{"product_id":"village-bells","title":"Village Bells","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the French canton of Brienne in November 1799  local authorities were scandalized when a crowd of girls broke through the doors of the church and rang the bells in order to mark the festival of St. Catherine. Religious use of the bells was forbidden by law  but the villagers boldly insisted on their right to celebrate with peals the feast of a beloved saint. So begins Village Bells  Alain Corbins exploration of the \"auditory landscape\" of nineteenth-century France  a story of lost sensory experiences and forgotten passions. In the nineteenth century  these instruments were symbols of their towns and objects of both ecclesiastic and civic pride. Bell-ringing served practical purposes of communication  marking both religious and secular time  as well as calling citizens to pray  assemble  take arms  or beware of danger. As Corbin shows  the bells also reflected the social  political  and religious struggles of the time. To control the bells was to control the symbolic order  rhythm  and loyalties of French village and country life.  Using church archives and local documents  Corbin forges a unique history of the role of bells from the aftermath of the Revolution to the dawn of the twentieth century. He charts how the First Republic (17921804) moved toward a more secular society  turning many bells into coins and cannonballs and seizing others as property of the state. A gradual return to the religious use of bells occurred in the nineteenth century  even as their new secular roles were maintained. Corbin describes the battles over the marking of religious versus secular time  as calls to prayer  the celebration of religious feasts  and the marking of rites of passagebaptism  marriage  and deathcompeted with tolls indicating the passing hours or marking assemblies  elections  or republican holidays.  Thoroughly documented and recounted with intriguing narratives  Village Bells provides an original approach to nineteenth-century French cultural  social  and political history. As Corbin notes  the bells are no longer essential to our livestheir qualitative  sacred time and space replaced by the quantitative  secular measures of the clockbut by understanding their lost symbolic and practical importance we open a window onto the age in which they rang.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44976669327413,"sku":"ByrdShop_0333752805","price":90.51,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780333752807.jpg?v=1770949084","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/village-bells","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}