Of the York founders, the most famous is Richard Tunnoc, commemorated in the remarkable “Bell-founder’s window” already described (Plate [13]). He was M.P. for the city in 1327, and died in 1330. The names of other known founders of this city extend from Johannes de Copgrave, in 1150, down to the time of the Reformation. A bell at Scawton, in the North Riding, has been thought to be the work of Copgrave, and, if so, is by far the earliest existing church bell in England, if not in Europe.
In the fifteenth century (with which we may include the whole period down to the Reformation) the bell-foundries increase not only in importance but in numbers; and those already mentioned find rivals springing up at Reading and Wokingham, Exeter, Bristol, Leicester, Norwich, Nottingham, Bury St. Edmunds, Salisbury, and Worcester. The character of the inscriptions now changes, and in most cases (though not invariably) we find “black-letter smalls,” with initial capitals, substituted for the old Gothic capitals used throughout. There is also a great increase in the number and variety of the crosses and other ornamental devices used by the founders, and many introduce foundry-shields or trade-marks, with quasi-heraldic or punning devices.
The London foundries, however, still maintain their place at the head of the craft, and their bells are found all over England from Northumberland to Cornwall. Two founders of the fifteenth century, Henry Jordan and John Danyell, whose date is about 1450–1470, cast between them about two hundred bells still existing. These are adorned with some beautiful and ingenious devices, such as an elegant cross surrounded by the words ihu merci ladi help (Plate [14]) and the Royal Arms surmounted by a crown. Jordan’s foundry-shield bears, among other devices, a bell and a laver-pot as symbolical of his trade, and a dolphin with reference to his membership of the Fishmongers’ Company. Another remarkable device (Plate [14]) is that used by William Culverden (1510–1523), with a rebus on his name (culver = “pigeon”). Thomas Bullisdon is remarkable as having cast a ring of five bells for the Priory of S. Bartholomew in Smithfield about 1510, all of which still exist there.
To tell of the works of Roger Landen of Wokingham, Robert Hendley of Gloucester, John of Stafford (a Leicester founder), Robert Norton of Exeter, or the Brasyers of Norwich, would require a volume. I can only note some interesting features of their work. The Brasyers seem to have been the most successful workers outside London, and no less than one hundred and fifty of their bells still exist in Norfolk. Their trade-mark was a shield with three bells and a crown, which after the Reformation went to the Leicester foundry, and some of their inscriptions, in rhyming hexameters, are very beautiful. A Bristol founder of about 1450 used for his mark a ship, the badge of his native city. The Bury founders were also gun-makers, and place on their trade-mark a bell and a cannon, with the crown and crossed arrows of S. Edmund.
Moulds ready for casting.
The inner and outer moulds clamped together; the molten metal is poured in through an aperture at the top. (See page [14].)
Very few bells of this period are dated; but we find examples at Worcester, perhaps cast by the monks there, with the dates 1480 and 1482; and at Thirsk (1410), on a bell which is said to have come from Fountains Abbey. There are also some bells in Lincolnshire, dated 1423 and 1431, by an unknown founder, but remarkable for the extraordinary beauty of the lettering (Plate [36]). Dated mediaeval bells are more commonly from foreign sources, as at Baschurch, in Shropshire, where is a Dutch bell by Jan van Venlo, dated 1447, which is said to have come from Valle Crucis Abbey. At Whalley Abbey, in Lancashire, is a Belgian bell of 1537, by Peter van den Ghein, and at Duncton, in Sussex, a French bell dated 1369.