Bygone Church Life in Scotland

by Unknown

We must remember that although bells are primarily connected with matters ecclesiastical, still, more especially in the middle ages, they were used in all cases where it was necessary to give a public notice or warning. The commercial transactions of a market were to a great extent regulated by bells. In case of fire or danger the bells were sounded to arouse or warn the people. In harvest time the gleaners’ bell was rung to limit the time when the gleaners should set forth and return from their work. Before the days of the telegraph and quick travelling, bells were found to be a good medium for passing on intimation of any great national event or danger; and perhaps no sound has carried the news of such great joy and sorrow as the sound of the bell.

Gifts of bells to churches, particularly in the earlier ages, were always deemed the most acceptable of gifts, and during the middle ages these bells were not uncommonly given as a memorial of some deceased friend or relation. Kings and Queens may be found amongst the donors of bells, and one of the earliest royal bell givers was probably Canute, who presented a pair of bells to Winchester Cathedral in 1035.

The art of bell founding was principally, if not entirely, carried out under the direction of the ecclesiastics, prior to the thirteenth century. This, of course, is not to be wondered at when we remember that at this period the arts in general owed their preservation and development to the zeal and industry of the church.

In the early middle ages, not only in Scotland but also in England and on the Continent, we are told by Mr F. C. Eeles[2] that the richer churches each possessed several bells, obtained usually at various times, and often without regard to their respective sizes, or to the relations between their notes. The great bell was often dedicated to the patron saint of the church, and the smaller bells to the other saints who were commemorated in the church below; each was used separately for the services at the corresponding altar, while all were used for High Mass, and on great occasions. A desire to ring the bells in a musical way made itself felt very early. On the continent this took the form of adding a carillon to the already existing collection of heavy bells, while here it showed itself in a tendency to make the heavy bells themselves form a part of the diatonic scale, and therefore suitable for ringing in succession. Shortly before the Reformation the carillon developed very rapidly on the continent, and reached its perfection in the seventeenth century. It consisted of a large number of small light bells, fixed “dead,” and sounded by hammers worked by wires from an arrangement of levers, something like the keys of an organ.

In Scotland, during the middle ages, the country churches as a rule had no tower. This was one of the architectural peculiarities of the country at this period, and as the use and appreciation of bells was steadily progressing at the time, we find the architects gradually adapting themselves to the requirements of the case. This they did, not by building towers as in England, but by elaborating a type of belfry which became almost peculiar to Scotland, a sort of architectural feature of the country. It is curious and interesting to notice that this type of belfry survived the destructive element of the Reformation, and lived on through the re-actionary period when art and taste were practically dead. Thus we often find in buildings otherwise devoid of all architectural pretensions, these redeeming little belfries which were evolved simply to meet the growing use of the bell.

Most of these belfries come under the head of the open stonework class, which, from their very formation give an air of lightness and freedom to the building they surmount. When the Renaissance period came in the form of the belfry was not altered, but the detail then became of classical design.

In Scotland we find that in some of the larger towns both the steeples and the bells are the property of the municipality, the Church only having the use of the bells on Sundays, while on week days they are used by the town authorities. The origin of this curious sort of co-ownership would appear to lie in the fact that in former times it was no uncommon thing for a town to acquire a lien on the bells in exchange for helping to build the steeple or undertaking to keep it in order.[3]

The following extract from the Burgh Records[4] of Peebles exhibits a good instance of this:—

“1778, December 29. The Council in conjunction with the heritors, agree to the proposition of building a new church.... The town to be at the expense of building the steeple and furnishing it with a clock and bells, for which it is to be the property of the burgh.”

From the Perth Session Records, October 6, 1578, we find that “The Session ordains James Sym, uptaker of the casualities that intervenes in the kirk, to buy a tow to the little skellit bell—the which bell shall only be rung to the affairs of the kirk, also to the examinations, or to the assemblies.”