Medieval Angelus Bell

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Object Description

This extremely rare bronze bell, which dates from the late 13th/early 14th centuries, is thought to have been made in southwest France. Tuned to C sharp, it is inscribed with ‘AVE MARIA GRACIA PLENA DNS’ or “Hail Mary Full of Grave the Lord is with Thee’’

One of the earliest and most enduring forms of communication; bells hold an immense power over the human psyche. In the Medieval world, the ringing of a bell called the faithful to prayer, announced births, baptisms, marriages and deaths. Bells warded off evil and warned of impending danger. They were the heartbeat of mediaeval life and their enormous emotional grip created a community cohesion that engendered both affection and loyalty.
In America, bells like the iconic Liberty Bell in Philadelphia are a symbol of independence. It’s silhouette and message is so ingrained in this country’s rich history that even today Jeff Koons pays homage to it’s the creation; not just in his monumental painting but Koons also impeccably copied of the Liberty Bell itself in a sculpture that was a centrepiece of the artist’s recent retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Decades before him, the chime of that bell inaugurated the transcontinental telephone service in 1915 and in 1961 the second manned US spacecraft was named “Liberty Bell 7”.

Like the Liberty Bell, the Angelus Bell is a remarkable survivor. It was cast well before the Hundred Years War (1337-1453); a war that saw an enormous destruction of bells. In European warfare, artillery officers had first claim on captured bells using the bronze to cast cannons. In 1549 a proposed increase in the tax on salt, caused a revolt in the South West of France. The villagers rang their church bells to warn of the arrival of tax collectors. When the Constable of France, suppressed the rebellion, he issued a decree that the rebel bells be melted down. Bells that had survived the French Wars of Religion (1562–98) fell victim to the spirit of modernisation that came in the eighteenth century with the ‘age of enlightenment’. Old bells were recast to create new carillons.
But it was the French Revolution that brought a systematic destruction of bells on a monumental scale. In 1789 all church property was put at the disposal of the state and over the next 3 years about 100,000 bells were turned into coins. It is therefore hardly surprising that in 1903, the French historian Joseph Berthelé was only able to identify the existence of nine church bells in France that date from the 13the century. As recently as 2010 the expert Thierry Gonon lists just ten that have survived from the 12th and 13th centuries.

Object History

The excellent condition of this bell, suggests that it was not hung in a bell tower where it would have been exposed to the elements, but rather in an enclosed, perhaps private chapel. This may also account for its remarkable survival.

The surface shows the manner in which the bell was made: its inner cavity fashioned in clay shaped with a rotating tool called a forma. This core was then covered in wax, and a second forma used to create the outer surface in the wax. The parallel circular lines of the turning of the forma are visible on the surface of the bronze.
Once the craftsmen made the wax they then added the inscription, letter-by-letter applying small wax squares each one cut out and stamped with the letters using pre-made, reusable puncheons. These wax letters were then applied to the surface of the bell and the soft wax that glued the letters onto the surface can still be seen oozing out from under some of the letters. Finally, the wax model was covered in clay and cast in metal using the lost wax process.
This lettering technique first emerged during the second half of the thirteenth-century, and demonstrates of the use of moveable type in Europe at least a century before Gutenberg, thereby demonstrating the origins of printing. That in part anyway, explains why a book dealer is selling such a object like this.
Both the bell’s shape and the lettering of the inscription indicate that its origin was in the southwest of France. And the letters, which are ornately-decorated letters with lilies, are more common in the Midi than in the North. Furthermore, the spelling ‘GRACIA’ rather than ‘GRATIA’ also suggests a southern origin.
As for the inscription, it appears to have been named Angelus, after the Angel Gabriel, invoking his words at the annunciation and originated in the 11th-century monastic custom of reciting three Hail Marys during the evening bell. In 1269, St Bonaventure, who took his degree in Paris with Thomas Aquinas in 1257, urged the universal adoption of this custom. Pope John XXII granted indulgences on the saying of the Angelus in both 1318 and 1327 from his seat in Avignon. It may therefore be no coincidence that a group of late 13th and early 14th century bells dedicated to the Virgin are found in southwest France.
Several other bells, also from the south of France, also relate to this one, particularly those from Couzeix and Châlus, both in the Haute-Vienne department in Limousin and both dated to the thirteenth century by Lecler, and to the thirteenth or fourteenth century by Berthelé. The bells of Lherm and Saccourvielle, both in the Haute-Garonne, near Toulouse, bear inscriptions of a similar style and ornamentation.

The particularly large wooden superstructure, in contrast to northern examples, matches those found in the South, where the equal weight of the bell and its stock would have enabled a 180 degree rotation during ringing, a practice most prevalent in the South-West.

Object Literature

Bibliography

Algermissen, Konrad. Lexikon der Marienkunde. Regensburg: Pustet, 1967.

Berthelé, Joseph. Enquêtes campanaires: notes, études et documents sur les cloches et les fondeurs de cloches du VIIIe au XXe siècle. Montpellier: Delord-Boehm et Martial, 1903.

———. “Pourquoi la vieille cloche d’Ornolac ne peut pas être du XIe siècle.” In Enquêtes campanaires: notes, études et documents sur les cloches et les fondeurs de cloches du VIIIe au XXe siècle., 347–375. Montpellier: Delord-Boehm et Martial, 1903.

Freeman K. “‘The bells, too, are fighting’: The fate of European church bells in the Second World War.” Can. J. Hist. Canadian Journal of History 43, no. 3 (2008): 417–450.

Gonon, Thierry. Les cloches en France au Moyen Âge. Paris: Errance, 2010.

Kroener, Bernhard, Rolf-Dieter Müller, and Hans Umbreit. Germany and the Second World War. Vol. 5, Organization and mobilization of the German sphere of power. Part 2,: Wartime administration, economy, and manpower resources, 1942-1944/5. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003.

Lecler, André. Étude sur les cloches de l’ancien diocèse de Limoges. Limoges, 1902.

Loi relative à la distribution de la monnoie de cuivre & de celle qui proviendra de la fonte des cloches: donnée à Paris, le 6 août 1791. Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1791.

Loi relative à la fonte des cloches des églises supprimées dans le département de Paris: donnée à Paris, le 28 juin 1791. Paris: Imprimerie nationale exécutive du Louvre, 1793.

Neri, Elisabetta, and Silvia Lusuardi Siena. De campanis fundendis: la produzione di campane nel Medioevo tra fonti scritte ed evidenze archeologiche. Milan: V&P, 2006.

Price, Frank Percival. Campanology, Europe, 1945-47. A report on the condition of carillons on the continent of Europe as a result of the recent war; on the sequestration and melting down of bells by the Central Powers; and on research into the tonal qualities of bells made accessible by war-time dislodgment. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1948.

Price, Percival. Bells and man. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Schauerle, H. “Angelus Domini.” In Lexikon der Marienkunde, 217–21. Regensburg, 1967.

“Secularization and the Fate of Church Bells During the Revolution | French Pamphlet Collections at the Newberry Library”, n.d. http://publications.newberry.org/frenchpamphlets/?p=1130.

Touzaud, Daniel. “Deux Cloches Gothiques Exhumées D’une Cachette à Ebréon (Charente).” Bulletin De La Société Archéologique Et Historique De La Charente I. 8 (1910): 185–203.

Object Condition

Excellent condition.

Object Details

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