The Church Bells of the County and City of Lincoln
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The Church Bells of the County and City of Lincoln by Thomas North File 02 – Pages 1 to 67 This document is provided for you by The Whiting Society of Ringers visit www.whitingsociety.org.uk for the full range of publications and articles about bells and change ringing CHURCH BELLS. ELLS do not appear to have been introduced into B the Christian Church until the fifth century. Prior to that date the Early Christians, so soon as they were able to meet publicly without fear, used, like the Jews of old,* trumpets as a summons to prayer and praise. S. Ephrem (circa A.D. 370) further mentions the Signum-a clapper or tablet- as the call then used to Holy Communion. t The earliest Christian writer who refers to bells is thought to be Saint Jerome, who in the Regula Monachorttm (circa A.D. 422) mentions their use as a call to matins, &c.t Paulinus, bishop of Nola, in Campania (A.D. 400), has been generally credited with their invention,§ but inasmuch as there is extant an epistle from him to Severus, in which he minutely describes his church, but makes no mention of either tower or bells, we must consider he was ignorant, at least at that • Dingham's A11tiq ., Bk. viii., c. 7· t Para11esi xliii. The late Rev. Mac. t Quoted by Roaa, De Campa11is. Opera, kenzie E. C. ' Valcott, F.S.A., to whom I Romre, 1719. Vol. i. p. 156. was indebted for this reference, so in· § Dupin's Ecrl. Hist. Ni11llt Ce•1t .. terpreted the "sign." p. 166. B 2 Church Bells. time, of their use," From this tradition, however, we have the mecli;eval Latin name, Nola, for a small hand-bell, and Campana for the larger bell hanging in the church tower or turret. Church Bells arc also called Sigtta in medi.eval documents. It is not proposed--as being foreign to this work-to attempt a description of the Nola or Tintimrabulum, as the early portable hand-bell was called. Several of these, of great antiquity, are still extant in Ireland, North vVales, and Scotland. Some of them are very elaborately orna mented, and are accompanied by covers of exquisite work manship. They arc frequently formed of a sheet of metal hammered into shape, and rivetted at the side. There does not appear to be any clue as to the precise original use of these curious bells, which in many instances were, until recently, held in high reverence, and even in superstitious dread, by the ignorant peasantry. Some antiquaries think they are relics of the early founders of Christianity in these Islands, and haYc been, as such, carefully preserved in Religious Houses founded at the time by the saints them selves.t • Tltt Bl'll, by Re,·. Alfred Gatty, p. t 3· by my ,·enerable friend The Rev. H. T. The Rev. H. T. Ellacombc in his Bells llj Ellacorube, F.S.A. In the year 1833 Dr. til( Church, p. 338, gi"es an engraving of an Petrie read before the Royal Irish Academy ancient bell "supposed to have been in. an Essay on 1he Ancient Consecrated Bells vented or adopted by Paulin us, circa 420. of Ireland. This Essay has never been for ch urcb purposes." published, but interesting extracts are t A ,·ery full and profusely illustrated given in Stokes' Life of George Petrie, LL.D., accounl of these bells will be found in The pp. 277·280. Bells 11j lhr Clwrril, a Tome lately put forth Clturch Bells. 3 Pope Sabinian (A .D. 604) having ordered the hours to be sounded on the bells,~ is thought by others to have intro duced the use of the Campance or Signa, as the large bells were called, into churches. H e, however, more probably found bells in partial use, and recognizing their beauty and value, encouraged their general adoption, as it is soon after his time that we read of their use in this country. They are mentioned in the Ordo Romanus about that date, as being used to announce Tierce, Mass, and Processions, and S. Owen in the life of S. Eloy (circa A.D. 650) speaks of the Campana.t Legend tells of S. Columba hearing the midnight bell which called the brethren to matins in his church in Iona, and of his hurrying thither with feeble steps, and there dying before the altar, on June the gth, A.D. 597· It is, however, nearly a century later before we meet with an authentic record of the church bell as being in use in this country. Bede mentions the existence of one at Streanceshalch (vVhitby) in the .year 68o, which was used to awake, and to call the nuns to prayer.t The second excerp tion of Egbert, issued about the year 750, commands every priest, at the proper hours, to sound the bells of his church, and then to go through the sacred offices of God. In the year 816 the Canons of Wulfred gave directions as to the sounding of the Sigmt11t in every church upon the death of a bishop.