A Brighter Day Begins with His Word.

History of the Christian Church • VOLUME 4

298. THE OKGAN AND THE BELL. 439

['Schaff, Philip, 1819-1893', 'Schaff, David S. (David Schley), 1852-1941'] • Public-domain historical edition in the United States (published 1884); OCR from Internet Archive scan

298. THE OKGAN AND THE BELL. 439

§ 98. The Organ and the Bell

To the external auxiliaries of worship were added the organ and the bell.

The ORGAN,1 in the sense of a particular instrument (which dates from the time of St. Augustin), is a development of the Syrinx or Pandean pipe, and in its earliest form consisted of a small box with a row of pipes in the top, which were inflated by the performer with the mouth through means of a tube at one end. It has in the course of time undergone considerable improvements. The use of organs in churches is ascribed to Pope Vitalian (657—672). Constantino Copronymos sent an organ with other presents to King Pepin of France in 767. Charlemagne received one as a present from the Caliph Haroun al Rashid, and had it put up in the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle. The art of organ-building was cultivated chiefly in Germany. Pope John VIII. (872-882) requested Bishop Anno of Freising to send him an organ and an organist.

The attitude of the churches towards the organ varies. It shared to some extent the fate of images, except that it never was an object of worship. The poetic legend which Raphael has immortalized by one of his master-pieces, ascribes its invention to St. Cecilia, the patron of sacred music. The Greek church disapproves the use of organs. The Latin church intro duced it pretty generally, but not without the protest of eminent men, so that even in the Council of Trent a motion was made, though not carried, to prohibit the organ at least in the mass. The Lutheran church retained, the Calvinistic churches rejected it, especially in Switzerland and Scotland ; but in recent times the opposition has largely ceased.2

1 Orgamtm from the Greek bpyavov, which is used in the Septuagint for several musical terms in Hebrew, as cheli chinor (ci(hara\ nephcl (nablium], yugab. See the passages in Trommius, Concord. Gr. V. LXX, II. 144.

2 See Hopkins and Rimbault : The Organ, its History and Construction, 1855; E. de Coussemakee : Histoire des instruments de musiqiie au moyen-age, Paris 1859 ; Heinrich Otte : Handbuch der kirchl. Kunstarchaologie, Leipz. 4th ed.

440 FOUKTH PEKIOD. A. D. 590-1049.

The BELL is said to have been invented by Paulinus of Nola (d. 431) in Campania;1 but he never mentions it in his descrip tion of churches. Various sonorous instruments were used since the time of Constantiue the Great for announcing the commencement of public worship. Gregory of Tours mentions a " signum" for calling monks to prayer. The Irish used chiefly hand-bells from the time of St. Patrick, who himself distributed them freely. St. Columba is reported to have gone to church when the bell rang (pulsante campana) at midnight. Bede mentions the bell for prayer at funerals. St. Sturm of Fulda ordered in his dying hours all the bells of the convent to be rung (779). In the reign of Charlemagne the use of bells was common in the empire. He encouraged the art of bellfounding, and entertained bell-founders at his court. Tancho, a monk of St. Gall, cast a fine bell, weighing from four hun dred to five hundred pounds, for the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle. In the East, church bells are not mentioned before the end of the ninth century.

Bells, like other church-furniture, were consecrated for sacred use by liturgical forms of benediction. They were sometimes even baptized ; but Charlemagne, in a capitulary of 789, forbids this abuse.2 The office of bell-ringers3 was so highly esteemed in that age that even abbots and bishops coveted it. Popular

1866, p. 225 sqq. O. Wangemann: Gesch. der Orgel und der Orgelbaukunst, second ed. 1831. Comp. also Bingham, August!, Binterirn, Siegel, Alt, and the art. Organ in Smith and Cheetham, Wetzer and Welte, and in Herzog.

1 Hence the names campanum, or campana, nola (continued in the Italian language), but it is more probable that the name is derived from Campanian brass (ces campanum), which in early times furnished the material for bells. In later Latin it is called doqua, cloccum, clocca, cloca, also tintinnabulum, Eng lish: clock; German: Glocke; French: cloche; Irish: clog (comp. the Latin clangere and the German klopfen).

2 " Ut cloccce non baptizentur.'' According to Baronius, Annal. ad a. 968, Pope John XIII. baptized the great bell of the Lateran church, and called it John. The reformers of the sixteenth century renewed the protest of Charle magne, and abolished the baptism of bells as a profanation of the sacrament. See Siegel, Handbuch der christi. kirchlichen Alterthiimer, II. 243.

8 Campanarii, campanatores.

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