gians of the Reformation, while admitting that storms were caused by Satan and his legions, opposed the baptism of bells, and denied the theory of their influence in dispersing storms.[1] Luther, while never doubting that troublesome meteorological phenomena were caused by devils, regarded with contempt the idea that the demons were so childish as to be scared by the clang of bells; his theory of diabolic power made them altogether too powerful to be affected by means so trivial. The great English reformers, while also accepting very generally the theory of diabolic interference in storms, reproved strongly the baptizing of bells, as the perversion of a sacrament, and involving blasphemy. Bishop Hooper declared reliance upon bells to drive away tempests, futile;[2] Bishop Pilkington, while arguing that tempests are direct instruments of God's wrath, is very severe against using "unlawful means," and among these he names "the hallowed bell ";[3] and these opinions were very generally shared by the leading English clergy.[4]
Toward the end of the sixteenth century the Elector of Saxony strictly forbade the ringing of bells against storms, urging penance and prayer instead;[5] but the custom was not so easily driven out of the Protestant Church, and in some quarters was developed a Protestant theory of a rationalistic sort—ascribing the good effects of bell-ringing in storms to the calling together of the devout for prayer or to the suggestion of prayers during storms at night.[6] As late as the end of the seventeenth century we find the bells of Protestant churches in Northern Germany rung for the dispelling of tempests.[7] In Catholic Austria this bell-ringing seems to have become a nuisance in the last century, for the Emperor Joseph II found it necessary to issue an edict against it; but this doctrine had gained too large headway to be arrested by argument or edict, and the bells may be heard ringing during storms to this day in various remote districts in Europe.
For this was no mere superficial view. It was really part of a deep
- ↑ The baptism of bells was, indeed, one of the express complaints of the German Protestant princes at the Reformation. See their "Gravam. Cent. German. Grav.," 51.
- ↑ See his "Early Writings," 197 (in "Parker Society Publications").
- ↑ See his "Works," 177 (in "Parker Society Publications").
- ↑ E.g., by Tyndale, Bishop Ridley, Archbishop Sandys, Becon, Calfhill, Rogers. It is to be noted that all these speak of the rite as "baptism."
- ↑ See Peuchen, "Disp. circa tempestates," Jena, 1697.
- ↑ See, e.g., the "Conciones Selectæ" of Superintendent Conrad Dieterich (cited by Peuchen, "Disp. circa tempestates").
- ↑ See Schwimmer, "Physicalische Luftfragen," 1692 (cited by Peuchen, as above). He pictures the whole population of a Thuringian district flocking to the churches on the approach of a storm.
terrify the demons, compel the powers"; and when a canonist like Durandus explained the purpose of the rite to be, that "the demons hearing the trumpets of the Eternal King, to wit, the bells, may flee in terror, and may cease from the stirring up of tempests." (See Herolt, "Sermones Discipuli," xvii, and Durandus, "De ritibus ecclesiæ," ii, 12.) (I owe the first of these citations to Rydberg, and the others to Montanus.)
