J" A*

' ¦*. '

jaaOCii, ¦

r.'iMii

yjM'

-tfc "*¦¦

.t

K"--^!

it^Mthh

•-J -

A*'

Jl «

ir-4

.v?*^^

..rfiiii

-V, ¦^'1'

.?K*

4 .'

^"J!^

¦Bi'1

.>. ....^ 3i<

**¦*«¦ «,

s- -c-A C « * I.

!l!."S

> - .f .,.
1 : **f.*;

riiL

¦¦¦^^ggWBS.' '  Pfl^WWPWW

3^^-!^'^^

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME
OF THE
Ann S. Farnam Fund
If or

THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

FORMING THI-: MOULD
I'AKT OF 'rHK BELL FOUNDER'S WINDOW IN YORK CATHEDKAL

THE
BELLS OF ENGLAND
BY
J. J. RAVEN, D.D., F.S.A.,
OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, VICAR OF FRESSINGFIELD
AND HONORARY CANON OF NORWICH CATHEDRAL

WITH SIXTY ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK
E. P. BUTTON & CO.
1906

7>i- V

,0--' 4 •-5'85

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
PAGE
Early History  i
" Small beginnings" — Bronze — Its Hebrew and Greek equivalents —
The Old Testament — Homer — Hesiod — Herodotus — Pomponius Mela —
Dionysius Periegetes — Eustathius on Cornwall — Crotals — Basque names
of metals — Pliny — Copper in Cumberland — Names for bells — Tintinna-
bulum, Squilla, Bell-, Carnpana, and Nola — Their derivations — Walafridus
Strabo — Polydore Vergil — Chladni, etc. — Gerard Voss — Holyoke —
Martial — Hieronymus Magius — Historians of the present day — Analysis
of the following chapters.

CHAPTER II
The British Period  14
Variation in civilization among the British tribes — Routes — Essedas —
Small bells, open and closed — Crotals at the end of spears — Bells of the
Irish type — ^ x"^''""' 3a'?"is — The specimen from Marden — Archbishop
Beresford's collection — St. Boniface's present to the Pope — St. Teilo —
Bells become sacred — Scotch instances— The Kilberry clagan of St. Barry
— Festal days — Congleton — The passing bell.
CHAPTER III
The Saxon Period  28
Retrogression at first — St. Augustine's mission — "The Old Minster'' —
Bells probably hung in trees — Towers necessary for thanedom — Antiquity
of the equilateral arch — The death of St. Hilda — Excerpt of Archbishop
Egbert — Saxon towers — Crowland — Examples of small bells played by
hand — Alleged baptism of bells — Hand-bells and hanged-bells at
Sherburn-in-Elmet.

CHAPTER VI
Times of Development

The mortar at York — The window in the Minster — Crokesden — Ely
Sacrist's rolls — Early London founders and their works.

PAGE

vi CONTENTS CHAPTER IV
The Norman Period  42
Comparison of the Norman Conquest with the present day — Norman
towers — Bells in Normandy — Revival at Crowland — Fergus of Boston
and Alwold of London, founders — Double bell-cots — Canterbury Cathe
dral — St. Alban's — Exeter — Norwich — St. Bene't at Hulme — Fire at Ely
— Methods of sounding — Augustinian priory at Cambridge — Improve
ments in hanging — Presumably old bells remaining — Development of
Bury Abbey — Improvement in small bells.
CHAPTER V
The Thirteenth Century  56
Change in architecture — Development in shape of bells — Earliest
inscriptions — Instructions in founding by Walter of Odyngton — Letters
by strips of wax — Gerbertus Scholasticus — Founders called ollarii — The
old Caversfield Sance bell — Lichfield — Cambridge — Paignton — Lynn —
The Claughton bell — Bridgewater — Waverley — Bury St. Edmund's — The
Westminster Guild of Ringers.

71

CHAPTER VII
Provincial Founders — Medieval Uses .... 85
Canterbury— William le Belyetere— Stephen Norton, of Kent— York
Minster — Leicester— Robin Hood and the potter— Layers — Sandre de
Gloucetre— A Cumberland laver— Lynn— Norwich — William de Notyng-
ham there— Thomas Dekun in Holderness— The Curfew— The Angelus
bell— The hours— Bishop Grandison— Notes from Bishop Lyndewode's
Pi-oz'inciale — Lydgate on the sacring bell.

vu

PAGE

CONTENTS
CHAPTER VIII
The Cire Perdue — Hexameters — Ornamentation — Mi
gration OF Founders— Power of Bells over Storms,
etc.— The Passing Bell— Angelic Dedications . loi
The cire perdue method— Chertsey, and the date of a bell there— The
Leonine hexameter— Royal heads— Edward I. and his Queen— Edward
III. and his Queen— Robert Rider of London— Suffolk men in London
—Site of the foundry— A Yorkshire founder in Norfolk— Power of bells
over evil spirits and thunder— The passing bell— The Archangel Michael
— Gabriel bells — Raphael bells. :
CHAPTER IX
The Beginning of the Black-letter Period  ii8
The coming in of black-letter — Confluence of two types at Greystoke
— Dedications to the Virgin Mary— One nearly identical with the seal
of St. Mary's Abbey, York — Stella j^/am— Apostolic dedications — The
Fathers — ^A Clement— An Augustine— The Martyrs : St. Katherine, St.
Barbara, St. Apollonia, St. Lucy— Dedication to SS. Margaret, Ethel-
dreda, Antony, Thomas a Becket, Vincent, Giles, Martin, Laurence —
Prayers for benefactors — Ornamental lettering — Norwich — Lincolnshire —
Chime barrels — Will of John Baret of Bury — Coventry regulations about
death-bells.
CHAPTER X
Early Foundries — London and the South- West . .139
Metropolitan founders of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries —
Galfrid of Hedemton — William Dawe, alias Founder — John Walgrave —
Richard Hille and his widow — Henry Jordan and King's College, Cam
bridge — ^John Kebyll — William Culverden — Bristol and its ship-mark —
The Katherine wheel — Gloucester — Robert Handley, William Henshawe
— Salisbury — John Barbor's will — Ash Priors — Roger Semson — Dorset —
The Wimborne tenor — Exeter — Robert Norton and his misdoings at
Plymptree — Wokingham and Reading — Roger Landon and his bronze
chimney-pots for Eton — John Michell — William Hasylwood of Reading.
CHAPTER XI
From the South Coast Eastward  158
Warblington, Hants — Arreton, Isle of Wight — Nicholas, a founder,
named on a bell at Bramber, Sussex — Richard Kerner in Kent — Essex

viil CONTENTS

a metropolitan preserve — London bells in East Anglia — Early Norwich
founders — The Brasyers — The Mildenhall law-suit — The Brasyer bell at
Ford Abbey, Dorset — The Bury foundry — H. S. — Reignold Chyrch at
Bishop's Stortford — Thomas Chirche — The Redenhall tenor — Sudbury
All Saints' seventh — Cambridge work done at Bury — Roger Reve — No
guns with the Bury mark — Walter le Braszur at Cambridge.

CHAPTER XII
The Midlands and the North . . . .176
Lincolnshire bells — Foundry at Boston — The unique lettering at South
Somercotes, etc. — The Levertou sanctus bell — The Mellours of Notting
ham — Their work at Wigtoft — William Millers of Leicester — Thomas
Newcombe — Thomas Bett — The Leicester tragedy of 1 306 — Northampton
shire and Rutland — Buckingham — Dorchester, Oxon. — Warwickshire —
A Worcester family — Ludlow — Derbyshire — Staffordshire — Furness —
Yorkshire founders — Robin Hood and the potter — Bells in the lake
counties — York founders at work in Cumberland — The Dacre bells —
Carlisle Cathedral — Itinerant founders — Austin Bracker — Foreign foun
ders — The Act of 1483 — Evasion of it — Venlo — Mechlin.

CHAPTER XIII
The Tudor Period ........
Depredations in the days of Henry VIII. — Exaggerations — Monastery
bells — The Commission of 1553 — Stagnation in work at Norwich and
Bury St. Edmund's— Death of Sir William Corvehill— Somerset — Eliza
bethan Revival — Wallis of Salisbury— Whitechapel— Leicester— John
Clarke— John Dier— Stephen Tonni of Bury, and his coadjutors— Wilham
Land and Thomas Draper— Removal of the latter to Thetford— Shrop
shire —Buckingham — Reading— Gloucester — Vetminster — Colchester-
Richard Bowler probably meant by " Dick Baker "—Henry Topsell and
the Beccles fire— Valentyne Trevor— The Kent foundries— The Hatch
family— John Wilnar— The Purdues— Miles Graye— The Lavenham
tenor— The Rev. William Gurnall— Norwich and the Brends— John
Draper of Thetford— Stamford— Cumberland— Yorkshire.
CHAPTER XIV
Later Founders .
Progress after the Restoration— The Hodsons and Wightmans in
London— Richard Phelps -The Fire of London recorded at Damerham—
Lester, Pack, and Chapman— The Mears family— Lawson— The Knights

193

CONTENTS ix

—The Rudhalls of Gloucester— Dr. Parr there— Closworth, CoUumpton,
Chewstoke and the Bilbies — The Cockeys — The Penningtons — Kipling
of Portsmouth and the Vernon Medal — The Bagleys — The Russells —
John Bunyan a ringer — Kettering — St. Neot's — Downham Market —
The Taylors at St. Neot's, Cxford, and Loughborough — The Darbies —
Edward Tooke — The Newmans — Difficulties at Haddenham — Stephens
— Henry Pleasant — The Gardiners — Penn of Peterborough — Other later
founders.

CHAPTER XV
Change-ringing  229
Origin of change-ringing — Call changes — " Whittington " — Excel
lence of old bell-frames — Ease of chiming — Rise of ringing — Fabian
Stedman's Tintinnalogia, and various methods from it — The School of
Recreation — Ringing societies — The Brethren of the Guild of West
minster — The SchoUers of Chepesyde — The College youths — The Cum
berland Society of Change-ringers.

CHAPTER XVI
SiGNA  247
Canterbury : Prior Wybert's bell — Prior Eastry's Thomas — Prior
Molass's Dunstan — Bell Harry — Peter of York — Tom of Lincoln —
Accounts of the 1610 bell — The present bell — Bury St. Edmund's —
The absence of record of Signa — Ely — The work of John of Gloucester —
Query as to the use of the lantern — Exeter : Bell Grandison — Bell Peter
— Oxford — Great Tom — The Oseney bell — Its conveyance to Oxford —
The 1612 bell — The 1654 bell— Christopher Hodson's bell, in 1680
—St. Paul's Cathedral— The 1716 bell— Taylor's bell, in 1881— West
minster Big Ben — Peter of Gloucester — Manchester Town Hall — Wor
cester—Beverley. CHAPTER XVII
Carillons, Hand-bells, and Tintinnabula . . .262
The chime-barrel — The word Carillon — Grantham — Doncaster —
Holbeach — The Cambridge chimes, and their history — The " Tennyson "
chimes at Freshwater — Boston — Norwich — The Carilloneur — Perambu
lations — Hand-bells — Wells of Aldbourne — Symondson — Lammas Day
at Congleton — Chester Races — Jack o' th' Clock.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVIII PAGE
Legends — Traditions — Memories  277
The Fylfot— St. lUtyd— Influence of bells on thunderstorms—" The
Silent Tower of Bottreau by the Severn Sea" — The stolen bell of
Knowlton — The lost Jersey bells — The lost bell of Hunstanton — The
blindness of Bishop Bulkeley of Bangor — Crosmere — The " Dead Man's
Peal " at Wentnor — Sound of bells at the death of Bishop Grosseteste,
and at the burial of Hugh the boy-martyr — Year-day of St. Hugh of
Avalon — East Bergholt and its " cage " — A Kincardineshire story — A
"Vernon " bell in Cornwall.

CHAPTER XIX
Bell Poetry  292
Dr. Corbet on Tom of Oxford^Two poems from Tintinnalogia —
Lines by "J. Copywell" — "The Ringers of Lancell's Tower" — Charles
Lamb — William Lisle Bowles — Archdeacon Cleveland Coxe — The Hull
Ringers — Congratulatory lines to Ellacombe.

CHAPTER XX
Usages— Law — Conclusion  314
The Common Law of England^/«.r Commune Ecclesiasticum — Canon
Law — Secular uses of bells in the Saxon period — Conflicting authorities
— Difficulties at Wymondham — The Tower of St. Mary's, Bungay — The
Curfew — Ringing for Chesterfield Races — Variation as to the Sanctus
bell — The early morning bell at Hammersmith — Consecration of bells
— Controversy about baptism of bells — Alcuin — Charlemagne — The
Georgian era — Dedication at Lichfield, 1477 — The Oseney use — Remains
of the catechizing bell — The " Cambridge youths " — Ringers' rules, etc.,
on steeple boards at Scotter, Shilling Okeford, Much Hadham, Gulval,
and Fowey.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
FIG, PAGE
I. A Crotal  3
2. A Riveted Bell  20
3. Hand-bells at the Funeral of Edward the Confessor . . 40
4. Two Bells in a Turret  41
5. Three Bells in a Turret .  41
6. Seal of Sandre de Gloucetre  91
7. A Laver from Cumberland  92
8. A Bell at Communion of the Sick  ,97
9. Sance Bell in a Cot  98
10. Sance Bell on a Rood-screen  99
II. Head of Edward III  106
12-16. London Foundry -marks  I30
17. Shield of Thomas Bullisdon  120
18-23. Norwich Lettering  132
24, 25. Norwich Foundry-marks  I33
26, 27. Norwich Shields  133
28, 29. William ffoundor's Shields  141
30. Ring and Cross Shield  I44
31, 32. Jordan's Shields  I44
33. Jordan's Initial Cross .  I44
34. Kebyll's Shield  .146
35-38. Emblems of the Evangelists  146
39. Culverden's Shield  146
40. Bury Shield  169
41-43. Bury Lettering  '7°
44. Bell-house, King's College, Cambridge  i73
45. John Tonni's Cross  ^9°
46-49. John Tonni's Foundry-marks . . • -199
50. Jack o' th' Clock  275

LIST OF PLATES

Forming the Mould  Frontispiece
Part of the Bell Founder's Window in York Cathedral.
Hammer ringing of an Octave of Bells . . To face page 66
From end of preface of a I3th-Cent. BiUia Vitlzaia,
Harl. MS. 2804, f. 3b.
Blessing the Donor of the Bell .... „ 72
Part of the Bell Founder's Window in York Cathedral.
Running the Molten Metal  „ 74
Part of the Bell Founder's Window in York Cathedral.
Hammer ringing of Three Bells .... „ 82
From a French MS., a.d. 1372. At the head of a
chapter treating of diflference of numbers, measures,
weights, and sounds. Cott. MS. Aug. vi. f. 457b.
Initial Letters of Monk ringing, and of Two Bells
in Church Spire ...... „ 192
From a i4th-Cent. Alphabetical Collection termed Ovtne
Bonum, Royal MS. 6 E, vi., ff. 232, 298.
Interior of Turret with Bell and Clock-work ; Illus
trating statement • that the Divinity regulates
the time and actions of humanity after the
fashion of a clock  „ 262
From the Epistle of Othea ; works of Christine de Pisan,
ISth Cent., Harl. MS. 4431, f. 96b.
Initial Letters of King playing on Four Bells, and
of Boy playing with Two Hand-bells (Story of
David)  „ 272
From i3th-Cent. Psalter, Add. MS. 30,045, ff. 40b, 8b.

PREFACE
THE title of this book indicates rather the purpose than
the fulfilment. The range is so vast that a sketch
only is possible. Many counties, especially in the
North, are practically untouched, while others are still under
going investigation. It has been my lot, while these pages
were passing through the press, to receive additional infor
mation. Some of this cannot be inserted.
An important article has recently appeared in Arch<20-
logia,* in which Mr. Clement Reid traces the conveyance
of tin from Cornwall to the Continent through the Isle
of Wight. I would suggest the last route in Antonine's
Itinerary, British Section, as used for a great part of the
land carriage.
I return my best thanks to Dr. Amherst D. Tyssen,
Messrs. Jarrolds, Publishers, of Norwich and London, and to
the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, for the loan of blocks.
I owe much to the Rev. J. Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A.,
Editor of The Antiquary's Books, for most useful suggestions.
Dr. Cox is also responsible for the selection and description
of several interesting plates, illustrative of early bell-ringing,
from manuscripts in the British Museum. The names of
valued helpers during a period of more than half a century
would fill a small volume. J. J- R.
Fressingfield Vicarage
August, it)o6 * Vol. 59, pt. 2.

THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

CHAPTER I
EARLY HISTORY
THOUGH our bells exert a very potent influence on
our lives by their voices, there are not many who
recognize that they have a great archaeological value.
And this need cause no surprise, for sixty years ago hardly
an inscription on a bell had been recorded ; the names of
the founders, the localities of the foundries, were practically
unknown. Dwellers in homes .some half a mile from a
tower whence the bell music, now swelling, now dying
away, was wafted to them on the sharp, crisp air at Christ
mas-time, charming the ear, and dwellers in " Church
Street " or " Church Lane " in some town, who suffered
acutely from a course of Bob Major or Grandsire Triples,
alike were unaware of the mysteries of lettering, inscrip
tions, word-stops, initial crosses and foundry stamps. Now,
with the records of a score of counties completed, and
considerable collections made from those as yet incomplete,
we are in a position to sum up our results and attempt some
history of our English bells. In this matter, as in most
others, development arises from things apparently insignifi
cant, and the origin of every class of music is found in that
universal instinct which takes its pleasure sometimes in
B

2 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
length of tone, sometimes in its brevity and abruptness, but
generally in some orderly sequence of sounds. "We hear
of no people," says Dr. Burney, in the Preface to his General
History of Music, "however wild and savage in other
particulars, who have not music of some kind or other, with
which we may suppose them to be greatly delighted, by their
constant use of it upon occasions the most opposite." The
musical instinct, therefore, albeit in a very elementary form,
must have been in palaeolithic man, and the clink from his
weapons and tools cheered him under his labours and dis
appointments. When we observe that birds in their natural
condition utter their notes many a time in musical sequence,
when we find that contact with advanced humanity will
cause them to utter a few notes of a tune, the conclusion is
not hard to arrive at that primaeval man was at no period
insensible to concourse of sweet sounds. An experiment or
two in chipping might point the way to such sequences.
Feeble indeed would be such beginnings, but we may again
put Dr. Burney into the witness-box. " The feeble begin
nings of whatever afterwards becomes great or eminent are
interesting to mankind," says he, adding that " to artists and
to real lovers of art nothing relative to the object of their
employment or pleasure is indifferent." Thus far specula
tion may carry us, but of evidence we have none at present,
though even in our own days we have heard tunes from
musical stones.
Regarded, and rightly so, as musical instruments, bells
belong to the most primitive class, instruments of percussion.
Before nerve or sinew, stretched from point to point, had
given forth their enlivening twangs, before the reed with the
pith extracted from it had responded to the breath of human
lungs, the clink of chipped stone had cheered the palaeolithic

EARLY HISTORY 3
artisan. And as musical glasses, which in after days have
contributed to juvenile amusement, are but the children of
chipped stone, so bells in their different forms are but the
children of those bits of tin and copper which neolithic man
no doubt looked upon as pretty stones.
It is not within the scope of our subject to treat at length
of the bronze age, but curiosity as to the discovery of that
wonderful compound is not easy to be altogether repressed,
and conjecture arises whether some accident in melting
occurred, of a character like to that which in historic times
gave the origin to Corinthian brass. Had we traces of the
previous copper period, that metal by itself is deficient in
sonorous quality. A little tinkling might have been
obtained from tin, but nothing remains to indicate that the
Cornish ore was used for this purpose. Everything suggests
an epoch in the history of our race, a rapid transition from
polished stones to that hard vibratory amalgam which in
proportions of much variation is compounded of both metals.
Once discovered, there would be little delay in putting
bronze to a great many uses, and among them small vessels
for drinking purposes, and little noisy signals of cup-like
form. As the huntsman began to give way
to the herdsman, need arose for something
to hang on the necks of cattle, to keep
their owners in touch with them. This is
the crotal (Fig. i). By far the greatest
number of bells, from very remote times,
have been made of bronze. In this mixture
there is found great variety, but on the
whole copper and tin may be taken as the ingredients, the
amount of other metals — zinc, lead, and even silver — being
quite insignificant, and in many cases accidental.

4 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
The proportions of copper and tin in bronze differ largely
according to the purpose which the alloy is intended to serve.
F"or objects in which strength is the main end to be obtained,
tin should never be more than one-sixth of the whole, but for
sonorous effect, according to Mr. Graham, it ought not to be
less than one-fifth. Our brass, composed of copper and zinc,
is but a thing of yesterday, and the Hebrew word ETii,
rendered invariably by xoXkoq in the Septuagint, and with
one exception (Ezra viii. 27, where we read of " vessels of
shining copper") by "brass" in our English versions, may
be generally regarded as equivalent to " bronze."
Yet there are exceptions. It must be "copper" in Job
xxviii. 2, where the Authorized and Revised Versions agree in
rendering the original : " Iron is taken out of the earth, and
brass is molten out of the stone," with the alternative of
"dust" for "earth." The mention of a mine in the previous
verse is conclusive here, as in "out of whose hills thou mayest
dig brass" (Deut. viii. 9). But exceptio prohat regulain, and
the general result is not to be mistaken. The root means a
serpent, possibly from its deadly hiss, and the word with t
often added seems to have been transferred to the metal, its
burnished tint being snake-like. In passing from the wprd
nahash, I may be forgiven for noting how the name Serpent
was used for the Ammonite King (i Sam. xi. i), even as
Orme was adopted as a name of terror by our wild
Scandinavian ancestors. When we come to the other
element in the bronze compound, England begins to assume
a greater importance, "jnn, the Hebrew equivalent for "tin,"
occurs five times in the Old Testament, and once in the
Apocryphal Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach. In every
place but one it is rendered by Kaamripog in the Septuagint.
The solitary exception is Isa. i. 25, where the Alexandrians

EARLY HISTORY 5
gave an interpretation rather than a translation of " I will
take away all thy tin," rendering the metal by what it was
intended to represent, namely the unrighteous {dvofioug).
When the subsequent translators, Aquila, Theodotion, and
Symmachus, dealt with the passage, they returned to the
letter of the text, and read KacrariTepog here as in the other
places. The word is also Homeric. Beyond its whiteness, duct-
ability, and suitableness for ornamentation, not much about
it can be gathered from the Iliad. It does not occur in the
Odyssej. The one passage in Hesiod {Theognis, 857, etc.) in which
it is found is important for our purpose. Mr. Gladstone
assigns to Homer a date about 1200 B.C., contemporary
with Gideon. Hesiod is supposed to have lived some five
centuries after Homer, about the time of the Prophet Isaiah.
His poems certainly display a more extensive knowledge
of the earth than that which was possessed by the epic
chronicler of Troy town, and his information extends more
over Western Europe. He is describing the destruction of
the Titan Typhoeus by Zeus, how the earth burned with a
mighty reek and was melted, being heated, like nanaiTipoq, by
the art of the vigorous and by the well-channelled melting-
pit.* In another passage he describes a port represented
with the help of melted tin on the Shield of Hercules.f
As kasdir is the Arabic for "tin," some would derive
Katrmrepog from it, suggesting that afterwards, when the
supply came from Cornwall, the name was transferred to it
and the Scilly Isles, thus called the Cassiterides. This does
not agree with the account given by Herodotus, who dis
tinctly places them in the most distant part of Western
* Hesiod, Theogonia, 861-866. t ^e. Here. 208.

b THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Europe, though he confesses the imperfection of his informa
tion about them.* The testimonies of Pomponius Mela, the
geographer of the time of the Emperor Claudius, and of Pliny
are to the same effect. The catena of evidence goes on to
Dionysius Periegetes, whose Periegesis, written towards the
end of the third century, contains a passage bearing not only
on matters of trade and manufacture, but also on the ethno
logy of our islands and the adjoining parts of the Continent :
. . . avrap vtr aKpijv
Iprjv, rjv evetrovai Kaprjv Ifitv EujOtiiTTcirjc
Njjcroue 0' 'EcrTTEjOiSaf, toOi Kaamripoio yivtffXri,
'A^vfiot vaiovaiv djavwv wai^eg 'I/3)7jOajv.
Here we have a pre-Celtic race, wealthy and illustrious,
while the prominence given to tin suggests the cause of
both of these high qualities. Eustathius, whose commentary
on the Periegesis is given in Hill's 1688 edition, says that the
islands were ten in number, that one was a desert, but that
the others were inhabited by a black-robed race, who walked
with staves, like the Avenging Furies in tragedy.f He says,
moreover, that the tin was not found on the surface, but had
to be dug out. These noble, opulent Iberians of the long
robe might have an earlier racial element under them to do
the miners' work, and perhaps the smelting too, while the
metal travelled east in the ships of Phoenicia to return,
cast into such articles as would be desired. This, at any
rate, is one solution of the origin of crotals in England.
As time went on some artificer would bring the process
of manufacture to the place where the precious ore still
* Hist., iii. 115,
t Taj 8' aKKas oiKoCiri Mi\ayx>^ai''oi, avBpomoi iroSiipeis eyStSuKiiTes ;)^iTiC>'as,
e^a<riJ,eyoi ra iTrepva, /ierct pdfiSav vepiiraToCvTfS, S/jiOioi toij TpaytKois TVOivais,
us tpaffLV ol TTaAaioi.

EARLY HISTORY 7
slumbered in the earth. Perhaps the august robes were of
Phoenician fabric, obtained by exchange of metal for cloth.
What the Iberians called the metals we cannot say. The
names used at the present time by the Basques have the air
of importation into their language. Copper is kdbrea ; tin,
estanua, with sundry variations in spelling; and the com
pound bronze bears the title of menastdria. There would be,
of course, no difficulty in getting copper in the south-west of
England, to work up with the tin, for local artisans ; but
this would not be the more primitive way. Pliny,* in
treating oi plumbum candidum, equivalent to cassiterwn, while
mentioning it as a product of Spain and Portugal, refers to
what he considers a legend (" fabulose narratum ") that it was
sought in the islands of the Atlantic, and conveyed in wicker
boats (" vitilibus navigiis et circumsutis coris "). There
was copper in Cumberland, but the earliest account of it
seems to be in the Close Rolls of Henry III., according to
Camden, who records the discovery of the metal at New-
lands and elsewhere, in his own days, " by Thomas Thurland
and Daniel Hotchstetter, a German of Auspurg."
The consideration of the names used in different lan
guages for the bell is valuable in many ways. From the
sound comes the Latin tintinnabulum. The iteration of the
name of the metal is obvious. Stannum was the common
everyday word used by the Romans for tin, and Estano,
no doubt its offspring, has been just pointed out as the
Basque version of the word at the present day. The sound
made the name for the metal which produced it as well as
for the tinkling cymbal itself.
From the shape comes the mediaeval Squilla, found in
testamentary dispositions in the diminutive form skilletta,
* Hist. Nat., xxxiv. 156.

8 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
now only employed in culinary talk. The word originally
was used for a small lobster. From the sound again comes
our familiar word bell, connected with the verb balare, or, as
Varro spells it, belare, signifying the bleating of sheep.
Jamieson has preserved the word in his Ghaists Warning,
a translation of a Danish ballad, well known to those who
con the notes to The Lady of the Lake —
" Ay whan they heard the dog nirr and bell,
Sae gae they the bairnies bread and ale."
Carnpana is a word constantly occurring in the inscrip
tions on bells, and having passed on into later adjective
and substantive derivatives, it is recognized to the full. The
occasional use of nola for a crotal apparently suggested a
connection between the two, as Nola was the capital of
Campania. Thus Paulinus of Nola was for many years
regarded as the introducer of bells into the Church, in spite
of the fact that in his letter to Severus he describes his
church without mention of either tower or bells. Walafridus
Strabo,* who lived about the middle of the thirteenth
century, derives the names, indeed, from Nola and Campania,
but is silent about Paulinus —
" De vasis fusilibus, vel etiam productilibus, quee simpliciter
signa vocantur, quia eorum sonoritate, quibusdam pulsibus excitata,
significantur horae, quibus in domo Dei statuta celebrantur officia :
de his, inquam, hie dicendum videtur, quod eorum usus non adeo
apud antiquos habitus proditur, quia nee tam multiplex apud eos
conventuum assiduitas, ut modo est, habebatur. Apud alios enim
devotio sola cogebat ad statutas boras concurrere. Alii pronuntia-
tionibus publicis invitabantur, et in una solennitate proxime futuras
dicebant. Apud quosdam tabulis, apud nonnullos cornibus horae
* Much of this will be found in Appendix A to my Church Bells of
Cambridgeshire.

EARLY HISTORY 9
prodebantur. Vasorum autem de quibus sermo ortus est, usum primo
apud Italos affirmant inventum. Unde et a Campania, quEe est
Italiae provincia, eadem vasa, majora quidem, Campanee dicuntur :
minora vero, quse et a sono tintinnabula vocantur, Nolas appellant,
a Nola ejusdem civitate CampaniEe, ubi eadem vasa primo sunt
commentata." This author of the book De Divinis Officiis failed to note
the discrepancy between the quantities of the first syllables
of the two words. Nola is the city, nola the bell, as shown
by a fourth-century poet, R. Festus Avienus {Fab. 7)—
"... canem . . .
Jusserat in rabido gutture ferre nolam."
But in honesty I must add that some read "notam."
Polydore Vergil (1470-1555) bluntly declares that no one
knows who invented bells : " Quid jucundius reperiri potuit
Horologio . . . quid gratius Tintinnabulo, quod Campanam,
nonnuUi Nolam nuncupant, inveniri potuit . . . utriusque
tamen pariter Autor latet." While using both words, he is
silent about Paulinus. Chladni * alludes to the Paulinian
story as current in his day, and adds, significantly, " utut alii
et hoc pro Errore vulgari habeant." A similar view is taken
by Eschenwecker, of Nuremberg, in an Academical Act held
in 1708. But the most valuable etymological contribution
to the solution of the difficulty is from Gerard Voss, whose
Etymologicon Lingucz Latince was dedicated to the great
De Wit in 1662. Of Carnpana he says, "Forte a Kuiravr],
inserto M., quomodo a Syro Sadin est syndon, a tappin
tympanum, etc. Kan-avrj proprie, Hesychio teste, est Tpiyivn
Kvvr}, galea e pilis. Inde dicta fuerit carnpana quia forma
ejus a carnpana non abluderet. Nisi potius dicendum, Katrdvnq
* Inventarium Temflorum, Dresden, 1689, p. 476.

ID THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
vocem extensam ad galeas cereas : has autem loco tintinnabuli
solitas pulsari, atque ab hac consuetudine campanse nomen
originem traxisse. Sed metuo ne, quae hactenus diximus,
plus argutiarum habeant quam veritatis. Quippe plane puto,
campancB, addo et nolce vocabulum a posteriori esse seculo,
etsi res sit admodum vetus. Nam et veteres ceris, intinnabuli,
fi^uov, xaXKiiov, aliisque vocabulis nominarunt : qua de re
Hadr. Junius, lib. III. Animadvers., cap. ii." I venture, then,
to repeat my suggestion that Campana and Kairavri, like cup,
cap, capio, capuhis, and a host of like words, have their origin
in a root which is common to Semitic and Aryan tongues —
a guttural and a labial with a dull vowel inserted, denoting
a hollow. In Hebrew there are several forms of it, ip, which
our translators have literally rendered the " cab " of dove's
dung in 2 Kings vi. 25 ; ^, the "hollow" of Jacob's thigh.
Gen. xxxii. 26; and the palm of the hand, Psa. xxvi. 6;
and 33 noted by Gesenius as obsolete.
Nola, however, is certainly used by Quintilian, though
we cannot produce any classical use of campana. The former
is described by Holyoke, in his Vocabularium Anglo-Latinum,
i6yi — a copy of which remarkable book I found in Thetford
Grammar School Library — as " a little bell hung about a
dog's neck, or birds' legs, so such an one as is hung at an
horse's breast or ear : also any small bell, as a Saint's, Sance
or Sacring bell." He mentions also the diminutive nolula.
There can hardly be a doubt that it is akin to "knoll,"
" knell," and like forms in German.
The word as by itself denoted a larger and more
sonorous instrument, such as in after-times was known by
the designation signum, a case of the derivation of the name
of a thing from its use. An excellent and early example
of the purpose to which it was applied may be found in

EARLY HISTORY u
the last book of Martial's Epigrams (xiv. 156). The
book, like its predecessor, is a striking collection of elegiac
distichs on common-place subjects, domestic animals, garden
vegetables, wines, games, implements, all things of everyday
occurrence. Naturally, among them comes tintinnabulum,
followed by —
" Redde pilam : sonat ses thermarum, ludere pergis ?
Virgine vis sola lotus abire domum."
The gong rings out, and is to be obeyed. The ball must
be laid aside for the bath. The occurrence of tintinnabulum,
as apparently an equivalent for ces thermarum, is to be
observed. It is clear that in Martial's time the former was
not restricted to the little crotals with which we are wont to
associate it. Hieronymus Magius, in the eighth chapter of
his treatise De Tintinnabulis, gives his readers a fine engraving
of a well-clothed elephant with a bell hung to his neck by
a cord, which, from its size, would serve as a treble in a
village set of four or five.
There are a few other names which will be dealt with
should they occur, as we pass on to greater developments in
the latter days.
Chronological order recommends itself for a national
work ; and I have thus enlarged on the traces which we
possess of instruments of percussion from primitive times,
as affording some basis for our investigation of the more
trustworthy sources of information which are open to the
inquirer as he reaches the period of historical records, local
documents, and, above all, of ornamented and inscribed bells,
frequently bearing those marks by which their makers handed
their works down to posterity.
I began my work in Suffolk, a boy of fourteen, and

12 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
before I had passed out of my youth I was in touch with
Dr. Amherst D. Tyssen, who led the way with his Sussex.
In a little time I numbered among my correspondents the
patriarch of campanologists, the late H. T. Ellacombe, the
recorder of three western counties. It is only just that I
should speak of the advantages which I have thus gained
from the experience of these friends and others : Thomas
North, who, in great physical weakness, recorded five of the
Midland counties, and, dying, left a sixth, Hertfordshire, to
be completed by the late John C. L. Stahlschmidt, himself
the historian of Kent and Surrey ; Mr. Cocks and Rev. T. M.
N. Owen, who have so successfully worked up Buckingham
shire and Huntingdonshire ; Mr. H. B. Walters, F.S.A., of
the British Museum, whose book on Ancient Pottery has
just appeared, and who is collecting the Essex inscriptions
with a view to publication ; and a host of friends in various
parts of England, too numerous to mention. These have
climbed towers, not always an easy task, and sent me
rubbings and casts of the legends and marks which they
have found. With deep gratitude to them, one and all, I
proceed to chronicle to the best of my power the Bells of
our Fatherland.
Of the following nineteen chapters, the next will be
devoted to such remains as we have of the British period.
The Saxon period will then receive notice, with reference to
its towers, and mention of bells by early chroniclers. This
will bring us to the fourth chapter of the book, which will
cover the days of the Norman kings. The fifth chapter
will embrace the thirteenth century, and in this we begin to
see existing instances of ancient bells. Then melodious
sequences, rings of bells, will appear, and development in
shape will be recorded in the sixth chapter; and in the

EARLY HISTORY 13
seventh the reader will be introduced to dedicatory and other
inscriptions, initial crosses, foundry marks, and Longobardic
lettering. By this time we shall be able, in the eighth
chapter, to enter on the history of the earlier foundries, as
at London, York, King's Lynn, etc. The ninth chapter
will bring us to the days of black-letter inscriptions, with
many a more or less faulty hexameter. Here gun-founding
must have a passing word. The great foundries of the later
Plantagenet period will occupy the three following chapters,
divided locally, so as to take successively : (i) the Metropolis
and the South-West of England, (2) the South-East, and
(3) the North and Midlands. In the thirteenth chapter we
shall notice itinerant founders, and mediaeval foreign bells to
be seen in England. This will be followed by the history
of later foundries, to the present day. The early history
and subsequent development of change-ringing, with the
consequent improvements in hanging, will require a chapter
to themselves ; and then I shall give an account of English
signa, or bells of unusual size. The seventeenth chapter
treats of chimes and carillons. Then the reader will find a
change to less material subjects, for bell legends, bell poetry,
bell law, will be found to occupy the eighteenth, nineteenth,
and twentieth chapters.