§ In the tenth century we trace the existence of • Walcott's Sac. Arch., p. 96. t Eccl. Hist., Book iv.• c. xxh·. (Gidley's t Walcott's Sac. Arch. p. 66. Translation). § Jobnson · s E11glish CttnOIIS, Part 1., p. 306. 4 Church Bells. bells in one of the illuminations in S . .tEthelwold's Bene dictional, a gorgeous manuscript, certainly executed before the close of that century: an open campanile appears in which are suspended four bells.; The building of churches, and the founding of bells, were much encouraged at that time by a decree which provided that a Thane's rank might be obtained by a Saxon churl or franklin if he were rich enough to possess about five hundred acres of land, and had a church with a bell tower on his cstate.t About that time too, if we may trust l ngulph, we find a ring of bells at Croyland Abbey in this county, \vhich will be more particularly described hereafter. From Ingulph's remarks we may infer that single bells, if not rings, were then well known in this country. Neither were the abbots of Croyland the only ecclesiastics of that period whose names are handed down to us as founders of bells. S. D unstan, "the chief of monks," an expert worker in metals, cast a bell, which for many ages after his death hung in Canterbury Cathedral; two bells cast under his direction were at Abingdon, where also were other two the work of its founder S. lEthelwold.t In the year A.D. 1035 King Canute gave t\VO bells, amongst other rich gifts, to \Vinchester Cathedral, and in the same century gifts of pairs of bells were made to Southwell and to Beverley, as well as to Stow S. 'Mary in this county. S. Dunstan also drew up Rules for the ringing of the I3ells, as did Lanfranc, ------------------ ---- • Art/hU!logia. xxi v., plale 32. ~ Rocl(s Cllurrh of otrr Fatlrns. iii., t Churton's Early E nglish Cliurclt. p. 230. Part 2 , p. 57· C/wrc!L Bells. 5 Archbishop of Canterbury.*' It will thus be seen that bt..lls were well known to the Anglo-Saxon Church ; and our word bell is said to be derived from the Saxon bellmz, to roar or bellow, so Chaucer " as loud as Lelleth wind in hell. "t So too there is every reason for believing that at the Norman Conquest the art of bellfounding was well understood, and carried to great perfection in this country: the law of Curfew could not ha\'e been carried into effect if bells had not then been in general usc. The grand old Norman-if not Saxon-towers of our churches (witness Brigstock and Brixworth m Northamptonshire) clearly point to the large and heavy Lells which they were built lo contain. The first Englishman who fo llowed bellfounding as a trade at present known by name, was Roger de l~opeforde of Paignton, who, in 1284, was em ployed to make four bells for the north tower of Exeter Cathedral,t and about the same time ·Michael de Lichfield, bellfounder, was plying • Sec these Rules in Chur'cl' Bells of gave in kind:-" Metal for the bell. 'They Somerset, pp. UJ and 114. answer for 180 pounds of brass received t The Rev. J. T. Fowler on Bells aml as gifts. as in pots, plotters, basons, lavers. Bcllri1rgi11g. kettles, brass mortars, and mill-pots. Also ! Ellacombe's Bells of Exeter Cathedral, for 425 pounds received from one old bell. p 3· See also Notes a11.l Qruries, sth s. iii., Also, for 40 pounds of brass, recei ved by p. 77. for an interesting account of the purchase. Also, for 896 pounds of copper casting of a bell in the same year (1284). received by purchase. Also, for 3::0 An endorsement on the pan::hment upon pounds of tin received by purchase. which this account is written shows not "Sum J861 pounds, of which there has only the constituent parts of the bell-metal, been melted in making the ne" bell t7S 1 but also proves the fact that those who pound~; and there are S(lpounds remain could not subscribe to the cost in money, ing over." 6 Clmrc!t. Bells. his craft in that city.* It is doubtful whether Fergus of Boston-circa rroo-who will be mentioned hereafter, cast large bells. In the thirteenth century we meet with constant mention of bells as of things not in the least extraordinary or rare: indeed :\iatthew Paris writes as if, at least, every church of note, possessed one bell or more :t and in what are supposed to be the earliest complete lists of the necessary furniture of an English Parish Church contained in the decrees of \ Valter Grey, Archbishop of York, 1216-1255, and of Robert \Vinchelsey, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1293-1313, are found-in the former-" campan;:c magn;:c cum chordis suis," and-in the latter-11 magmc campame campanilis & cord;:c ad easdem."t In the middle ages, when roads were bad, and locomo tion difficult, bells were frequently cast within the precincts of Religious Houses, and in churchyards, the clergy or monks standing round, reciting prayers and chanting psalms.