The Bullroarer Atlas

BAYLEY1912-001 - secondary catalog

European mystics of the Middle Ages (Albigensian / Cathar tradition)

France - Languedoc (medieval Albigensian Europe) - Mediterranean

Sacred / spirit

Bayley's figs 227-228: two medieval paper watermarks he reads as bullroarers — a blade on a single cord, fig 227 bearing the regenerative...
Bayley's figs 227-228: two medieval paper watermarks he reads as bullroarers — a blade on a single cord, fig 227 bearing the regenerative 'number eight', fig 228 a serpent. Among European mystics of the Middle Ages, he writes, the bullroarer was 'an emblem of the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit.' Harold Bayley, The Lost Language of Symbolism, Vol. I (1912), figs 227-228 Public domain Image source

Source term: bullroarer / papermark emblem

This entry is not an instrument but a reading of paper. In The Lost Language of Symbolism (1912), the watermark scholar Harold Bayley took two medieval European papermarks — a blade ranging "from this laurel-leaf form to that of a diamond lozenge" — to be drawings of the bullroarer, and argued that "among the European mystics of the Middle Ages the bullroarer was apparently considered to be an emblem of the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit." He read the marks as charged with rebirth: the first, he wrote, carries "the regenerative number eight," the second "a roughly executed serpent, the symbol of regeneration." Bayley set this against the instrument's deep ancestry, noting that under the name Rhombus it had "figured prominently in the Mysteries of Ancient Greece," and tied the roaring sound to Dionysus, surnamed Bromius, "the roarer," and through him to Christ. The reading is Bayley's own conjecture — "must, I think, be meant to represent Bullroarers"; no medieval source labels the marks as such.

Among the European mystics of the Middle Ages the bullroarer was apparently considered to be an emblem of the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit.

Bayley, The Lost Language of Symbolism, Vol. I (1912), pp. 87-88
Object
Medieval paper watermarks (figs 227-228) read by Bayley as bullroarers: a laurel-leaf / diamond-lozenge blade hung from a single cord; fig 227 carries the regenerative 'number eight', fig 228 a roughly drawn serpent (symbol of regeneration).
Function
Bullroarer taken as an emblem of the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit among medieval European mystics; Bayley links the roaring instrument to the Dionysian 'roarer' (Bromius) and to Christ.
Map confidence
low - representative Languedoc coordinate (Albi) for a diffuse 'medieval European mystics' attestation
Source location
pp. 86-88, figs 227-228

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