CHAPTER II
THE BRITISH PERIOD
IN dealing with the British Period, the great variation of
condition in different parts of the land must be borne
in mind. The distinction between the Bret and the
Gael is not the only cleavage in the population. Frequent
immigrations of tribes made the seaboards the scene of
many a change ; as the older peoples, annoyed at the arrivals
which they could not resist, betook themselves farther up
country. " Longe humanissimi sunt qui Cantium incolunt," are
the well-known words of Julius Caesar. So likewise the
Parisii, on the south-east of Yorkshire, may be regarded as
better furnished with the appliances of life than were the
Brigantes ; the Silures than the Ordovices ; while the
Western Midlanders, whose forests rendered them more
unapproachable than tribes among mountains and floods,
may be regarded as the worst off of all. As to routes of
communication, we are in a great measure left to conjecture,
without documents, without inscriptions to guide us, till the
arrival of the Roman. There must have been some tolerable
roads, because there were chariots, essedcB, or esseda. When
Julius Caesar was campaigning in Gaul, he had with him one
Trebatius, a friend of Cicero's, to whom he wrote, "Tu
14

THE BRITISH PERIOD 15
qui caeteris cavere didicisti in Britannia, ne ab essedariis
decipiaris caveto." Where chariots went, hawkers' carts
could and would go. In Antonine's Itinerary, which I think
dates from quite early in the third century, the great mass
of names of stations are to all appearance British, and it
seems impossible that these communities should be without
communication. Thus the tinklers made in far-away lands
would pass along what was afterwards called the Watling
Street, and perchance be stored for supply at such a place
as Venones, or High Cross, where the Foss Way from Lincoln
comes in.
In Ellacombe's supplement to The Church Bells of Devon
is a chapter of some ninety pages and more devoted to
tintinnabula, in which will be found a choice collection of
specimens of divers kinds of these small handbells. I gladly
avail myself of his labours, and the more so from the free
exchange of information which passed between us during his
lifetime. There seem to have been two main forms of these
little objects — the open and the closed ; the gong and the
globe. Of these, the former may take the palm for antiquity.
They would begin by being nearly flat, and gradually develop
through the saucepan form into the bell. Layard * found
about eighty of the latter type, with iron tongues, in a copper
cauldron at Nimroud. On analysis, it was discovered that
they contained copper and tin in the ratio of 10 to i. Near
Hyderabad were found three, which are now in the Museum
of the Asiatic Society in Bombay, about four inches high.
Two of them, of very primitive shape, were of wrought
copper; the third, of far more elaborate form, of cast
bronze. These instances I quote as selected from a vast
number, from cairns or temples in Egypt and the East. Both
* Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, 1853, p. 177.

i6 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
forms, the closed and the open, find mention in one of the
Homeric hymns (xiii. 3) : —
H KjOoraXwi' rvirdviov ¦r ia\ii.
In England the crotal form prevails in ancient barrows,
and has remained unchanged through the ages. One was
found in the rood-staircase of Woodton Church, in Norfolk,
not many years ago, and was in the possession of the rector,
the Rev. F. E. Long. Another used to hang on a bunch
of keys, and was given to me by a kind Fressingfield
parishioner, Mr. Simeon Titchmarsh ; and both of these
greatly resemble that found in 1844 by the Rev. Dr. Wilson,
in a barrow on Headington Hill, Oxfordshire, and another,
numbered 40 in Ellacombe's supplement, the locality of
which is not given. To what purposes these crotals were
applied is rather obscure. As far back as the fifth cen
tury B.C. pomegranates and ajaples were placed at the butt
end of spears, taking the place of the usual (ravpwTiip, by
means of which the spear was stuck into the ground at' night,
as Homer tells us.* For these substitutes for spikes we are
indebted to Herodotus,! in his account of the retinue of
Xerxes ; and if pomegranates had a sacred meaning as
symbolizing the fruitful powers of nature, why should not
fiifXa have the same meaning .' The former would be a poor
substitute for the spike, but the latter still more so. Yet we
have to the same effect this passage from the epitome of
Dion Cassius by Xiphilinus : J To St ottXo avrwv, d<nr)g kuI
Sopv (ipa^ii, jutjXov xcIXkeiov Itt ciKpov tov arvpaKog i\ov, wan
auaofiivov KTviruv. Seven or eight centuries intervene
between Xerxes and the Britons as described by Dion
Cassius, but the juijXov is practically the same in both cases.
* Iliad, X. 153. t ™- 41. X xxxvi. 12.

THE BRITISH PERIOD 17
The union of pomegranates and /xljXa is certainly suggestive
of the fringe of Aaron's robe. The Septuagintal word for
Aaron's bells is kwSojveci not KporaXa, which implies the
concave form rather than the spherical. The Hebrew word
is JIOUB, connected with the idea of striking.
The globular or spheroidal instruments would not be
readily capable of adjustment for melodious sequence of
sounds. Time and experiment seem to have had a better
influence with the cast dish-shaped cymbals. I use this
word, by the way, more in accordance with the modern con
ception of its meaning than with its etymological origin.
These shapes did not exhaust the ingenuity of the cam-
panarians of distant days. Desirous of larger instruments,
and yet embarrassed by fusorial difficulties, they found a
way to produce another kind of bell without passing the
melted metal through a mould. Two trapezoidal sheets of
metal, sometimes iron, sometimes bronze, were bent at the
edges so as to be riveted together, the resulting figure being
a truncated wedge on an oblong base, with the corners of
the wedge rounded off. Then this was dipped into molten
copper or bronze, with the attainment of a musical note of
no great excellence. If the conjecture which I venture to
advance is true, the dipped method will run back in Greece
to some five centuries before the Christian era. There seems
to me to be an allusion to it in the Agamemnon of .^schylus,*
in a passage which has been the trouble of many a com
mentator. Clytemnestra is asserting her innocence, and says
that she knows no more of conjugal infidelity than of the
" dipping of copper," as it stands in the text —
jufiXXoi' 17 \akKOv fiatjtdg.
* Agamemnon, 593-

i8 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
The Scholiast explains xoXkov by (rtSrjpou, as though the
expression gathered up into itself the dipping of iron into
copper. If my view be right,''and the invention recent, the
interpretation of Welcker and Klausen would hold good,
their view being that reference is made to an invention
recent and not generally known, "as if," says Professor
Conington, writing about 1847, "a modern dramatic writer
must make one of his characters say, ' I know no more of
it than of working the Daguerreotype.' " In making this
conjecture, I must not omit the mention of the interpreta
tion of the highest authorities as to some secret art of
staining bronze, backed up by passages from Plutarch and
Euripides. Whatever .^schylus may have intended to con
vey by the words ^^aXi^ov jdatpdg, there can be no doubt that
this method of literally manufacturing bells was practised
in these islands in British times.
One of the best instances is that of a bell exhibited by
the late Dean Merewether, of Hereford, at the Carnarvon
meeting of the Cambrian Archaeological Association more
than fifty years ago. I give the details in his own words
from the Journal of the Archceological Institute — *
" This bell was found at Marden, Herefordshire, in cleaning out
a pond, below the mud and rubbish which had accumulated for
centuries, and at a depth of eighteen feet below the level of the
adjacent ground. The pond is only a few yards from the church,
built on the spot where the body of St. Ethelbert, murdered by Offa,
was said to have been deposited, and in which there is still a hole in
a stone in the floor, where, tradition says, the body rested, and a
miraculous spring, arose. The pond is in a field belonging to the
vicar. The site of the vicarage house has been asserted to have
been that of Offa's palace; whilst others claim that distinction for
* V. 330.

THE BRITISH PERIOD 19
' Sutton Walls,' about a mile off, and which was evidently a Roman
encampment, though possibly afterwards occupied by Offa, and his
palace built thereon. It is an elevated spot, and in the area there
is a hollow still called the King's Cellars, where, it is said, a precious
diadem was found some years since. The bell appears to have been
formed of a sheet of bell metal, which had been hammered into
shape, and it is riveted on each side; the handle at the top is
rounded beneath for the hand ; the clapper is gone, but there is a
loop inside from which it was suspended."
Mr. Westvvood describes it as very much corroded, even
to small holes in a few places. The dimensions are —
Height, without the handle ... 12 inches
Widest diameter at mouth ... 7^ „
Narrowest „ „  5 „
Widest diameter above ... ... 5 „
Narrowest „ „  3 „
The position of Marden is at the middle of the county of
Hereford, so near to Wales as to lead those who discussed
its history to attribute it rather to British than to Saxon
times. In confirmation of this view, I may refer to the
Clog-na-fulla, or Bell of Blood, which I was allowed to
examine many years ago by the kindness of Dr. Marcus
Beresford, then Bishop of Kilmore, and afterwards Archbishop
of Armagh. The dimensions which I took were —

Length of a side

... 9^ inches

Length of crown

•" 84 »

Greatest diameter ...

Least diameter at mouth, about

••• Ss" "

The shape seems to correspond, and the size too, with
the Marden bell. " There are two holes in the longer diameter
of the crown, through which a stout iron wire, as thick as an

20

THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

extra-sized lead pencil, passed — the upper part forming a
semicircular canon, and the lower terminating in two hooks
(only one of which remains) for hanging the tongue upon, as
I presume. The bell is not in a high state of preservation,
but, testing it by a piano, which may be supposed to be
something below concert-pitch, its note seemed to be F." *
This type of riveted bell remained on through many
generations, and may be seen now on the Wiltshire Downs
as sheep-bells. I have certainly seen fragments of them in
Suffolk, and will endeavour to recover some. Ellacombe
mentions a family by the name of Potter, of Market Laving-
ton, who have made them for generations. He says that
their bells are so sonorous that on a still night they may be
heard on Salisbury Plain, at a distance of four miles. The
method of manufacture had become
more developed in the hands of the
men of Market Lavington. When
the sheets of iron had been riveted,
the intended bell was bound with
narrow strips of brass. Borax was
used for flux. Then the whole was
enveloped in loam or clay and
heated in a furnace, by which
both the brass strips and the iron
sheets got melted and intermingled.
Thus a far more sonorous effect
was obtained. A more elaborate
example (Fig. 2) is engraved in
several books from an early MS. in the Cotton Collection
(Tib. C.,vi. f 17).
Another important object in the Beresford Collection was
* From my MS., A. 131.

Fig. 2.

THE BRITISH PERIOD 21
a bell called Barre Garreagh, evidently a very early specimen
of casting, for the shape, the truncated wedge on an oblong
base, is scrupulously followed, save that in this the crown is
higher and slopes up gradually from the shoulder. It is
much smaller than the Clog-na-fulla, the height from rim
to crown being only 8 inches ; the greatest diameter at the
mouth is 6^ inches, and the least is 4^ inches. The ratio
between them is therefore 1-4, which is practically the same
as that in the Marden bell, 1-5. The tongue seems to have
been suspended by a single staple instead of two hooks, but
only the ends remain. This staple was so placed that the
broader sides of Barre Garreagh would have been struck.
The handle, also longitudinal, was not cast in. I noted the
metal as "latten or something of the kind," and that the
bell was never good for anything, from flaws in the original
casting. It is possible that among the treasures of the
Vatican there may remain another early British bell.
St. Boniface, born at Crediton c. A.D. 680, educated first
at Exeter, and afterwards at Nutshalling, or Nursling {Nut-
scella), a little below Rumsey, sent the Pope a present of
a handbell, as it appears from his ninth letter : " Cloccam
qualem ad manum habui tuae paternitati mittere curavimus."
The word clocca, used by him, is to be observed, for it is the
usual Irish term, as in Clog-na-fulla, Clog-na-Mogue, etc. ;
and Dr. Reeves, in his edition of Adamnan's Life of St.
Columba, has notes on the two places in which it occurs
there. Ellacombe speaks of the number of Irish and Welsh
religionists resident at Exeter, Glastonbury, etc., and points
out the probability of this kind of bell being in use there
abouts in Boniface's boyhood. Inquiry may, perchance, bring
this bell to light.
The stream of history has carried us beyond the period

22 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
of the Saxon invasion, but the matter with which we are
dealing is essentially British, as is also the case of the great
St. Teilo, from whom are named Llandilo Vawr and other
places. When in A.D. 622 he was consecrated Bishop of
Llandaff (a date which takes us up-stream again) —
" The people presented him with a bell that was more famous
than great, more valuable in reality than appearance, because it
exceeded every organ in sweetness of sound; it condemned the
perjured, it healed the sick, and, what appeared more wonderful, it
sounded every hour without any one moving it ; until, being pre
vented by the sin of men, who rashly handling it with polluted hands,
it ceased from such sweet performance. Nor was he presented with
such a gift unsuitably ; for like as a bell invites men from the depths
of sleep and slothfulness to church, so the eminent prelate, Teilo,
being made a preacher of Christ, by incessant preaching wins them
to heaven." *
Mr. Williams, in his Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Cymry,
p. 188, speaks of a small bell presented to St. Teilo by the
Patriarch of Jerusalem, and called Bangu, apparently a pho
netic name, for Sir Richard Hoare speaks of it as "kept in
all the Welch churches," and in a passage in Giraldus Cam
brensis there was a Bangu at Glascwn which was said to have
belonged to St. David.
The purposes for which these small objects were employed
were sundry and manifold. For assembling the people, the
missionary priest would carry one or more about him. As the
Church began more and more to become locally settled, a
welcome and a notice of Divine Service would sound from
some humble temporary building. The Word of Life, bringing
hope and joy to many a heart, thus throws some hallowed
meaning into the very material object which draws attention
* Translation oi Liber Landay ensis, p. 342.

THE BRITISH PERIOD 23
to its message. The bell itself becomes sacred. To swear
falsely on the bell is to aggravate the guilt of perjury.
Giraldus Cambrensis, indeed, restricts this belief to Ireland,
Scotland and Wales ; but he is writing in the Norman period,
and it is not unreasonable to suppose that a like belief was
current through the whole island in British times.
" Both the laity and clergy in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales,"
are the words of Sir R. C. Hoare's translation, " held in such vene
ration certain portable bells, that they were more afraid of swearing
falsely by them than by the Gospels, because of some hidden and
miraculous power with which they were gifted ; and by the vengeance
of the saint to whom they were particularly pleasing, their despisers
and transgressors were severely punished."
I cannot find a similar case of application of the bell to
this judiciary end in other countries. Certainly after a time
the Gospels asserted an equality with the bell in attesting
the truth of evidence, and to them was added the candle,
as in a well-known passage in Scott's Lady of the Lake —
" As dies in hissing gore the spark,
Quench thou his light, destruction dark."
Relics gifted with these and other dignities naturally
demanded peculiar arrangements for their custody. It is
obviously required in custodians, as in other stewards, " that
a man be found faithful," * and to this end he must receive
an adequate reward to make his office worth holding.
Donors and testators, in their desire to preserve the holy
bells intact, left money or land for their custodians. The
custody became an inheritance, often attached to a title,
perhaps more often to a territorial possession, an investiture,
so that on the death of a custodian the bell would be
* I Cor. iv. 2.

24 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
placed in the hands of his heir, much in the same way as
the key of a church is to this day placed on the hands of a
new incumbent at induction to a benefice. In these early
days the custody of such sacred things would have been
entrusted to ecclesiastics. We have none now remaining in
England, but in Scotland the transference of these endow
ments to lay impropriators has led, according to Scotch
antiquaries,* to the preservation of some few of the relics of
their saints of ancient days down to the present time. For
instance, the Sacra Campana Sancti Kessogii and the Sacra
Campana Sancti Nolani were included among the feudal
investitures of the earldom of Perth, and are said to be
referred to as recently as the year 1674.
A later instance still is in evidence from Argyleshire,
where the parish of Kilberry takes its name from a famous
old Celtic saint, St. Barry. His clagan, or handbell, certainly
remained till the close of the eighteenth century in the
possession of the principal heritory of the parish, and, accord
ing to the letter of Mr. Campbell, owner of Kilberry Castle,
to Dr. Wilson, has a direct bearing on England. " The bell
of St. Barry's chapel," he says, writing to Dr. Wilson, "is
still in preservation at Kilberry Castle, and has long been
prostituted to the ignoble purpose of summoning the servants
of that family to their meals. It is inscribed with the saint's
name in the Latin language and Saxon character, but
unfortunately without date." Certainly this is rather puzzling.
Bells of the age of St. Barry are never inscribed, much less
dated. One can only imagine that the inscription was
painted on the bell long after it was made. The Saxon
character, if this is correct, seems to indicate a temporary
migration into England, a thing by no means impossible in
* See documents quoted by Ellacombe, Tintinnabula, p. 323.

THE BRITISH PERIOD 25
the days of raids. We shall find other cases of bells devoted
to secular uses in conjunction with those of a spiritual
character when we come to the Middle Ages. That these
saints' bells were ornamented from time to time with silver
and gold, engraved to receive lines of that black enamel
called niello, is clear from other such relics, which may
account for the discrepancy in language between the date
and the inscription of the Kilberry bell. It is sad to read of
its fate. Mr. Campbell writes, "I have heard my father
say that it fell down and cracked ; the metal was recast into
another bell, which is here now. I have heard him mention
the inscription, but do not believe there was any copy of it
kept." When the Saint's day came round, as we find it in the
Calendar of our Prayer-book, where a few only remain, it
would be appropriately marked by the ringing of the little
bell which bore the beloved name. These festal days in
many cases gave rise to the annual markets which retain the
memory of one long departed, for instance, Downham
" Winnals," at Downham Market, in Norfolk, commemorating
the local St. Winwold. Mr. Tyack, in A Book about Bells,*
records a curious usage which formerly prevailed at Congleton,
in Cheshire. Like many north-country towns which have
grown into importance in more recent times, Congleton is
only a chapelry, the parish church being Astbury. The
libera capella was dedicated in the name of St. Peter-ad-
Vincula, the day being commonly known as Lammag, and
the local wake was accordingly held on that day. But the
alteration of the Calendar was not accepted at Congleton, as
at many other places. The spirit of "give us back our
eleven days " resulted in disregard of the intercalation, and
* Page 269.

26 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
as a consequence Congleton Wake is held on August 12
annually. Whether with reference to the sound of St. Peter's
chains, I cannot say, but three acolytes (to use Mr. Tyack's
word) used to parade the town at midnight on the vigil, girt
about with leather belts to which were suspended a number
of crotals, to judge by the illustration,* of just the character
of those described. This ceremony was called " ringing St.
Peter's chains," and ended with an address at the Market
Cross on the approaching festival and the lessons to be
drawn from it. But these bells, or "chains," became diverted
from their original intention, and the performance became
degraded to mere incentive to drunken joUity, rather than to
a reverent recollection of the great Apostle. Finally, the
town authorities intervened and took possession of bells and
belts. Happily for the archaeologist, they are preserved by
the Corporation among other relics of bygone days.
The Passing Bell may well have been a custom of British
Christianity, for as demons were banished by the sound of a
bell, the time of departure of a soul would eminently need
this help. There will be found in the Middle Ages much
detail about ringing at deaths and after. It is a subject
too sad and serious to deal with merely in the spirit of an
antiquary, and it is as difficult to avoid superstition on the
one hand as to be rid of unseemly levity on the other. I
shall therefore take leave of the' traces left in Irish archaeo
logy of many strange beliefs which probably were common
to all the British races, Gael, Bret, Cymry, Beige, or . by
whatever name they be called.
The Roman invasions certainly brought to England many
marvellous improvements. What we owe to them in road-
making, in fortification, in building generally, in draining,
"¦ By Mr. Robert Head, historian of Congleton,

THE BRITISH PERIOD 27
and other material improvements, may very probably have
extended itself through implements of cookery and agri
culture to bells ; but we are almost totally destitute of proof.
Legionaries from Cilicia, from North Africa, from Spain, in
short, from all parts under Roman domination, became
stationed all over Britain, from Northumberland to Cornwall,
from Dunwich to St David's. When the break-up came,
early in the fifth century, it cannot be supposed that all
departed. There were family ties and ties of possession to
hold some. But we are without evidence, and must leave
the subject in its obscurity. Dearth of material, indeed, is
our lot in attempting to convey some idea of bells as they
were in England till a considerable time after the arrival of
the Saxon.
Architectural evidence is practically non-existent. The
crotals and dipped-sheet bells constitute the chronicler's
stock-in-trade, and in dealing with them as they were at the
time it has become necessary to follow up their subsequent
appearances. Evidence from records of the period, such as
they are, only brings to light instances of the mysterious
powers supposed to be inherent in them.
Progress in this period is slight enough, but evolution is
by no means uniform in its working. Now and then comes
a sudden acceleration of pace, the cause of which is beyond
our ken. Some felicitous moment arises — a new idea comes
into the head of one, a plan for carrying out into the head of
another, and the dull uniformity of many generations gives
place to advance, to increase of pleasure in life, to the removal
of difficulties and dangers. At any rate, when Hengist and
Horsa landed in Kent they did not find fewer bells than
Julius Caesar might have found in the same locality, if he had
been possessed of leisure to hunt for them.

CHAPTER III
THE SAXON PERIOD
RETROGRESSION, rather than progress, appears to
mark the first century and a half after the arrival of
the brothers Hengist and Horsa. It is not till the
coming of the missionary Augustine of Canterbury that we
can discern in England the signs of the great Christian
movement which had stirred the Franks in the days of
Clovis, a hundred years previously. Yet periods of distress
and disturbance are many a time prolific in gifts of poetry,
music, and other arts, and these may have been much
planned and perfected, only to be destroyed, in those decades
over which a death-like silence broods, save for "wars and
rumours of wars." The great success of St. Augustine's
mission brought forth at once the sees of Canterbury,
Rochester and London. Then followed York, Dunwich,
the Oxfordshire Dorchester, Lindisfarne, the original of
Durham, Winchester, Lichfield and Hexham from Lindis
farne, all in the space of about forty years. In A.D. 668
came the eminent Archbishop Theodore of Tarsus, and
with him the division into parishes, though this must have
been a labour requiring more than his tenure of office, which
did not last quite a quarter of a century. Of this list of
cathedral churches nothing can be said as far as bells are
concerned. 28

THE SAXON PERIOD 29
Yet one building remains, said to date from the time when
Felix the Burgundian founded the East Anglian see, the
" Old Minster " in the Southelmham half-hundred in Suffolk.
But here there is nothing which can be construed into a
campanile. The conjecture that where there was a bell it
was hung in a tree, is likely enough. It would be used for
many a purpose ; and when, in Alfred's time, the shires
were divided into hundreds, the hundred-mote would be
summoned by its voice. Winstree Hundred, in Essex, and
Theodwastre, in Suffolk, seem to take their names from the
hundred-mote tree. The precarious nature of this temporary
expedient called for something more permanent, and the
constant troubles of the Danish wars gave more and more
importance to the alarm bell. Wall-building was a marked
feature of the reign of Edward the Elder. With walls came
towers, and it is clear that by the time of his son Athelstan
there were many towers, very likely of no great height, but
high enough to send forth the warning note of a bell. So
useful was this found that a law of that excellent king,
passed in 926, made the existence of a bell-tower on an
estate the sine qud non of thanedom. By this, that union
between religion and secular justice, between the spiritual
and the material, between Church and State, which, in some
form or other, is inevitable, though the form may change
from time to time, became a notable feature of EngHsh life.
The tower, in the churchyard and generally close by the
moated grange, contained the bell which proclaimed Divine
service, announced meals and hours for work, heralded the
hundred-mote or the parish gathering, and roused the
neighbourhood in case of fire or plunder. The decree of
Athelstan was so fruitful that at the present day a large
number of towers, some round, some square, can be named

30 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
which belong to the later Saxon period, terminating i8o
years after this notable ordinance.
Nor must the bases of many other towers besides these
pass unnoticed. The casual observer often asks the date of
a church, forgetting that centuries may have elapsed between
the foundation and the clerestory. So, too, of the towers.
The smaller landowner, in his efforts after the glory of
thanedom, necessarily taxed his resources heavily. Where
other circumstances were unfavourable, operations had to
be suspended for a season, till the right time came, if not for
completion, at any rate for putting an additional stage to the
tower. The antiquity of the pointed arch must here be discussed.
Fergusson, in his Handbook of Architecture,* enters on the
topic in dealing with Saracenic structures, demonstrating its
necessity in some cases of vaulted roofing. He remarks
that—
" It is scarcely probable that the Saracenic architects would have
used this form so early and so generally as they did, if it was not a
usual and a customary shape of arch in the East at the time when
they first began to build. There is every reason to suppose that this
was the case ; and that from the time of the building of the sepulchral
chambers at Mycenae to the Christian era there is no difficulty in
tracing it in Greece, in Etruria, and in Asia Minor wherever a Pelasgic
or Oriental people are found."
In another place he speaks of it as —
" Currently used in the East from at least the time of Constantine,"
adding, " We need not, therefore, feel surprised that a people trading
with the Levant from their great port of Marseilles should have thence
borrowed this feature ; or perhaps we might rather say that a people
descended from a colony of Pelasgic Greeks should revive an old and
* Pages 381, 599.

THE SAXON PERIOD 31
time-honoured form, when they found it particularly suited to their
constructive purposes. So remarkably suitable, indeed, was it, that we
should not wonder even if they had actually invented it de novo, and
it is not without regret that we perceive it abandoned or perverted."
Backed by these considerations, which are something
beyond a mere expression of opinion, we need not hesitate
to include among our Saxon towers several which have,
especially in the lowest stage, a single window with the
equilateral arch.
In monastic life there are earlier notices of the use of
bells. One of the most remarkable is that given by Bede.*
The Abbess Hilda is passing away from this world in the
house at Strenaeshale, or Whitby. Thirteen miles away is
Hackness (Hacanos), just founded by her.
" Erat in ipso monasterio qusdam sanctimonialis femina, nomine
Begu, quae xxx. et amplius dedicata Domino virginitate, in mona-
chica \sic\ conversatione serviebat. Haec tunc ip dormitorio sororum
pausans audivit subito in aere notum campana sonum, quo ad ora-
tiones excitari vel convocari solebant cum quis eorum de saeculo
fuisset evocatus ; apertisque, ut sibi videtur, oculis, aspexit, detecto
domus culmine, fusam desuper lucem omnia replevisse ; cui videlicet
luci dum soUicita intenderet, vidit animam praefatae Dei famulae in
ipsa luce, comitantibus ac ducentibus angelis, ad ccelum ferri."
This was in the year 680, and the expression, " notum
campanae sonum," is of great moment, as showing the
familiarity with the sound of the bell at the time in reli
gious houses. There is no mention of the usage in the
account of Bede's own death. Sometimes a tabula of wood
is struck for the same object, of which instances are quoted
in Plummer's Bede.\ They are still used in the Eastern
Church. * Historia Ecclesiastica, iv. 2. t Introduction, p. xxvii.

32 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
The use of signa, or large bells, is decreed in the Excerp
tions of St. Egbert, Archbishop of York, A.D. 750, and
certainly not as novelties. " Ut omnes sacerdotes horis com-
petentibus diei et noctis suarum sonent ecclesiarum signa,
et sacra tunc Deo celebrant officia, et populos erudiant
quomodo aut quibus Deus adorandus est horis." In the
preceding century they are mentioned in monastic Rules, for
instance those of St. Benedict, and in such a way as to imply
that they had been in use for some time.
To revert to towers. We owe to Rickman a great
impulse given to the subject of Saxon remains, which was
brought under his notice first by his friend Twopeny in
1826. The latter had been at work all over England,
discovering portions of Saxon work from Whittingham in
Northumberland to the east end of North Burcombe church
in Wiltshire. A few years afterwards John Henry Parker
increased Rickman's list well-nigh sevenfold. The follow
ing towers were claimed by him, though not all without
hesitation, as Saxon : in Bedfordshire, Clapham ; in Berk
shire, Wi'ckham and Cholsey ; in Bucks., Caversfield and
Lavendon ; in Cambridge, St. Benet's ; in Durham, Monks
Wearmouth ; in Essex, Holy Trinity Church, Colchester ;
in Gloucestershire, Deerhurst; in Huntingdonshire, Wood-
stone, noted by Parker, and now destroyed ; in Kent,
Swanscombe ; in Lincolnshire, Clee, Holton-le-Clay, Waith,
and St. Peter-at-Gowts and St. Mary-le-Wigford in Lincoln ;
in Norfolk, Newton-next-Castleacre ; in Northamptonshire,
which bears the palm for the grandeur of its work, "the
four B's," Barnack, Brigstock, Brixworth, and Earl's Barton ;
in Northumberland, Bolam ; in Oxfordshire, St. Michael's,
Oxford, and according to Bloxam, Northleigh ; in Suffolk,
Parker only notes Ilketshall, — there are four adjacent

THE SAXON PERIOD 33
parishes of that name, and I presume that he means either
St. Andrew's or St. Margaret's— but the county abounds in
round towers, many of which, in my opinion, come under the
head of Saxon lower stages with later additions ; in Sussex,
Bosham and ^Sompting ; and in Warwickshire, Wootton
Wawen.* East Anglia is the land of round towers. Suffolk
contains forty-five of the whole, almost all the rest being
in Norfolk ; there are three in Cambridgeshire — Bartlow,
Snailwell, and Westley Waterless ; and in Northamptonshire
only Slapton. The absence of good stone is one reason to
account for the round tower, and the proximity of the same
accounts for the excellence of the Northamptonshire square
towers. Consonances of bells, such as were indisputably in
existence in the later Saxon period, were the very tenants
most suitable for the Barnack type of tower.
Development in bells and belfries seems to have been
simultaneous, and towards the end of the period we are
presented with a well-known example of both in the history
of the great Abbey of Crowland, in South Lincolnshire.
Like many other monasteries, it rose from a hermitage.
To this place, then a small patch of tolerably firm ground
in the midst of treacherous bogs, occasionally covered with
thick underwood, but more commonly stark and staring in
their native blackness, and affording but an insecure footing
to bitterns and snipes, came by divine guidance Guthlac, a
man of noble family, his clerk Betelin, and a man Tatwin,
acquainted with the country, who directed their course to
the desired spot. After the death of Guthlac, Ethelbald, who
became King of the Mercians in 716, erected a monastery
* This list of Saxon towers has been greatly increased by later and more care
ful research. Professor Baldwin Brown's list of 1903 (The Arts in Early England,
ii. 335-343), slightly supplemented by Dr. Cox, includes about seventy examples
of pre-Conquest towers in addition to those named by Parker.
D

34 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
to the hermit's memory at great charge and with no small
difficulty, as is evidenced by the lines of Felix, "a pretty
ancient monk," as Camden calls him —
" Nunc exercet ibi se munificentia Regis,
Et magnum templum magno molimine condit.
At cum tam mollis, tam lubrica, tam male constans
Fundamenta palus non ferret saxea, palos
Praecipit infigi quercino robore caesos,
Leucarumque novem spatio rate fertur arena ;
Inque solum mutatur humus, suffultaque tali
Cella basi, multa stat consummata labore."
We owe no small gratitude to Camden for his translation
of these pretty hexameters of Felix —
" Now here the Prince's bounteous mind was shown.
And with vast charge a stately pile begun.
But when the trembling fenns, the faithless moor
Sinking betray'd the stony mass they bore ;
At his command huge posts of lasting oak
Down the soft earth were for a basis stuck :
Nine leagues the labouring barges brought the sand
Thus rotten turf was turn'd to solid land ;
And thus the noble frame does still unshaken stand."
Thus the hermit life of Guthlac and his two companions
in their huts excavated from the side of a mound of turf,
rewarded by many a miracle, was commemorated. Whether
they had small bells is not on record, but they wanted
them badly for purposes of exorcism,
" If out of the same author," says Camden, " I should describe
the Devils of Crowland, with their blubber lips, fiery mouths, scaly
faces, beetle heads, sharp teeth, long chins, hoarse throats, black
skins, hump shoulders, big bellys, burning loins, bandy legs, tail'd
buttocks, is^c, that formerly haunted these places, and troubled

THE SAXON PERIOD 35
Guthlaais and the Monks, you'd laugh perhaps at the story, and
much more at my madness in telling it."
Two centuries and a half rolled away from the date of
the foundation, and Turketyl, cousin and Chancellor to
King Edred, was hospitably received at the house, put off
the lay habit, became Abbot, endowed the Abbey with
numerous manors, commenced and carried out a more ex
tensive set of buildings, and, what is more to our immediate
purpose, made one great bell, which he named Guthlac.
The seventh Abbot, Egelric, nephew and successor to
Turketyl, added six more : two large ones, Bartholomew
and Betelin (the thumb of the former was among the relics
of the place, and Turketyl had always carried it about with
him; Betelin has just been mentioned as Guthlac's clerk);
two middle ones, Turketyl and Tatwin, the latter Guthlac's
guide ; and two small ones, Pega and Bega, the former the
sister of Guthlac, herself p. devotee of good fame in North
amptonshire, from whom Peakirk takes its name, and Bega,
the Saint Bee of the north. The scale arrangement of the
seven bells may not have been in accordance with our ideas,
but they failed not to please, and the chronicler Ingulphus
records, " nee erat tunc tanta consonantia campanarum in tota
Anglia." These words are well worth observation, clearly
indicating that before the year 1000 — for Egelric's office
ended in 984 — there must have been a considerable number
of peals of bells in England. Dr. William Stukeley, himself
a " Hollander," a native of the south-east of Lincolnshire,
practising as a physician at his native Holbeach and at
Boston, says that " they resounded with melody through the
extended plains of Holland ; whence the proverb ' as sweet
as Croyland bells.' "
As to the tenor of this peal, Bell Guthlac, its powers were

36 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
not limited to charming the ear. According to Thomas
Fuller, its sound was a remedy for the headache ! Alas ! that
no trace remains of this ancient and glorious seven. The
chronicler tells us nothing of their founder's name or locality.
They remained, a local marvel, for little more than a century.
Then in Ingulphus's own abbacy came the fire of 1091 —
breaking out in the belfry. The Abbot ran to the church
door, and tried to get in, but had a narrow escape from the
melted metal which poured down from the tower. Soon
down came the tower and, with its bells and frames, whatever
they were, became a ruin. Later on we shall have to record
a modified renaissance. The seven bells which so delighted
the ears of the "Hollanders" may have ranged la, si, ut, re, mi,
fa, sol, which, according to Eberhard,* was the arrangement
for a set of small bells.
There are two well-known illustrations of these little sets
suspended from an arch, and struck with a hammer. Five is
the number in each instance, and the scale ascends from the
player's right hand to his left. The older one is from a
MS. of St. Blaise, assigned by some even to the ninth century,
but certainly not later than our Saxon period. The bells
seem round-mouthed, hung on a horizontal cord across a
round arch. One pillar supporting is drawn, surmounted by
a representation of a stone-built bell-cot with two windows.
Another, from a MS. in the Royal Library at Brussels, gives
a female with two hammers, playing on four bells suspended
by a cord across an arch. As the draughtsman has placed
her directly under the cord, it is hard to say whether the
sequence upwards is from her right hand or her left hand.
A third, which will be familiar to all students of bell literature,
portrays King David in crown and robes, performing with
* Quoted by Ellacombe, Tintinnabula, p. 307.

