The word Clock actually comes from the Latin work for bell…clocca…so it is no surprise that so many towers and steeples in churches, municipal buildings, government offices of all kinds have clocks, ticking off the minutes and hours and tolling the importance of certain occasions.
And bells, the simple sound of one piece of metal against another, is probably the oldest form of a sound getting attention to make an event known to man.
In churches around the world, clocks tolled the great news of wars ending, gathered the congregation into prayer at times of danger, mourned with the masses at times of death, and celebrated the joyous events of weddings, special anniversaries, and historic events.
The bells at Notre-Dame Cathedral have been used to peal out important times in history; indeed, it has been documented that even before Notre Dame was completed, its bells tolled to mark the time of the beginning of a mass as early as the 1100s.
Today, Notre-Dame Cathedral has ten bells, and the oldest and heaviest is known as a “bourdon” and is more than 600 years old, dating to the 15th century. It was recast 100 years or so after first cast, and was known as the most beautiful bell in all of Europe.
King Louis XIV even named it, calling it the Emmanuel Bell. The bell was so important to French history, and so important to the Church, that even during the French Revolution, it was undisturbed. Every other bell at Notre Dame was broken and melted into ammunition during the Revolution, but not Emmanuel, which was removed for safe keeping. All the destroyed bells were ordered replaced by Napoleon in the beginning of the 19th century, and installed in various locations around the Cathedral, the North and South Towers, the spire and the roof. Some of these were replaced once again, some as recent as the 21st century, because of their inferior quality.
Today, there are ten bells at Notre Dame, two in the South, and eight in the North Tower. Each has its own name, all named for Saints who have had a direct impact on the French church and congregations.
Emmanuel is still the grand bell of the South Tower, weighing in at about 13 tons, and rung not only for the notable events within the Cathedral, but for the historical events that have formed Francy. Tuned to F sharp, it has tolled for the coronation of French Kings and visits of a pope, it has mourned two world wars as well as the funerals of French heads of state. And it tolled for New York’s Twin Towers on Sept. 11.
Emmanuel is joined by Marie, the bell named to honor the patroness of Notre Dame, or Our Lady, the Mother of God.
In the North Tower, Gabriel honors the archangel and is the largest Bell of that tower. There are also Anne-Geneviève, in memory of Saint Anne, mother of Mary and Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris. They are joined by Denis, first bishop of Paris, Marcel, the ninth bishop of Paris in the 5th century, Étienne, honoring the old cathedral church of Paris placed under the protection of Saint Stephen, Benedict-Joseph to honor Pope Benedict XVI, pope at the time of the bell consecration in 2013, during the 850th anniversary of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, Maurice, in memory of the bishop of Paris who laid the first stone of the cathedral in 1163, and Jean-Marie, for Cardinal Jean Marie Lustiger, 139th Archbishop of Paris, from 1981 to 2005.
Saint Patrick’s Cathedral I New York has 19 bells, all with their own story to tell. But that’s another story altogether.
