We are now so easily stimulated by vision that we forget the epochal significance of this event. Today, you can see "The Smile of the Mona Lisa" on the Internet, but I don't know if you have ever thought about It, the greatest painter of the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century, Rembrandt, who has never seen "The Smile of the Mona Lisa" in his life.
Not only that, the great painters of the Renaissance era as we know them today, their paintings, frescoes, Limbrand may not have seen. The only way he had access to these paintings was through copy prints drawn by printmakers. Even Limbabran, let alone ordinary people.
So the europeans of the past, when they had the privilege of traveling to Rome, to Florence, and seeing the great works of the painters of their predecessors, would really weep in front of the paintings. In contrast, even if we bought a plane ticket to Paris to the Louvre today, we only have 30 seconds to watch "Mona Lisa's Smile", and the time for selfies is not enough, let alone crying.
The senses also have a history: what exactly did people see/hear 200 years ago?
We must not underestimate this gap between ancient and modern. This gap poses a great challenge for historians. Because even if a painting is handed down, how do we know what touched people's hearts when they saw this painting 200 years ago? What kind of social significance will it have to look at that painting?
The same painting, placed in a different social environment and cultural environment, may be two completely different paintings. The same goes for sound. The same voice, in different socio-cultural environments, may be two completely different voices.
Since the 1970s, some historians have taken this seriously and have pioneered a new field of study called the cultural history of perception.
One of the first people to pioneer this field was the French historian Alain Corbin. In his book Village Bells, he clearly demonstrated the cultural history of the senses.
At the beginning of the book, Corbin shows us a series of frenzied scenes that we can no longer understand today.
The French farmer's frenzy for bells 200 years ago
On November 25, 1799, in the french place of Brena, a group of women with children disobeyed the law, broke through the door of the church bell tower with their flesh, and climbed the bell tower to ring the bell feverishly. Government officials then came and demanded that they stop in the name of the law or be arrested. To the surprise of the officials, at eight o'clock in the evening, another group of children sneaked into the bell tower in the night and began to knock. The reason is that they just want to celebrate Santa Caterina (a Catholic saints' day).
Another scene: One day in December 1830, villagers in the village of Briena rushed into the town hall screaming and cursing. The reason for this is only because the town council decided to auction off the cracked bell in the town.
Fort Brena originally had four bells, and the cracked mouth could not be struck for several years. If you sell it, you will earn 5,000 francs, enough to build another school building for the school and buy another clock for the town. But the villagers refused to sell it. On the day of the auction, as soon as the unloaded bell landed, the crowd poured in. The men hugged the bell, swearing in their mouths, and the women chanted the names of all the saints, trying to prevent it from being destroyed. They wept and offered their most affectionate words and asked their grandchildren to kiss the bell.
What was it that made french villagers 200 years ago so obsessed and so infatuated with Zhong?
The daily function of the bell
One of the reasons, that is, in daily life, the clock has a very important function. For example, people who ring the bell in the morning will ring the morning bell, at noon they will ring the noon bell, they will ring the dusk bell at dusk, and even at night, they will ring the "home clock" to remind people who are visiting friends and having fun abroad that it is time to go home.
We don't need a bell today to tell the hour, but the peasants and workers of that time needed it. If the bell rings early, late, or forgets to ring, it may not only cause labor disputes, but also may cause dissatisfaction among all villagers. Especially in winter, it gets dark quickly. If the evening bell rings late, then many people will have to go home in the dark to increase the chance of accidents.
In the summer, because people have to work in the fields early in the morning and go to bed very early at night, the villagers will hope that the "home clock" during the summer night can be brought early so as not to interfere with sleep. If the knock is late, it may trigger a collective protest from the whole village.
The religious function of bells
In addition to telling the time, another important function of the bell is to declare the solemnity and sacredness of religious ceremonies. Important religious holidays, such as Easter, Christmas, ascension, that is, it is necessary to ring the bell.
In addition, when birth is baptized and when death is buried, bells are also to be rung. And how to knock, how hard to knock, how many knocks, there are also strict rules. Depending on the status of the status, the treatment of ringing the bell is also different.
For example, when an illegitimate child is baptized, it may not ring the bell. After a woman gets married, if she gives birth to a child in the 7th or 8th month, she may not ring the bell at the time of baptism.
As for the way the death knell is struck, different places often have different regulations. For example, in the case of Neuchatelle, a man strikes 15 bells when he dies and 12 bells when a woman dies. In places like Billy and Eskrawell, people rang 13 bells for men, 11 bells for women, and 7 bells for children. In Gurnay, men are under 12 and women are under 8.
These rules may seem trivial to us today, but people at the time were really concerned about these subtle differences, and their ears were trained to be able to distinguish these subtle differences. If the knock is not correct or less knocked, the remnants of the deceased are likely to feel humiliated and even clash with the clergy. And when the bell rings correctly, the bell can also exert the power of soothing the heart.
The bells condensed the entire village
In addition to its everyday and religious functions, the bell has another important function, which is that it can unite the identity of an entire village and town.
In the past, there was a profession in Europe called "bell caster", who usually walked between villages and towns, and when anyone needed to cast a bell, they could invite the clock maker over.
But the matter of making bells is by no means the end of paying for the hiring of workers, but the whole village must be mobilized. After the bell caster came, the villagers must have money to pay for it, and they contributed powerfully. Not only did everyone have to help run errands and move things, but every household also had to take turns to invite the clock casting master to dinner.
As for where did the metal for casting bells come from? In addition to buying from the master bell caster, people also donate scrap metal that they don't use at home, such as old copper pots, tin dishes, old pans, deformed candlesticks, wood racks, mortars, or copper coins.
Because the proportion of various metals may not be correct, after knocking for a long time, cracking often occurs. But in any case, the clock thus created is obviously part of the collective memory of the whole village and town. The day the bell casting is completed must be a big day. People often gathered in taverns or went to priests' homes to eat and sing together.
The rise of cities and the decline of bells
Throughout the 19th century, however, it was a period of fading importance of bells. On the one hand, because of the gradual separation of church and state, France officially became a secularist country, and the religious power of the bell was not so strong.
Another important reason is the rise of cities. In 1908, the French newspaper Aurora published an article entitled "The Torment of the Bell", which read:
"In today's day and age, when the number of people who stay in theaters or cafes until midnight is innumerable, it is ridiculous to ring the bell to summon a few rare congregations to an early Mass."
At this point, urbanites who slept late and got up late, after getting rid of the shackles of religion, began to demand "quiet power".
The bells of the 20th century to remember
However, it is precisely because of the intervention of secularism that when the two world wars began in the 20th century, the state called bells to ring all the bell towers throughout the country, creating a secular collective sound memory.
In addition to the book "The Bells of the Earth", I would like to mention in particular: at the end of World War II, the day when Paris was liberated from Nazi Germany, the bells of the churches of all Paris rang together, which is also an indelible memory in the hearts of many old Parisians.
As a Frenchman, Simon Beauva, the most important feminist philosopher of the 20th century, also experienced this day. In her memoirs, when Simonpova recalls that day in Paris, the voice in her mind is neither the sound of the last war shell, nor the jubilant streets of Parisian citizens, or even the sound of the BBC officially announcing the liberation of Paris on the radio, but the bells of the parisian churches.