(Vol. ix., p. 109.)
St. Nicholas Church, Sidmouth.—Having, on October 21, 1850, taken intaglios in pressing-wax of the inscription forwarded by Mr. Gordon, from which plaster casts were made, the writer is able to speak of it with some degree of confidence. The inscription, however, is not peculiar to Sidmouth: it is found at other places in the county of Devon, and perhaps elsewhere. In Harvey's Sidmouth Directory for March, 1851, there is an article descriptive of all the six bells at this place, in which there is a fac-simile, engraved on wood, of the inscription in question. The words run all round the bell; and each word is placed on a cartouche. The Rev. Dr. Oliver of Exeter, in his communication to the writer on this subject, calls the bell the "Jesus Bell." The Directory observes:
"It was formerly the practice to christen bells with ceremonies similar to, but even more solemn than, those attending the naming of children; and they were frequently dedicated to Christ (as this is), to the Virgin, or some saint."
Dr. Oliver to the writer says:
"I have met with it at Whitstone, near this city [Exeter], at East Teignmouth, &c.; michi for mihi;
, the abbreviation for Jesus. Very often the word veneratum occurs instead of amatum, and illud instead of istud."
The
stands thus: ihc. The Directory, on this abbreviated word, remarks,—
"The IHS, as an abbreviation for Jesus, is a blunder. Casley, in his Catalogue of the King's MSS., observes, p. 23., that 'in Latin MSS. the Greek letters of the word Christus, as also Jesus, are always retained, except that the terminations are changed according to the Latin language. Jesus is written IHS, or in small characters ihs, which is the Greek ΙΗΣ or ιης, an abbreviation for ιησους. However, the scribes knew nothing of this for a thousand years before the invention of printing, for if they had they would not have written ihs for ιησους; but they ignorantly copied after one another such letters as they found put for these words. Nay, at length they pretended to find Jesus Hominum Salvator comprehended in the word IHS, which is another proof that they took the middle letter for h, not η. The dash also over the word, which is a sign of abbreviation, some have changed to the sign of the cross' [Hone's Mysteries, p. 282.]. The old way of spelling Jhesus with an h may perhaps be referred to the same mistake. The inscription, then, runs thus:
,
which may be rendered, Jesus, that beloved name, is given to me. The bell bears no date, but is of course older than the period of the Reformation. But it remains to be observed that the last letter of the three is not an s but a c. It seems that in the old Greek inscriptions the substitution of the c for the s was common. Several examples are given in Horne's Introduction, vol. ii. pt. 1. ch. iii. sect. 2., but we have not room to quote them. Suffice it to say that at p. 100., in speaking of the MSS. of the Codex Vaticanus, he says, 'The abbreviations are few, being confined chiefly to those words which are in general abbreviated, such as θC, KC, IC, XC, for Θεος, Κυριος, Ιησους, Χριστος, God, Lord, Jesus, Christ.' At the end of these words, in the abbreviations, the c is used for the s.—Peter."
This fourth bell is the oldest in the tower. The third, dated 1667, has quite a modern appearance as compared with it. The second, fifth, and sixth are all dated 1708, and the first, or smallest, was added in 1824.