THE SAXON PERIOD 37
two hammers on five bells, which are suspended from cusps
in a four-centred arch. The order of the bells is upward in
tone from the right hand, as in the St. Blaise MS. Though
this is clearly of a later date, it is probably an adaptation of
the same subject in an earlier style.
The Crowland Chronicles have introduced to us the
practice of naming bells after persons of good repute. This
practice was a part of the ceremony of dedication, used not
only for bells, but for all the material accessories of Divine
worship. In this dedication there is thought to have been
included a cleansing with holy water, which seems, to have
obtained the name of baptism, which is certainly forbidden
by Charlemagne in one of his Capitularies issued in 789.
There is a difficulty in understanding what was forbidden.
Some suppose that the ceremony had been extended from
bells used in the church to those in private possession, and
that it was conducive to superstitious and unauthorized
practices. Others again think that the service had become
developed from solemn dedication to acts not distinguishable
from personal baptism. I will revert to this subject in my
last chapter. The injunction, if intended to prohibit ceremonial
cleansing at the dedication of church bells, was ineffective, as
testified by Durandus : " Etsi capitularia Caroli Magni, anno
789, jubeant ut Clocae non baptizentur, antiquus tamen
usus Ecclesiae obtinuit, ut signorum ceu Cainpanarum bene-
dictio Baptismi indigetur." Here a distinction is observable
between Clocce on the one part, and Signa or Campance on
the other, rather favouring the interpretation of those who
think that the dedication, by washing, of little bells in private
possession was the thing prohibited by the Capitulary.
Martene,* whom Ellacombe quotes, distinguishes between
* III. cap. 31.

38 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
"unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum" and "lotio,
unctio, nominis impositio, quae tam baptismum quam
baptismi signa et symbola representare dicenda sunt."
The testimony of that eminent scholar, Alcuin, should have
great weight, when it is borne in mind that he was a native
of York, and educated at the Minster School, of which he
afterwards became master. His youth and early manhood
were passed under the influence of Archbishop Egbert ; his
more mature years at first under Archbishop Ethelbert.
When that prelate died, in 781, Alcuin was sent to Rome for
the pallium for the new Archbishop. On his return journey
he met Charlemagne at Parma, evidently made a great
impression on that monarch, and in the following year was
induced to leave the land of his fathers, and devote himself to
the work of educating, first the royal family, and in the end
many of the uncultivated Franks. He was engaged in these
labours at Aix-la-Chapelle, under the Emperor's eye (the
Emperor being sometimes under his eye, as voluntary pupil),
at the very time when this Capitulary was put forth. We
can hardly fail to see his hand in it. His words, as quoted
by Roccha * are, " neque novum videri debet Campanas
benedicere et ungere, eisque nomen imponere." Here there
is no mention of baptisma or even lotio. To the same effect
the late Dr. Oliver, a priest in the Roman Catholic Church,
recognized by all who knew him as one of profound anti
quarian and ecclesiological research, informed Mr. Ellacombe,
that the baptism of bells had never obtained in the Roman
Church, but only the setting apart from all secular uses —
benediction, consecration. Per contra, in the Pontifical of
Pope Clement VIII. (1592-1605), in directions De Benedictione
Signi vel Campance, vas aquce benedicendce and aspersorium are
"' Commentary, c. v.

THE SAXON PERIOD 39
enumerated ; and after appropriate prayers and the mingling
of salt with the water, follows : " His peractis, Pontifex acceptd
mitrd, incipit lavare Campanam cum dictd aqud ; et ministri
prosequtmtur lotionem, lavantes eam totaliter inttts et extra,
deinde cum linteo mundo extergunt"
My function in this chapter is to endeavour to ascertain
what was the practice at the dedication of bells. If I cannot
reconcile my authorities, it is at least a consolation to know
that many others have been placed in the same predicament.
In Germany many treatises on bells in Latin were put forth ;
some as University Acts, in the seventeenth century. Some
of these are in my possession ; and I quote from a dissertation
by Hans Christian Reimann, published at Eisenach, in 1679.
After a strong condemnation of the practice, he continues
" Et quidem Johannes hujus nominis xxiii. Pontifex Romanus,
A.C. DCCCCLXV. primum Campanarum baptizationem insti
tuit, magnamque Lateranensem Campanam de suo nuncupari
voluit nomine, indeque mos inolevit praeposterus maxime
que absurdus Campanas consecrandi aqu&, humanisque in
signiendi nominibus." For this he quotes Osiander, Wolf,
Hunn, Dannhauer, and above all Baronius and Bellarmine
He adds, not without a sense of humour, " Sed hodie non
nullos Doctores Pontificios ipsos, qui emunctionis naris sunt,
talismodi Campanarum baptismi pudet, quas propterea bap
tizari negare malunt." As an example of this view he cites
"Mich. Anton. Frances de Urrutigoyti," who, like the
"jewel in the head of a toad," is "unknown to us" (to use
the language of one old-fashioned Latin dictionary), the
author of a book on Cathedral Churches, " ubi prolixe agit
de Campanais, negatque omnino baptizandas sed duntaxat
benedicendas esse fatetur." But Reimann will not suffer
this : " Sed quid negatione opus, cum Durandus, lib. i de

40

THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

ritibus Eccl. c. 22 express^ dicat : Baptizantur Campance!'
He proceeds to quote other authorities, and later instances
of baptism, which could now be multiplied ad infinitum.
Many witnessed the ceremony near Honfleur, at a village
called Bonneville, in 1902.
Among the sparse memorials of the days before the
Conquest is an item in the inventory of the goods of the
church of Sherburn-in-Elmet, in the early part of the tenth
century, preserved at York : " iiij hand bellan & vj hangende
bellan." * In a representation of the funeral of Edward the

Fig. 3.
Confessor, on the Bayeaux tapestry, two boys are depicted
as ringing two handbells apiece (Fig. 3). Inventories of
the tenth century are verily rarities ; but were others to
come to light, it could hardly fail that there would be no
lack of similar items. The hand of the destroyer, however,
has rendered the recovery of most a matter for despair.
The man who burnt ancient documents because, as he said,
"he could not read them, and believed that nobody else
could," was a type of a large class all along the ages.
* Fabric Rolls of York Minster (Surtees Society).

THE SAXON PERIOD

41

Pre-Norman arrangements for hanging bells in turrets
and swinging them are shown in the Chatsworth Bene-
dictional of St. Ethelwold (Fig. 4), and in Royal MSS. 19
C, i. f. 57 (Fig. 5).
In closing this period we feel that at the end of the long
series of Angle, Jute, and Saxon reigns, the life of the country
has assumed a very different phase from that which first

FiG. 4.

Fig. 5.

encountered us, and that bells have had their share in the
development in manufacture and musical use.
The next chapter includes about a quarter of the time
discussed in this chapter — a century and a half in the place
of six centuries. The slow progress of the remote years will
attain to greater velocity, and England really begins to make
good her claim to be called " the ringing island."

CHAPTER IV
THE NORMAN PERIOD
I THINK it is clear, from the constant recurrence of
" T. R. E." in Domesday Book, that some survey of the
kingdom had been taken shortly before the Norman
Conquest. Under these letters, however, I have failed to
find any notice of a church. Parishes were far from being
settled as to boundaries and jurisdiction, those of monks
or manors being more definite. Lords of manors erected
their bell-towers, or placed bells in little bell-cots on their
houses, and sometimes, by performances of sacramental
rites, stealthily at first, but gradually becoming more public,
the libera capella passed into recognition as a parish
church. I have ventured to take my own rural deanery as a
specimen, for comparing the end of the Conqueror's reign
with the present day. The deanery of Hoxne now contains
twenty-five churches. Of these, twelve are not referred to
in the Domesday Survey. One certainly (Metfield) was a
libera capella as late as the days of Henry V., and further
investigation would in all probability bring others into the
same category. Where abbeys and monasteries owned
manors, their granges, often at a distance from the parish
church to which they were supposed to be attached, were
generally furnished with some chamber where a clerk could
42

THE NORMAN PERIOD 43
perform the service at the appointed hours, and occupy his
leisure in teaching the children, especially the sons, of the
steward of the manor and his neighbours, sending on the
more promising youth to the cloister school. For such
purposes bells were of great service. Their sound has
summoned, we may be sure, numbers of village lads to the
acquisition of learning, which afterwards qualified them for
the cure of souls. The local names not only of bishops and
rectors, but of secular justices and other lay officials, fre
quently point to proximity, if not to a religious house, to
some one of their manors. The impetus given to archi
tecture by the coming of the Normans is shown markedly
in their towers. All over the kingdom may be seen these
grand witnesses to Norman liberality, artistic feeling, archi
tectural skill, and trained workmanship.
France had been setting the example of the multiplication
of bells in the same tower. M. Dieudonnd Dergny, in Les
Cloches du Pays de Bray,* considers that Maas set the example,
when Bishop Alddric had twelve cast for that cathedral.
King Robert the Wise (996-1031) presented five to the
church of St. Aignan, in Orleans, of which one was named
after himself. The monks of Aumale laid claim to the
possession of the most ancient bells of Normandy. At a
later date the diocesan statutes of Saint Charles Borromee
decreed that a cathedral should have from five to seven
bells ; a collegiate church, three ; a parish church, two or three.
From M. Dergny's account these, even where the statute
was obeyed, seem to have been small, recast in succeeding
generations with more metal. Still, there was quite enough
going on in Normandy and the rest of France to give an
additional start to the growth of that love of " steeple music "
* Page 8.

44 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
I
which, as we have seen, had already taken root in our land.
The maximum of seven bells for a cathedral may be com
pared with the case of the perished Crowland Guthlac,
Bartholomew, Betelin, Tatwin, Turketyl, Pega, and Bega,
and the minimum of two with their successors. For some
score and more of years the ears of the Hollanders longed
in vain for some of the sweet notes from the Abbey, so dear
to them. A little revival came in 1113, when a brazier of
Boston, Fergus by name, gave two skillets to occupy the
lowly belfry recently erected by the monks, who, helping
themselves, were helped by this kind neighbour, a foretaste
of the years of greater prosperity which the chronicler ventures
to anticipate, "when we propose by the Lord's assistance
to make alterations in all these matters for the better."
When we read that Ingulphus, who died four years before
the Boston artificer's gift, replaced among other requisites
the bells, it would seem that these were handbells, and that
this kind of ringing is all that is to be understood by the
office assigned after the fire to Senian de Lak. He is made
keeper of the church, and amongst his various functions he
is to ring all notices in the church in the night and in the
daytime, with a few exceptions when the duty is assigned
to the monks. This reference to Fergus of Boston, who is
called brasiarius, is the first appearance of the name of a
bell-founder, and may give a hint as to the previous makers
of bells. His locality is in the great port of Lincolnshire,
St. Botolph's town, and his name brings rather a Caledonian
savour with it.
The next star which rises above our horizon is Alwoldus
of London, a good old Saxon name. My lamented friend,
John C. L. Stahlschmidt, who served his year as Master of
the Founders' Company, searched through Stow's Annals,

THE NORMAN PERIOD 45
the Liber Albus, the Liber Costumarum, the Guildhall Letter-
Books, and above all the Rolls of the Hustings Court, for
all citizens who may have practised the craft of bell-founding.
Most of them are designated ollarius, or potter ; but there is
no possible mistake about Alwold, who is campanarius.
This date is cire. 1 1 50.*
The doubling of the one bell which often sufficed in
Saxon days has many an example in the double bell-cot
of the Norman era. The gable of a church in smaller and
poorer parishes proved a convenient place for some kind of
bell-cot, and there are but few parts of England where they
are unknown. In the illustrations to Parker's Glossary of
Architecture^ are a double bell gable of a very primitive
order at Littleton, Hampshire ; and a good genuine bell-cot
at Northborough, Northamptonshire, strengthened by slender
buttresses terminating at its foot, which is well elevated
above the roof-ridge. At Kemsing, near Sevenoaks, in
Kent ; at my own Withersdale, in Suffolk ; at Littleton,
Hampshire ; Manton, Rutland ; Northborough, Northamp
tonshire, and elsewhere, are examples of the two bells in
a simple bell-cot on the gable.
Canterbury Cathedral is described by the monk Gervasius,
who witnessed the fire there in 1174, as having the tower,
raised upon great pillars, placed in the middle of the church ,
like the centre in a circle, and having a gilt cherub on its
apex. It is not clear whether this was Lanfranc's plan, or
that of the priors Ernulph and Conrad, probably of the later
period, for we read that Prior Conrad gave to Canterbury five
large bells, the first and second of which required ten men,
the third eleven, the fourth eight, and the fifth twenty-four
=* Surrey Bells and London Bell-Founders, p. 72.
t Illustrations, Vol. II. pt. i. plate 32.

46 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
men to ring them.* At Lincoln Cathedral we have not
at first the central arrangement. According to Stukeley.f
there were two bells, the gift of Bishop Robert de Chesney
(1148-1167), and during the seven years that the see was
usurped by Geoffrey Plantagenet, the natural son of Henry
II., who was never consecrated to his high office, among
other ornaments which he bestowed on the cathedral, no
doubt from its temporalities, possibly as a sop to his con
science, was a pair of large and sonorous bells. To this we
have a twofold evidence — Giraldus Cambrensis and John de
Schelby. Of Geoffrey Plantagenet Giraldus uses words
which are followed closely by the other authority : " Ipse
quoque ornatus ecclesiae suae plurimum propriis donariis
amplificavit. Cui et inter cetera quoque campanas duas
grandes, egregias atque sonoras devota largitione donavit."
This pair was more wisely placed in one of the western
towers, the lower stages of which were built about 1140.
When Paul of Caen became Abbot of St. Albans in 1077,
after he had completed the central tower, he stored {instau-
ravit) it with bells, but no number is given. Very soon an
important addition was made to his store. There was an
Angle thane, a dweller in the forests in that country, Lyolf by
name, rich in goats and sheep, but suffering from the depre
dations of nocturnal thieves. Tired out with these troubles,
he sold many of his animals and bought a bell, which he gave
to the abbey. When he first heard its sound his joy broke
forth into jocularity. " Eya, how sweetly my goats bleat and
my sheep baa!" His wife presented another bell, and it is to
be noted that the two rang out in pleasant accord.
The expressions used imply that these bells were the
" Ellacombe, Miscellaneous Scraps, p. 443.
t Itinerarium, p. 92.

THE NORMAN PERIOD 47
outcome of some foundry, most likely in London, and that
the founder had learned the way of casting them to a true
sequence. Their melody so delighted the lady that she is
reported to have said, " I do not believe that this couple lack
God's favour, who hath united me and my husband in lawful
matrimony and in the bonds of mutual love." And this is
in very early Norman days. The solemn dedication of these
bells was delayed till halfway through the twelfth century,
when the noted chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth, just con
secrated to his brief tenure of the see of St. Asaph, was
visiting the Verulam abbey. At the request of Abbot Robert
(1151-1166), he made chrism and holy oil, conferred orders,
dedicated altars, and blessed the bells of the Church of
St. Alban, as well small as great. It is surely not un
reasonable that we should like to know what the Bishop of
London, Ricardus Beaumis Secundus, previously Archdeacon
of Middlesex, thought of all this. But our curiosity cannot
be gratified. When Leofric, Bishop of Crediton, removed the Devon
shire see to Exeter in 1050, he found seven bells there
already. "Erant autem antea nisi septem campans suspensse,
nunc sunt tredecim suspensae, praeter duodecim tintinnabula."
Such are the words of a Saxon MS. in the Bodleian Library,
quoted by Mr. Ellacombe in his opening words of The
Cathedral Bells of Exeter.
To turn to East Anglia, the foundations of a great
campanile still exist at Norwich, to the south of what is
now the Erpingham gateway. They were laid bare in 1881,
and showed the ground plan of a massive structure 36^ feet
square, with a great circular projection at the north-east
corner, presumably intended for a well staircase. There was
also another projection on the east side, on the slant, possibly

48 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
the foundation of a buttress, of doubtful continuity. No
evidence has been found as to the completion of this tower.
The terrible riots of 1272 swept away the " great tower" and
" the great belfry beyond the choir," but the order of narra
tive separates the former from the " great gate," and it may
have been contiguous with the cathedral. There exists no
known record of bells in the cathedral during the Norman
period, but John of Oxenedes gives us two precious scraps
about the celebrated Abbey of St. Benet at Hulme. Of
Abbot .Alwoldus, who died two years after William the
Conqueror, the chronicler writes, " ad consummationem
perduxit ecclesiam cum campanario orientali, occidentali
imperfecto a medio post se relicto." Richerus was the fifth
abbot. Of him, Oxenedes says, " campanarium occidentale
ad finem perfectum perduxit. Insuper et duas majores fundi
fecit campanas." This Richer died in 1125. The use of
campanarium for campanile is remarkable. The bells were
clearly not the work of the Benedictines, and the neighbour
hood and easy transit by water indicates Norwich as the
seat of the foundry.
At Crowland the fire seems to have been owing to care
lessness. At Ely, in 11 1 1, it may be referred to lightning.
" Eodem anno facta est tempestas validissima tonitruumque
(sic) terribile, quo turris ecclesiae de Heli cecidit et ecclesia
succensa est." * Such calamities, in part, account for the
absence of the ancient larger signa at the present day. But
how were these huge bells sounded 1 Pulsatio is the word
for the method. " Clocking," that is, pulling the clapper
against the side of the bell, might have been in vogue for a
time. It is not extinct now ; but whether in earlier or later
days, it is certain to bring its penalty. Unskilful or careless
* Annates de Wintonia (Ann. Monast. Rolls Series), ii, 44,

THE NORMAN PERIOD 49
strikers fail to release the clapper. Vibration is interfered
with, and if thermometric conditions are unfavourable at
the time, and there be a weakness arising from the original
casting, crack goes the bell. Besides, the note evolved by
this easy method is apt to be both feeble and dull. Another
plan must be found. Percussio, which suggests striking from
the outside, would be liable to the same objection, would
involve needless tower-climbing in the case of signa, and
would be hardly possible in the case of bell-cots. The
cymbalum, a gong, was a different instrument, and the mal
leolus, usually hung at its side, harmed it not. Useful
examples of both practices are to be found in Mr. J. W.
Clark's admirable edition of the observances in use at the
Augustinian Priory, founded by Hugh Picot, close to the
church of St. Giles near the castle at Cambridge in 1092,
and removed by Pain Peverell to Barnwell twenty years after
wards. The sacrist, to whom was entrusted the care of all
things necessary for the services of the church, is to be helped
by a subsacrist, who in many other places is called matricu-
larius. Among his duties are "signa pulsare, horologium
temporare; ad matutinas et in estate post meridianam ad
excitandos fratres in dormitorio nolam pulsare." * Cymbalum
the signal for prandium, occurs in directions about the frater.
" Quando fratres exeunt processionaliter de ecclesia ad prandien-
dum, si custos ordinis semel percusserit cymbalum, licite possunt
fratres manus abluere, et in refectorium intrare, et sedendo expectare.
Si autem cymbalum non percusserit, forte quia prandium non est
paratum, vel quia panis est in clibano, vel quia celerarius cum clave
est alibi occupatus, tunc non debent manus abluere, set in sedibus
suis in claustro sedere, et orare vel legere, quousque cymbalum
percuciatur." t * Page 72. t Page 156.

50 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
According to Durandus, this cymbalum was rung in the
cloister ; and there was a squilla for the refectory, while
the clock had a nolula. These are proper subjects for
perctissio. The swinging of campance and signa had be
come matters of necessity, and though, as we have seen
at Canterbury, it required quite an army of men to do
the work — sixty-three men to keep five bells going — the
difficulty had to be faced. The treading plank or planks,
and the stock and gudgeons, were first brought into play.
Then, with the help of the immortal lever, by which
Archimedes professed himself able to move the earth
if a standing - place were granted him, even the pon
derous signum could be set going by the number required
by a smaller campana. This is the parent of modern
chiming, and, in a certain sense, of modern ringing. In no
other way is the full sound of the bell more effectively
sustained. The clapper is, of course, less moved in the
swinging than the bell itself, and it is the latter that
strikes the former, rather than the former the latter. As
the two part company on the instant after impact, there
is no interference with the vibration. Hence arises that
solemn " sough " which fills the air and hangs about for two
or three minutes after the chiming has ceased.
Improvements on the lever, which will be treated of in
their turn, have given a certain power to the chimer, which
he did not possess to any great extent in the days of that
Archimedean engine. So, grand as the sound of each bell
might have been, it was hard to get melody out of the
tuneful company. This advance in striking necessitated a
frame for the bell to hang in. It was then fastened to the
stock, a block of strong wood, generally oak, a little longer
than the diameter of the bell at the mouth, and the gudgeons

THE NORMAN PERIOD 51
or pivots of iron, worked in sockets, which are still in some
places called " brasses," indicating the bronze of which they
were first made, though now they are usually of iron.
Unfortunately, few tower-bells in England exist that can
be referred unhesitatingly to the twelfth century, or even to
the early part of the thirteenth. The single bell at Chaldon,
Surrey, may be mentioned as an instance. It can be said,
however, with little hesitation, that the lever system led to a
general use of the common method of attaching bell and stock
to each other, though when this method came in we cannot
say. Smaller cast bells soon came to have a handle cast to
them at the time, and in the same mould, and as their size
increased the handle became an arch. Then the arch became
three arches, the largest in the middle ; and to complete the
plan, two half-arches projected from each of the supports of
the middle arch at right angles. The stock was cut deep in
the centre for the reception of this canon, or these canons ; for
both singular and plural forms are employed. In this way,
the stock having the gudgeons screwed to the lower side of it,
the bells became more and more under the control of the
chimer, whose rope, fastened to the end of the lever, went
down into the chamber called the solarium, a name still
preserved by ringers in their word "seller." To this com
parative ease of motion may be ascribed the phenomenon
recorded by Matthew Paris in his Chronica Majora, A.D. 1165 :
" Eodemque anno terrsemotus factus est septimo Kalendas
Februarii in Ely et Nortfolc et Sufoc, ita quod stantes pros-
travit, et campanas pulsavit."
In Walter of Odyngton's instructions for founding, to
which we shall refer in the next chapter, he gives no detail as
to this campanic head-gear. The earliest bells which we
possess are cast with it. In every county some may be found.

52 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
rather long in shape, with sloping crowns, without letter,
ornament, or any mark, save, perhaps, a few horizontal lines
at the crown or lip, or both, which may have summoned the
retainers of some thane or lord of the manor, when some
'' sufficient clerk," priest, deacon, subdeacon, acolyte, exorcist,
or lad " primam habens tonsuram," did what in him lay in
the way of Divine service. Such an one, as I think, yet
hangs at the top of the gable of Wordwell church, on the
heaths between Brandon and Bury St, Edmunds. I have
also indicated the second at Kennett, Cambridgeshire, and
the treble at All Saints', Cambridge, as of this character.
Among suspected specimens are a pair at Pilton, Rutland ;
one at Llangystenyn, Carnarvonshire ; the treble at Hauxwell,
Yorkshire ; the bell at Oare, and the trebles at Darenth and
Luddesdown, Kent. In working up Dorset lately, I was
informed of two inscriptionless pairs, in a gable at Broadway,
in a turret at West Orchard. There are also two at North
Wootton and three at Holwell, single bells at Plush,
Mapperton, Buckland Ripers, and Hanford. This last is
especially described as " pear-shaped." These by no means
exhaust the Dorset list. In Mr. Lynam's Staffordshire book,
pairs of blank bells are recorded at Amington, Bradley-le-
Moors, and Sneyd, and solitary ones at Brereton, Dunston,
Edingale, Marston, and Thorpe Constantine. Some of these,
and other blank tinklers in all counties, might prove to belong
to later times. The Eastern Counties have plenty of them ;
to name one, there is the larger of the two in the double
bell-turret at Withersdale, already mentioned.
But this list must be taken for what it is, conjecture.
There is no direct evidence, nor can there well be.
In following up the Canterbury history, we find that
about sixty years after Prior Conrad's time a sixth was

THE NORMAN PERIOD 53
added by Prior Wybert, much larger than any of Conrad's
five. The account of it is, " Signum quoque magnum in
clocario posuit, quod triginta duo homines ad sonandum
trahunt," eight more than were required for Conrad's largest.
The lever had not yet come in at Canterbury, it is plain. The
plank system, still in use on the Continent, was in vogue ;
for, as Stahlschmidt justly observes, "Thirty-two men hang
ing on to a bell-rope is clearly impossible."
The history of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmund's during
the Norman period must not pass unnoticed. A great in
fluence was that of the third abbot, Baldwin (1065-1007),
who, with the help of two energetic sacrists, Thurstan and
Tolinus, planned and began the great Norman church of the
abbey, working from the east. The scheme included a great
central tower, which must have been carried to a considerable
height in the abbacy of Robert II., who procured " a great
bell, or the great bell " (the word being probably signum,
which would admit of either translation) for a large sum,*
Again, great progress was made in the days of Anselm,
seventh abbot, who, like Abbot Baldwin, had two strong
assistants in his sacrists Ralph and Herveus, who are de
scribed as "men of entire wisdom." Plans were changed,
some of the recently erected structure was pulled down. The
church of St. James was built, not, of course, as we now see
it, with its tower, still called the Norman tower. What it
had in the way of bells we know not, but a clocarium was
built, in which, subsequently, a peal of bells was placed.
And so when the immortal Sampson of Tottington became
the tenth abbot, his reception was marked by a grand sound
on more sides than one.
* I regret that I cannot quote from the original. My information comes mainly
from Dr. M. R. James's admirable paper, Camb. Antiq. Soc, series No. xxviii.

54 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
" To the gate-tower of the graveyard,
'Mid loud-clanging bells, and chanting,
All the convent went to meet him.
Samson, from his horse dismounting.
Barefoot walked within the portal.
Paused the organ, bells were silent.
As he neared the great High Altar,
Knelt in earnest supplication,
Kissed the shrine, and made his offering." *
One point, however, is missed in this pretty version of our
friend Jocelin de Brakelond, who tells us that the reception
of Abbot Samson was " with ringing of bells inside the choir
and without." The latter were, of course, the bells in the
clocarium. Those inside the choir — tintinnabula — may have
been rung by hand, or suspended to a screen. There are
instances of both kinds as we pass into later times. Small
cast bells were evidently improving in make, and as files were
used in tuning, they could be adjusted into proper sequence,
and so chant-music of the Gregorian manner evolved from
them. Ellacombe has given some good specimens of these
little tinklers which had passed through the mould. One
from Llandeasant, in the Isle of Anglesey,! was described in
the Archceologia Cambrensis, 1861.
Another from the far north of Scotland, like the Barre
Garreagh, has retained the shape of the riveted bell, though of
cast bronze. It was found lying in a window in the parish
church of Insh, which stands on a slight eminence at the
north end of Loch Insh on the Spey. Both of these bells,
as well as that of St. Fillan, have a moulding round the
mouth, telling of the foundry rather than of the smithy. In
* Abbot Samson, by the Rev. R. W, Barber, p. 20,
t Tintinnabula, p. 317.

THE NORMAN PERIOD 55
Bloxam's Gothic Architecture, p. 383, is a notice of one
described as an " Ancient Sanctus Bell," found at Warwick.
It is of the " pear-shaped " order, with sloping crown. At the
shoulder are a single moulded line and a double moulded
line, while pairs are above and below the lip. The tongue is
unduly large, which may account for a fatal fracture at the
lip. The canon is of the hut form, with a round hole
through it. -
In closing this chapter with tintinnabula, the regret for
something beyond historical evidence as to the Norman
period is keenly felt by all who enter on the subject.
Existing signa and campance are "conspicuous by their
absence," Fires account for some of the destruction, but
fall of towers for more. The allocation of bells to central
towers is a structural error. Such buildings have enough
to do to sustain their own weight. It is with good reason
that Dr. Montague James remarks, in his Essay on Bury
St. Edmund's A bbey, that " Norman towers, and particularly
central towers, had a very marked habit of falling down ; "
and a notable example of this propensity was shown on
September 23, 12 10, when (on a fair, calm autumn day,
according to the chroniclers, but in a horrible tempest accord
ing to a later account preserved in the Bodleian Library)
" speciosum et valde spectabile beati Edmundi campanile "
perished. Metal, however, must have remained. Huge
broken pieces of signa were worth their weight in bronze,
and so were great molten lumps collected after a fire from
the ruined masonry. These passed into the hands of
founders, and revived in the next century in many a tuneful
peal.

