Against storms St.Barbara is very generally considered the most powerful protectress; but, in the French diocese of Limoges, Notre Dame de Crocq has proved a most powerful rival, for when, a few years since, all the neighbouring parishes were ravaged by storms, not a hailstone fell in the canton which she protected.

In the diocese of Tarbes, St.Exupere is especially invoked against hail, peasants flocking from all the surrounding country to his shrine.( 234) (234) As to protection by special saints as stated, see the Guide du touriste et du pelerin a Chartes, 1867 (cited by "Paul Parfait," in his Dossier des Pelerinages); also pp.

139-145 of the Dossier.
But the means of baffling the powers of the air which came to be most widely used was the ringing of consecrated church bells.
This usage had begun in the time of Charlemagne, and there is extant a prohibition of his against the custom of baptizing bells and of hanging certain tags( 235) on their tongues as a protection against hailstorms; but even Charlemagne was powerless against this current of medieval superstition.

Theological reasons were soon poured into it, and in the year 968 Pope John XIII gave it the highest ecclesiastical sanction by himself baptizing the great bell of his cathedral church, the Lateran, and christening it with his own name.( 236) (235) Perticae.

See Montanus, Hist.