Bell

A bell is a cup-shaped, hemispherical or cylindrical vessel made of cast metal, forged sheet metal, wood or other material belonging to the impact idiophones with a specific pitch. It is fixed at the mute apex, and the vibrations that determine the sound of the bell reach their maximum at the rim. This distinguishes the bell from a gong, whose vibrations increase towards the centre. A bell is struck with a clapper from the inside (clapper bell) or with a hard object from the outside (clapperless bell) at the edge, whereas a gong is struck in the middle. In regional and colloquial terms small bells are called jingles, while in instrumental terms jingles are rattles with a roughly spherical sound body which is closed except for a usually slit-shaped opening and is excited by beads inside when shaken.

The oldest bells known from the Shang Dynasty from the 15th century BC show a high level of metalworking in the Chinese Bronze Age. As Confucius stated, bells tuned to exact pitches according to the Chinese scales formed the measure of music. Bells were used in China for state ceremonies, funerals, and religious rituals. Bronze bells and rattles outside China have survived from Urartu and Lorestan from the 12th century BC at the earliest. The oldest Egyptian bells are dated to the 9th century BC. The Romans and Celts knew animal bells. The widespread use of bells from Central Asia to the Mediterranean in the 1st millennium BC is due to their attributed magical significance in warding off sinister forces.

In the Buddhist temples of East and Southeast Asia, there are sometimes very large bells that are struck by the worshippers from outside and whose sound is considered auspicious. In Hindu temples in India, priests occasionally use small bells in worship rituals (puja). In sub-Saharan African cultures, iron bells occur in a wide variety of forms, especially domeless single bells and double bells, which in West Africa include the gankogui. They are indispensable as clocks for the rhythm of music and sometimes have a magical significance.

Early Christian monks in Western Europe used the handbell, which originated in Egypt, as a sign of worship. Bell baptisms have been reported since the 8th century, which suggests the use of larger, stationary bells. Probably from the 10th century onwards, bells were also used for musical purposes in the European Middle Ages. Until the 12th century, the casting of church bells was done by monks in monasteries. Starting with the bells of the Benedictine monk Theophilus Presbyter at the beginning of the 12th century, the approximate shape that serves as the basis for today's bell rib developed in the 14th century.

Etymology

"Bell" goes back to Middle Latin clocca (cloca, glogga, gloccus) "bell" or Old Irish cloc(c) "bell, bell". The Celtic word, for its part, may ultimately derive from an early Romance *culticulare (derived from Latin quatere, excutere "to shake, strike, shake"); according to another view, the word is onomatopoeic, and according to a third it goes back to the Indo-European root *kel(ə)- "to call, shout, make noise, sound" and would thus be cognate with Latin clangere "to resound". In any case, Irish missionaries who wandered through Europe carried handbells, thus making the word known on the continent. Later it was transferred to the large church bells and thus entered the West and North Germanic languages as well as some Romance languages, compare for example Old High German glocca, clocca, Old English clucge (New English clock "watch", on the other hand, was brought to England from Dutch by Flemish watchmakers), Dutch klok, Danish klokke, Swedish klocka, French cloche, Provençal cloka. Some such Irish-English bells are still preserved today, besides being depicted several times in the sacramentary of Gellone (of the monastery of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert founded at the end of the 8th century).

In the Romance languages Italian and Spanish the word for "bell" is campana, in Portuguese campainha means "door bell". It goes back to late Latin campāna, which actually means "Campanian" or is shortened from "Campanian bronze device", compare Latin campānum "brazen vessel". The southern Italian landscape of Campania was known for its ore deposits. The word is first attested by Isidore of Seville.

Another type of word is the classical Latin signum "sign", meaning "bell sign", which in Old French as sin(g) or sein(g) and still today in Portuguese as sino carries the meaning "bell". The phrase signum dare "to give a sign" as a call to the assembly of monks has come down to us from the Egyptian monastic founder Pachomios (c. 292-346). In Gaul this formula is attested in the early 6th century as signo tacto, a rule for nuns by Caesarius of Arles, who was an important archbishop. Bishop Gregory of Tours mentioned in the second half of the 6th century a signum which was set in motion with a rope at the beginning of the service and generally at the "canonical hours" (Latin: horae canonicae), i.e. at the monks' hourly prayers. This obviously meant a bell. Until the 10th/11th century, bells were often called signum. Signum ecclesiae was the official name of the Catholic Church for bell.

The origin of English bark (Old English belle, also for the bell of a wind instrument) is uncertain. The word originally comes from Low German and could belong to Low German bellen "to roar". Old and New Icelandic bjalla "small bell, bell, bell" (cf. New Norwegian bjølle, Danish bjælde "small bell, bell") is borrowed from Old English or at least closely related to it.

According to Sachs, the Middle Latin nola for "little bell", which first occurs in the 4th century in Avienus, should be called nolana as a diminutive form if it were derived from names of the city. Instead, he considers nola to be a reduction of the word campanola, the root of which has been dropped, similar to cello by shortening violoncello to violone. The origin of Latin tintinnabulum is unclear. It is in use as a small bell in the Catholic rite.

The Slavic word - for instance Czech hlahol, Russian kolokol - derives from the Old Slavic stem klakol, which is possibly related to Greek karkairo "to roar". The word is ultimately possibly onomatopoeic.

The ancient Greek word for bell is κώδων kṓdōn and for bell κωδώνιον kōdṓnion. It also denoted at that time the bell-shaped bell of the trumpet (σάλπιγξ sálpinx).

Tsar bell (Tsar-kolokol) from 1735 in the Moscow Kremlin. Photo from 1893.

See also

• List of bell museums
• List of bell foundries
• Church bell casting
• Bell carving
• List of bells in Germany