CHAPTER V
THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
THIS is a distinctly marked period in architecture.
The fashion of the round arch has passed away, and
the First Pointed style prevails. The traveller often
finds his horizon diversified by the elegant towers and still
more elegant spires which date back to this century. The
tenants of the steeples, too, share in the general progress.
Excessive length of bell gives place to a more rational and
symmetrical form.
When the English Justinian, Edward I., is on the throne
we get our earliest existing inscriptions on bells, and the
rudiments of ornamentation are found in the care bestowed
on the formation of letters.
The first instructions for making bells, which are known
to us, are found in a treatise by Walter of Odyngton, a
monk of Evesham, in the time of Henry III. They contain
no directions about inscriptions, but so important are they
that I inserted them in my Church Bells of Suffolk,* and I
venture to reproduce them here. The manuscript, probably
a copy made after the lapse of two centuries, is No, 410 in
Archbishop Parker's collection in the library of Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge, and owes its preservation to
the pains taken by the Archbishop to save such records from
'* Pages 3 et seq.
56

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 57
destruction at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, The
chapter on bells, headed in red ink, " De symbalis faciendis,"
contains only eleven lines of text, and is to the following
effect (recto of f, 17) : —
" Ad simbola facienda tota vis et difficultas extat in appensione
cerae ex qua formantur et primo sciendi quod quanto densius est
tintinnabulum tanto acutius sonat tenuius vero gravius, Unam
appensam ceram quantamlibet ex qua formandum primum cimbalum
divides in octo partes et octavam partem addes tantae ceras sicut
Integra fuit, et fiet tibi cera secundi simbali. Et cetera facies ad
eundem modum a gravioribus inchoando. Sed cave ne forma interior
argillae cui aptanda est cera alio mutetur, ne etiam aliquid de cera
appensa addat ad spiramina, proinde et ut quinta vel sexta pars
metalli sit stannum purificatum a plumb o, reliquum de cupro simi
liter mundato propter sonoritatem. Si autem in aliquo defeceris,
cum cote vel lima potest rectificari."
He begins by saying that for making bells the whole
difficulty consists in estimating the models from which they
are formed, and first in understanding that the thicker a bell
is the higher is its note, and the reverse. From the use of
the word "cera" for a model, some might be inclined to infer
that the bells of that time were cast in moulds formed by
wax models ; but no such instances are known to exist in
England. When a bell is to be made, a core or central block
is first formed, to which is fitted a model, or " thickness," of
the bell that is to be. Outside the model comes the cope.
These models seem to have been made at one time from
wax. When complete, the outer earth, forming a cope, was
rammed tightly round them. A fire was lighted, and the
melted wax allowed to escape, the cavity being afterwards
filled by the metal from the furnace. There was an easy
way of ornamenting the outer earth, or cope, by laying on

58 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
the model extra strips of wax in the form of letters, etc,
which would leave their impression on the cope. We have
lighted on no instances of this kind in England, nor does
there seem any probability of such a discovery. Mr. Lynam,
in his Church Bells of Staffordshire (plates 3a: and 3i5), gives an
interesting and well-executed drawing of what appears to be
an inscription thus formed, from a bell at Fontenailles in
Normandy, dated I2ir, but he tells us nothing more about
it. He also mentions similar lettering at Moissac, with the
date 1273, recorded by Viollet le Due. Our earliest inscrip
tions are set in separate letters, each in its own patera ; and
this would be impracticable, save by stamping the cope
itself. In castings from wax models the cope is inaccessible.
Hence we conclude that loam models were used in England
while these instructions remained in the letter. Walter of
Odyngton then proceeds to expound the estimation of the
wax models of a ring of bells. Starting with any given
" model " for the first bell, you take nine-eighths of it as a
" model " for the second bell, and so on. If you start from
the heavier bells and work on to the lighter ones, you must
use a like method, i.e. let each " model " be eight-ninths of
the previous one. But take care lest the core to which the
" model " is to be fitted be changed in a different proportion.
Take care also that none of your allotted " model " gets itself
into the breathing holes. Then he gives directions about
the metal — a fifth or sixth part of the metal to be tin, purified
from lead, and the rest copper, similarly cleansed. Lastly,
contemplating the abominable noise which would be sure to
arise from these handiworks, he says that if you fail in any
point it can be set right with a whetstone or a file, of which
the former would be used for sharpening purposes, grinding
away the rim of the bell, and the latter for flattening, filing

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 59
off the inner surface of the sound-bow. Let us, then, imagine
Walter of Odyngton attending to his own instructions. He
starts by allotting a certain amount of wax for his first bell,
makes his core by rule of thumb answerable to it, and then
weighs both. By weight he gets his wax for other bells, on
the nine-eighth system. The whole method is so obviously
empiric that there is no ground for wonder at the necessity
for burine, whetstone, hard chisel, file, or any other tuning
apparatus. Indeed, the free use of these instruments may
help to account for that almost total disappearance of bells
of the Saxon and Norman periods which we spoke of in the
last chapter.
In a little prose tract appended to an undated poem
called Ars Musica, attributed to Gerbertus Scholasticus, born
about 950, and for four years (999-1003) Pope under the
name of Sylvester IL, we have an improved method. The
tract is undoubtedly of a date long after the poem. It
seems as though the writer had seen that the nine-eighths of
Walter of Odyngton took no account of the difference
between tones and semitones, and accordingly supplied a
better plan. " Should any one wish to regulate the sound of
bells, like that of organ pipes, he should know that thicker
bells, like shorter pipes, have a higher note. But one must
be careful in the weighing of the wax from which they are
formed." He then designates the various bells in a peal by
letters : " the first, A ; the second, B ; the third, C ; the
fourth, D ; the fifth, E ; the sixth, F, and the eighth, G." I
cannot understand the omission of the seventh. B and C
are respectively formed from A and B on the Odyngton
nine-eighths system ; but to get D, a "semitonium " from C,
you take four-thirds of A. Then E and F are formed from
D and E, according to Odyngton, but G from D (there being

6o THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
a " semitonium " between G and F) by taking four-thirds.
The MS. is Rawlinson, C, 720, in the Bodleian Library, and,
the passage, as follows, occurs on f. 1 3, recto and verso : —
"Sonitum tintinnabulorum si quis rationabiliter juxta modum
fistularum organicarum facere voluerit, scire debet quia sicut
fistulae breviores altiorem sonum babent quam longiores, ita et unum-
quodque tintinnabulum quantum superat in densitate alterum
tantum excellit in sono. Quod caute providendum est in appen
sione cerae qua formantur. Ad primum autem quod est A littera
quali volucris pondere ceram appende, dividasque illam ipsam ceram
seque in octo partes, ac recipiat sequens, B, videlicet, ejusdem
appensionis iterum octo partes alias, addita insuper nona parte.
Illasque novem partes in unam coUige dividesque in octo, recipiat
tercium quod est C, eadem appensione octo alias partes, addita etiain
parte nona ejusdem ponderis. Tunc primi appensionem divide in
tres partes, supereturque a quarto quod est D quarta parte, hoc est
semitonium. Item divides quartum in octo, supereturque a quinto
quod est E, nona parte, dividesque similiter quintum in octo et
recipiat sextum quod est F, nonam partem amplius. Quartum
nichilominus in tres partes asque appensum ab octavo quod est G,
superatur quarta parte, hoc est semitonium."
According to my calculation, the models of the seven
bells would be in this ratio: A, 8 ; B, 9 ; C, 10-125 ; D, io-6;
E, 12 ; F, 13-5 ; G, 14-2 Neither of these ratios, Odyngton's
or Gerbertus's, seem in accordance with modern ideas.
Business brings business. Foundry work extends over
smaller things than bells, possibly quite as profitable. Pots,
pans, and mortars are in demand. Before long ollarius is
found to be the usual designation of a founder. Already a
London founder has been mentioned, the Saxon Alwold, and
one provincial town, Boston, has its craftsman, Fergus.
The great antiquity of the old sance bell at Caversfield,
Bucks, unfortunately recast in 1874, has been fully established

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 6i
by the investigation of Mr. Cocks, to whom the late Rev. T.
Archer Turner lent a rubbing and a cast of the inscription,
which was on the sound-bow, apparently scratched by hand
on the cope, not stamped, and reversed. As restored by the
author of The Church Bells of Buckinghamshire,* and recorded
in his book, the reading runs —
HUG[H] GARGAT[E] SIBILLAQ[UE] UXOR EJUS
H[.^C] TIMPPANA FECERUNT EXPONI,
This Hugh Gargate was the son of Roger Gargate, to
whom Henry II. granted the manor of the lord of Cavers
field, and who gave the church to the abbey of Missenden.
Browne Willis (who writes Robert as the name for Hugh's
father) states that Hugh confirmed his father's grant, his wife,
Sibilla de Caversfield, of Whiteminster, promising not to
interfere. In a deed dated c. 12 19, she describes herself as
" ego Sybilla de Kaversfield quondam uxor Hugonis Gargat
in pura viduitate." This fixes the date of the bell as in the
first twenty years of the thirteenth century.
Before the end of the fourteenth century, Lichfield,
Cambridge, Paignton in Tor Bay, Lynn, have their work
shops. Michael de Lichfield is quoted \ as doing business in
that city at this time. In the Cambridgeshire Pedes Finium,
edited by Mr. Walter Rye, we find in the last year of
Henry III., "Brother Roger de Ebor, Prior of the Order
' de Penitencia Jesu Christi ' of Cantebrig v. Walter le Brassur
and Aldretha his wife in suburbs of Cantebrig." X These
suburbs are Barnwell, I think.
Next comes Paignton, near the mouth of a little creek in
* Page 337.
t Hewitt, Handbook of Lichfield Cathedral.
X Rye, 8vo, Publications of Camb. Antig. Soc, No. xxvi. p. 46.

62 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Tor Bay, where, at the end of the thirteenth century and in
the fourteenth, lived three generations of a family named de
Ropeford, who exercised the combined callings of founder,
organ-builder, and clock-maker. Here in 1285 Bishop Peter
Quivil, of Exeter, granted to Roger de Ropeford, Cam-
panistarius, and his heirs, for one penny each Easter, a
certain tenement, they to perform the work of the aforesaid
crafts, receiving all things necessary for the work, with
victuals and drink whenever so employed. Roger was
succeeded by his son William, and William by his son
Robert, and from one of the three may have come a few of
the group of earlier Longobardic bells. Paignton was the
greatest lordship that belonged to the see of Exeter, and
here was a goodly house of the Bishop's. Under these
favourable circumstances, with ready access to the sea, the
work of the de Ropefords may well have extended into
neighbouring counties.
There was a Master John, founder of bells, at King's
Lynn, in 1299, who seems identical with "Joh. de Len,"
named in the Cambridgeshire Pedes Finium for the previous
year: "xxvj? Ed. I. vj Rob le Bakere de Cantebrigg et
lohanna ux : eius v. loh. de Len et Aliciam ux : eius in
Cantebrigg." * We obtain him in certainty from the Tal
lage Roll of Lynn Bishop : " Mag'r loh'nes fundator Cam
pana? solvit die ven'is p'x ante festum S'te Margar' in
subsidiu Co'itatis dj m'rc sterl." Combining this documen
tary evidence with evidence from identity of lettering and
initial crosses, we gather that this John of 1299 was a native
of the village of Riston, near Downham Market, as he is
apparently the man called " Magister Johannes de Riston " f
* Rye, Pedes Finium Cant., p. 64.
t A lohannes de Riston was one of the Yarmouth bailiffs in 1362 and 1368.

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 63
on the bell at Bexwell, close to that village ; while the tenor
at Woriington, Suffolk, bears the words + JOBJinneS fiOOynee
De Cenne sne yeCiC, and that at Wendling, Norfolk, inverts
the secoitd and third letters in the Christian name, and takes
the more colloquial form GVODine for the surname. The
second bell at Wendling may also be classed with these ;
and North considers the sanctus bell at Bicker, Lincolnshire,
inscribed in similar characters, 30B : JUe : yeyc (cast) : U to
have come from the same hand.
There is a village in the valley of the Lune, above Lan
caster, called Claughton. Here it is that we have the gratifica
tion of finding the first dated bell, through the exertions of
Mr. Harper Gaythorpe. The inscription is in ordinary Roman
type, with the exception of the A, which seems to be a
scribe's ornamental form, and the C, which is Longobardic,
the usual type of the time. The inscription runs round the
shoulder on the top of it, and reads, 4- ANNO . DNI . M .
CC . NONOG . VI, the last letter but one being upside down.
It is a little over sixteen inches high, and twenty-one in
diameter at the lip, thus not a long bell. The note is E flat.
At Bridgewater, before the close of the thirteenth century,
a bell was cast for the church, though the "master" may
not have been resident in the town. The "Account of
Richard Maydons, Philip Crese Erl, Gilbert le Large, and
Richard de Dunsterre," given in Notes and Queries, * shows
the various ways by which means were found to carry out
the work. They collected in the parish, with donations from
strangers, viij^^' xviijj. -x-d. ob. Leaden vessels, trivets, pots,
brass, and a bason with laver, augmented by a shilling for a
ring sold, brought the amount to x/^ xvjj. \d. " Foreign
receipts" include loans from Maydons and Philip Crese
*' 5th ser. iii. 77.

64 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Erl (whose name is not easy to interpret), and xxs. from
the Warden of the goods of the Holy Cross. Armed with
the sum of xiv^'' iijs. i]d., the authorities bought 896 lb,
of copper, 40 lb, of brass, and 320 lb. of tin, and incurred
expenses for divers necessaries for repairs of the mould and
founding of the bell, for which the "master" received in
part payment of his wages xlj. People who did not find it
convenient to subscribe in money did not hesitate to give up
some of their household gear to add to the heap from which
their new bell should be made. The parchment is endorsed
with a memorandum of the amount of these gifts in kind : —
"Metal for the bell. They answer for 180 pounds received as
gifts, as in pots, platters, basons, lavers, kettles, brass mortars,
and mill pots. Also for 425 pounds received from one old bell.
Also 40 pounds of brass, received by purchase. Also for 320
pounds of tin received by purchase. Sum, 1861 pounds, of which
there has been melted in making the new bell 1781 pounds, and
there are 81 pounds remaining."
These amounts are technically interesting, as affording
help for estimating the ratio of metals. The lead is not to
be disregarded. Having spoken of the oldest inscription known to exist,
I may mention an older one on record, as having existed at
the first Cistercian abbey founded in England, at Waverley,
near Farnham, a name which carries many an association
with it. The annals of that abbey,* published in the Rolls
Series, afford an important evidence as far back as 1239 —
" Hoc anno comparata est major campana domus nostras,
tempore dni Giffardi t abbatis, caspitque pulsari primum ad horas,
*¦ ii. 321.
t The abbey was founded by William Giifard, Bishop of Winchester, in 1128.

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 65
in die Sancto Paschae, cujus nomen his versibus sciri potest, qui in
eadem campana scribuntur.
" Dicor nomine quo tu, Virgo, domestica Christi,
Sum domini praeco cujus tutela fuisti."
This is an inscription of such unusual length for the time as
rather to stagger the investigator ; but the Cistercians were
eminently men of progress in all practical work. It is a pity
that " comparata est " is in the passive voice. An active
verb would have brought in the maker's name or the makers'
names. The Cistercians of Waverley may have done their
own work. Before long we shall have an undoubted instance
of monastic founding. This, however, does not seem to have
been the case at Bury St. Edmund's, as we follow up the
detail in Dr. Montague R. James's valuable contribution to
the history of the abbey, already put under tribute by me.
Godefrid's bell, mentioned in the last chapter, was made,
probably, by a craftsman, called in the MS. at the College of
Arms,* Hailficus. The inscription there recorded is double
the length of that from Waverley, and one cannot help
wondering how at that time it was stamped into the core —
" In magna campana.
Ecclesie splendor Gaufridus nomine dicor.
Me dedit ille bono tibi, Rex Edmunde, patrono.
Sum labor Hailfici : modulo mihi ter [or tunc] reparato
Erea nunc exto decus ecclesie venerandum."
In line 3 the last word but one is /. Dr. James prefers tunc
to ter, and I quite agree with him. Now, then, comes the
certainty of a craftsman.
At the death of the great Abbot Sampson, Richard de
Newport's abbacy of some sixteen years began (1213-c.
* Arundel, xxx.
F

66 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
1229). He procured a bell for the great tower, which bell
was called after himself, " Neweport." Nicholas of Warwick
{c. 1240) had a fine bell, called the "Sacrist's bell," cast for
the central tower, in which was soon afterwards placed
another, called " Luton," after Simon de Luton] (Abbot,
1 256-1279), at that time sacrist. Reginald de Denham,
prior in the fourteenth century, put four bells in the
clocarium, and a great bell which broke. This was
"mended," by which expression must be understood "re
cast," by John Lavenham, sacrist, who also gave two
smaller ones, and a third for the clock. Prior Peter de
Clopton gave a bell for the central tower, called " Clopton."
Hugo, who made a bell for Abbot Anselm (1121-1148),
doubtless merits the description given of him, " the greatest
of Bury artists." He is called " Magister Hugo " in the
Gesta Sacristarum. He seems to have been an artificer of
wide experience. He illustrated a bibliotheca, "incompara-
biliter." Dr. James is justified by the Catholicon Anglicum *
in interpreting this word as a large Bible in this place. It
is among the Latin words for library ; and in the Coventry
Mysteries, p. 88, library is used for a book, " the lyberary
of oure Lordys lawe." The great brasen doors at the
west of the church, and the wonderfully fine crucifix in
the choir, were also from his hand. Father Mackinlay, in
his Life of St. Edmund, describes graphically the ringing
on the Martyr Saint's Vigil —
"The two Londons^ the greater and the holy- water bell, clanged
out the first peal. The bells of the cemetery, including the Gabriel
or thunderstorm bell, and the chimes of S. Mary's, S. James's and
S. Margaret's rang out the second and third peal. Lastly, the
younger monks, sounding the chimes in the great lantern-tower, gave
• Early English Text Publications, p. 216.

Tutrqiuuolunr^nrm.lnuctct.i que
ttre.C art confi dotf dici . crmulrof bu
luf ogif ttfttf cnaiio ¦mctuhadutanr
CaamdtiMnu iitnwrr mutaiTr.
Sicul>ig(dRtamea.4untrd)''diltrtpa TOT.inxtrro^t qtlcUbcrbtbrtoi -ccXiq
do j^mdtbWmc.AbamilifftuitrAUce
vm(qxmitlimiranvapi\aTmdctrf> cIani.qiii,difttir.^iicrfi(ntiubonti
Ti«-.>licufmi^ nouifexptccxtw uo
lupisutt ergulr ami uiaruv nuna.
nfljffiajjic.'cur inftflo (hictao (iptu
laru.uettaCipciTrcontmn.fiiTif.-tNa
Iwcduo q pctflbrECTnwfmtrrdta. iur
qwcqmdthifjrbtqnrdenabemttt.
. (^HoqfTnrijaonc.daigmtrtRmc em
a»ta. oInnTntcltTigucbomintbfde
dotm.' $ed«|cl aUuoftnncccIit j:piar
dmnupCUirujfltgfTP.'dUuoiudaf.
flnguU.uCTbi.calupnuimb'iTiponop rp.Q^J-lopitftiUumai.rtingitcuurpol UaiiftiiftiUcnCAHTH'hoHicoH-toai
¦ci- Jypoysi^.cr impc?tac m«c dot
Tininiofqf-q.mrof.TtftWfta!ruolufnt dicirtbi-illuo onrawiu.lnfuuXnc
Iwufmf.'nift quoobocbalicbo <bUnv.
(ItnUborc comurn.mwUxw^ecnubi.n'
l.uide. a:iim^4xi(mcxccu.<(r(; comuric
' y oltindonuno ibii-'cupiOTcmCTru
mfftmn .
&cVl\CYtfBC^O$Cl

jmommivmi

HAMMER RINGING ON AN OCTAVE OF BELLS
FROM END OF PREFACE OF r. TH[RTEENTH CENTUKY BIBUA FULOATA
Harl.MS.lS04-f-3l>

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 67
the signal to all the bells of the monastery to take up the music. The
united peals from far and wide, with the well-known Haut-et-ckr bell,
ringing high and clear above the others, produced the fourth peal, or
Le Glas, as the citizens called it,"
The two Londons give the impression of having been the
work of some metropolitan founder.
At Exeter the Fabric Rolls give glimpses of the increase
of tenants of the Bell Tower. Walter Bronescomb was
bishop of the diocese from 1257 to 1280, and gave a bell
called Walter, after himself. Two shillings were spent about
the gear in 1286. Four were hanging in the North Tower,
two of which bore the names of Bockerel and Chauncel,
and there was another called Germacyn, about which the
large sum of twopence was spent. Ellacombe suggests that
it was named from Ralph Germacyn, precentor from 1308
to 1 3 16. The twopenny payment was eighteen years previous
to Germacyn's precentorship, but it may have been the result
of earlier interest on his part.
We have already witnessed the consecration of bells at
St. Alban's. During the rule of Abbot William de Trum-
pington (1214-1235), "a most sonorous bell," specially assigned
to the office of the Mass, was consecrated by Bishop John,
and called by the name of S. Mary. The previous conse
cration was by the Bishop of St. Asaph. The only English
prelate bearing the name of John during this period was the
Bishop of Ely, S. John de Fontibus. Abbot Trumpington
appointed this bell " to be rung thrice daily, in due time to
call together the ministers thereto assigned ; namely, six
monks (including him who officiates at the altar) and other
faithful in Christ, and meek and devoted servants of the
Blessed Mary, to minister thereat, and to pray for the pros
perity of the Church and their own." Two nolce also were

68 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
used by his order to be rung during the solemn singing of a
sequence composed by him in commemoration of the patron
saint of the abbey. After the death of this abbot we read
of a joyful sound of bells (as in the case of Sampson de
Tottington, at Bury St. Edmund's) to greet his successor,
John de Hertford. After his nomination and acceptance by
the electors, he was presented at the high altar, the bells
clashing (" pulsato classico "), the organ-pipes sounding, the
candles burning round the altar, and the shrine uncovered.
His brief prayer over, the scilla was touched as a signal to
the belfry, and the clangour ceased. At the end of the
previous century the abbey had obtained from Pope Clement
III. a privilege in case of an interdict. Worship in the
abbey was not to be suspended, but the doors were to be
closed, the excommunicate and interdicted excluded, the
large bells silenced, and the Divine offices performed with
lowered voices. Such a time came during the abbacy of
John de Hertford (i 235-1 260). Financial . troubles were rife
in England. Peter Egueblanke, Bishop of Hereford, pre
sumably the bishop robbed by Robin Hood, as told in the
well-known ballad, was resisted by the town in his attempt
to collect money for the king, and St. Alban's is placed
under an interdict, but the canonical hours and matins
were observed in a low voice, introduced by the small voice
of a squilla, no doubt, though this is not mentioned. This
occurrence must have taken place near the end of the rule
of John de Hertford. About the same time one of the bells
of the abbey was tolled at the solemn excommunication of
Geoffrey de Childewicke, for having maltreated a servant of
the abbot. A very remarkable use of the great bell, the
interdict being now past and gone, is given soon afterwards.
The townsmen were expected to bring their coarse cloths

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 69
to be fulled at the abbey mill. Quarrels arose, perhaps on
the scale of payment, perhaps about the monopoly. The
fullers, in sulks, determined to go elsewhere. The Abbot
resented this, and implored the Divine help as well as that
of St. Alban, and the chapter went in procession with bare
feet, "a certain great bell tolling" on the occasion. Soon
afterwards the whole peal rung out joyously at the visit of
the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been staying at
Hatfield.* In the middle of this period there was a corporate body
called the Brethren of the Guild of Westminster, These
brothers were evidently men well regarded in their day.
They dated back some two centuries, for a Patent Roll of
Henry III., in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, grants "that
the brethren and their successors may for ever enjoy all the
privileges and free customs which they have enjoyed from
the time of Edward the Confessor to the date of these
presents." The pgrtion which relates to ringing is thus freely
translated by Ellacombe: "Know all men that we have
granted to the Brethren of the Guild of Westminster, who
are appointed to ring the great bells, that they and their
successors shall receive annually out of our Exchequer 100
shillings, fifty at Easter, and fifty at Michaelmas, until we
provide the like sum for them payable out of lands for the
said ringing." Six years before this grant there had been
casting going on for Westminster Abbey, by one Edward
Odson,t and in the following year Odson was ordered by
the king to make another and a larger bell. Nor did this
exhaust the royal bounty, for the next year witnessed a
further addition of a smaller bell to be in tune with the
* North and Stahlschmidt, Church Bells of Hertfordshire, pp. loo, et seq.
t Toulmin Smith, Guilds, etc., p. 205.

70 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
great bell. This suggests octaval unison, and the peal
appears to be another example of the seven system, which
we have seen expounded by William of Odyngton and
Gerbertus Scholasticus. The tradition about the bells was
that they were of great weight and loud tones. There must
have been something pleasing about the Westminster ringers'
performances to induce so favourable a notice. "Rounds"
by themselves were delightful to the ear when rung on well-
tuned bells. Most likely the "odds and evens," or King's
changes, were coming in, with other simple " call changes."
One wonders whether the King's changes took their name
from Henry III.

CHAPTER VI
TIMES OF DEVELOPMENT
THE monastic foundry and the trade foundry con
tinued to exist side by side half-way through the
Plantagenet period, but as the latter flourished the
former dwindled and became extinct. One of the most
elaborate works that can be seen is a mortar of bell-metal,
now in the York Museum, belonging once to the great
Benedictine Abbey, the work of a friar, presumably a
Franciscan. It weighs "j^ lb., and is inscribed on the upper
rim 4- jnoRCJiRrv . SCI . 30BIS . ewiin6eE' oe . jj^irhijiriji .
Be . snflRie euo, and on the lower rim 4- fR. WIC£S . De ,
COVCBORP . jne . fecic . a . d . sn . ccc . vm. Nothing
is known of its history for nearly two centuries after the
Dissolution. In 1734, when Thomas Gent was engaged in*
his History of Hull, he received an anonymous letter about
it, saying that it had once been in the possession of the
Fairfax family. Gough, in his Camden* traces it to Selby.
In 1811 it was found by Rudder, a Birmingham founder,
among some old metal, sold to Mr. Blunt, a surgeon there,
purchased at his sale by Mr. Kenrick of West Bromwich,
and restored by him to York.
Here I leave York for a moment, to name Thomas
Hickham, Sacrist of St. Augustine's, who cast a bell for
» III. 66.
71

72 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Canterbury Cathedral in 1358. He is the last ecclesiastical
founder to be named.*
Nearly contemporary with Brother William of Touthorp
was the great Richard Tunnoc, whose Bell Window in
York Minster is a unique memorial of foundry operations.
He is a grand instance of success. He was one of the
city bailiffs in 1 320-1, and represented the city in Parlia
ment in 1327. In 1330 he died. The second of the noble
series of windows in the north aisle, reckoning from the
east, is the monument to his memory. There are three
lights, each 20 feet high by 35 J inches wide, and divided
into five compartments.
" The glazing at the bottom is composed of white diamond-shaped
quarries; a vine-leaf foliage runs in a straggling manner over the
whole ; and in the centre of this work a bell is represented in a small
pointed quatrefoil-shaped medallion. Then above this work we have,
in the lower band, a pictorial subject under a decorated canopy,
surmounted by tabernacle work, running up into a double row of
arcading, in each of which there is a representation of a bell sus
pended from its wooden stock. Above these, the next compartments
are similar to those in the basement. Then in the upper band there
are three historical subjects, under canopies, like the lower ones; all
above this is composed of quarry work, like the other blank com
partments, running into the head, where another bell occupies the
centre foliation. The two side lights have a border of bells running
all round; each bell appears hung in a trefoiled niche, finished
with a battlement, the ground being ruby; the bells which are
beautifully painted, and ornamented with two foliated bands, are
suspended from a stock. The border of the middle light is treated
in the same way, but, instead of bells, there are on either side
figures of monkeys, all seated, each playing some sort of musical
instrument : they are shown in profile, each looking at the opposite
one, and each opposite one holding the same sort of musical
* Hasted, Kent, xii. 207.

BLESSING THE DONOR OF THE BELL
I'ART of the bell FOUNDER'S WINDOW IN YORK CATHEDRAL

TIMES OF DEVELOPMENT 73
instrument, — ^illustrative, perhaps, of the prejudiced notion of a
bell-founder, that the music of bells is superior. There are three
quatrefoils in the head tracery, in each of which is a full-length
vested figure of St. Andrew with his cross, St. Paul with his sword,
and St. Peter with his keys, each having a bell on either side of
him. On the left hand is represented the mode of forming the
mould of a bell, called the core. One figure is turning it with a
handle like a grindstone; and another, with a long crooked tool
(which he holds firmly with both hands, one end being placed under
his right arm-pit), is moulding the clay to the proper form, giving
his whole mind to it. The back ground of this picture is in blue
glass, wholly covered with a rich diapering of circles, within which
a spread eagle is represented, and a small quatrefoil in the interstices,
over which is inscribed, on a black band, RICBflRO CVRROC, and
under the point of the canopy a bell is suspended from its stock.
On the floor of this compartment are shown two bells, between the
legs of the tressels on which the mould is being turned. In the com
partment on the right hand there are three figures busily engaged in
running the molten metal. The furnace is of an ecclesiastical type,
in which the metal is kept heated by two pair of large domestic
bellows, worked by a boy, who holds a handle in each hand ; another
boy is helping him by standing with one foot on each upper board of
the bellows, on which he manages to support himself and regulate his
movements by holding on with one hand to a bar fixed just above
his head. The other figure, we may suppose, represents the chief
workman, who having tapped the furnace is carefully watching the
molten metal running into the mould below. Here, too, the back
ground in blue glass is diapered the same as in the other, with a bell
suspended above. In the centre compartment we have a suppliant
figure, with uplifted hands, kneeling before an archbishop, who is
nimbed ; seated on a rich cushioned throne, fully vested with mitre,
pallium, embroidered sandals, etc., and holding a crosier in his left
hand; his right hand is uplifted in the act of blessing the person
kneeling. There issues from between the upUfted hands of the
suppliant a scroll, inscribed RICRflRO CVRROC. From the girdle of
this figure hangs a gypdere, or pouch, ornamented with two figures

74 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
of a bell. The head-dress of this figure is like that of the workmen,
with thick bushy hair ; the two boys at the bellows have ornamented
caps. "The background of this compartment is diapered like the
others, but in the centre is shown a three-hght window, the very type
of those in the north aisle. An inscription runs across at the bottom
of each compartment. In the first may be read RICBJIRD CVRROC
JRe f ISC. The inscriptions under the other subjects are mutilated ;
all that can be made out under the middle is —
. . . no . . . flsnic . . .
And under the other —
nvRenveno . . . fCRcev." *
There was a Cistercian house at Crokesden, now Crox-
den, near Uttoxeter. I translate from its annals a passage
to show that even this self-helping community had to seek
the craftsman's assistance in the beginning of the fourteenth
century. "Anno 13 1 3. The great bell of the house was through ill-luck
broken on Easter Eve, and Master Henry Michel of Lichfield came
to cast another, and worked at it with his attendants from the Octave
of Trinity up to the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin
(Sept. 8), and then failed in the casting and lost all his labour and
expense. But again, when a great quantity of copper and tin had
been collected afresh, recommencing the whole business he at length
finished it, as is now reported, about the Feast of All Saints."
It is possible that this unfortunate man may have been
the son of Michael of Lichfield, already mentioned, turning
the father's Christian name into a surname, as was often the
manner in those days.
In the next generation the Ely Benedictines had to
¦* Ellacombe, Bells of the Church, pp. 488, etc.

RUNNING THE MOLTEN METAL
PART OF THE BELL FOUNDER'S WINDOW IN YORK CATHEDRAL

TIMES OF DEVELOPMENT 75
summon a Gloucester founder to do their work. In 1322,
the square tower which formed the centre of the cathedral
fell down. It appears that there were two bells in the
western tower, for the roll of the sacrist, Alan de Walsing
ham, for that year contains a charge for the clapper of the
great bell called " Bounce," and of another called " Peter." A
little more than twenty years after this we find great works
in bell-casting going on in the cathedral, under the superin
tendence of Alan de Walsingham, now prior, and Robarte
Aylesh'm, sacrist. It is instructive to note the exact time
of these works. A great struggle at Ely had ended disas
trously for the band of those noble East Anglian monks,
to whose genius and energy we owe so mighty an archi
tectural debt. Alan de Walsingham, the great representative
man of this body, had been unanimously chosen bishop by
the convent, but Pope Clement VI. refused to confirm the
appointment, and nominated the unpopular and tyrannical
Thomas de I'lsle in Walsingham's place. The vast influence
in wealth and position which the bishopric would have con
ferred was gone, but the prior and convent pressed on with
their work, and the roll of Robarte Aylesh'm, Sacrist, Annis
XIX. and XX., Edwardi III., bears witness to their per
severance. The account for the bells is the last in the roll,
and is not easy to read from the faded ink and discoloured
parchment. I have enclosed the parts which are more or
less doubtful in brackets. It runs as follows : —
" In argill. emp. ap'd Lenn ijj iji^. In exp'ns mag'ri Johan. de
Glouscestr' eunt v'sus Lenn [v. s.]. In aquag eiusdem p aq°m v'j
Ely xd. In argill, emp. ap'd Erythe cum aquag. v'.y Ely p. v. p'dict
. . . [jx.f xd]. [In rodis] emp. p. fornac. faci'd p. vie. xv^. Lib.
Cok v'sus Lenn p. ij vie. p. copro et stagno [c' llig"'] vijj- vid.
In exp's p'dicti mag'ri Johis p. ips. querend. ap'd North-mton

^e THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
et alibi p. d'vrs vie' iij.f. In pakkeyerde . . . vie. x]d. In dcccxliv
libr. stagn emp. p. diet' campan' vj/? xxxs p. cent xvj min m*" iiij.?
ob st'm. In ccxx libr' stag. emp. p. eisd'm xxxjj viiji^ p. centen.
xiiijj-. In [mv'^] copr. emp. p. diet, campan xj/« vj p' cent. xvj.
In Dcxxi lib. copT emp. p. eisdem iiij/« y\s viij^ p. cent xiiij.f. In
ccccxij lib. copr emp. p. eisd'm \]li x\\\s v\d p. c. xiiijj. In v^lxv
libr' copr alb' emp. p. eisd'm iiij/« viijj p. cent. xy\s vnde anajug ex
pondere jx libr. ... In [c'rv*] emp. die [qua] fund't'r metall magne
campane p't'r staur. iiijj- v\]d. In fform p. iiij campns faci* et fusione
iiij camp'm de [ore] p'dict pondere hoc. videlt. camp'm voc't'm Ihc.
XX
MMMDCC iiij xij libr. camp'm voc't'm Joh. MMDCCiiij libr. camp'm
voc't'm Mariam mmc iiij libr. xviij/z xviiji- p. qua'lib't lib. ob. min
m*" \\)s. . . . [In] ... p. fusion iiij'° camp, voc'te Walsyngh'm
ponderant videlt. vjmcciiij. libr. ... In pol. p. [pendic' diet' camp']
et trendel p, eisd' de pondere et al. rebs g'nibs . . . ponderant
cccLXV libr. xys i]d. In . . . faciend, p. fornac. et mols fac'' in p'"
ijs iiiji^. In carbon, emp. p. fusione ear'd'm vijj viij^f. In . . . et'
aq' vs Ely iiji-. In . . . emp. p. eisd'm iiijj. In faci'nd' ferrament.
p. vi campaH . . . campanil . . . de ferro dd. de st° Epi emp.
xxxiij5 ajd. In vj claperys de novo fact' ex fro dd. de st° . . . ep'i cu
. . . d'm cu vij h'n'bs p. iiij Sept. iiij/f xvs iujd . . . scil' p. qua' libt
lib. lib. ex igne vj. [In exp's Rog'ri carpent'] p'dict' vj campan'
pendent' \xs ip'e cl'me' cu Garc'et equo. . . . In vj cord' emp. p.
[camp p'dict] xvjj viiid. Dal Garcoi'bs p'dct'r Mag'r' loh'is et Rog'i
in recessu eor' jxj v]d. In c.lib. [ferri]. ... In stapel. et haspis de
eod'm faci'' iijj vjd. In ij cor' equin' emp. p. bauderrikes und' fact'.
... In facci' eor'd'm xd. In fil. emp. mjd. In [soles] emp. p.
diet, bauderykk iiij;/. In di. cent, redis emp. ap. Thorneye p. focali
ijj. In aquag' eord'm vj Ely ijj. And the roll ends with the words
S'm o'm exp'ns et lib. nov. oper.
To some of my readers a translation of this account will
be acceptable. That which follows must be taken at its
worth. * Cerveyse de Ely appears in a list of things for which places were famous
temp. Ed, II. Gentleman's Magazine, Jan. 1862, p. 60.

TIMES OF DEVELOPMENT -^^
£ s. d.
For clay bought at Lynn  022
For the expenses of Master John of Gloucester going to
Lynn  050
For the water-carriage of the same by water to Ely . . 0010
For clay bought at Erith, with the water-carriage to Ely
at the same time  o 9 10
For rods bought once for making the furnace .... 0015
The account of Cok to Lynn twice, for collecting copper
and tin  076
For the expenses of the aforesaid Master John for seek
ing the same at Northampton and elsewhere on
several occasions  030
For packthread [bought on several] occasions .... con
For 8 cwt. 44 lbs. of tin bought for the same bells, at
1 5 J. per cwt. (with a deduction of 4J. on account of
what was had from the store)  6190
For 2 cwt. 20 lbs. of tin bought for the same, at 14J. per
cwt  0318
For 15 cwt. of copper bought for the said bells, at 15J.
per cwt  1150
For 6 cwt. 21 lbs. of copper bought for the same at 14J.
per cwt  467
For 4 cwt. 12 lbs. of copper bought for the same at 14J.
per cwt  2176
For 5 cwt. 65 lbs. of white copper bought for the same
at i6j. per cwt., whence there is a tret of 9 lbs. from
the weight  480
For beer bought on the day on which the metal of the
great bell is melted, beside what was had from the
store  046
For moulds for making four bells, and the casting of
four bells from the aforesaid ore, of the following
weight, that is to say —
The bell called JESUS, 37 cwt. 92 lbs. \
The bell called John, 27 cwt. 4 lbs. I. . 18 18 o
The bell called Mary, 2 1 cwt 4 lbs. )

78 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
For [a mould] for the casting of the 4th bell, called Wal- £ s. d.
syngham, weighing [18 cwt. 4 lbs.]  • 
For poles for the hanging of the said bells, and wheels *
for the same according to weight, and divers other
things . . . weighing 3 cwt. 65 lbs  0152
For making ... for the furnace, and making moulds in
part  023
For charcoal bought for the casting of the same ... 078
For . . . and water-carriage to Ely  030
For . . . bought for the same  040
For making ironwork for the six bells [hanging in the
great] belfry, of iron, half bought from the bishop's
store  o 33 3
For six clappers new made from iron, half from the
[said] bishop's store, with  
For the expenses of seven men for four weeks .... 4163
For the expenses of Roger the carpenter hanging the
aforesaid six bells  o 60 o
[Clement himself] ¦with his boy and horse  
For six cords bought for the aforesaid bells  0168
Given to the boys of the aforesaid Masters John and
Roger, at their departure  096
For I cwt. of iron  
For making staples and hasps froni it  036
For two horse-hides bought for making baldricks there
from  
For making the same  o o 10
For thread bought  004
For soles bought for the said baldricks  003
For half a hundred reeds bought at Thorney for fuel . . 020
For water-carriage of the same to Ely  020
It might have been hoped that through this record of
* Cf. Gest Hystoriale of the Destruction of Troy, II. 453 —
" Hir (Medea's) Ene as a trenduU turned full rounde
ffirst on hir fader, for feare that she hadde,
And sethyn on that semely with a sad wille.''

