"1610.
"Janua. 17. ffor a balledrick to ye great Bell, xxid.
"1618.
"Novemb. 22. Item. for mendine of ye baldericke for ye foore bell, vjd."
From these entries it seems that the "baldrock" was something attached to the great bell.
In most of the recent English Dictionaries the word is applied to furniture, and to a belt or girdle. But in a Latin Dictionary published at Cambridge in 1693, I find in the Anglo-Latin part the following:—
English. A bawdrick of a bell clapper.
Latin. Ropali corrigia.
And the English of "Ropali Corrigia" seems (notwithstanding the English version given with it) to be "pieces of leather," or "thongs of leather" to the bell clapper, but for what purpose used I do not know.
JOHN NURSE CHADWICK.
P.S. The word "corrigia" is taken from the word "corium," a skin of leather.
[Were not these leather coverings?—that for the rope, to prevent its cutting the ringer's hands (as we constantly see), and also to prevent his hand slipping; and that for the clapper, to muffle it—straps of leather girded round them.]
Tu Autem ([Vol. iii., pp. 265.] [308.]).—The "Tu Autem," still remembered at Oxford and Cambridge, and yet lingering at the public dinners of the canons of Durham, is the last fragment of what was once a daily, or at least an almost daily, religious form or service at those ancient places; and it is rather strange that such a fragment should have remained so long in the collegiate and cathedral refectory without having preserved any remembrance of its real origin and meaning. If Bishop Hendren or Father Holdfast would forego their favourite pursuits for a few minutes, and look into your interesting and improving miscellany, they might inform you that in the Romish Breviary—which, no doubt, has preserved many ancient religious services—there is a form entitled Benedictio mensæ. As the generality of your readers may not have the Breviary at hand, I send you so much of the service as may suffice for the present purpose.
"BENEDICTIO MENSÆ.