[Bell Historians] Latin inscription meaning & Elizabethan hand bell

[Robert Brown]

"From four to five, despite my proud anger, so that the good temples of God may be inviolate."

That is the literall translation



Sent from Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg>
________________________________
From: Bell-historians <bell-historians-bounces at lists.ringingworld.co.uk> on behalf of Neal Dodge via Bell-historians <bell-historians at lists.ringingworld.co.uk>
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2025 9:28:06 PM
To: Bell Historians Mailing List <bell-historians at lists.ringingworld.co.uk>
Cc: Neal Dodge <gtbartonbells at gmail.com>
Subject: [Bell Historians] Latin inscription meaning & Elizabethan hand bell

Hi all,

The 3rd at Wickham Skeith in Suffolk, cast in 1615 by John Driver and James Edbury, carries the inscription:
"De quatuor quinque, invito livore superbo Ut templa bona sint inviolata dei."
Along with the initials of the bell founders and four locals.
Can anyone please tell me what it means? I believe it's some kind of reference to iconoclasm? Along with 'four of five' or similar.

Raven in his county book says it points "to resistance by 'village Hampdens' to some 'little tyrant of the their fields' which is a reference to a verse in Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard:
"Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood."
Hampden being John Hampden the principal leader of the Long Parliament in its opposition to Charles I.
All of this of course postdating the casting of the bell.

Unrelated, coming up for sale is purported to be an Elizabethan handbell dated 1560 that belonged to the Rector of Spexhall, Suffolk.
https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/lockdales/catalogue-id-lo10278/lot-755db66c-a8a8-4cd3-9f40-b31000e6edb6


--
Many Thanks
Neal Dodge
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ringingworld.co.uk/pipermail/bell-historians/attachments/20250713/96bf69fd/attachment.htm>