TIMES OF DEVELOPMENT 79
operations we should have been able to arrive at the pro
portion of metals adopted by Master John of Gloucester in
bell-casting. Unfortunately, there are no data through which
this may be obtained, for it is evident that there must have
been a considerable store {stauruin) of metal, which does not
enter into the sacrist's account. The amount of copper, 25
cwt. 33 lbs. ; of tin, 10 cwt. 64 lbs. ; of white copper, 5 cwt.
65 lbs., gives a total of 2 tons, i cwt. 50 lbs., which falls
short of half the registered weight of the four bells,
"Mary," "John," "Jesu," and " Walsyngham," viz. 5 tons
3 cwt. 64 lbs. Perhaps the metal of " Bounce " and " Peter "
may have formed part of the staurum. The copper cwt.
contained 112 lbs,, that for tin only 80 lbs,, that for "white
copper" (? pewter) 121 lbs., 9 being added for "anajugium."
Comparing this account with Exeter, 1372, copper is found
to have nearly doubled its price, tin remaining stationary.
The weights of the four Ely bells are evidence of the
great development in method which had come about since
Walter of Odyngton's instructions had been promulgated.
Here we have four bells, and no doubt in tune. " Walsyng
ham," the smallest, weighs 18 cwt. 4 lbs. According to the
nine-eighths scheme, the bell called "Mary" should have
weighed about i ton 32 lbs., whereas it weighed 21 cwt. 4
lbs. Calculating another nine-eighths from this, "John"
should have weighed 23 cwt. 74 lbs., but its weight was 27
cwt, 4 lbs. ; and the largest of the four is, in fact, quite 7 cwt.
in excess of what it ought to have been if calculated from
John, secundum Walterum.
Shape, too, was vastly improving. The pearlike form was
gone. It is true that the idea was still too high and narrow,
but it was soon to give place to something still better. The core,
with its waxen top, received impressions of exquisite lettering.

8o THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Initial crosses, word stops, foundry marks, all partake of
the artistic feeling which had invaded the workshop. Every
where there are signs of pride and pleasure in labour. The
lettering is always of the uncial type — what is usually called
Longobardic. It is frequently cusped ; the ends sometimes
terminate in fleurs-de-lis ; the interior is sometimes diapered.
In London records these craftsmen, with one or two excep
tions, designate themselves as potters {ollarius being the
word used), and Stahlschmidt traces them chiefly to the
main street from what is now St. Andrew's Undershaft to
St. Botolph's-without-Aldgate, which, as he proves from
various wills, were pre-eminently the bell-founders' churches.
It is sad to think how little of this beautiful work we possess
— a few bells here and there, but hardly ever a mortar, a
saucepan, or a laver-pot seems to turn up, save in foundry
stamps and the like. One of the earliest names found by
Stahlschmidt is in the Libor Antiquus in the Guildhall.
Herein are two lists of sheriffs, and the same person is
described as Benedictus Campanarius, and Beneit le Seynter.
What is meant by this word is a great puzzle. The next
metropolitan group consists of a family of four from the
village of Wimbish, in Essex — Michael, Richard, Ralph and
Walter. They are all designated as potters, and we have
bells in existence made by three of them, Michael, Richard
and Walter. Stahlschmidt gives in full a deed of 1297,
between Michael le Poter civis Lond and Adam de Wirlee
with his wife Margaret, daughter of the said Michael,
Among the witnesses to this deed is Paulus le Poter. Two
bells of Michael's remain at Bradenham, Bucks, and are
described by Mr. Cocks* as long-waisted and resonant.
The canons are broken off the smaller of the two; those
* The Church Bells of Buckinghamshire, p. 323.

TIMES OF DEVELOPMENT 8i
of the larger are moulded with string pattern, the argent
very large and high. Documentary evidence shows that the
dates of Michael and Richard overlap. Five bells by the latter
are known to remain, viz. at Great Bradley, Suffolk ; Goring,
Oxon ; Slapton, Northamptonshire ; Burham, Kent ; and
Rawreth, Essex. The Goring third has the Norman French
" fist," and asks prayers for Peter Quivil, Bishop of Exeter,
without mention of his soul; whence we may infer that the
date is earlier than the bishop's death, in 1291. An agree
ment between this founder and the prior of the convent of the
Church of the Holy Trinity in London, in the year 13 12, is
given by Riley,* and transcribed here : —
"Richard de Wymbissh, potter and citizen of London, came
here before the Chamberlain on the Friday next after the Feast of
St. Mark the Evangelist (25 April), in the fifth year of the reign of
King Edward, son of King Edward, and acknowledged that he was
bound to Sir Ralph, Prior of the Church of the Holy Trinity in
London, and the Convent of that place, to make one bell, good,
entire, and well-sounding, and as nearly in tune, to the utmost of his
power, with the greater bell of the church aforesaid. And the said
bell was to weigh 2820 pounds, of good and befitting metal, every
hundredweight thereof containing 112 pounds; the same to be ready
by the Feast known as St. Peter's Chains (i August), next ensuing
without any further delay. And should he not do so, then he
agreed, &c., as proved by his recognizance.
" The same Prior also agreed to redeliver unto the said Richard
the great bell which he had formerly made for the use of him and
his Convent ; and that without delay, so soon as the same Richard
should commence founding the bell aforesaid, upon view thereof by
the said Lord Prior, or of such of his people as he should appoint
to be present thereat. Afterwards, Alan de Middletone, Canon and
Sacrist of the said house, came and acknowledged that the said
* Memorials of London IJfe, p. loo.

82 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Richard had fully satisfied them as to the work aforesaid ; and there
fore this recognizance was cancelled."
There are several notable points in this document. The
founder does not bind himself to make the new bell exactly
in tune with the old one. Why the stipulation about the
hundredweight is made is doubtful, considering the specified
number of pounds in the bell.
As a Richard de Wymbish, four years after this date, was
prior of the convent, Stahlschmidt not unreasonably surmises
that he was sub-prior when the bond was drawn, and used
his influence for the employment of a relative or fellow-
townsman. Nothing is known of Ralph, but the name as
going bail for a hackneyman in 1308. He is called a potter,
Walter has left behind him a bell at Kingston-by-Lewes,
Sussex, with lettering and cross which passed to one John
Aleyn. He may be the Aleyn le Sopere who figures so dis
creditably in a commission granted by the mayor and alder
men in 1 3 16, to regulate the standard of metal used in pot-
making. The honest potters complained that many persons,
especially this man, "buy in divers places pots of bad metal,
and then put them on the fire so as to resemble pots that
have been used, and are of old brass ; and then they expose
them for sale in West-chepe on Sundays and other festival
days, to the deception of all who buy such pots ; for the
moment that they are put upon the fire, and become exposed
to great heat, they come to nothing and melt." * It would
be interesting if we could get an analysis of the treble at
Southease, Sussex, the only bell of John Aleyn's known
to remain. Stahlschmidt gives a long list of London citizens, chiefly
* Riley, Memorials, p. Ii8.

HAMMER RINGING OF THREE BELLS
FROM A FREINCH MS. A.D. IJ72. AT THE HEAD OF A CHAPTER TREATING OF DIFFEKENCK.S
OF NUMBERS, MEA.'^URES, WEIGHTS AND SOUNDS
Coti. MS. Aug. vz, /. 4S'jb

TIMES OF DEVELOPMENT 83
potters, who may have been bell-founders, from 11 50 to 141 8.
In the reign of Henry III. France gave England a certain
John of Amiens. The rest seem to be Englishmen, among
whom may be noted, William de Suffolch, 1276, and Alan de
Suffolk, 1300-1331 ; several bearing the surname Rous ; Peter
de Weston, 1330-1348 ; the two Scheps, Gilbert, 1314-1318,
and William, 1 347-1 349 ; Simon de Hatfield, I353-I373 ;
and Henry Derby, 1 362-1390. Some are mere names, but
Peter de Weston must have been a man of mark in his day,
his name standing at the head of the list of councillors chosen
for Portsoken Ward in 1347, the first year in which the
wards elected the common council. He leaves to his wife
Matilda the house of William Schep, the son of Gilbert of
the same name. Now it came to pass that in the year 1857
I was bell-hunting in East Anglia, and lighted on the sole
remnant of WiUiam's work at Garboldisham, It bears, at
the beginning of each line, a floral ornament, used by Richard
Wymbish in a somewhat irregular pentagon, with the
inscription — flO EJlVOeSR SJIRCCI : JIRCORII
vvicceEsnvs : scpep : sne. fecic.
There were two cracked bells in the same tower, and there
was a big recast there in 1884, by Messrs. Moore, Holmes
and Mackenzie, of the Redenhall foundry, Norfolk. The top
of William Schep's bell was cut off with a circular saw, and
kindly sold to me at the price of old metal- There can be no
doubt that it was inscribed under Franciscan influence.
The St, Antony is he of Padua, celebrated for his kindness
to animals, whose pigs ran about London with bells round
their necks, awaiting the food of the charitable. The
diameter of this bell was 27^ inches, the height to the
shoulder 22^ inches, the upper circumference 45^.

84 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Simon de Hatfeld appears as a witness to the will of
William de Raughton, ollarius, in 1357. His surname
exhibits the usual variations in spelling. I was fortunate
enough to light upon him in 1862, at Sutterton, in Lincoln
shire, where he made the " Parson's bell," formerly, doubtless,
the Sanctus bell. The treble at Stanwick, Northamptonshire,
is also his. Both are simply of the vie fecit order. North
records the name in both places as " Hazfelde," but I cannot
help thinking that my version is correct. The initial cross at
Stanwick is of the pattde type, with the Saviour's head in the
centre. Henry Derby, like Simon de Hatfeld, appears first
as a witness to a will, viz. that of William Cosyn, ollarius,
made in 1368. Cosyn calls him "specialem amicum meum,"
William Burford, " civis et Belzeter," leaves Henry's wife
Mary forty shillings. Any one, I think, who examines the
evidence put together by Stahlschmidt will be convinced that
the man mentioned in the two wills is identical with Henry
Derby, ironmonger, of the Hustings rolls, 1362. Again
my lot was to find him in the eighth tower I mounted, when
I was a boy of fifteen, on the old third,* at Chippenham,
Cambridgeshire. He omits his Christian name here, as also
at New Houghton and Burnham Deepdale, Norfolk, and
Ampton, Suffolk. It rather looks as if he had been making
a business tour in East Anglia.
"¦ Recast by Warner, in 1898.

CHAPTER VII
PROVINCIAL FOUNDERS— MEDI.^VAL USES
ANOTHER turn in the provinces will be refreshing
after the metropolitans who monopolized the end
of the last chapter. To begin with Kent. A shield-
shaped foundry stamp, bearing in roundlets, in the upper
part a lion rampant and a wyvern, and below a king with
sword and sceptre, is found on eight bells not far from
Canterbury, with rather elaborate lettering. The inscrip
tions are either the Salutation, or a simple ORfl PRO ROBIS.
The founder is ascertained, with little doubt, to have taken
his name, William le Belyetere, from his craft. He appears
in the Pedes Finium of the eighteenth year of Edward II.,* as
purchasing a house in Canterbury from Peter, the son of
Henry Poteman,t of Cobham, and Isabella, his wife. Three
of the eight bells, two at Postling and one at Patrixbourne,
also bear on a shield three crowns and an arrow, a well-
known emblem of St. Edmund, and found on a few bells in
East Anglia, as well as on buildings, e.g. in Fressingfield
porch. Whether he died at Canterbury or migrated into
Norfolk is uncertain ; but the initial cross and lettering are
found on thirty-eight bells in Norfolk, having doubtless
passed on into the hands of other founders. Stahlschmidt
* No. 807. t This name is suggestive.
85

86 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
is incUned to think that there was a second migration of
the initial cross.
Kent by itself was thought by one, Stephen Norton, a
sufficient indication of locality. The fourth at Holy Cross,
Canterbury, and the second at Snave, bear —
-i- scepBJinvs noRcone De nenc ;ne fecic.
He used very fine crowned capitals, and a dotted diamond
between two roundlets for a word stop. He is described in
the Pedes Finium of the thirty-sixth year of Edward III, as
" Brasiere," and he is selling land in Goudhurst, In the next
year he is buying houses and land in Boughton Monchelsea,
and the same name, probably indicating the same man, ap
pears in a conveyance of some Wrotham property in 1375,
But through the care of Kentish antiquaries he has been
traced to St. Mary-in-the-Castle, Dover. I subjoin Stahl-
schmidt's note * : —
" Tradition states that in the seventeenth century there was here a
ring of six bells, but whether they were in the church tower or in
the old Roman Pharos, as Hasted states, is somewhat doubtful.
Tradition is equally contradictory as to the fate of the said ring.
One authority states that Prince George of Denmark, at the inter
cession of Admiral Rooke, caused them to be removed to Ports
mouth and placed in the tower of St. Thomas's Church there.
Another authority states that the order for removal to Portsmouth
was never carried out, but that the bells went to St. Margaret at
Cliffe. Neither of these traditions is, I think, correct ; the date of
the present ring at Portsmouth disproves the one, and the fact that
St. Margaret at Cliffe possesses only one bell, and that of earlier
date than the supposed transfer, militates equally against the other.
The element of truth lying at the bottom of all this is, I think, that
the bells were broken up and the metal sent to Portsmouth Dockyard
* Church Bells of Kent, p. 257.

PROVINCIAL FOUNDERS 87
for casting purposes. We have, however, in the Surrenden MSS,, a
piece of information as to one of these bells which is perfectly trust
worthy, as being within the personal knowledge of the narrator. Sir
Edward Deering. It is given as follows in Arch. Cant., vol. i. It
appears that there was at that time (1630) in this church a brass
(of which a sketch is given) to Sir Robert Astone, and the following
note is added by Sir Edward : —
"'The circumscription of the great bell heere, and weighing
3000 lb. weight, and which was the gift of that S" Robert Astone,
hath every letter fayre and curiously cast, and each crowned with a
ducal crown, " Dominus Robertus de Astone Miles me fecit fieri
A° quarto R. Ricardi scdi G." Lower than this in small letters was
cast — " ' " Stepne Norton of Kent,
Me made in God intent.'""
Now this very couplet, with "Kent" and "intent"
shortened into "Ket" and "entet," and "i" for "in," is
found on the third bell in the tower of Chiselborough, near
Ilminster, which also contains two other coeval bells of
different stamp. The initial cross and word-stop are of great
beauty, and the lettering unusually tall and elegant, but
quite unlike those on the Canterbury and Snave bells. What
could have taken this " man of Kent " all the way to a
remote Somerset village is a mystery. We have no trace
of him en route. In 1394 two Stephen Nortons, of Chart
Sutton, father and son, are permitted by an Ad quod
damnum writ to assign to the Convent at Modynden inter
alia nine acres of meadow in "Bocton Monchesy." Con
sidering that our Norton bought lands there, it argues for
the identity of the two. But Stahlschmidt doubts whether
there could have been a foundry in such a village as
Chart Sutton. Some foundries, however, were in villages,
e.g. at Aish Priors, Somerset, a cast from which parish

88 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
confronts me as I write. Perhaps, like some business men
of to-day, he preferred to live on his land in a village, and
carry out his work in the adjoining town of Maidstone.
At York the work of casting went on under one Johannes
de Clyfforde, who made there a bell for Ripon Minster, c.
12)7 7* Yet only eight years before this the York Minster
chapter employed a Leicester man, John de Stafford, as
we find from their Fabric Rolls, A.D. 1371, published by the
Surtees Society.f
" Expensce facte per Majistrum Campanis. Et in una Magna
Campana, per Johannem de Stafford ex convencione operanda vj//
xiijj m]d. Et in xj c. turvis emptis pro igne circa le mold xjj.
Et in vj scheppis de charlcole emptis pro eodem vijj. Et
in j petra cepi empta xvj;^. Et in unguent empto xy']d. Et in
wort empto m]d. Et in pape J empto vj^. Et in wenggas emptis
iiij^. Et in cariacione luti pro le mold et aliis necessariis circa
campanam xjj. Et in stramine pis' empto iiiji^ ob. Et in j stapill
pro campana empta Hid. Et in rosyn empto pro eodem iij//. Et in
potu dato laborantibus circa dictam campanam fundendam iijj xd ob.
Et in vj serzis § emptis pro le mold xxiijif. Et in dicta campana
cum ferro pendenda xxs. Et in j magno claper empto pro eadem xvjj
vn]d. Et in j alia campana vocata John de novo pendenda cum j
novo claper empto xxvj. Et in j alia campana vocata Chaunseler
pendenda per ij vices cum j novo claper xxj. Et in m xij lb de ere
et stagno emptis de Johanne de Kirkham danda pro c. xxvjj viij^
xix// ixj vj^. Et in c. de stagno emptis pro magna campana xxxj.
Et in campana pro le clok cum campana cementariorum de novo
operandis Ixvjj \i\id. Et in xxj lb de messyng || emptis de Ricardo
Kyng iijj \]d. Et in campana in logio cementariorum pendenda
iijj m.]d. Et in campana pro le clok in berefrido pendenda vjj vji^,
Et in xj rigald 1[ emptis pro rotis campanarum cum sarracione
* Notes and Queries, Dec. i6, 1882. f Vol. xxxv. 1858.
X Paper. § Large tapers.
II Metal. 1[ Timber.

PROVINCIAL FOUNDERS 89
iiij J iij^. Et in convencione facta cum domino Johanne Clareburgh
pro j novo cloke operando cum toto apparatu p'ter plumbum et
campanam xiij// vjj \n]d. Et in permutacione facta cum Johanne
de Kirkham pro alia magna campana pro le clok et habuit in
emendacione cum campana ecclesie xxli. Et in'putura, et reward,
et aliis necessariis pro le clok iiijj iiij^;?. Et in pendicione ejusdem
magne campana pro eodem cum ferro empto xjj. Summa Ixli
XJ j^." A translation may be acceptable —
" Expenses incurred by the Master for the Bells. For one great
bell by John de Stafford by agreement for its making, ^6 13J. 4d.,
And for eleven hundred turves bought for the fire round the mould,
1 1 J., And for six skeps of charcoal bought for the same, 7J., And for
one petra cepi bought, idd.. And for grease bought, idd.. And for
wort bought, 41^., And for paper (?) bought 4^,, And for wenges
(? wedges) bought, /^d.. And for carriage of slime for the mould and
other necessaries about the bell, lu.. And for pea straw bought, i^d.,
And for one staple bought for the bell, Jid., And for rosin bought for
the same, 31/., And for drink given to workmen about casting the
said bell, 3J. io\d.. And for six large tapers bought for the mould,
i%d.. And for hanging the said bell with iron, 20J., And for one great
clapper bought for the same, i6j. Zd., And for hanging anew one
other bell called John with one new clapper bought, 25J., And for
hanging twice another bell called Chancellor, with one new clapper,
2oj.,And for 10 12 lbs. of copper and tin bought of John of Kirkham
at the rate of 26J. ?>d. a hundredweight, ;^i9 gj. 6^., And for a
hundredweight of tin bought for the great bell, 30J., And for making
anew a bell for the clock with the bricklayers' bell, 66j. Zd., And for
21 lbs. of metal bought of Richard Kyng, 3J. 6<f., And for hanging a
bell in the bricklayers' shed, 3J. 4^,, And for hanging a bell for the
clock in the belfry, 6j. ()d.. And for eleven timbers bought for the
wheels of the bells with the sawing, 4J. id.. And for agreement made
with Sir John Clareburgh for making one new clock with the whole
apparatus except the lead and the bell, ,;^i3 6j, ?>d.. And for
exchange made with John of Kirkham for another great bell for the

90 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
clock, and he had in allowance with the bell of the church, ;^2o, And
for refining, and reward, and other necessaries for the clock, 4J. /^d.,
And for hanging the same great bell for the same (clock) with iron
bought, II J. Total ;^6o loj. id."
In endeavouring to verify these accounts, I can only
express my thankfulness that I am not an official auditor.
A man employed in so great a work at a distance would
be sure to leave his mark in his own town. Accordingly, the
tenor at All Saints, Leicester, is inscribed —
+ jBOpflnnes ; De i scjiffORD i jecic i nze i in i BonoRe i
B€ i iRJIRie.
He was mayor of the town in 1366, and again in 1370.
The placing of the Saviour's name over that of the Virgin
Mary is paralleled by the Thrussington treble in the same
county, which has IBS over the first word of the Salutation.
There are seven other Leicestershire bells with the same
cross and lettering. One of these merits special mention,
the treble at Aylestone, which is inscribed —
-f WI£€£JnVS f fl£IVS ; JBOBJinniS i RezevvouR
4- yecic i jne : 3n j BonoRe ; uejice i mmie.
North, in writing the first of his books, did not recognize
tha.t fecit always designates the maker, not the donor. But
considering the identity of letter, who should be the father of
this William but John de Stafford himself. Resevour is
spelt Rekevour in a transaction quoted by Nichols. The
date is May i, 141 2. This make is found in Craven, on the
treble at Arncliffe, with a unique hexameter —
4- pecRt- i po£i i CEjivis I fflc j uc i 3ncR€jnus : qua i vis.

PROVINCIAL FOUNDERS

91

Fig. 6.

If this bell were one of those given by Prior Whixley of
Fountains, the Leonine rhyme is accounted for.*
From Leicester we now turn to Gloucester, and a new
subject is set before us in the seal of Sandre (Fig. 6), short
for Alexander, of that town. For this
bears in its centre not what we should
have expected, a bell, but that which was
no doubt a profitable article of manufac
ture, a laver pot, or ewer (Fr. aiguiere).
In the Promptorium Parvulorum the work
of the Campanarius, or Belleyettere, in
cludes such things, " zetyne of metelle, as
bellys, pannys, potys, and other like." So
the maker of pots and pans advanced
from the smaller to the greater, sometimes
apparently to the surprised pleasure of his neighbours, as
hinted by the inscription on the tenor at St. John Sepulchre,
Norwich — Bas Cu Campanas formasti pottere Cbomas,
We obtain from Ritson's labours a graphic description of
a certain " proud potter " whom Robin Hood relieved of
some of his goods, more to the potter's injury than to the
outlaw's benefit. I shall speak more of him in a subsequent
chapter. Such a man coming to a parish with a broken bell
would be ready with his advice, and, where circumstances
were suitable, the upshot would be a recasting on the spot,
otherwise the sending the bell to his foundry headquarters.
The Jive on the ewer in the seal of Sandre de Gloucetre looks
like one of the many tricks and riddles in which the men of
* Poppleton, Bells in the West Riding of Yorkshire, p. 73.

92

THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

old indulged as freely as the men of our own day. Asked
to complete the inscription, almost every one would name the
Salutation. Then the vessel would be turned round, and the
complete legend would be shown to be the commonplace
venez £JlveZ. Our lamented friend, the Rev. Canon Manning,
Rector of Diss, exhibited in the temporary museum of the
Royal Archaeological Institute, at their Norwich meeting in
1889, a brass tripod ewer with this inscription. The tripod
form shown on the seal is, of course, the very thing for
heating water. The vessels themselves have not .infre
quently turned up, and were at first assigned to the Roman
o , I E 3 « 5 fi period, but in all proba-
bility they belong to the
thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. The subject has
been discussed by the
north-country archseolo-
gists, Wilson * and Bruce,t
and in the Norwich volume
of the Archceological
Journal. %
I give here, from my
Church Bells of Cambridge
shire, an illustration (Fig. 7)
of a laver of brass in the
possession of Mr. Robinson,
manager of the Cumber
land Union Bank, Mary-

Fig, 7.

port. It was found at Allon by in 1876, near the sea, six
feet deep in the sand. When another somewhat similar
* Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, p. 278. t Roman Wall, p. 434.
X xiii. p. 72.

PROVINCIAL FOUNDERS 93
one was being scoured with hot water after its discovery,
an aromatic smell came from it, as though the lees of some
spiced liquor had remained in it during its long burial.
The lid was of the simple hingeless order. These lavers
will be found to occupy a prominent place in later stamps.
The seal of Sandre de Gloucetre was bought from a London
dealer, and nothing is known of its history.
The Lynn founders of the fourteenth century exhibited a
duplicity of surname by no means unusual at that time. It
would be useless to call a man Thomas of Lynn when he was
at home, where his calling furnished the needful distinction.
Thomas Belleyetere, who pays v']s viij^ in the Lynn Subsidy
Roll for 1333, may be taken as identical with Thomas de
Lenne found on bells, only there may have been more than
one of the same name and calling. Henry Belleyettere was
mayor of Lynn 1 399-1400. We find no Henricus de Lenne ;
but at Ampton, Suffolk, already mentioned, a strange medley
is discovered. The third and fourth bells both bear the head
of Edward III. The former is inscribed CBOJRJIS feCIC,
and the latter OeRBJJ, dedicated to St. Margaret and St.
Andrew respectively. The Lynn character seems impressed
on both of them ; nevertheless, the third bears an initial cross
used by Thomas Potter of Norwich, admitted to the freedom
of that city in 1404. It may be that the son of the London
Henry Derby migrated to Lynn and kept his surname, his
Christian name being Thomas, which also occurs as the name
of a founder in a strange linguistic mixture at Long Stratton
St. Mary, Norfolk —
jesu en £e Bon De coi
sine son scvRjnin fic fCRe jnoi
CBOSKJis snjioe sne
From Lynn to Norwich is a natural course. Like this

94 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Long Stratton bell, the earliest Norwich bell known, that at
Hellesdon, records the donor as well as the founder : —
aoBnes oe Be^cescon jne yecic fi€Ri
in BonoRe jracris cr€sci.
wice££jnu$ DC noRwyco sne yecic.
This William of Norwich is too late for the Wilelmus
Brasyere whose name occurs in the Norwich Militia (Wymer
Ward) in 1355.* He was probably the man admitted to the
freedom of the city in 1376 as William of Notyngham, brasier
for the donor of the Hellesdon bell is doubtless the patron
of the church and founder of the chantry there, who died
on April 19, 1384, A few bells more of this make remain,
all in Norfolk, save one at Conington, Cambs,, inscribed —
jissumpcfl : esc : snjIRIil : 3n : C€£VSn : 6flVD€nC : MeeEi
EJivDjinces : BeneDicvnc oosninvsn
This might have been cast on the founder's journey from
Nottingham to Norwich, His lettering is small, about five-
eighths of an inch high. Another brasier, William Sutton,
was admitted to the freedom of the city in 1392, but his
name does not occur on any bells.
We ought to be able to give some account of the work in
the middle of England, but as yet there is little to say.
Vilelmvs Dvddelai, presumably connected with the Worcester
shire town, appears on a little single bell at Well, Lincoln
shire, with pretty small cross, capitals and fleur-de-lis word-
stop, but there is no second instance of the name. Another
solitary case is Nicolas at Bramber, in Sussex, without a sur
name. An ecclesiastical founder, Thomas Dekun, is named
at Catwick, in Holderness.
¦* Norfolk and Norwich Archasological Society papers, xiv. part iii. p. 308.

MEDIEVAL USES 95
At this point it may be well to leave the founders for a
while, and give some space to earlier mediaeval usages. Of
the Curfew little need be said. The accepted Alfred and
Carfax story is defective in authority, though it may very
easily be true. William the Conqueror's ordinance of 1068
is more trustworthy. Before his time the practice was well
known on the Continent, and not unknown in England, no
doubt as a precaution against fire. The repeal of the Curfew
ordinance in the first year of Henry I. is less comprehensible,
but the practice, unprohibited, remained through the ages,
and with variations remains to the present day. The usual
hour, eight o'clock, was varied in some country places to nine
in the summer, as at Mildenhall, Suffolk, in my youth. Should
any one desire to know the different phases which the Curfew
assumes in the limits of one county, let him consult North's
Church Bells of Lincolnshire.* The fact that the Curfew was
not sounded on Festival Days is accounted for by the ringing
of all the bells on these occasions. Religious and secular
usages cannot be altogether divorced. In the minds of many
the Ignitegium would be a call to Vesper Prayers. After a
while we find traces of a Mattins bell, and just before the
fourteenth century had closed an order came forth from Arch
bishop Arundel commanding one Pater Noster and five Ave
Marias to be said at dawn. To bring this to mind, a bell
was rung called the Angelus. When, therefore, we read, as
it so often happens, the full words of the Annunciation, or the
name of the angel Gabriel, it is no great strain to the mental
vision to see that this special bell was so used. A further
extension of ringing at noontide was made in some places,
as at Cropredy, Oxfordshire. Early in the reign of King
Edgar (960) the new canons provided for the notification of
• Pages 203 et seq.

96 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
the hours by bell-ringing as preliminary to prayers in the
church. Yet within seventeen years Archbishop Dunstan's
rules apply only to religious houses. For parochial churches
the Edgar canons could not fail frequently to be inoperative,
through the isolated position of many churches, and the want
of residence in other cases.
Elaborate instructions were issued in 1339 by John
Grandison, Bishop of Exeter, which recommend the Use of
the Cathedral, and still hardly can have been intended to
apply but to a few churches, as they necessitate two towers
with four bells in each : —
" Item statuimus quod omni die per annum extra feriam sextam
parasceves et sabbato sancto cantetur solempnis missa de Beata
Maria in capella ejusdem antequam pulsetur ad primam die : ad quam
missam in omnibus majoribus duplicibus festis per totum annum
maxima campana ecclesie pulsetur ; in mediis vero duplicibus secunda
major campana ; in omnibus aliis duplicibus tercia major campana ;
et quando Invitatorium tercio habetur, quarta major ; et predicte
quatuor majores campane debeant pendere sicut Exonie in parte
ecclesie dextra, et alie cotidie quatuor in sinistra, quarum majores
semper ad missam Beate Marie pulsentur nisi in predictis temporibus,
et semper cum ilia campana que debet pulsari ad missam Beate
Marie, pulsari debet Ignitegium. Pulsabitur ad missam sic : Primo
ilia campana, cum qua pulsari debet, terminatur octo vel decem ictibus
continuis, et facto bono intervallo quasi dimidii milliarii pulsetur cum
eadem campana per dimidium milliarii et cessetur et iterum statim
repulsetur eadem per totum tempus ac primo et cessetur ; et statim
tercia pulsetur brevius ; et tunc celeriter clerici omnes et pueri cum
duobus ad minus vicariis vadant sine mora ad capellam Beate Marie,
et dictis horis Beate Marie, cum sufficiens numerus venerit, incepiatur
statim missa et terminatur campana."
By this ordinance a solemn Mass of the Virgin was to
be sung daily, save on Good Friday and Easter Eve, before

MEDIEVAL USES 97
Prime. On Greater Double feasts the great bell was to be
rung, on Middle Doubles the next in magnitude, on all other
Doubles the third in magnitude. In these feasts the Invitatory
was quadruple : when it was triple the fourth bell in size was
rung. After directions for hanging and for the Curfew, follow
those for the Mass of the Virgin : eight or ten strokes, a good
interval, five hundred strokes with the same bell, a short
pause, then a repetition of
the whole, another short
pause, then the third bell
rung more shortly, or it
may mean more quickly.
Then the clerks, boys, and
vicars go to the chapel of ts
the Virgin, and when a
sufficient congregation is
assembled, the bell is to
stop and the Mass begin.
So too in case of Com
munion of the Sick. When
the priest was proceeding to the sick man's house he carried
a bell with him to let the people know his errand, and thus
call forth their sympathy in prayers (Fig. 8).
There is a copy of Lyndewode's Provinciate in the library
of Thetford Grammar School, from which I copied the follow
ing extracts on the subject : " Pecham. Sacerdote saltem
induto superplicio et gerenti orarium cum lumine previo
in lucerna cum campana ut populus ad reverentiam debitam
excitetur." On which ordinance, Lambeth, 1281, Lyndewode
remarks : " Campana vero huius statuti sequitur in textu
Scias tri quod si sacerdos revertatur vacuus sine hostia debet
extinguere lumen et facere quod non pulsetur campanula
H

98

THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

ne populus adorando committeret ydolotriam . . . host. . . ."
It is important to our purpose to see campana explained by
campanula. He says that there is nothing from Archbishop
Edmund Rich (i 234-1 244), but from Peckham's successor
I found this fragment : " Wynchelsee . . . tintinnabulum ad
deferendum coram corpore Xpristi {sic) in visitatione infirm-
orum . . . campanas . . . cum cordis."
From the same copy I obtained this early notice of the
sacring bell : " Pecham. De celebracione missarum. In
elevatione corporis Xpristi {sic) ab una parte ad minus campane
pulsentur ut plures qui celebrationi missarum non valent
cotidie interesse ubicunque
fuerint sive in agris sive in
domibus flectent genua indul-
gencias concessas a pluribus
episcopis habituri." Lynde
wode's gloss is " Pulsentur
ut sonent ex una parte ad
minus. Campance non intel-
ligas de pluribus illo tempore
\ simul pulsandis in una ecclesia
quia suflicit unam sonari. Sed
pluraliter loquitur respectu
plurium ecclesiarum. Et hec
pulsatio fieri debet de cam
panis illis que longius possunt
audiri quod satis patet per
rationem que sequitur Ut
populares {sic) . . . ubi ponitur finis ob quem sic statuitur."
William Lyndewode, Bishop of St. David's and Lord Privy
Seal, died in 1446, and his Provinciate is therefore, about
a century and a half after Archbishop Peckham's time.

Fig. 9.

MEDIEVAL USES

99

Doubtless it is not without reason that he notes the multi
plication of bells in the interval.

Fig. io.

In text B of Canon Simmons's edition of The Lay-folks'
Mass-book, which he regards as written c. 1375, the use of the
sacring bell is referred to as a known custom —

lOo THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
" A litel belle men oyse to ryng.
Ijen shall fjou do reuerence
to ihesu crist awen presence."
Lydgate, who was born c. 1370, says of himself that in his
boyhood he was —
" Rediere chirstoonys * for to telle
Than gon to chirche or heere the sacry belle."
Born in the Risbridge Hundred in Suffolk, he pronounces
"stones" just as the word would now be pronounced in the
county. In after times the use of the sacring bell called forth much
bitter animadversion, as unreasonable as the reverence with
which the little instrument was regarded by the ignorant.
No error could possibly have been propagated by it. Its
function inside the church was that performed daily and
hourly in every elementary school in the kingdom by the
teacher's dish-bell, calling for silence and attention, while in
the fields the labourer, or on the road the traveller, might
often have his thoughts drawn from the transitory to the
permanent. An instance of the latter is given from Fressingfield
(Fig. 9), and of the former from Hawstead (Fig. 10), two
Suffolk churches. * Cherry-stones.

