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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

Celtic lands, Christian hand-bells, religious bells

College

Fine Arts and Communications

Department

Music

Abstract

The zealous Christian missionary Patrick arrived in Ireland in 432 A.D., laboring to introduce to the Celtic tribes there the gospel and monasticism. He used bells, among other clerical instruments, for this purpose. Bells were employed to sundry ends, from the mundane gathering of the missionaries to the more miraculous effecting of curses. His followers, both members of the church and fellow missionaries, revered the bells that Patrick used. Accordingly, his bells would become treated as relics, passed down from cleric to cleric as a divine investiture. Other later missionaries like Columba, Columbanus, and Ninian would also adopt the use of bells, theirs also being adopted into the reliquary fold. Churches and families would be given the charge to protect these treasures over the centuries, some still in their possession.

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