Note 369 — ACTUS II., SCÆNA 1.
Reading edition
These words, bell, book, and candle, refer to the mode of excommunication in the Romish Church. In "King John," act iii. sc. 3, the Bastard says—
"Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back, When gold and silver becks me to come on."
Dr Grey, in his "Notes on Shakespeare," i. 284, has given the ceremonial on pronouncing an excommunication, by which it appears that in the performance of this office three candles were to be extinguished in the different parts of it. In Archbishop Winchelsea's sentences of excommunication, anno 1298 (see Johnson's "Ecclesiastical Laws," vol. ii.), it is directed that the sentence against infringers of certain articles should be "throughout explained in order in English, with bells tolling and candles lighted, that it may cause the greater dread; for Laymen have greater regard to this solemnity than to the effect of such sentences."