Origin and history of tolling

"to sound (a bell) with slow single strokes" (intransitive), mid-15c., probably a special use of Middle English tollen "to draw, lure, attract" (early 13c.), a variant of an unrecorded Old English *tollian, preserved in betyllan "to lure, decoy," and fortyllan "draw away, seduce," a word or element of obscure origin.

If so, the extended notion might be via tollen in a secondary sense of "to work, labor, pull (someone), drag" (c. 1400) and be a reference to the "drawing" on the bell rope. Or the notion might be "luring" people to church with the sound of the bells. A method used for summoning religious congregations or announcing a death or at a funeral, hence by late 16c. it had a figurative association with those qualities.

The transitive sense is from late 15c. Related: Tolled; tolling. The noun meaning "a stroke of a bell" is from mid-15c.

Toll (v.) "draw, lure, attract" persisted past Middle English: " 'Tis a mermaid, Has tolled my son to shipwreck" [Middleton/Dekker, "Roaring Girl"]. It emerged in U.S. dialect as "lure wild animals (ducks, etc.) for capture" (1838). Toll-bait was chum or other minced fish, etc., thrown overboard to lure fish.