Foreign influences shaping local bell foundry craft came into today's Ruhr Region and Westphalia from Holland and from Lorraine towards the end of the Middle Ages. The bells were harmonically tuned by the Dutch Geert van Wou, and the ornamentally elaborate bells of the Lorrainese artist were something quite new to the native population.
Geert van Wou (1440-1527) came from Kampen in Holland. In the beginning of the 16th century he made some outstanding church bells for Dom zu Osnabrück, Braunschweig, Naumburg and Utrecht. Yet his most celebrated bell is the Mother of God bell created in 1497for the Erfurt Cathedral, the so-called Gloriosa.

However, there are at least eight bells seemingly made by him. In April 1500 a fire devastated the greater part of the town Recklinghausen. Within a few hours, the flames consumed the 13th century town parish church St Peter. But very soon afterwards, van Wou was brought to Recklinghausen and was commissioned to make new bells. Bells did not only call the devout to service, but they also accompanied and determined the entire public life, both religious and secular.
By September 1500 at the latest, three bronze bells had been completed.

Van Wou’s fame was partly due to the extraordinary quality of the artistic design on the bell body in the form of finely shaped inscriptions and delicatedly engraved ornamental bands, as well as the harmonically composed overall sound of the bells. Van Wou was able to tune the individual bells precisely beforehand, and although contemporary Westphalian bell founders also came to practice this art, none of them succeeded to such perfection.

About 150 years later, another master bell founder emerged, and enriched the Ruhr Region with several bells, some of which have been preserved.
Johannes Paris (1619-1677) - together with his brother Antonius, and with Johannes de la Paix and Claudius Lamirelle - came from Lorraine, via Rhineland, to Westphalia. Groups of Lorrainese bell founders had been arriving and doing good business all over Germany from as early as the 1620s. But why did so many of these artists leave their Lorrainese homes? In the 17th century the fortified town of La Mothe-en-Bassigny, today known as the Département Haute Marne, was home to a large number of bell founder families. Since there was no income in the region to sustain such a large number of artists, they would make yearly "business trips" to places like Germany. These bell founder masters would return to Lorraine before the winter set in. However, conditions changed during the 17th century and more bell founders remained in Germany. One reason for this was that, due to the devastation of the Thirty Year War, the demand for new bells were good. The other reason was that La Mothe-en-Bassigny had been destroyed in armed conflicts between the French King Ludwig XIII and the Duke Karl von Lothringen, threatening the livelihoods there of the bell founders.

Evidence of the skills of Johannes Paris that can still be found in Westphalia today, for example the bells in the former abbey church of St. Lambert's in Essen-Rellinghausen, dating from 1643, and the bell of the Catholic St. Lambert's church in Marl of the same year.