CHAPTER VIII
THE CIRE ^i^iPZiKE — HEXAMETERS — ORNAMENTA
TION— MIGRATION OF FOUNDERS — POWER OF
BELLS OVER STORMS, ETC.— THE PASSING BELL
—ANGELIC DEDICATIONS
THE method of casting known by the name of cire
perdue is of great antiquity and of wide application.
Pausanias, the historian and geographer of the days
of Hadrian, tells us that Theodorus, the son of Telekles,
of Samos, was the reputed inventor of bronze casting, in the
sixth century B.C. The plan of making a strong core,
modelling on it in destructible wax the form of the object
to be cast, moulding on this model a cope close-fitting to
it, melting by fire this wax model, and finally pouring the
liquid metal into the hollow thus formed, seems to have gone
on with little change through the ages. It is visible in
Richard Tunnoc's window in York Minster. It is the
regulator of weight in Walter of Odyngton. It came from
the six large tapers which are charged for in John de
Stafford's bill. Had we more accounts at command, we
should be sure to find cera empta. The beautiful lettering
of which we have seen instances was impressed into the
mixture of clay and other ingredients which encircled the
crown of the model, and this mixture must have been as

I02 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
delicate as wax. Lettering, indeed, had its epochs. Simple
at flrst, it became crowned, but the period of crowned
Longobardic lettering was not eternal.
Here I must say a few words about the Chertsey fifth
bell, for which the date of 1310 has been claimed, on the
ground, inter alia, that crowned Longobardic lettering is not
found at a later date. But we find it used by Stephen Norton
between 1363 and 1392, by John Sturdy about 1450, on the
first letters of a black-letter bell at Shenley, Bucks ; and this
Chertsey bell bears the lion mark of the Wokingham
foundry, of a distinctly later type.
As, however, we approach the black-letter period, versifica
tion becomes much more prominent. The simple Scriptural
quotations yield in more instances to the Leonine hexameter.
These rhyming productions were not favourably regarded in
the Augustan period, though Ovid is always using the
homoioteleuton for his pentameters, while in Greek iambics
it is regarded as a sin to have two consecutive lines ending
in the same sound. Many of my readers will remember the
story of the not too literary University man reading in a
note to one of the tragedies of Euripides that raSe, not roSf,
was the version of one editor " to avoid the homoioteleuton','
exclaimed with fervour, " Oh, avoid the homoioteleuton by
all means ! I always do ! " Ovid's use of it in pentameters
became extended to hexameters, e.g. —
" Quot ccelum Stellas, tot habet Roma puellas,"
which is evidently intentional. Some attribute the name
Leonine to Pope Leo 1 1., whose papacy was shorter in time
(682-684) than his patronage of music, others to a canon of
the Church of St. Benedict in Paris, Leonius, the poetical
narrator of the history of the world, who flourished about the

HEXAMETERS 103
time of the first Crusade. As St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who
died in 1153, employed this rhyme form so largely, especially
in his poem, De Contemptu Mundi, whence may be quoted
the original of an English couplet too well known to need
translation —
" Demon languebat, monachus tunc esse volebat,
Ast ubi convaluit, mansit ut ante fuit,"
the Leonine designation seems to go back to the Pope. The
same conclusion may be drawn from the verses of Walter
Mapes, though they are a little later than those of St. Bernard,
The rhyming hexameter, however, took some time to reach
the foundry, and the specimens which we possess, all along the
line, are not to be put before the schoolboy for imitation.
Bad grammar, false quantities, and impossibilities in scansion
abound, to say nothing of exaggeration of hagiological
reverence. The obtaining of a rhyme involved much labour
and ingenuity. In later times English verse was expedited
by the Manipulus Vocabtttorum, but no Latin rhyming
dictionary can be indicated as having existed. As at
Arncliffe the middle ending, Clavis, had to be matched by
two words. Qua vis, so it will be seen in other legends that
the young lover's difficulty in finding a rhyme to grudge in
the nineteenth century was not unparalleled in these distant
days. In one inscription the composer must have been in
despair ; if not, the secret has perished with him, and his
interpreters give up the riddle, perhaps with a sigh of relief.
It is the treble at Madingley, Cambridgeshire, seen in my
undergraduate days, which presents its Delphic utterance.
All is clear till the end of the line —
4- DICOR eeo CBOSRjis £jivs esc xpT sonvs osnjis.

I04 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Any solution of this enigma will be gratefully received by its
recorder. It would have been well, indeed, if some " sufficient
clerk " (to use the expression of the Council of Clarendon)
had been at the founder's elbow when the inscription was
prepared for impression into the mould. Colkirk, in Norfolk,
would not then have been adorned with —
4- 0 ClOUS Ce£l fflC IJJIRBJIRfl CRISnmJI D€£I.
where deli surely must be meant for deleri, which would have
spoilt the rhyme. This beautiful line scans, at any rate ; but
what can be said for the second at Winthorpe, Lincolnshire ?
Here we read —
4- Jiiitonius moiict ut Campana bene sonet
and this is black letter, of a later time.
Any attempt to cramp this exquisite line into a hexameter
or a pentameter will end, like a well-intentioned effort to
straighten the shoulders of a hunchback, by snapping his
tendons. At Assington, Suffolk, there is an unmistakeable
attempt at a pentameter, but, alas ! as great a failure as the
aforequoted. The singular, too, is used for the plural —
-1- Boc : sienusR : seRVJi • xpe • srariji ; CBOsnji.
Thus syntax and metre alike suffer, as in the case of the
later versifier, who after much agony over Sir Walter Scott's
beautiful lines —
" Call it not vain ; they do not err,
Who say that when the Poet dies,
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper.
And celebrates his obsequies,"
produced " Figmentum cogita non." *
*' See my Church Bells of Suffolk, p. ll.

ORNAMENTATION 105
I am bound in justice to the mediaeval bellfounders to
say that these inscriptions are about as bad as I could light
upon, and as we pass into the black-letter period they will be
found to be more metrically and syntactically correct, though
possibly not so amusing. Bury St. Edmund's could do better,
as already recorded. Some one of its monks composed two
lines for the bell called " Hugh "—
" Martiris Eadmundi iussum decus hie ita fundi
Anselmi donis donum manus aptat Hugonis." *
The first royal head which greets us is that attributed to
the English Justinian, our first Edward, and the delineation
of his stern but noble features deserves the reproduction
which it has received. The identity of this' head with that
of Edward I. in the choir of York Minster rests on length of
nose, prominent bushy locks, and long beard. It occurs with
that of a queen, whom we take to be Eleanor of Castile, eight
times in Gloucestershire, but not in Somerset, Dorset, Devon,
or Cornwall. The cross gives us no clue to the foundry, and
this group may date from the days of the great jurist monarch.
The same heads and cross are on the second and third bells
at Marston St. Laurence, and the fourth at Potterspury, in
Northamptonshire, but at Grafton Regis, in the same county,
with a smaller plain cross, to be treated of in this chapter,
and the royal heads on all these bells, and in the Gloucester
shire group, are not as in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, on the
shoulder, but as stops between the words of the inscription ;
and the two Marston bells, especially the larger one, bear
hexameters not to be omitted. The second has —
PRO • CBOsne • eavdc • ResonjiBO • snoDO • sine FRflVDe,
¦* Dr. M. R. James, On the Abbey of St. Edmund at Bury, p. 199.

io6

THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

a legend subject to considerable variations. The third names
an Edward, and why not the Edward whose head we regard
as placed on it ?
eowjiRDi • nocfl • sonec • Bee • ov£Cissisnfl • coca.
The recollection of Queen Eleanor's crosses in the county
cannot but occur to the mind. In Bedfordshire the king's
head exists alone at one place, Sundon ; in Cambridgeshire
at Chippenham ; in Norfolk at West Lynn and Wimbotsham ;
in Leicestershire at Thurcaston * ; all with a cross of a later
period. At Teigh, Rutland, the queen precedes the king.
Even after two centuries have passed away the king's head
does not pass away, but reappears among the marks of
Leicester and Nottingham foundries.
Another royal pair must now claim notice. The fourth
at Great Shelford, near Cambridge, early came under my
eye, but, save the heads, it has neither inscription nor mark.
Others have turned up in Warwickshire,
Hampshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire,
Huntingdonshire, Staffordshire, and Hert
fordshire. Of the heads on the fourth bell
at Wyddial, Herts, which is very badly
stamped, Stahlschmidt says that " a very
careful examination proves them to be the
portraits of Edward III. (Fig. ii) and his
queen, Philippa."t For my own part, I
entirely agree with this view, nor do I think
that it has been combated by any one. This bell bears
thrice a sadly blurred circular stamp with four fleur-de-lis,
apparently unique. Most of these bells have the same
* Thurcaston has the queen's head as well as the king's.
t Church Bells of Hertfordshire, p. li.

Fig. II.

ORNAMENTATION 107
initial cross as in the later group of those with the heads
of Edward I. and Queen Eleanor. Both royal couples are
to be congratulated on the preservation of their heads, which
passed into the hands of Nottingham founders, and were
frequently reproduced, the later monarch and his queen
appearing at Duffield, Derbyshire, on a bell cast by the
younger Thomas Hedderly, of Nottingham, in 1786. When
Hampshire is investigated fully, some more may be found to
be added to the fifth and sixth at the Minster, Christchurch,
which have the little cross. These bear Leonine hexameters,
two to each bell, and unknown elsewhere, so that we owe
a debt of gratitude to Mr. Cocks for recording them in his
Church Bells of Buckinghamshire.* The fifth bears —
-Fsic : noBis i osnen i covzeyns i cusn : sic ; cibi i nosnen-
Then comes the king's head, followed by —
viRcvs ¦; cflsnpjine • pciJic • nos = viveRe • sjine.
It is refreshing to find the French dissyllable rescuing
the hexameter. The sixth varies the treatment by substi
tuting line rhyme for half-line rhyme —
+ snox =. flv6vscinvs ; Bee ; Dvsn : Resonjic ; pReco :
snjiGnvs,
and after the king's head —
flssis : yescivvs i pesces : pivs ; vc = yveec ; flenus.
The former line would not pass muster under a severe
inspector, I fear.
The smaller plain cross of which mention has been made
in connection with Grafton Regis dates back a long way in
» Page II.

io8 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
the record of the metropolitan founders, though not to the
earliest of them. It is engraved in Stahlschmidt's Surrey
Bells and London Bell-Founders,* with the lettering used by
Robert Rider, from whose hand but two bells remain bearing
his name. These are the trebles at Ford, Sussex, and
Hartley, Kent, of the ordinary " me fecit " legend, the only
variation being that the surname is " Rider " in the first
example and "Ridre" in the second. According to the
usage of the period, he made two wills, dealing respectively
with his personalty and his realty. Both seem to have
perished ; and the loss of the former is great, as there was
likely to be in it much instructive detail with regard to his
business. The former was enrolled in the Hustings Court,
dated 1386. His third wife was Cristina, and among other
bequests he left her his claim on John and Walter, his
apprentices, for their unfinished term of apprenticeship. His
body was to be buried in the churchyard of St. Andrew-over-
Cornhill (better known as St. Andrew Undershaft), and he
had a son. Sir John Rider, chaplain. There is no reference
to the transference of the business, but the little cross passed
into other hands. It appears, in addition to the bells already
named, on the fine tenor in Carlisle Cathedral, which belongs
to the time of Bishop Strickland (1400-1419), and at Bar-
nardiston, Suffolk, with lettering identical with that at Ford
and Hartley. On the Barnardiston tenor is —
4- osnnes ; sflncci ; oei • ORnce : pro i noBis,
which words agree in sentiment, though not in diction, with
those on the Christchurch fifth.
The connection of Suffolk with the London foundries,
shown undoubtedly by William de Suffolk and Alan de
* Plate IX.

MIGRATION OF FOUNDERS 109
Suffolk, and probably by Philip de Ufford, receives a ray
of light from Robert Rider's will, for William Episwych
was co-executor with John Corn, fishmonger. The site
of the foundry can be distinctly traced. Stahlschmidt
possessed a deed of conveyance, dated 1405, from Robert
Burford, citizen and bellfounder, to John atte Lee, citizen
and candle-maker, of a house in St. Andrew, Cornhill,
abutting to the north on Aldgate Street, now Leaden-
hall Street. The only part of the south side of Leadenhall
Street which lies in St. Andrew's parish is eastward from
Lime Street, about two-thirds of the distance towards Billiter
Street, and here must have been the foundry. If East Anglia
could send her business sons to London, other parts could
send theirs to East Anglia. In fact, the migrations from one
part of England to another, as indicated by the surnames in
one part corresponding with the names of parishes in another
part, are well worth more attention than has been bestowed
on them. There is certainly a hint of such a migration from
the West Riding into Norfolk, temporary it may be, when
William Silisden cast the little three for Old Walsingham.
The only place in England which shows any resemblance to
his surname is what is now Silsden, in Yorkshire, not far
from Ilkley. Some connection between these distant places
existed through the fact that the advowson of Kirkby-in-
Malhamdale belonged to the priory of West Dereham, and
the Norfolk surnames of several vicars are given in Whitaker's
History of Craven. The old Walsingham treble is inscribed —
4- sjinccovs eeoRfiivs ora pro noBis.
The others should have been of the simple "me fecit" order,
but William from the north halted between two opinions, vary
ing " fecit " on the second by " fesid " on the third. Nothing

no THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
apparently is known about his initial cross and lettering. He
may be commended to the care of Mr. Poppleton. His
Latinity does not indicate careful schooling.
With regard to mediaeval uses, it is easier to find their
ends than their beginnings. There was undoubtedly a wide
spread and deeply-rooted trust in their power over evil spirits
in things material as well as things spiritual. So in those
old, varied, and oft-quoted hexameters, the origin of which I
know not —
" Laudo Deum verum, plebem voco, congrego clerum,
Funera plango, fulgura frango, sabbata pango,
Defunctos ploro, pestem fugo, festa decoro,"
there are two distinct allusions to the expulsion of demons.
The former idea is attacked by Latimer in characteristic
language in one of his Lincolnshire sermons, preached in
1552. After mentioning the recommendation of holy water
for a sick man by an old woman, he adds —
" See here the foolishness of people, that in the time of the light
of God's most holy word will follow such phantasies and delusions of
the devil ! Ye know, when there was a storm or a fearful weather,
then we rang the holy bells : they were they that must make all
things well ; they must drive away the devil ! But I tell you, if the
holy bells would serve against the devil, or that he might be put
away through their sound, no doubt we would soon banish him out
of all England. For, I think, if all the bells in England should be
rung together at a certain hour, I think there would be almost no
place, but some bells might be heard there. And so the devil should
have no abiding place in England, if ringing of bells should serve ;
but it is not that will serve against the devil."
On this his editor, Dr. Corrie, formerly Master of Jesus
College, Cambridge, most aptly quotes the accounts of the
parish of Sandwich for 1464, in which year there is an

POWER OF BELLS OVER EVIL SPIRITS 1 1 1
item for bread and cheese for the "ryngers in the gret
thunderyng." * Latimer uses the plural in speaking of these
remedies against tempestuous weather.
Bishop Pilkington, of Durham, in the next generation
uses twice the singular number, "the hallowed bell." t
Perhaps this was the Lancashire J usage, one special bell set
apart for the purpose, most likely the largest, because the
sound more widely spread would drive the persecuting
demons a greater distance, and thus not only bring better
weather, but work to other more personal ends.-
This trust in the dispersion of storms was not confined to
England. Barnaby Googe, who travelled on the Continent
in his youth, alludes, in his translation of the Popish Kingdome
of Naogeorgus, to the belief —
" I saw myself at Numburg once, a town in Toring coast,
A bell that with this title bold hirself did proudly boast :
By name I Mary called am, with sound I put to flight
The thunder crackes and hurtful stormes, and every wicked sprite."
It is a pity that we have not the original Latin of these
words, for they rather indicate an extension of the well-
known black-letter inscription —
-f- Virginis egregie. Vocor Campana snaric
The history of the Passing Bell is encompassed with
some difficulty. The earliest instance on record is in the
well-known account of the death of the Abbess Hilda, of
Strenaeshale, now Whitby. This indicates the sounding of
the bell after death.
* Parker Society, i. 498. f Ibid., 177, 596.
X He was a native of Rivington.

112 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
" Erat in ipso monasterio quEedam sanctimonialis femina, nomine
Begu, quffi xxx et amplius annos dedicata Domino virginitate, in
monachica conversatione serviebat. Haec tunc in dormitorio
sororum pausans, audivit subito in aere notum campanse sonum, quo
ad orationes excitari vel convocari solebant, cum quis eorum de sceculo
fuisset evocatus ; apertisque, ut sibi videbatur, oculis, aspexit, detecto
domus culmine, fusam desuper lucem omnia replevisse ; cui videlicet
luci dum sollicita intenderet, vidit animam pmfatce Dei famulce in
ipsa luce, comitantibus ac ducentibus angelis, ad ccBlum ferri" *
Death was over. The bell announced the ascent of the
released soul. The archangel Michael is often spoken of as
the special guardian of the departed saint. Thus the second
bell in a church dedicated to St. Michael, Taddington, in
Derbyshire, bears " Custos sanctus nostrarum Michael it dux
animarum," whether in Longobards or black letter, I know
not ; and there are other like inscriptions. As time went on,
other uses in sickness and at death arose. Durandus, writing
about the time of Richard I., gives clear instructions as to
ringing for persons in extremis, with the intent to have the
prayers of their neighbours for them in their last earthly
hours, twice for a woman, and thrice for a man, for a clerk as
many times as he has orders.
This practice survived the Reformation, receiving the
approval of Bishop Hooper and Archbishop Grindal, com
manded by royal injunctions of 1559, and by the sixty-
seventh of the canons of 1603. In the early Georgian period
it began to fail. Persons recovered after their soul bell had
sounded, and ill-natured people would be sure, after their
wont, to make an uncomfortable use of the circumstance.
Nicholls, the historian of Leicestershire, speaking of the
death of a Mr, Crane of Melton Mowbray, about 1738, says
¦* Hist, Eccles., iv. 21.

THE PASSING BELL 113
that he " was the first person for whom the bell tolled after
death ; till when the custom was for it to pass before,
agreeably to the primitive institution." North's* reference
to an old lady named Law, who died in 1874, aged about
ninety-four years, is very much to the purpose. She re
collected the passing bell being rung in the old way at
King's Cliffe, and that on one occasion it tolled for a lady
who recovered her health. King's Cliffe must have adhered
to " ancient lathers " longer than most parishes, for by the
middle of the eighteenth century there was a general disuse
of the soul bell.
Where there exists any dedication to the archangel
Michael we may suppose the bell to be intended specially
for this purpose. The apocalyptic vision, in which St. John
witnessed the archangel's victory over the dragon, was the
basis of this touching trust on the part of the dying and of
their friends. One inscription ends sometimes with the name
of St. Michael, and sometimes with that of the angel Gabriel,
and once with that of the angel Raphael —
-\- Dulcis Sisto Snelis. Campana Vocor snkbis,
as it appears in East Anglia. When I was writing The
Church Bells of Suffolk, I expressed myself as much
exercised about the true meaning of this line. Some
times the second word is cistb, which, as I suggested,
might have been a mistake for cista, and metis, an utterly
abnormal form, might have lost a letter. Thus the line
would read Dulcis cista mellis campana vocor Michaelis
{" Box of sweet honey, I am called Michael's bell ") with
an allusion to the shape of a bell, and what Mr. Haweis
calls a "combination hum." Afterwards I found in the
"¦ Bell Lore, p. 122.

114 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Cratfield Church accounts for 15 13 the word for "chest"
written sista, the box in question evidently being the one
given by Roger Walsch, remaining to this day. The entry
is " Johes Therketyl . . . debitor LVj Yd. qa solut eodem die
et deliberat in sista." I have as yet failed to discover any
use for cista or sista for a hive, but the former in the eighth-
century Epinal Glossary is explained by the pertinent words,
corbes grandes, a country term for a large basket. A greater
puzzle, with the word melis, exists on the treble at Bitterley,
Shropshire,* of unknown make, which is inscribed —
Bic : fono : que : metis : campana : vocor : gabrielis.
Taking this as it stands, my mellis interpretation utterly
breaks down, nor would any other be likely to prevail. Mr,
Walters, however, comes to the rescue, suggesting that the
words are a jumble of two hexameters, one beginning Hie
sono que, and the other Dulcis sisto. The only other suggestion
which I can offer about melis is that the tragedian Pacuvius,
about the middle of the second century B.C., has a form melum
for a melody, of which melis might be the ablative plural ;
but it is improbable that mediaeval craftsmen at Norwich or
Bristol should have made the acquaintance of this inflection.
I mention the latter city because at Deopham, Norfolk, the
hexameter is on the tenor, in Longobardic lettering, with the
Bristol wheel, and ending with RJIffleEIS.
The Gabriel bells, with a variety of dedication lines, are
suggestive of the angelus bell, of which we have no account
at this period, though the perpetual recurrence of the Saluta
tion in whole or in part surely favours the theory of such a
custom growing up. If manorial lords could utilize the bell
of the church hard by the hall for alarm for fire, servants'
* Walters's Church Bells of Shropshire, p. 103.

ANGELIC DEDICATIONS 115
meals, etc., they could also by its voice rouse sluggards in the
morning, as some careful farmers at the present day assemble
their men by the more peremptory sound of a gun. Then the
clergy saw their way to improve this custom to a religious
purpose, and this may have led to the mandate issued by
Archbishop Arundel in 1399, enjoining the repetition of the
Pater Noster once, with Ave five times at early dawn. In
Dr. Tyssen's Church Bells of Sussex * there is an undeniable
survival of the angelus bell given, the bell in the market
tower at Lewes, which was recast by John Tonne in the
reign of Henry VIII., and now bears a mangled form of a well-
known hexameter —
4- snissi Oe Cells • Babeo • nomen • Gabrielis,
wrenched by the foundry into —
-+- menti -f dedeus -t- l)abio -h nomen -1- gabrielis.
Thomas Barrett, of Lewes, was paid in 1690 four pounds for
ringing " Old Gabriel," throughout the year at four o'clock
in the morning and eight at night, and the market bell is
still known by the angel's name.f At whatever date the
angelus bell may have been introduced, it survives to the
present day in many places as a morning bell rung at six.
A frequently occurring hexameter on a " Gabriel " bell is —
-f SRissus Vero pic • 6abriel fert Ceta SRaric,
The second word in this inscription presented a difficulty
to me, whereof the solution appears to be that the word
autem in the Vulgate, rendered by "now," was discovered
to spoil the scansion, and so vero was ingeniously sub
stituted. * Page 81. t North, Bell Lore, p. 103.

ii6 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
The name of the angel Raphael occurs on the fifth bell *
at Wymington, Bedfordshire, with the marks of Henry
Jurden of London, who died in the reign of Edward IV., in
the line — 4- snusa Rafaelis Sonat JIuribus lemanuelis,
and a triple invocation is on the second bell at Bale,
Norfolk— -i- nOBIS : SVCCVRRe : sniCBJI€£ : RflpBJieE : 6flBRI€£ : Q :
The spelling of the Saviour's name in the glorious passage
in Isaiah shows that it was not familiar, the duplication
of m being, so far as I can find, invariable both in the Sep
tuagint and in the Vulgate, however the slovenliness of later
times may have reduced it. The Raphael dedication is gene
rally rare, but occurs twice, with or a pro nobis, in Gloucester
shire, viz. at Boddington and Elmstone Hardwicke. Like the
Wymington bell, they carry us down the stream of history,
but I wish to bring together the angelic dedications. This
Gloucestershire couple belongs to a group of eighteen in
that county, with marks not identified, their position indi
cating Gloucester rather than Bristol as their origin. The
other sixteen bells are at Aldworth (3), Charfield, Cromhall,
Dowdeswell, Driffield (2), Farmington, Gloucester St. Nicholas,
Hewelsfield, Leigh, Sevenhampton, Lower Slaughter, Stan-
dish, and Woolaston. Some difficulty in the case of Standish
is caused by the inscription —
4- sjinccii ; snjiRifl • cvo i svcvRRe i piisisnji : senvo =
cvo : wineEsno i £flW£ey \ vicjiiRe • ejive = sne,
coupled with Ellacombe's note that William Lawley was
* It is to be noted that this bell has crowned capitals.

ANGELIC DEDICATIONS 117
vicar of the parish since the Reformation. Mr. Walters
notes other bells of this mark beyond the confines of the
county, two at Offchurch and one at Butler's Marston,
Warwickshire, and single bells at Letton and Yarpole, Here
fordshire, and at Overbury, Worcestershire. Some light may
yet be thrown on the history of these Raphael inscriptions.

CHAPTER IX
THE BEGINNING OF THE BLACK-LETTER PERIOD
THE Longobardic lettering took a long time to expire.
Yet the comparative handiness of the later scribes'
system won its way through manuscripts to epitaphs
graven in brass, and to inscriptions impressed on the moulds
of bronze vessels. Another point of vantage was economy
in room. What was called in later Elizabethan times by
the name of black-letter, not only occupied a much smaller
space than the old capitals, but was much more amenable to
abbreviations. Hence in the foundries of the larger towns
capital letters were reserved for the beginning of words,
and so another benefit came in the abolition of the word-
stop, rhyme-stops only being used, and these gradually dis
appearing. The Latinity of dedications improved, both in point of
syntax and of scansion, though irregularities in each kind
are to be observed, and the capital letters sometimes reached
an excellence in design and execution which will speak for
itself. Were it possible to fix a date for the introduction of
black-letter, I should agree with North and Stahlschmidt
in selecting 1420. Of course, it must be borne in mind that
localities were by no means uniform in such changes.
A confluence of the two types occurs on the second bell
118

THE BLACK-LETTER PERIOD 119
at Greystoke, Cumberland, the record of which we owe to
the Rev. H. Whitehead.* He reluctantly leaves a gap in
the interpretation of the words, expanding them into —
-I- CflmOniVs diiS C0££e6ll (SnJI6ISCeR). ... PAR eCCe WI£€£mVS
me fflBRlCflRe fJICiC eRJISmVS SVm SonO QinC.
He will, I am sure, pardon me for turning some of the letters
right side upwards, in despite of the original. Some day Master
William may be found up, and confirm, it is to be hoped, the
date theory above mentioned. The initial cross (Fig, 12),
with cup-shaped ends to the four lines, may help to the
identification of the foundry from which Master William's
facit came.f
The dedicatory hexameters to the Virgin Mary are
various. A Longobard at Peter's Marland, Devon, takes
the form —
4- pROceee virgo piji qvos convoco sflncji snjiRiJi
The shortening of the letter 0, twice in a line, joined
to the lengthening of the a in pia, led to an improvement
in the later period elsewhere, though the black-letter did not
kill the old reading in Wessex — witness bells at Coffinswell
and other places. However, at Barking, Suffolk, and Mem-
bury, Devon, we have —
-H protege prece pia Quos Convoco Sancta snaria,
with a London initial cross, thus exchanging three false
quantities for one, the first syllable in Prece being short,
"¦ Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Scientific
Society, xi. 140.
t A smaller form (Fig. 14) is often found. With them also are connected
I^'igs. 13 and 15. Fig. 16, which is very rare, seems likewise to hail from London.
The shield of Thomas Ballisdon (Fig, 17), of London, belongs to the earlie
days of the sixteenth century.

Fig. 12.

Fig. 13.

Fig. 14.

Fig. 15.

Fig. 16.

Fig. 17.

THE BLACK-LETTER PERIOD 121
whereas the line makes it long. Indeed, there are divers
forms of the inscription, and none absolutely correct. In
one version, the third bell at Acton Scott, Shropshire, the
line was for a St. John bell, for which some foundryman
probably received a merited reprobation —
+ eternis flnnis Resonet Campana jnaria.
This line often runs —
-f- In SRuttis Annis Resonet Campana 3lol)annis,
and on one bell Baptiste * is added. The Virgin Mary
is sometimes named as the daughter of St. Anna, as in —
4- Celesti SRanna * Cua proles nos Cibet Jinna,
a Norwich inscription, and —
-h flxt Jinfl {sic) nnzn sjiEvec nos virso bcjicji
on the fourth bell at Kempston, Bedfordshire.
-f intercede pia pro nobis Virgo snaria,
in the " Burlingham " type, on the fifth at Halvergate,
Norfolk, was found by me on the tenor at Stourpaine, Dorset,
with the first word broken into In Cer Sede, whatever the
words may have been intended to convey to the reader.
Another hexameter, comprehensible, though not metrically
faultless, is — -f Virginis egregie * Vocor Campana snarie,
so far as I know, used exclusively by the Norwich founders.
In -I- Sum Rosa pulsata . snundi snaria Vocata, the name of
the Virgin Mary is sometimes taken by St. Katherine, whose
¦* The fourth at Buckhorn Weston, Dorset.
t A curious mistake for eX.

122 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
sufferings on the wheel immortalized her. Regarded, and
rightly so, as the quintessence of suffering youth, beauty,
innocence, and piety, it may be that the line originally bore
her name. In one old English inscription the names will be
found conjointly —
0 I : KJicenyie • eoDDes • DeREyne • co • CBe • snjiRi • sf)M ¦
I • sjjee.
This is on the fourth at Shapwick, Dorset, the initial being a
rose, equally applicable to either saint.
4- Virgo Coronata • Due Ros M Regna Beata
occurs on the tenor at Theddlethorpe, Lincolnshire, one of a
group in " the parts called Lindsey," which bear a peculiar
initial cross, and a shield with the initials R. O,, the founder,
and S. below, presumably his residence ; also at Coton, near
Cambridge, at Rendham, Wilby, and Little Stonham, Suffolk,
with Bury marks ; and at Brockdish, Norfolk, with the
Norwich Brasyer shield ; while at Quidenham, in the same
county, it is in the " Burlingham " lettering.
In the ancient church of Saltfleetby St. Peter, Lincoln
shire, now used as a cemetery chapel, Mr. North noted two
bells of different make, but both dedicated to the Virgin
Mary. The smaller one he was inclined to trace to Notting
ham. The larger one, with a unique trade shield, has an
inscription nearly identical with the seal of St. Mary's
Abbey, York—
-f pvRji • pvDiCfl • pifl • sniseRis • sniseR€R€ * srariji,
which is also on a bell at Breaston, Derbyshire. The York
seal has VIRGO for the first word. At Market Weston,
Suffolk, there is a defaced inscription, of which only the

THE BLACK-LETTER PERIOD 123
words SRISeRIS • SniSeRCRe remain, separated by the pot of
Thomas Potter, of Norwich, already mentioned.
The Virgin Mary was an especial patroness of sailors, and
her peculiar title in this respect as "Star of the Sea" is
found, though not so frequently as some others, in the line —
4- Stella SRaria snaris • Succurre piissima nobis,
which has the merit of good scansion. One would have
thought it most appropriate for ports or fishing villages.
The localities known to me, however, are not maritime —
Aldbourne and Mere, Wiltshire ; Billesdon, Leicestershire ;
Holcombe, Somerset ; Oxford Cathedral ; and All Saints'
Sudbury. There is an allusion to this belief in The Third
Part of the Sermon against Peril of Idolatry : " and specially
our Lady, to whom ship men sing, Ave, maris stella."
The dying words of our Saviour, commending His mother
to the care of St. John, are brought to mind, though in an
indirect way, in the inscription —
-f Sunt mea spes bii tres xpus maria jobes,
which is frequently found in the West of England ; and the
watching of the Cross is alluded to in a unique double
hexameter on the tenor at Bedale, Yorkshire —
30U. i €60 : cum i f iflin : CRUce : cuscos : £flUDO ; snflRiJisn i
oienji i oei : EJiuDe • snjicen = Dienissisnji : ejiuDe
The first word appears to be an interjection.
Of the twelve Apostles, the brothers Simon Peter and
Andrew have far the greatest number of dedications. Those
which only give the name of John are, of course, doubtful, but
some clearly indicate the Evangelist, as —
-i- SIC : cunccis : Jinnis : ROBIS : VIJI : VICJI : 30BIS,

124 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
at Frettenham, Norfolk, the allusion to St. John xiv. 6, being
indubitable. The second bell at Grayingham, Lincolnshire,
has a prose dedication —
4- iscji : Cfljnpjinji : sjincci : soBJinnis : ewflneeEisci
The Norwich founders used a Petrine hexameter, which
seems exclusively theirs —
-i- petrus M eterne • Ducat nos pascua Vite.
This is on some twenty bells in Norfolk and Suffolk, which
are a kind of preserve for the Norwich men, only two of
whose bells are found even in Cambridgeshire. Here the
allusion is to the triple command, " Feed My sheep," " Feed
My lambs," " Feed My sheep." The " Keys of the Kingdom
of Heaven " appear, of course, in every effigy of St. Peter,
and on the second bell at St. Peter's, Claxby, Lincolnshire,
is — -I- noiiie Petri ycro Qui Claviger Cxtat in evo.
The usual Norwich inscription for a St, Andrew bell is —
-f- Quesumus ilndrea. famulorum Suscipe Vota.
The early Fathers receive but little notice. A St. Clement
is named on the second bell at Rowston, Lincolnshire, and
" Ambrose " at Isham, in Northamptonshire, both in capitals.
The former name revives in the Stuart period. But there
is a well-known Augustine pentameter ¦{- Vox (more usually
Wox) Jiugustini Sonet In JIure Oei, though we cannot deter
mine whether the great theologian of Hippo or the Apostle
of the Saxons is intended, both having their special days
in the old calendar. Justin Martyr, TertuUian, Origen,
Jerome, are all passed over.
The case is altered when we come to the Noble Army of

THE BLACK-LETTER PERIOD 125
Martyrs. Very prominent is the name of St, Katherine. As
the wheel began to supplant the lever in the belfry, her name,
inseparably bound up with it in martyrology, occurs more
and more on the bells. On the second bell at Closworth,
Somerset, where in later days there was a foundry, is —
-I- Bflc • cjfsnpjineEEJi coeicvr • KjiceRinfl • pveEEJi,
and in East Anglia we often find from the Norwich makers
4- Subveniat Oigna • Donantibus Banc Katerina.
This is useful philologically, showing the pronunciation digna
rhyming with Katerina, as in our word condign. The foundry-
men sometimes put dingna. At Desborough, Northampton
shire, is a riddle read by North —
-J- principio (?) sine dulccs l)ic Donor caterine,
and at Chickney, Essex,
-f- fld Cell Spna. perducat nos Katerina.
where syna may be for signa, " the bells of heaven." Another
female martyr well known in our towers is St. Barbara, great
in quelling storms. She generally appears with the simple
ora pro nobis, but, as already quoted, at Colkirk, Norfolk,
there is — OCIDVS : CeEl : ?JIC : BJIRBJIRJI : CRISninjI : De£l.
This dedication appears twice at Stanton All Saints, Suffolk,
the second, 4- Omartir • Barbara • prome • Deum • Cxora,
and the third —
-I- Osidus • Cell • fac • Barbara • Crcmina • Deli.

