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King David playing on hand-bells[Frontispiece]
Saxon Tower, Earl’s Barton[3]
A performer on hand-bells[7]
Tower or Turret with Bells[11]
Blessing two bells newly hung[15]
Late Norman bell-turret at Wyre[19]
Inner moulds for casting bells[23]
Outer moulds for casting bells[27]
Moulds ready for casting[31]
Forming the mould[35]
Running the molten metal[39]
The Mortar of Friar Towthorpe[42]
Bell by an early fourteenth-century founder[47]
Blessing the Donor of the bell[51]
Stamps used by London Founders[54]
Bell by Robert Mot of London[59]
A ring of eight bells[63]
The 9th bell of Loughborough Church[66]
Tenor bell of Exeter Cathedral[73]
“Great John of Beverley”[77]
The great bell of Tong[83]
“Great Paul”[87]
The old “Great Tom” of Westminster[91]
The Belfry of Bruges[94]
The Campanile, Chichester Cathedral[99]
The old Campanile of King’s College, Cambridge[102]
The “Bell House” at East Bergholt[107]
Diagram showing method of hanging a bell[110]
Peal of eight bells, Aberavon Church[113]
Ringers at S. Paul’s Cathedral[119]
Ringing the Sacring bell[123]
Sacring bell hung on rood-screen[126]
Ancient Sanctus Bell[129]
Tower of Waltham Abbey Church[133]
Symbols of the Four Evangelists[137]
Bell by John Tonne[141]
Gothic Initial Letters, etc.[145]
Gol„lic Ini„ial Let„[149]
Part of a seventeenth-century bell[153]

[The Arts of the Church]

CHURCH BELLS

[CHAPTER I]
Early History and Methods of Casting.

The origin of the bell as an instrument of music is, one may almost say, lost in antiquity. Its use is, moreover, widely spread over the whole world. But I do not propose to enlarge on its early history here, or on its employment by all nations, Christian or heathen. Space will not permit me to do more than trace its history and uses in the Christian Church, and more particularly in the Church of England.

The word “bell” is said to be connected with “bellow” and “bleat” and to refer to its sound; the later Latin writers call it, among other names, campana, a word with which we are familiar, not only as frequently occurring in old bell inscriptions, but as forming part of the word “Campanalogy,” or the science of bell-ringing. The French and Germans, again, call it cloche and glocke respectively, the words being the same as our “clock”; but that is a later use, and they really mean “cloak,” with reference to the shape of the bell, or rather of the mould in which it is cast. Modern bell-founders, it is interesting to note, speak of the mould as the cope, which again suggests a connection with the form of a garment.

It is not known exactly when bells were introduced into the Christian Church; but it is certain that large bells of the form with which we are familiar were not invented until after some centuries of Christianity. The small and often clandestine congregations of the ages of persecution needed no audible signal to call them together; but with the advent of peaceful times, and the growth of the congregations, some method of summons doubtless came to be considered necessary. Their invention is sometimes ascribed to Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, in Italy, about A.D. 400; sometimes to Pope Sabinianus (A.D. 604), the successor of Gregory the Great. At all events, from the beginning of the seventh century notices of bells of some size become frequent. The Venerable Bede in 680 brought a bell from Italy to place in his Abbey at Wearmouth, and mentions one as being then used at Whitby Abbey. About 750, we read that Egbert, Archbishop of York, ordered the priests to toll bells at the appointed hours. Ingulphus, the chronicler of Croyland Abbey, mentions that a peal of seven bells was put up there in the tenth century, and that there was not such a harmonious peal in the whole of England; which implies that rings of bells were then common. If any doubt on the matter still remained, it would be dispelled by the existence to this day of some hundred church towers dating from the Saxon period, and evidently, by their size and construction, intended to hold rings of bells (Plate [1]).