Despre clopotele și clopotarii din zona Bacăului – până la 1859
About bells and bell makers in Bacau Area – up to 1859

Summary/Abstract: Ritual tools used by the Christian Church to announce the believers about religious services, about deaths and about certain moments during the burial ceremonies or other significant moments, the bells are also important historical sources due to the inscriptions and decorations they bear. They were donated to the religious settlements as personal gifts by individuals, by virtue of the Foundation law, or from the part of the communities which a certain church served. The oldest bells in Bacau area have been brought here from other places, in a later period than the one mentioned by the inscriptions. According to the language in which the inscriptions were drawn up, the old bells were given different names. The craft of bell makers was a strolling one; it implied lasting, enduring and dangerous hard work and it could be performed only when the weather was warm. The craftsmen were both clerics and laymen, and they were paid in cash and in kind. Only two native craftsmen like these have been identified in the archives and in the inscriptions on the bells from Bacau area. Some of the bells in the area were casted in Transylvania, in Sighisoara and Brasov. The inscriptions of this kind are quite late, dating from the end of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th Century.

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