126 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Both are Bury bells. And in the same (" Burlingham ")
lettering at Colney, in the same county —
4- : 0 : VIRGO : BilRBflRiJ : PRO : ROBIS : DeVSR : eXORJI
Beheaded by her own father, Dioscorus, she was eminent
among the sufferers of her time, and her name remains
attached to December 4 in the Roman and Eastern Calen
dars, though by the early part of the sixteenth century it
had been supplanted in the Sarum use by the local St.
Osmund. Her father was struck by lightning directly after
her martyrdom, and this was the reason of her intercession
being begged in storms. To explain this, Aubrey writes —
"In times of thunder they invoke St. Barbara. So Sir Geof
Chaucer, speaking of the great hostesse, her guests would cry St.
Barbara when she let off her gun (ginne). They did ring the great
bell at Malmsbury Abbey, called St. Adelm's Bell, to drive away
thunder and lightning. The like is yet used of the abbey of St
Germain's in Paris, where they ring the great bell then." *
At Stratford St. Andrew, Suffolk, was a bell, now recast,
but with the inscription preserved in a rubbing —
-t- Sancta • Bar • Bar • fl • Ora • pro • nobis,
some facetious personage turning the name of the martyr
into the well-known figure in logic. It was impossible
to misspell her name. But that of another martyr, Apol
lonia, went through more phases than most. In fact, our
fathers had a name Apoline, verily a name of all work,
which served for the heathen god, the destroying angel,
the Christian teacher, and the aged martyr. She is, I think,
th9 Apoline of St. Botolph, Cambridge, from London, and
¦* Aubrey, f. no, 2°, quoted in Anecdotes and Traditions (Camden Soc. Ed.,
Thoms), p. 86.

THE BLACK-LETTER PERIOD 127
the Sancte Oponia of Darsham, Suffolk, from Bury. In
Fressingfield church, in the same county, her figure remains
on a bench end, her cheek resting on her hand, as though
in remembrance of the battering out of her teeth before
she was burnt.
At Raveningham, Norfolk, a rare invocation of St, Lucy
remains —
+ cvcRix • esco . pifl . $n . sep'eR vgo evcia.
Many more bells are dedicated to St. Margaret of Antioch in
Pisidia, She is called Marina in the Greek Church, and a
mixture of the two names, Marineta, is found on a black-
letter bell at Pittington, Durham. The Norwich inscription
for her bells is —
-I- fac snargareta . nobis bee snunera £eta,
the meaning whereof was not clear till, on a happy occasion,
in connection with a Dorset inscription of the Stuart period,
it flashed upon me that the duties of a bell were very un
pleasant, to be constantly hit by the hard clapper, and to
be hanged like a criminal, and that the bell might well implore
St. Margaret to make these duties pleasant. It is possible
that the north-country folk adopted the Marineta version to
distinguish the saint of Antioch from the canonized Scotch
queen. The English queen, Etheldreda, whose name is bound
up with Ely, appears at Morley St. Botolph and Feltwell St.
Nicholas, Norfolk, in the hexameter —
4- etbeldreda Bona • Cibi Oantur piurima Dona.
Whether St. Antony of Egypt or St. Antony of Padua is
intended in inscriptions which only record the name must
remain a question unsolved ; but, for my own part, I incline

128 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
to him of Padua, the kind friend of the brute creation, whose
pigs, duly crotalized, had free travelling in London. The
tenor at Hargrave, Northamptonshire, bears only S JinCOnie,
but the second at Winthorpe, Lincolnshire, breaks into rhyme,
but not into metre —
-f JIntonius snonet • Ut Campana Bene Sonet.
The old second at Garboldisham, Norfolk, by William Schep
of London, had on its shoulder JID EflVDem SJinCCI JinCOnil.
When it was recast I bought the crown, and I am happy still
in the possession of it.
To judge by dedications of churches, the apostleship of
St. Thomas was regarded as of less importance than the
martyrdom of Thomas a Beket. The Madingley dedication
has already been mentioned. A more astonishing, though
less perplexing, line abounds in East Anglia —
4 nos Cbomc sneritis • snereamur Gaudia Eucis.
Similar powers were attributed to Edmund, King of the
East Angles, martyred at Hoxne, and buried at St. Edmunds-
bury. -{- SReritis edmundi ' Simus n Crimine snundi
is a Norwich inscription, rarely used, strange to say, at the Bury
foundry.* At Pelham Stocking, Herts., is a bell dedicated
to St. Vincent, the Spanish deacon who perished under
Diocletian. One at St. Bartholomew the Less, Smithfield, is
similarly inscribed —
-I- Vincencius Reboat Vt Cuncta Roxia Collat.
The syllable re suggested that the recasting gave the bell its
* As at Risby and Great Ashfield, Suffolk.

THE BLACK-LETTER PERIOD

129

power of driving away hurtful things. Reference to classical
examples will, however, show that there is nothing more in
the prefix than in our " re-echo," etc.
St. Giles being the patron saint of blacksmiths, we
generally come across the churches dedicated to him in the
outskirts of big towns, where his devotees would be keeping
a look-out for the wants of poor way-worn jades. Two bells
dedicated to him with the inscription —
-f- Sonitus egidii * Jlscendit in Culmina Cell
are in the village of Dickleburgh, Norfolk, and in St.
Laurence's tower in the middle of Ipswich town.
St. Martin of Tours is not a favourite bell saint, but at
Althorpe, Lincolnshire, the second bell bears his name and
title— 4- nome snartini presulis Dant parocbiani,
while his name alone appears on the fifth at Wragby in the
same county. At Ninfield, Sussex, the bell has a hexameter —
-I- Bic • est • snartinus • Quem • Salvet - Crinus - et • Unus,
another instance of the impossibility of preserving simul
taneously the rule of metre and the sound of rhyme.
St. Laurence has but few children of the steeple.
4- Ora ' Eaurenti - Bona * Campana * pad,
whatever it may mean, is on the fourth bell, of Bury make,
at Monks Eleigh, Suffolk. We may turn to Scotland for a
grand story. At St. Nicholas, Aberdeen, the martyr of the
gridiron was commemorated on the tenor, in popular talk,
" Old Laurie." Unhappily, it was broken, but Biaikie and
Sons, of Aberdeen, in 1883, used a piece of the old metal
K

I30 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
to make a bell for Cults, Kincardineshire, which tells of its
origin in the words, " I am a chip of Old Laurie." *
It is impossible to do more than give a sketch of the
hagiology of bells ; and, with regret for omissions, I turn to
the commemoration of benefactors for a short space. It is a
very natural feeling for a donor to wish himself remembered,
and sometimes bearing himself the name of a saint, he would
transfer it to the bell, as —
-{- JiSEJIK • 30B€S : 30B€Sn SRC • nOIJIVIC
on the bell at Crostwight, Norfolk. This donor died in
1434, leaving legacies to three conventual bell-towers,
Bromholm, Wymondham, and Hickling. Perhaps he was a
son or grandson of the Aslac, who is said to have been left, a
foundling, at the church stile at Aslacton, and to have become
standard-bearer to Edward III. There is a little excess of
family pride in the third bell at Isleham, Cambridgeshire,
where the angel Gabriel receives the detail of the trans
ference of property from the Bernards to the Peytons —
: See : gabriel : ora • p • alabs 3obis bernard milit • et elene
uxTs sue : et tbome • peptoii • armigl : et margarete uxis sue :
filie et bcred : pdicto' 3ol)is et : elene
And lest there should be any mistake, the invocation is
accompanied by two shields, one of which bears the arms
of John Bernard and his wife, in pale, and the other those
of Thomas Peyton and Margaret (Bernard), his wife, also
in pale. The sepulchral brasses, with armorial bearings, in
Isleham church are well known. Should they have been
stolen, the bell would have remained, a genealogical
memorial. When our patriarch Ellacombe was writing his
* Tyack, A Book about Bells, p. 56.

THE BLACK-LETTER PERIOD 131
Church Bells of Devon he noted the tenor at Talaton as
the most beautiful bell in the county, and bestowed the
same distinction on one of a like character at Bradford,
Somerset. The letters are certainly elegant, but the chief
ornament is the impression of the seal of Joan deBeauchamp,
Lady (Domina) of Bergavenny, which has come out gloriously.
In the shield, which occupies the centre of the seal, Beauchamp,
with a crescent for difference, is in pale with Fitz-Alan and
Warren, quarterly. In some foundries the great efforts in
design were reserved for the capital letters. In this respect
Norwich was eminent. No one can fail to admire alike the
symmetry of the alphabet and the pretty floral decorations
which fill the corners and the spaces inside the letters. Some
of these beautiful characters appear to have come down from
one Richard Baxter, yet most may be assigned to the two
Richard Brasyers, father and son, whose operations range from
about the middle of the reign of Henry VI. to the opening of
that of Henry VIII. The portrait of a bearded bishop fills
the letter n. It may be the energetic William Alnwick,
afterwards translated to Lincoln, or Bishop Lyhart, or
Goldwell. With this lettering, of which instances are here given,
appear the initial cross (Fig. 24), the rhyme-stop (Fig. 25),
foundry-shields (Figs. 26, 27), and a few other marks.
Comparisons are proverbially odious, yet sometimes not
to be avoided. The Norwich letters, with all their beauty, are
not on a par with those from some unknown foundry in
North Lincolnshire, if we may judge from their locality.
There are eleven of them thereabouts, and one has been found
at Carlton-in-Lindrick, Notts. We owe their appearance to
the diligence of the late Mr. J. R. Daniel-Tyssen, under
whose direction the casts were made, and to the munificence

Fig. i8.

Fig. 19.

Fig. 20.

Fig. 21.

Fig. 22.

Fig. 23.

THE BLACK-LETTER PERIOD 133
of Lord Amherst of Hackney, who had the engravings
executed by the late Mr. Orlando Jewitt. The most notable

Fig. 24.

Fig. 25.

letter is $n, which contains in one branch a warrior armed, and
in the other a lady, presumably his wife, and the 0 with a

Fig. 26.

Fig. 27.

Bishop's head, close shaven, and of resolute expression, per
haps Bishop Fleming, who presided over the Diocese of

134 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Lincoln from 1420 to 1431. The date, 1423, which is on two
of the South Somercotes three, would suit this conjecture of
mine. I shall never forget my first lighting on them al
Somersby,* fifty years ago, like Keats —
" Then felt I like some watcher of the skies.
When a new planet swims into his ken."
Two later Lincolnshire bells, Beesby tenor and Gunby second,
bear in small capitals the inscriptions —
4- Bee • PRO • EflVDe • pie • ResoRAC • cflSRpjiRfl • snjiRie,
and -f DVECIS • SICO (sic) SReEIS VOCOR • CflSnpjinfl • GJIBRieElS
which I should not record here but for the fact that the
founder had broken up the fine capitals of the group just
mentioned and used scraps of them as word-stops. For
this purpose we find amongst others the mangled remains
of the episcopal head from 0, and the lion from C. What
could have given rise to this barbarous treatment is a
mystery. Funereal uses of bells became more and more elaborate,
and a new machinery, that of the carillon, is certainly a
recognized thing in the middle of the fifteenth century. No
better example of the Trental or Thirty Days' Commemora
tion can be found than in the will of John Baret, of Bury St.
Edmund's, who died in 1463, and was buried in St. Mary's
Church in that town. It is printed in extenso in Tymms's
Wilts and Inventories from the Registers of the Commissary
of Bury St. Edmund's and the Archdeaconry of Sudbury. \
* Alfred Tennyson's native place, t Pages 1 7 e/ J^?.

THE BLACK-LETTER PERIOD 135
The testator's epitaph is indicative of a truly noble and pious
soul —
John " He that will sadly behold me with his ie Baret.
May see his own merowr and lerne to die.
Wrappid in a schete, as a full rewli wretche.
No mor of al my minde to me ward will streche.
From erthe I kam and on to erthe I am brought,
This is my natur ; for of erthe I was wrought.
Thus erthe on to erthe tendeth to knet.
So endeth ech creature; doeth John Baret,
Wherefore ye pepil in waye of charitie
With your good prayers I pray ye help me.
For such as I am ; right so shalle ye al bi.
Now God on my sowle : have merci and pitie." Amen.
To remind his fellow townsfolk of the matter of these
last lines, he directs his executors —
" It' I wele the ij bellemen haue ij gownys and be ij of y" fyve to
hold torches, and ij pence, and here mete, and y° Sexteyn of y° chirche
to haue brede and drynkke, and xi]d for his rynggyng and his mete."
This was at his burial. Then, for its anniversary —
" Itm I wil that the belle meen have iiiid to go yeerly abowte
the town at my yeerday for my soule and for my faderis and modrys.
Itm I wil that the Sexteyn of Seynt Marie chirche have at ray yeer
day xijd so he rynge wil and fynde bread and ale to his ffelashippe,
and eche yeer what tyme my yeerday fallyth that at twelve of the
clokke at noon next be forn my dirige he do the chymes smythe
Requiem eternam, and so to contynwe seuene nyght aftir till the
Vtas * of my yeerday be passyd, and eue t al lenton Requiem eter
nam, and in lyk-vyse such day as God disposith for me to passe I
wil the seid chymes smyth forthwith Requiem eternam and so day
* Octaves. t The short Requiem

'o

6 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

and nyth to cdtynwe with the same song tyl my xxx" day be past
for me and for my friends that holpe therto with ony goods of here.
Itm I wil yeve and be gwethe yeerly to the Sexteyn of Saint Marie
chirche viijj to kepe the clokke, take hede to the chymes, wynde vp
the pegs and the plummys as ofte as nede is, so that the said
chymes fayle not to goo through the defawte of the seid sexteyn who
so be for the tyme, and yif he wil not take it vpon hym the owner
of my hefd place, the parysh preest and the Seynt Marie preest to
chese oon of the parysh such as wil do it for the same money, tyl
such a sexteyn be in the office that will undertake to do it and to
cotynwe, for I wolde the sexteyn hadde it be fore a nothir, for his
wages be but smale, so he wil vndirtake to do it and not fayle. . . .
Itm I will the seid Seynt Marie preest and his successours haue yeerly
iijj iiiji^fdelyu'yd to hym by the owner of my hefd [place] to the rep'acon
of the chymes as wel tho that been in Seynt Marie stepill as tho that
been at Seynt Marie awt, and if there nede no rep'acon to neyther of
the seid chymes thanne the seid Marie preest to have the seyd iijj
iiij^ to the avmentacon of his lifloode, but as ofte as rep'acon nedith
to eyther of the seid chymes I wil the said iijj iiijrf go thereto or
part thereof as the case requireth, and if grettere cost be doo the
seid Seynt Marie preest paye more, and if grettere nede be, who so
euere be ocupyere of my hefd place to be contributarye therto what
so eue'' it coste, for my wil is that the chymes shall neuer fayle for
defawte of helpe, though certeyn lond of my be bowunde or assigned
outh, therefore be my executours both for y' and the sexteyn vagys
be the syde the bond of them that shal be the ocupyers of myn lond
and my place to fulfille my wil, as is be fore wretyn . . . and the
seid chymes to goo also at the avees, at the complyri eche Satirday
Sunday and hooly day thourgh out the yere — and Seynt Marie preest
to haue a keye of my cost of the vys dore goyng up to the candil-
beem, the same keye to be leid in an almarye with other longyng to
the chymis as many keyes as p'teyne to the seide werke.''
From this will it is quite clear that carillons were no
strangers to England at the beginning of the fifteenth cen
tury. The sufferings of nervous persons at John Baret's

THE BLACK-LETTER PERIOD 137
Trental (xxx" day) must have been acute. Through the
kindness of Mr. W. J. Birkbeck, F.S.A., I was able to give
the Requiem Eternam music in my Church Belts of Suffolk.
It extends over five notes only. Happily for the townsfolk
of Bury, all the testators in that historic borough were not so
bound to the chime-barrel as was John Baret. One John
Coote, perhaps worn out with Trental carillon, "' will neyther
ryngyn nor belman goynge," but his almsgivings and dinners
on his Thirty-day "to be don in secret manner." John
Baret, it will be observed, gives the " Sexteyn of St. Marie
chirche " the option of the office with regard to his " memory "
bells, but enjoins that by some one or other his wish may be
carried out.
At the end of the fifteenth century the municipal autho
rity at Coventry took upon itself the regulation of such
charges, as may be seen by an Order of Leet in that city in
1496— "Yt is ordeyned at y'is p'esent lete that all man p'sones thatt
hereaftur will have the belles to ryng after y" decease of eny their
frends, they shall pay for a bell ryngyng w't all y" belles ijj, xx^ y'
of to y' chircheward and \i\]d to y° clerks. And yf he well have but
iiij belles x\)d, xij to y^ Church, and iiij to y° clerks. And as for iij
belles, ev'y p'son y't well have theym, to paye but iiij to the clerks." *
Here may be observed the same feeling displayed by
John Baret, that the workman was worthy of his hire.
We learn from Bishop Hooper's Injunctions^ that the
death-bell was called a knell, or forthfare. This is forbidden,
evidently as encouraging prayers for the dead. The prac
tice, however, has survived, and is almost universal at the
* Notes and Queries, Series III. ix. 428, quoted by Ellacombe, Bells of the
Church, p. 464.
t Parker Society Edition, p. 137.

138 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
present day, the " tellers " at the end of the hour being con
stantly observed in one form or another. The variations in
this respect have been recorded by the authors of the his
tories of the bells of most counties which have been com
pleted, but I am sorry to say that they have been omitted by
me in my Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. One thing, however,
I may record : my late sexton at Fressingfield, Henry
Edward Barber, told me that once during his tenure of
office he was required to toll three hours for a death, and ari
hour a day between death and burial. This was in the year
1856.

CHAPTER X
EARLY FOUNDRIES— LONDON AND THE
SOUTH-WEST
SEVERAL metropolitan founders- of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries have received mention in Chapter
VI. While Stahlschmidt was engaged on his Surrey
Bells and London Belt-Founders, the patriarch Alwoldus
came to light, designated as campanarius. The date c.
II 50 was assigned to him, but nothing more can be said
of him at present. After Beneit le Seynter and John of
Amiens, campanarii, who follow him in Stahlschmidt's list,
comes a long series of ollarii, among whom are noticeable,
in 1303, a west-countryman, Thomas de Bykenore, and one
Geoffrey, probably identical with Geoffrey, of Edelmeton,
now Edmonton, who names himself with a Cockney aspirate
on a bell at Billericay, inscribed —
4- GjiEfRiDus : De = BeoesRCun ; sne : yecic.
The will of Robert Lorchon, dated 13 11, as it stands,* is
remarkable for two mistakes, due more likely to the nine
teenth-century compositor than to the fourteenth-century
scribe — animalibus for animabus, and reueneratur for reuer-
tatur. He describes his tenement " cum celar' solario gardino
* Pages 1 1, 12.
"39

I40 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
braschambre cum shopa," etc. The "brass-chamber" is a
very expressive term, which is not found elsewhere. John
Romeneye, who may have been a son of one of the same
name, bladarius, or corn merchant, his surname savouring of
the great Kent marsh, is thought to be distinguished by a
capital R. He endowed in St. Botolph, Aldgate, a capellanus
to serve in a cantaria or chantry there, which was suppressed
in the reign of Edward VI.
Stahlschmidt notes a strange coincidence of name in a
witness to the wills of two founders, Peter de Weston and
William de Raughton, named Roger de Kyrkeby, ollarius,
and the name on a bell at Gainford, near Darlington, in
scribed — B€Ep SnflRI QVOD ROCeR Of KiRueBy.
This north-countryman was vicar of Gainford from 1401 to
141 2, and may have been a son or grandson of his name
sake half a century earlier.
William Foundor was for some time a great riddle,
but the mystery was solved by Stahlschmidt through
some deeds about London property belonging to the Corn-
wallis family, which Mr. Walter Rye kindly allowed him to
examine. Two, dated respectively 1392 and 1395, relating to
the same premises, were executed in the presence of four wit
nesses. One of these in the earlier deed is " William Dawe
FoundV' and in the later one " William Found'." There can
be hardly a question of their identity. In the same ward,
and at the same time, there was another William Dawe, a
" white tawyer," or tanner of white leather. A circular stamp
well known all over the country bears two birds, doubtless
intended for daws, surrounded by the words, -f- William '
ffoundor • me • fecit. This is frequently found with a business

EARLY FOUNDRIES

141

shield — a chevron between three lavers (Fig. 28) — and an
armorial shield — a chevron between three trefoils slipped
(Fig. 29) — the arms of Rufford, Underbill, Fitz-Lewes, and

Fig. 28.

Fig. 29.

other families. At Finchley, Middlesex, the lavers shield
occurs, with the inscription —
B€flcvs venceR qvi ce porchvic
(St. Luke xi. 27), and at Colchester Castle with
4- Cbomas SRaric Sonat in etbere Clare
I venture to suggest Care as the missing word, bad as
the grammar is. In 1385 this William the Founder ren
dered important national service. A short truce with the
French had come to an end, and a general attack on
English territory had been planned by the counsellors of
the young King Charles VI. This scheme became known.

142 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
with the natural result of a widespread scare, and the
raising of 300,000 men, chiefly for the defence of the
south coast. Guns had been already mounted at Calais,
under Sir Hugh Calverley, the governor. They were, of
course, required for Dover, and in the Issue Rolls of 1385
(May i) the name of William the Founder appears: "To
Sir Simon de Burley, Knight, Constable of Dover Castle, for
the price of 12 guns, 2 iron patella, 120 stones for the guns,
100 lbs. of powder, and 4 stocks of wood, purchased of WiUiam
the founder, of London, and delivered to the said Simon by
the hands of William Hanney, Clerk, for fortifying and
strengthening Dover Castle, .^97 loj." * Now in Baker's
Chronicled we read that in the five and thirtieth year of
Henry VIII. "the first cast Pieces of Iron that ever were
made in England were made at Buckstead in Sussex by
Ralph Hage and Peter Bawde ;" but surely these 1385 trans
actions show that Baker must have been misinformed. The
county of Kent appears to show some traces of this year. It
contains four bells only which bear the " birds " stamp. Of
these, two at Downe are on the road from London to Dover ;
one at Upper Hardres is about four miles off the road, and
one at Otham is close by Maidstone. The last glimpse of
William Founder comes from the will of John Plot, or
Rouwenhale, citizen and maltman of London, dated 1408.
After many charitable legacies is this : "Also my wyll ys
that John Walgrave, seruaunt of Wyllyam fondour haue of my
gode iijj iiij<f." To this Walgrave are ascribed bells marked
with W. under a rather singular cross, with what seems meant
for i by the side of it. It is all over England. Mr, Owen
found two at Downham, in North Lancashire, and three in
* Surrey Bells and London Founders, p. 45.
^ Small folio edition, p. 298.

EARLY FOUNDRIES 143
Huntingdonshire ; * Mr. Cocks, four in Buckinghamshire, f
There are nine in Kent, and some fifty years and more ago I
found two at Fordington, close by Dorchester.
The " ring and cross " stamp (Fig. 30) was used by one
Richard Hille, according to evidence adduced by Stahl
schmidt. t His operations lasted some twenty years. He
died in 1440, leaving a widow, Joan, and a daughter, Joan.
The former — " Resigned to Heaven's will.
Carried on the business still,"
was remarried to a foundry worker, John Sturdy, survived
him, and was doing business in Faversham in 1459. The
daughter married Henry Jordan, or Jurden, whose shield,
like Walgrave's, is all over the country. It displays a strange
union of objects. The principal charge is crossed keys,
above a dolphin, below a laver, on the right a garb, or
wheatsheaf, on the left a bell (Fig. 31) ; on his bells are often
found Figs. 32, and 33.
Here we have a suggestion that the bearer of this " en
sign " was at once founder and fishmonger, the bell and
laver indicating the former, the dolphin and keys the latter.
The wheatsheaf or garb turns out to be part of the arms of
the family of Harleton, from which Jordan was descended.
In All Saints' Church, Loughborough, is a battered brass to
the memory of Giles Jordan, late ffiscbmong of Eondon fundour,
and Margaret his wife, apparently with the date 1455. In
Henry Jordan's will his father and mother bear the same
names, but St. Botolph, Aldgate, is named as their resting-
place, the testator directing that " ij tapers of wex " should
* Church Bells of Huntingdonshire, p. 12.
t Church Bells of Buckinghamshire, p. 3 1 .
X Church Bells of Kent, p. 35.

144

THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

burn beside his own tomb and his wife's, and one should
" stand on the middes of the stone there as the bodies of my
father and mod' there lien buried." A like arrangement is

Fig. 30.

Fig. 31.

made for his father-in4aw and mother-in-law, Richard Hille
and his wife Joan, afterwards Sturdy. The Loughborough

Fig. 32.

Fig. 33.

stone had formerly on it the arms of Jordan and Harleton,
quarterly. At present this double burial is an unsolved
problem. For the sad story revealed in Henry Jordan's will,

EARLY FOUNDRIES 145
dated 1468, I must refer my readers to my Church Belts of
Sufflk.* Shortly before his death he was engaged in a
great work for the Provost and Fellows of King's College,
Cambridge, who paid him in four instalments the sum of
;^40 for the bells. Dr. J. Willis Clark, Registrary of the
University, contributed a most valuable paper f on this subject
to the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, with a sketch of the
inscriptions taken from the bells before their sale in 1756.
From this evidence we may safely infer that the largest of
these five bells, which used to hang in a clochard on the
south side of the chapel, was Jordan's work. It must have
weighed 2 tons 6 cwt. 2 qrs. 7 lbs.
The last of the metropolitan founders of the Plantagenet
period for whom I can find room is John Kebyll, whose shield
bears a chevron, with three mullets in chief and a crescent in
base, all inverted. This inversion may arise from a heraldic
quarrel. He seems to belong to the latter part of the fifteenth
century. Sir Henry Kebyll, citizen and grocer. Lord Mayor
in 1 5 10, is credited in Wright's Heylin with a similar shield,
only without the crescent, and John Keble, the venerated
author of The Christian Year, followed this form, retained
now by Keble College, Oxford. I had looked on this shield
times without number without seeing that a riddle was meant.
Turn it on its side, and the horizontal bar under the mullets,
conjoined with the chevron, form a K, while the crescent
suggests E (Fig. 34). He often places on his bells emblems
of the four evangelists (Figs. 35, 36, 37, 38).
William Culverden belongs to the days of Henry VIII.,
but is closely united to his predecessors. His beautiful rebus
(Fig. 39) is sure to be admired, the dove with de over it signify
ing Culverden. Mr. Eeles found him at Tough, Aberdeenshire.
"^ Page 31. fNo. 223, etc.
L

Fig. 34.

Fig. 35.

Fig. 36.

Fig. 37.

Fig. 38.

Fig. 39.

LONDON AND THE SOUTH-WEST 147
Steeple, Dorset ; Ubbeston, Suffolk ; Kingstone, Staffordshire ;
Wimbledon, Surrey, know him. Seven of his bells have
already been found in Essex, and four in Middlesex. At
Kencote, Oxfordshire, there are two, one with a long inscrip
tion on the waist about William Weston, mercer, of London.
Next to London in importance came Bristol, There is a
group of bells in Devon, Somerset, and Gloucestershire bear
ing a ship, with some slight differences in detail and not
always of the same size, yet with a strong general resem
blance, conjoined sometimes with an uplifted right hand, and
sometimes with crowns of various shape, all of them pointing
to the same source. Locality and marks unite in tracing
them to the great port of the west, and it seems strange that
with its widespread influence in commerce we cannot find the
ship save in the three counties named. In Devon the Sheep-
wash bell has been recast, and only the Yarnscombe tenor
remains, but this is a valuable relic, bearing with the ship the
small laver shield used by William Dawe. Somerset had
lately a navy of ten ; Gloucestershire of six or seven ; and at
Langton Matravers, Dorset ; Cherthill, Wilts ; Llanelly,
Brecknock, the ship is still afloat. There are others con
nected with these by crowns, etc., and all are inscribed in
capitals. There was a John Gosselin casting bells at Bristol
from 1449 to 1453, and a John Founder about the same
time.* At Yatton, Somerset, there is some light thrown
on Bristol by means of the parish accounts, Hew the bell
man, of Redecleve, Brystow, being paid iiij" iiij^ in 145 1.
Another group embraces, amongst others, the tenor of the
three at Loxton, Somerset, two in Gloucestershire, one in
Berks, and at a great distance from its fellows the fourth bell
in the secluded village of Wissett, in East Suffolk. Mr.
* Bickley's Little Red Book.

148 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Walters tells me that he has collected eighteen examples of
this type. Closely allied with them are the second at Leyton,
Essex, a bell at Bradfield, Sussex, and the third and fourth at
Shapwick, Dorset. The character of the capitals which are
used in inscriptions without the small letters is very im
pressive, though of a later date. These last-named bells
appear to show connection with Dawe's foundry. All of the
two sets mentioned have the wheel stop of St. Katherine, to
whom the Shapwick tenor is dedicated in the unique couplet
already quoted —
4- £ • KflC€R)je • GODDeS • DeREJtRG
CO • CBe • SRJIRI • SBflE • I • SJ)6.
The third is dedicated to St. Christopher, use being made of
two lines from a well-known Latin hymn to that saint —
lEEO Resnpe* Die rveeo EJinGone GRjivecvR
CRiscofORi sjincci cjisnpjinjjsn * QvicvsnQve cvecvR.
The belief was that whosoever in haytime and harvest looked
at the picture of St. Christopher had strength given him for
the day. The line is metrically spoilt by the bellfounder's
adaptation. Wheels were now taking the place of simple
levers, and this may account for the frequent recurrence of
the Heroine of the Wheel.
From Bristol there is a natural journey to Gloucester,
where, with an interval after the days of Alexander and John
of Gloucester, the name of Robert Handley, founder, is on the
fourth bell at St, Nicholas, Ellacombe's account of the
inscription on p. 4 of his book differs from that in the list of
churches. Collating the two, with preference for the latter, I
gather that it runs —
* Namque and speciem in the hymn.

LONDON AND THE SOUTH-WEST 149
-{- sjiRcce i 10 ; BAR : nes = bap ; cis : cji = ora ;
PRO ; noBis 4- cesnpoRe • CEesnencis i eicb^ied •
sjiCRisce i ROBeRCVs ; BjinDEei 1 snjiGDjiEene : 4-
fecic : sne : in i BonoRe i sniiRie ;
Now, the cross, as well as a crown and a stop used, are
mentioned as very common in Gloucestershire, and though
Lichfield suggests its own county, I cannot find them in
Lynam's engravings of Staffordshire stamps. My conclusion
is that Robert Handley hailed from Hanley, in Staffordshire,
a modern town, but in an old pottery district, and that the
sacrist Clement introduced him or encouraged him in some
way in the city and neighbourhood. Unfortunately, we know
nothing of Clement of Lichfield, and can only assign a date
about 1400 for this group. William Henshawe, bellfounder,
was sheriff of the city in 1496 and 1501, and mayor in 1503,
1508, and 1509. A mutilated brass in St. Michael's Church
remains to his memory, and that of his two wives, Alys and
Agnes. Indents remain for the devices of a bell and a three-
legged pot. It seems as though the mediseval foundry was in
that parish, for Richard Atkyns, whose will is dated December
28, 1529, and was proved February 17, 1530, is described
as "Belfounder, of the town of Gloucester, in the parish of
St. Mighell." * He bears in mind Worcester, Prestbury, and
Dudley among his bequests, and leaves brass pots of various
capacity, as well as platters and " potyngers " among his
legatees. His executor was his brother " S'. Will"." There
was another brother, Thomas. A century and a half after
wards the master of the Ancient Society of Ringers, at St.
Stephen's, Bristol, bore the same name.t It will be long
before the mention of another Gloucester founder.
? Ellacombe's Church Bells of Gloucestershire, p. Ii8. t Page 91.

ISO THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
At Salisbury there was a well-established foundry for
bells, pots, and probably mortars and other similar articles,
in the fourteenth century. This is shown by the will of
John Barbor, brasier, of New Sarum, dated 1403, kindly
put into my hands by Dr. Amherst D. Tyssen, whose
Church Bells of Sussex, in 1864, headed the list of com
pleted counties. It is expressed in language which cannot
fail to give an idea of the high character of the testator:
" Debita meditatione perpendens quod humane nature
debilis conditio in hac valle miserie posita tot & tantis
subjacentibus periclis et erumpnis maxime quod nichil
morte certius & nichil incertius, quod velit nolit oportet
quemlibet ingredi vias ejus." He directs his body to be
buried in St. Edmund's Church, "coram sede mea ibidem"
(showing that the pew system is earlier than the Stuart
period), leaves legacies to the cathedral and other churches,
the Black Friars at Fisherton, and others. John Peccham is
to have his pair of bellows (" ij biluwes ") and two hundred
weight of new brass pots, and Humphrey the founder
(" Omfridus Funder ") ten shillings' worth of new brass pots,
Peter Brasier is to have "omnia instrumenta mea & omnes
mensuras artificio meo pertinentes," also "togam meam
optimam." John Gooselyn is to be forgiven a debt of iiij''
xj^ Barbor's messuage was in Wynchestrestret, with Thomas
Knoell's house on the north, and Melmongerstret on the
west. We cannot with surety point to any bells made
by John Barbor or his legatees. In 1474 Richard Brasiere
gave vn]s. towards the great bell at St. Edmund's, where
twenty years afterwards there was paid " Henrico Penker pro
effusione x" de belle bras pro secunda parua Campana . , .
facienda vj^ viij'' cum solucione eidem Henrico pro iij^''
vij" . . . empt' de eodem Ho p' c' libre iiij* . . , iiij" vj' iiij'',"

LONDON AND THE SOUTH-WEST 151
This bell was cast in Sarum, for twopence was paid for
this privilege.
A more unlikely situation for a bell foundry, as things
now stand, than Ash (anciently Aish) Priors, Somerset,
could hardly be found, nor does the tiny village of the pre
sent day seem to have dwindled down from a business resort.
Ecclesiastical influence may account for the operations of
Roger Semson of that parish in his early days. I mention
him in this chapter rather from his lettering, etc, than from
his period, for his work extended into the reign of Queen
Mary. The accounts of Woodbury parish, Devon, taken
from Appendix G to Ellacombe's Church Belts of Devon, give
a picture of the time. The churchwarden on horseback was
in command of the company of " carriers " who set out from
Woodbury on a Sunday with nine oxen to draw the burden
of the old bells. Their first day's journey was to Larksbere,
where five men were accommodated ; but at Milverton next
day the number was increased to nine. Thence by Halse they
reached Aish Priors in time for "denar," stayed there a day,
and returned by the same route. " Roger Symsonne " (as his
name is spelt in the accounts), "the belluter," received "in
pte of payment of a more some x"," and in the following
year two sums of v" and one of iij" xviij^'ij''. His bells are
often marked R. S., and on a bell at Luppit, Devon, it occurs
backwards (nOSmes RecOR em IB). As Semson, then, is his
own version of his name, I take it in preference to the
version of the Woodbury scribe. His lettering and initial
cross, an elaborate one in an octagon, I squeezed from
a bell which stood on the floor of St. David's Cathedral
in 1878, and I have the cast over a bookcase. The inscrip
tion is — 4- 20 £1 De 0 BO ROR 9C GEO RIJI,

152 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
the motto of King Henry V. after Agincourt, and as Lynde
wode the canonist, who was present, became Bishop of St.
David's, the bell may be referred to his episcopate. Thus
the marks are much older than Semson's days.
I regret that I have no further information to give about
this secluded foundry. The inversions of words and letters,
and the break up of words, show that the head of the foundry
was not a literary character, but as a craftsman he has won a
very good word from Ellacombe, who calls him an " illiterate
but first-class bellfounder." *
Just after the completion of the inscriptions in Dorset,
thanks to the energy of their Field Club and its secretary,
the Rev. W. Miles Barnes, Dr. Tyssen discovered the will of
Richard Braszotter, Shafton {i.e. Shaftesbury), in Somerset
House (i8 Rous), dated 144*9. It was well, indeed, that
there was a foundry within the county boundaries, for roads
were few, and ports insignificant. " Lyme Regis," says
Camden, " can scarcely be reputed a seaport town or haven."
Bridport he passes over with hardly a word of notice ; while
Bishop Gibson mentions its being barred with sand. Mel-
combe was a port till its privileges were taken away by Act
of Parliament in 2 Henry VI., though afterwards recovered.
As Poole in 14 Edward III. returned two burgesses to Par
liament, it may have possessed some little importance, but
Parliamentary representation in those days was rather in
flicted on little boroughs than desired by them.f
Yet on the strength of the inscription on the tenor
at Wimborne Minster, one fine bell, at any rate, may be
assigned to Dorset in the Plantagenet period. When
Anthony Bond in 1629 recast this great tenor, placing
* Church Bells of Devon, p. 30.
t My paper in their Proceedings, vol. xxiv.

