hange so, as the Byshop may goe round about them. Whiche after he hath sayde certen Psalmes, he consecrateth water and salte, and mingleth them together, wherwith he washeth the belle diligently both within and without, after wypeth it drie, and with holy oyle draweth in it the signe of the crosse, and prayeth God, that whan they shall rynge or sounde that bell, all the disceiptes of the devyll may vanyshe away, hayle, thondryng, lightening, wyndes, and tempestes, and all untemperate weathers may be aswaged. Whan he hath wipte out the crosse of oyle wyth a linen cloth, he maketh seven other crosses in the same, and within one only. After saying certen Psalmes, he taketh a payre of sensours and senseth the bel within, and prayeth God to sende it good lucke. In many places they make a great dyner, and kepe a feast as it were at a solemne wedding."(239)
(239) Sleiden's Commentaries, English translation, as above, fol. 334
(lib. xxi, sub anno 1549).