Central Europe's largest Gothic bell, Tuba Dei (God's Trumpet) in Torun, has turned 500 [in 2001]. Its ringing will greet the coming of the new millennium.

The bell is the second largest in Poland. Only Wawel Cathedral’s Sigismund, the famous Renaissance bell commissioned by King Zygmunt I, is bigger. The casting of Tuba Dei was partly connected with the Catholic Church’s jubilee celebrations of Christ's birth in 1500 (interestingly enough, the most famous of all Torunians, Nicholas Copernicus, attended the ceremonies in Rome), and partly with the rivalry between Torun and Gdansk. Earlier, the citizens of Gdansk had founded the six-ton Gratia Dei bell for the city’s Mariacki Church. Torun was not to be outdone.

Cast Sept. 22, 1500 by Torun’s master bell-founder Merten Schmidt, the bell was christened "God's Trumpet" and hung in the city’s largest church, St. John’s Cathedral. It is a masterpiece of the European art of bell-founding. Although it is second to the half-tonne heavier and 20-years-younger Sigismund, Tuba Dei remains the biggest Gothic bell in Poland and this part of Europe, with a weight of 7.5 tonnes, height of nearly 2 m, and a diameter of 227 cm. "It is the faithful witness and life companion of the community living in Torun," said Torun bishop, Jan Suski. "Its sound accompanies us from the day we are born to the day we die."

Bells had much more significance in the past than they do today. In ancient times, their resounding peal was believed to reach the heavens. Christianity began making use of them in the 7th century, cast from bronze, the biblical symbol of strength and resistance.

The custom of adjoining a bell tower to a church became widespread in the times of Charlemagne. In 968, the pope christened the bell at St. John Basilica in Rome "John." From then on that bells have been christened, becoming not only sacral objects, but also as if gaining their own personalities.

One of Torun’s bells has a characteristic inscription describing the its function: "I call the living together, I mourn the dead, I crush the thunderbolt." Since the role of a bell was to remind people of prayer, the towers from which bells sounded above the city were often compared to preachers.

Towns not only had church bells, but also "lay" bells located in the city hall tower. Their ringing marked the hours of the day. In addition to chiming the hours, they announced local election results and called councilors to meetings (latecomers paid a fine). At 9 p.m. you could hear the so-called "beer bell." Woe betide the innkeeper who served beer to a townsman past that hour (the rule did not apply to visitors.) Anyone in the streets found with weapons after 9 p.m. was also fined, while those whose complete sobriety was doubted were taken straight to the stocks.

However, church bells were both larger and more important than their civic brothers. They rang at some church services and at fixed hours as a reminder of various virtues, such as peace. People rang the bell for joy when an important guest visited the town-Tuba Dei welcomed Pope John Paul II to Torun in 1998-or in alarm, at moments of danger like fire or war. Bells were also believed to protect people from thunderbolts.

Bells today no longer serve such purposes, but do, especially those of historical value, hold a special place in our memory, whether we are town residents or tourists. Even damaged bells outlive their ring, to become monuments, like Moscow’s giant Kolokol. People today still believe that bells have magical powers: tourists climbing the high tower of Wawel Cathedral hope that touching Sigismund bell's clapper will bring them luck.

But the public does not usually have access to bells, which are hidden in high towers. The only people who come into direct contact with them are bell-ringers-an honorable occupation both today and in the past. To make a big bell like Tuba Dei in Torun ring, an entire team of bell-ringers is needed.

"Ringing a bell is not just about pulling a rope. It is an art you learn your whole life," said one of Torun bell-ringers, Tomasz Jaworski. "Bells are musical instruments, historical items and works of art all in one. It is not easy, therefore, to be an expert on bells, which requires one to be a musician, historian and art historian at the same time."

Making bells is the bell-founder's job. It sometimes takes more than a year to cast one bell, depending on its size. The most time-consuming stage is the preparation of the clay mold, which is then buried underground. When the smelted metal attains the required temperature, it is poured into the mold. After around 24 hours, the bell is taken out of the hollow hole and the clay mold is removed.

Today, bells in Poland are made by several bell-foundries, but only one of them casts bells according to traditional methods: the Felczynski family’s bell-foundry, with a nearly 200-yearlong tradition, in Tarciszow near Gliwice in Silesia.

One hundred years ago in Poland, you could still find bells dating back even to the 11th and 12th centuries. The two world wars brought them devastation, and today the oldest bells in Poland date back no earlier than to the 13th century. Polish bells must have been of good quality, as they often fell prey to invading armies. The first mention of looting Polish bells is in the Kosmasa chronicle, which contains stories of the Gniezno bells stolen by Czech Prince Bretislav in the 11th century.

Later, the material from which bells were cast, zinc bronze, became their undoing. Their destruction advanced with the progress of artillery, as bells were recast on a massive scale into weapons. Paradoxically, both guns and bells in the 15th and 16th centuries were often produced by the same craftsmen.

Torun bells were also prey to robbers. The 1601 St. James’s Church bell is today the biggest bell of Sweden, where it is called "Torunian." Confiscated by the army of Charles XII during the Northern War, it was taken to Uppsala's Cathedral, where it adorns the main Swedish house of prayer and the seat of the primate to this day. Legend has it that another Torun bell-Zuzanna, from St. Nicholas’s Church, which no longes exists today-sank to the bottom of the Vistula during an attempt by the Swedes to load it on a barge. It may still be there.

Today’s Torun is home to 11 historic bells that have survived wars, confiscation, and even the churches from which they originate. All of them, including the largest, Tuba Dei, rang together to greet the new millennium.


source: Adam Paczuski, Warsaw Voice