LONDON AND THE SOUTH-WEST 153
on it his monogram, the inscription, which remains to this
day, was —
MR. WILHEMVS LORINGE ME PRIMO FECIT
IN HONOREM ST.F; CVTBERG.^. RENOVABAR
SVMPTV PAROCHIALI PER AB ANNO DOMINI
1629.
and after the names of the churchwardens, and initials, pro
bably those of the three priests of the Minster, is a shield
bearing a chevron and three mullets. It is remarkable that
this bell appears to have been cast with a flat crown. Mr.
William Loringe was one of the canons of Wimborne Minster
in the early part of the reign of Richard II. His handiwork
therefore lasted some 240 years, and after that the care of
the renovators in the reign of Charles I. preserved the name
of the foundress of the Nunnery, the sister of Ina, King of
Wessex, married to and divorced from Osred, King of
Northumbria, Saint Cuthberga.
At Exeter one Robert Norton seems to have carried on
an extensive business. He had a larger and a smaller
stamp, square, and containing within a twisted circle his
initials, r n. Twenty bells in Devonshire bear one of these
stamps, and others can be associated with these by means of
the initial cross, and there is a remarkable hexameter which,
so far as we know, is to be read only on his bells —
-{- IRisteriis sacris repleat nos dca (dicta) jobannis.
Ellacombe records a few in Somerset, and Walters in
Gloucester. The cross used by him is found by Dunkin
in Cornwall, but as it was also used by another founder, who
had a similar, though not identical, bell in a twisted circle
with the initials 1 1, it is hard to assign those bearing it to

154 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Robert Norton. At Broadwinsor, Dorset, the r n mark is on
the fifth bell. His bells are reported as excellent in quality,
but the word craft has, unfortunately, to be taken in two
senses in his case. The matus sensus is shown in Chancery
proceedings in the reign of Henry VI., when the office of
Lord High Chancellor was held by John Stafford, who was
Bishop of Bath and Wells, 1425-1443, when he was trans
lated to Canterbury. He became Lord Chancellor in 143 1-
1432, and the following petition is presumably in the earliest
days of his tenure of that office : —
" To the right worshipfull fader in God, the Bishopp of Bathe,
Chancellor of England.
" Beseechith mekely the pore parshenes of Plymptre in Deven-
shere, that where as they by John Forde one of the same parisshe
bought of one Robert Norton of Exeter Bellmaker iij Bellys to paye
for evry c'' of the wight of the metal ther of xxvij" there the said
John and Robert by ontrewe ymagynacion coneyn and disseit en
formed the said paryshenes that the said bellys were of the wight of
ij mill, ccc iiij ij li wher as indede thay weyyd but xviij" li so that
the said parishenes have paid ther fore the said Robert by the handys
of the said John accordant to ther said ontrewe enformacion that ys
XX
to sayng for c iiij ij li of metall more than the said Bellys weyn to
the grete hendryng of the said parishenes wher of they may have no
remedy by the comyn lawe : plese it your gracious lordship to com
pel and to make the said John and Robert to apere by fore yowe at
a c'tain day by yowe to be alymyted to answere to the said mater
and to do right ther of after yo'r high discrestion for the love of
God and in the work of charite." *
How the petition succeeded we know not ; but the good
folk of Plymptree were making a complaint which could be
easily substantiated or disproved, and the addition of 582 lbs.
to an existing 1800 is hard upon a third of the true sum.
"¦ Ellacombe, Church Bells of Devon, p. 46.

LONDON AND THE SOUTH-WEST 155
And under this cloud we must leave the Exeter foundry,
turning back to those in Berkshire, namely at Wokingham
and Reading. To the former may be allotted a con
siderable number of bells, chiefly in Berkshire and the
adjoining counties, the most distant from their origin
known to me being two in Cambridgeshire, the second at
Caldecote, and the old bell at Tadlow, which, from the bungle
of the marks, is conjectural. The Caldecote bell is orna
mented with what we think to be the earlier lion's head,
there being two exceedingly unsightly heads with tongues
unusually protruding ; the other head might belong to divers
animals. Where and when the business started we cannot say :
suffice it that through the labours of Dr. J. W. Clark * we find
a Wokingham man working for Eton College in 1448. His
name was Roger Landen, his foundry shield a bell with R. L.
on each side of it, and a W for Wokingham below. The bells
which have not this shield, but other points of agreement, are
supposed to be previous to his time. Like the other founders
of the time, he dealt in other things besides bells. In the
case of Eton the articles were chimney-pots. The item is,
" Et solut. xxij die Marcii Rogero Landen de Wokingham
loc ad fundendum xviij lb metalli enei pro fumi vectoriis de
metallo regis. . . . et eidem pro metallo et fusione xij lb metalli
enei de metallo suo proprio vijj." The lions' heads have often
a great W with them, perhaps the Christian name of an
earlier founder. This I found with the later lion on the fifth
bell at Bloxham, Oxfordshire, in black letter, but with the
same crowned capitals as in other instances, e.g. the tenor f
at Dorchester in the same county, dedicated to the first
Bishop of Dorchester, Birinus : —
4- pROceGe • BiRiRe • qvos • corvoco • cv sine • fiRe.
* Cambridge, i. 405. f Cocks, Chiirch Bells of Bucks., p. 49.

156 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
In this case the date is fixed by the name Raf Rashoold,
which follows the inscription, Mr. Cocks having arrived at
the date of his death in June, 1383, from the Inquisitiones post
mortem in the Record Office. He regards the older lion as
ending with Roger Landen. Nearly forty years after Roger's
chimney-pots were cast for Eton College, one John Michell
"de Woking""," appears in the Corporation Records of
Henley as casting the great bell for that town in 1493, for
which he was paid ix" iij^ iiij".* This date corresponds very
fairly with the Churchwardens' Accounts of Thame, 1487-8.
They are a charming bilingual record. When the scribe's
Latinity failed him, as it well might, he turns to his dear
mother tongue, as "It : sol : le bellemaker in ernyste/ factur
sede campane in festo visitacois be marie eodem anno iijj iiij^
ob;" and "It: sol: ad le bellemaker de Okyngham p. le
castyng sede campanede p'dict, . . . xvjj; vn]d. It : sol: ^ cari-
and : eiusd™ campane apud Okyngham & homward agen in
expens, . . . iijj iiiji^." The d in " cariand " is etymologically
important, the relic of the old participial termination, which
it fell to my lot once to hear, in conversation with a very
aged woman. This bell of Mitchell's did not l^st long.
Extracts from the Thame accounts, transcribed by Dr. A. D.
Tyssen and Mr. E. J. Payne, Recorder of Wycombe, are
printed in Mr. Cocks's book, and thus well preserved, for the
original book has disappeared. By this time (1494-5) the
foundry had been removed to Reading, but it must have
been a very recent removal, because the horsemen sent from
Thame on this business went first to " Wokyngham," and
apparently returned re infecta. Then they (Nicholas Bunse
and Thomas Hill) rode to " Hendeley super Thameseam."
They were paid xxd for their first journey and viij^ for the
* Page 56.

LONDON AND THE SOUTH-WEST 157
second. In the interim Nicholas Bunse seems to have had
enough of it, John Cocks accompanying Hill to Reading.
They had xij^ for their double journey. There the work was
carried out by William Hasylwood, whose initials are found
on bells in the neighbourhood. His will was proved
December 10, 1509, and the accounts of St. Laurence's,
Reading, give the funeral items, and in the year following his
death xijd " for the greate Bell at Hasylwod's mind." He
left a son John to succeed him, but no bell made by him has
been discovered. Mr. Cocks assigns the W of which I have
spoken, with the later lion, to John White, who is regarded as
having been foreman to the younger Hasylwood, and after
wards head of the foundry. He brings the history down to
the end of the period with which this chapter deals. For the
detail of Wokingham I am mainly indebted to Mr. Cocks
and the Rev. Theodore M. W, Owen. As Wokingham is
often spelt without the W, my theory as to the crowned W
and the W at the foot of Roger Landen's shield must be
taken cum grano satis. We shall return to Berkshire again,
but now our studies go to East Anglia for a time.

CHAPTER XI
FROM THE SOUTH COAST EASTWARD
I PROPOSE now to work from the south coast eastward,
and then northward, and ending at the Wash. Un
fortunately, little is known of our subject as regards
either Hampshire or Sussex. Lukis's collection for the
former county* contains some usual black-letter inscriptions,
a large M or an inverted W on a bell dedicated to St.
Laurence at Week, which may belong to the Wokingham-
Reading set, and the fine pairs of hexameters on Christchurch
fifth and sixth, given in Chapter VIII.
At Warblington Mr. Owen reports to me one bell and
no room for more, and yet from its having been tuned by
chipping it must have once taken its place with others.
The mangled inscription is —
Sancte pale [sic] ora pro nobi,
carelessly cast, and with some letters upside down, without
cross or stamps. At Arreton, in the Isle of Wight, I found,
in 1852, a small bell, evidently not belonging to the other
three, with —
3btis ; nicbolaus ; ; alicia ; i
and apparently a portion of a date. There is a cross and
* Church Bells, pp. 75-79.
158

FROM SOUTH COAST EASTWARD 159
some roundlets, but I did not in those days attend enough
to the detail. As yet there is nothing discovered as to a
foundry. The only hint given as to a Sussex foundry is the
inscription on the bell at Bramber —
-\- 3Besvs RflZflReRvs Rex svdiorvsr : nicoEJis sne jecic.
With this by lettering, stops and cross, are associated the
smaller bell at Birdham, the two at Madehurst, and the three
at Clapham, inscribed, respectively, 4- 30BflneS; 4- snJ?RIJI ;
-1- GOD BeEP • SJincce snilRlJI; + 3flC0BVS; -f- CJiCeKinJI; and
4- KflCeRlRfl -f- SRilRGJIRICfl. These legends do not indicate
a high degree of scholarship, and render their originating in
a monastic workshop improbable. Considering the position
of these villages, it may turn out that there was, for a while,
casting going on at Arundel or Chichester. Further detail as
to marks will afford some light. Most of the Sussex black-
letter bells are from London, the signs of William Dawe,
Richard Hille, Joan Sturdy, and Henry Jurden being no
strangers to the county. In the Tudor times John Tonne
will receive notice. What is meant by —
-f ji • ji - sn • sne yecic sejice shjiriji
at Albourne is a difficulty. Perhaps there were two brothers,
both Christian names beginning with A, Fecit for fecerunt
is an everyday blunder, the schoolmaster then not being
sufficiently abroad. After the days of Stephen Norton, of
Kent, rather a chasm occurs in the fusorial history of that
important county. We have mentioned Thomas Hickman,
who was sacrist of St. Augustine's, as casting bells for
Canterbury Cathedral in Norton's time, viz. 1358,* and, of
¦" Hasted, History of Kent, xii. 207

i66 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
course, it is possible that there may have been later opera
tions at St. Augustine's. Stahlschmidt shows that London
swallowed up the bulk of the Norton business. Kent, like
Sussex, abounds in bells from the "Billiter" parts of the
great city.
Towards the end of the fifteenth century, however, there
is a slight revival of local work, in the person of one Richard
Kerner, who in 1500 made for St. Dunstan's, Canterbury,
a " Wakerell " or sanctus bell, for which he was paid
iijj v'njd. There is no charge for carriage, which certainly
indicates work on the spot ; yet Stahlschmidt's researches
have failed to find any record of his admission to citizenship.
Four bells are allotted to him by the same authority, two of
them in St. Mary Bredin, Canterbury, one dated 1 505 ; one
at Hoath, and one at Old Romney. They bear an initial
cross which looks to me like an adaptation of the one used
in the " Burlingham " group, and the date mentioned is given
by the symbols Ib^l). The second bell at St. George's,
Canterbury, with William Belleyetere's mark, was cast after
his time, to judge from an extract given in Dr. Searle's
Christ Church, Canterbury* —
" Et eodem die (20 March, 1450), post nonam predictus
Episcopus (Ricardus Rossensis) benedixit campanas in campanili
sancti Georgii, et ibidem fuerunt monachi ecclesie Christi Cant,
videlicet Johannes Goldwell sacrista, Robertus Mavdd custos tumbe,
Johannes Stone refectorarius, Johannes Clement, subsacrista."
There is a suspicion of a local founder in the case of the
third at Down, with two rough but rare stamps, a cross
on a half ring, and what seems a kind of trumpet, mouth
downwards, ending upwards in three branches, and with two
balls on each side of it.
* Publications of Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1902, p. 51.

FROM SOUTH COAST EASTWARD i6i
Essex is, as might be expected, a metropolitan preserve.
The county is being worked by Mr. Walters. As yet there
is nothing to report as to casting done within its limits.
Circumstances led to a very different result in East
Anglia. Not that Aldgate has failed to assert itself.
William Revel and William Dawe have left their mark even
in Norwich, and the latter is all over Suffolk, from Clare in
the south-west to Ilketshall St. Margaret's in the north-east.
In South Suffolk, too, there is a round dozen or so with
Henry Jordan's fish, garb, bell and laver, though I was quite
wrong * in associating the Stradbroke tenor with this group,
as Mr. Cocks has kindly pointed out.f What I ought to
have named was the Keble " moon and stars " shield, with
the K rebus, and an elaborate cross found also at Sudbury
All Saints. Locality, however, prevailed over the attractions
of London-made goods. Norwich work is found in abundance
in Norfolk and Suffolk, with but two instances in Cambridge
shire, and one (far distant) on the confines of Dorset and
Devon, of which more hereafter, while the crossed arrows of
Edmund, king and martyr, shot to death at Hoxne, but with
an honoured sepulchre at Bury, are common in all three East
Anglian counties.
First, then, of the Norwich furnaces and their outcome.
After the Nottingham "Brasiere," whom we would identify
with William de Norwyco, came in succession, or overlapping
somewhat in date, John Sutton, " belleyet'," admitted to
the freedom of the city in 1404, of whom nought but the
name is known ; Thomas Potter, also in the same year, to
whom we ascribe the pot mark ; J and Richard Baxter,
¦* Church Bells of Suffolk, pp. 25, 238.
t Church Bells of Bucks, p. 55.
X A pot of this kind, dredged up in the Ouse, may be seen in Lynn Museum.
M

i62 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
naturally employed at Mettingham College, for it was the
foundation of the celebrated Admiral Sir John de Norwich,
the victor in the great naval struggle at Sluys in 1 340. The
Cantaria at Mettingham was founded by him two years later ;
and in the Compotus of Sir John Wilbey, master, owned by
our lamented friend, the Rev. Canon Manning, Rector of Diss,
is an item for the fourth year of Henry V. : " Itm solut' Ric'o
Baxstere p' ij campanis et p' ferr' faciend p' eisdem cu vj solut
Joh'i Barkere p. campana carriand Norwic' vsq' Metyngham
Ixjj vij(/." * It may interest those who have given attention
to ancient roadways to know that this pair travelled by the
Ninth Route in the English section of Antonine's Itinerary
over the river at Trowse {Trajectus) to cross the Waveney at
Wainford Bridge, hard by Mettingham. So good roadways
here, as elsewhere, conduced to business. Baxter's name
also occurs in a deed belonging to Northwold, Norfolk. The
date is 1424. He sometimes used a cross and capital
letters which are on Thomas Potter's bells, showing that the
foundry had passed from the one to the other, but introduced
letters of greater beauty. Contemporaneous with Baxter
was Robert Brasyer. Great was the difficulty of surnames
in those days, A son did not always follow his father's trade.
If he kept his surname he belied his occupation ; if he changed
it he injured his pedigree. The first Robert Brasyer, who
is stated by Mr. Ewing t to have been a mercer, dates back
to 1386, and may have been descended from the Nottingham
immigrant. He was a man of substance, serving successively
as bailiff, sheriff, and mayor. Like Henry Jurden, he knew
more trades than one, for his son by his first wife, Richard,
who was admitted to the freedom of the city. in 1424, is
entered in the Free Book as " Rics Brasyer Goldsmyth, fil
" Mettingham Accounts, p. 94. f Norfolk Archaology, iii. 224.

FROM SOUTH COAST EASTWARD 163
Robti Brasyer Belzet," where the last word, of course, applies
to the father, Robert. This Richard followed both trades, as
is clear from an entry in 1450, after a civic order that names
should be entered under various trades. Like his father, he
served his city, and to such good purpose that in 1457 he
received public thanks for his diligence. He placed a beauti
ful brass (a double one) to his father's memory, which remains
in St. Stephen's Church, inscribed —
0 vos oiiies picturas istas intuentes devotas ad deti JIudite preces
p' (aTab^) Roberti Brassier isti ciuitatis quonda Jlldermani et
maioris et cristiane ux' eius. Quibs requie eternam donet deus.
ilmen.
His will was proved in 1482 by his son by his first wife,
the second Richard, of whom we have mention in the
Paston Letters.* The dutiful Margery Paston, so well known
to all who read these lively reminders of old days, is writ
ing to her husband John, and says, " I sent you a letter be
Brasiour sone of Norwiche, wher of I here no word. Wreten
at Norwich on AUowmes Day at night."
During the time of the elder Richard Brasyer there was
a lawsuit between the men of Mildenhall, Suffolk, and him
about the recasting of their bells, in which the element of
weight seems to be in consideration, though not in so
scandalous a way as in the case of the parishioners of Plymp
tree and Robert Norton of Exeter. The pretty little West
Suffolk market town had been rising in importance in the
fifteenth century. A market cross had been erected, and the
grand church tower capped with a spire, a fine landmark in
the heaths and fens of the Hundred of Lackford. Some good
bells seem to have been placed in the tower, but the great
* Gairdner's Paston Letters, iii. 293.

i64 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
bell was broken as early as 1464, when William Chapman,
of that parish, bequeathed ten marks for its repair. There
were London bells in the bell-frame, of which one still
remains ; but though there had been two Lord Mayors from
Mildenhall, Norwich influence prevailed. Richard Brasyer
the elder was called in, and an agreement made by him in
virtue of which they were to bring him " le grand bell de
Mildenhall." The stipulation that it was to be weighed in
their presence is not to be passed over, this apparently being
a safeguard against the kind of malpractice in the Plymptree
case. Then it was to be recast " de ce faire un tenor pour
accorder in tono et sono a les auters belles de Mildenhall,"
Through the kindness of Dr. Amherst D. Tyssen I was
furnished with a verbatim account of the lawsuit which arose
about the recasting, from the Year Book, Edward IV.,
Anno IX. ET, case 13. This, in all its glory of Norman-
French, may be read in my Church Bells of Suffolk,* from
which I extract a summary of the proceedings. The scene
is worth dwelling upon. Danby, C.J.,t is presiding in the
Court of Common Pleas, his puisne brethren being Choke,
Lyttleton,t Moyle, and Needham. Two eminent Serjeants
are retained, Genney for the plaintiffs and Pigot for the
defendant. They are both well known in the Paston Letters,§
where there is a bill of costs in the case of Calle v. Huggan,
with " wyne and perys " quite in the style of Solomon Pell ;
and Genney became a judge of the King's Bench in 1481.
The men of Mildenhall and Richard Brasyer must have found
their purses lighter at the end of the performance.
The defendant is sued on his obligation. He does not
deny that the bell was brought to his house, but he says that
* Pages 48-51. t Appointed 1461.
X Appointed 1466, Author of the Treatise on Tenures. § iii. 25.

FROM SOUTH COAST EASTWARD 165
it was not weighed nor put into the furnace according to the
indenture. Thereupon Serjeant Genney says that it is not
a good plea, because it was the duty of the defendant to
weigh it and put it in the furnace. The indenture certainly
did not specify who was to weigh it, but it was plainly part
of the occupation of the founder, and it might be understood
that he was to carry it out. The learned serjeant then drew
a parallel case of a tailor and his customer. Suppose a tailor
is under bond to me, on condition that if I bring to his shop
three ells of cloth it shall be cut out, and he shall make me a
gown, then it is not for him to plead that the cloth was not
cut out, for it is his business to cut it out. To this Choke,
Lyttleton, and Moyle agreed. Choke adding that the inden
ture expresses that it is to be weighed and put in the furnace
in the presence of the men of Mildenhall, which showed that
they were not to do it. Needham, however, held that they
could have as well weighed it as the defendant could have
weighed it, that part of the affair requiring no special skill ;
and he also called up an imaginary tailor, the counterpart of
Serjeant Genney's.
The truer parallel, said Justice Needham, would be the
measuring and making up the cloth, not the cutting it out
and making it up ; and if the bond did not specify who was
to measure it, the party to whom the bond was given ought
to do so. However, as to the casting, he agreed with the
other judges. Then up rises Serjeant Pigot for the defendant,
reasoning on the bond somewhat in the style of the proceed
ings in the well-known case of Shylock v. Antonio. " A bond,"
says he, " means what it says. The weighing comes first and
the casting afterwards. Brasyer could not recast the bell till
it had been weighed. The bond says that it is to be weighed
in the presence of the men of Mildenhall, and they might

i66 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
have made other men weigh it." Chief Justice Danby's
common sense puts all this aside. The substance of the bond
was the casting of the bell, the weighing being a mere acci
dent. It is not in accordance with our ideas to find the
counsel for the plaintiffs speaking after the Chief Justice, but
Genney, being a serjeant, was a brother, and he adds another
case in point. " Suppose," says he, " that a bond said that
my son should walk to a certain church to marry your
daughter, and that, instead of walking, he rode {chavaucha),
or was carried in a litter {en braces), this accidental deviation
would not forfeit the bond, the substance of it, the marriage,
having been completed." This carried the day, but what the
practical upshot was we know not. Certainly the grand
tower remained long without a tenor; for in 1530 Henry
Pope, of " Twamil," bequeathed iij'' x= "towarde the makyng
of the gret belle ... to be payde by the hands of . . .
Thomas Larke whansoever the town doo go abowght the
making thereof."
For this most instructive episode we are indebted to the
learning and research of the late Lord Blackburn, which was
drawn forth by an appeal to the House of Lords in 1881, in
the case of Mackay v. Dick. Dick and Stevenson were
engineers who invented a " steam navvy," which Mackay, a
contractor, purchased and alleged to be a failure, while they
declared that it had not been tried according to agreement.
Thus the history of our bells obtained illustration from a
most unlikely quarter.
The Brasyers used three shields, bearing three bells and a
coronet. The earliest of the three is supposed to be that
with a sprigged field, the sprigs being replaced by a more
heraldic ermine afterwards. This later style is in two sizes.
My conjecture would be that the change came about after

FROM SOUTH COAST EASTWARD 167
the death of the elder Richard. Of the numerous Brasyer
bells in existence, there are but two to which dates can be
assigned, and both of these bear the ermine shield, viz. the
Norwich Cathedral tenor, c. 1469, and the larger bell now
at Salhouse, 1481. This was the gift of the Guild of Corpus
Christi at Oxburgh in the same county, and probably came
from that parish. The cathedral date, which synchronizes
with the Mildenhall lawsuit, shows that the founder had not
lost his reputation in the eyes of the Church dignitaries.
L'Estrange, to whom we are indebted for much information
as to Norwich, gives an extract from the will of the younger
Richard Brasyer, which shows that the family name died out
with him. His " Werkhous " is to be occupied, says he " by
oon of the conyngest men of my occupacion that hath be my
Prentice," for a year and a day, in order to give his executors
time to carry out the bargains necessary under the will. If
they cannot sell, they are to " lett " the stuff, with " bell
muldis and croks and oder instruments," for another year
and a day. The triangular plot of ground bounded by Red
Lion Street, Rampant Horse Lane, and Little Orford Street
long retained its reputation. In 1741 Blomefield, in his plan
of the city, marks here " a Brew-house where antiently stood
A Work House," and in King's map, 1766, it is noted as
" Foundry." The one outlier from Norwich to which I have alluded
was found by me at Ford Abbey, in the parish of 'Thorn-
combe, now in Dorset but formerly in Devonshire. It bears
the smaller ermine shield, and is inscribed —
¦\- fac snargareta nobis bee snunera Eeta.
No clue as yet has been found to unravel the mystery of this
traveller.

i68 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
The younger Richard Brasyer died in 15 13, and his
executors had no easy task before them, to judge from the
fact that seventeen years intervened before the next founder,
William Barker, was admitted to the freedom of the city, on
St. Luke's Day, 1530. He occupied, however, the Brasyer
foundry, though he could hardly have been " oon of the
conyngest men" spoken of in the will. Seven years and
eight months to a day was the period of his citizenship, for
his death entry is in St. Stephen's register, June 18, 1538,
All that I can say about him in that time is that he had
dealings with Harry Toley, merchant, of Ipswich, and founder
of almshouses there.* He left his wife his house, called
" The Three Bells," and his " working-house with all the hole,
cheker therto belonging," on condition that she discharged
obligations due thereupon to John Allen, " Hosyar." Besides
Norwich and Lynn, we have no note of mediaeval castings in
Norfolk. Suffolk might have been expected to put forth large
results, considering the great reputation and wide influence
of the abbey of St, Edmund. It is rather late in the
Plantagenet period when the first signs of a Suffolk foundry
are shown. There is a large group of bells — nearly sixty — in
the county which bear an elaborate shield (Fig. 40), traceable
by the crown and arrows to the ancient abbey burgh. Norfolk
contains eighteen of these bells, Cambridgeshire fifteen, and
Northamptonshire two, near each other, at Bozeat and
Newton Bromswold. There are solitary specimens at Ges-
tingthorpe, Essex ; and Barkway, Hertfordshire. The Bury
foundry shield appears almost always on these bells, and is
full of important detail. In chief is a crown between two
pairs of arrows, saltireways, points downward, with balls above
¦* Paper on Harry Toley, by V, B. Redstone, May, igo2.

FROM SOUTH COAST EASTWARD 169

and below. The field is occupied by a bell over cross keys
between the letters B and S, the initials of the founder ; and
in base is a cannon with a ball issuing from its mouth towards
the right. This is all an object lesson, of course. The chief
gives the town, and as balls are found in other stamps, it is
probable that the Bury foundry cast them, as well as other
foundries. The keys of St. Peter have a local reference, as
two of these Bury men were
interred in St. Peter's aisle in
St. Mary's Church. We do not
yet know who B S was, but trust
that future investigation in wills
and compotus books may in due
course reveal him. That he was
at work about the end of the
fifteenth century is shown by
the third bell at Isleham, Cam
bridgeshire, mentioned in the list
of Gabriel bells, on which John
Bernard and his wife, and Thomas
Peyton and his wife, are named ; for John Bernard died in
1451 and Thomas Peyton in 1484. The inscriptions are
generally of the ora pro nobis type. At Conington, Cam
bridgeshire, capitals are used on the treble, but not on the
tenor. The one Bury bell in Hertfordshire bears the Saluta
tion, and the tenor at Stoke Ash, Suffolk, the opening of the
Apostles' Creed. Several of the Leonine hexameters men
tioned in Chapter IX. are found, as the sailors' Star of the
Sea, and the same figure for St. Barbara.
¦\- sneritis edmundi Simus fl Crimine Snundi
is common to Norwich as well as to Bury St. Edmund's.

FlG. 40.

170

THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

Following on B S comes the full name of Reignold Chyrch,
who continued the use of the established shield, and, like his
predecessor, dispensed with the rhyme stop. It is quite im
possible to determine the special founder to whom any of the
Bury bells are to be attributed. Not only the two shields,
larger and smaller, of the same design, but initial crosses,
stops, and lettering were used, so far as we can judge, as
freely by Reignold Chirche and his son Thomas as by B S.
Three specimens of this lettering are given, D and S upside
down, and A (Figs. 41, 42, 43). Though there remains

U' ¦¦¦=*>;. J f ip-^

Fig. 41.

Fig. 42.

but the bell at Barley to tell of Bury work in Hertford
shire, we find from the churchwardens' account at Bishop's
Stortford that Reignold Chirche was employed for that
parish, in spite of its nearness to London. Indeed, there
may have been dissatisfaction with the Aldgate quarter,
for after much money spent about the middle of the
fifteenth century, more is got together by guild collections,
gifts, and bequests, so that in 1489-90 the five bells go to
Bury to be recast. As usual, the costs and expenses of the
churchwardens in riding to see the bellfounder figure in the
payments, " Et in custag et expeii p'dict yconomor equitanc

FROM SOUTH COAST EASTWARD 171
ad Bury sc Edi p ff'curo convene cu Reginald Chirche Bell-
foundo p h(ujusmodi) campan ffacient infra temp, comp hoc
anno iiijj viij^. Et sol p. ffactur' Indentur et obligac de
convene, pdict con . . . xxijd." A Bury blacksmith is em
ployed in making the clappers, and " brases " are supplied by
the founder to eke out the metal, at a charge of xixj. vujd.
Then comes the settling of the bill in part, " Et solut' eidm
Reginald Chirche sup delibacoem p'dict campan in ptem
solucois xlij"  ." At this point there is an erasure in the
book, and instead of xviij'', which appears to have been
written at first, is substituted the humbler x". In 1495 the
churchwardens had another ride to Bury, paying up iiij", and
again in the following year, when they carried x". No doubt
in the end they paid in full ; but in 1 506, after some steeple
disaster, they sent their broken bell to London.* In 1498
the elder Chirche died. His will was proved on February 16,
and full extracts from it are given in my Church Bells of
Cambridgeshire^ and Church Bells of Suffolk.X Here may
be noted —
" My body to be buryed in Seynt Mary Chirche, in the Ele of
Seynt Pet vnder the marble ston ther by me leid. . . . My execu
tors to keep a sangrede and an erthtyde yeerly for my soule, &c.,
in the chirche of our lady. . . . My iij smale ten'ntries set in
Reynsgate strete shall remayn to almesis housis for eu. . . . I will
that Thomas Chirche my sone do make elene the grete lectorn that
I gave to Seynt Mary chirche quart'ly as long as he levyth."
The lectern was therefore cleaned without expense to the
parish for nearly thirty years, as Thomas Chirche lived till
1527. During this period a great deal of metal must have passed
* See Glasscock's Records of St. Michaels Church, Bishop's Stortford.
t Page 35. t Page 71.

172 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
through the Bury foundry. Of two fine bells in East Anglia
bearing the St. Edmund stamp, the tenor at Redenhall and
the seventh at All Saints', Sudbury, the former may be
certainly, and the latter probably, ascribed to him. Though
the Redenhall bell has been terribly mangled by chipping—
both sharpened and flattened, so that from the former process
its diameter has lost some three-quarters of an inch — its tone
is still very fine, as will be acknowledged by dwellers in the
neighbourhood, as well as by ringers from all parts of the
country. The weight is about 24 cwt., the diameter 50^ inches,
the height to the crown 37J inches, less half an inch for the
interior height, while from the crown to the top of the canons
is a good foot and a half. It must be Thomas Chirche's,
bearing, as it does, the Bury marks, and dating from 1 5 14, or
soon afterwards, this being the date of a bequest from
Thomas Bayly, of Harleston, " vjj viijo? to the church of
Rednall to the yotyng of the gret belle." The Sudbury bell,
with the " Star of the Sea " inscription, weighs a ton, or
thereabouts. The fifth in the same tower, a St. Katherine,
is also from Bury, but between the two is a coeval Londoner,
rather a puzzle.
At Cambridge there was the same change in the case of
the second of the five which used to hang in the bell-house
belonging to King's College (Fig. 44). After three recasts by
London founders in the fifteenth century, it passed in 1500
through the workshop of Thomas Chirche, who was paid in
that year two sums of x^ and one of iiij" for his labour. Like
Thomas Potter, of Norwich, and others, he combined smaller
work with greater, for among " Expense necessarie " appears
in the Mundum Book, "Item xv" die Septembris sol thome
chyrche de Bury pro vna olla pro coquina pond iij quart
of C & v" cum cambis antiqui metalli pond j quart of

FROM SOUTH COAST EASTWARD 173
C & vj" et pro ij ladyllj . . . xvjj," There is mention of him
also in 1514, at St. Mary-the-Great, the accounts containing
" an obligacyon for Tho. Church bell-founder of Bury."
The Subsidy Rolls in the Record Office, |8_a 14 & 15
Henry VIII,, have his name and value, "Villa de Bury,

Fig. 44.
Thomas Churche, Befounder, ;^400," * His will in many
points resembles his father's, following whose example, he
had laid a stone in St. Peter's " Ele," in St, Mary's Church,
He left " oon food of led," perhaps part of his foundry flux,
to the church, and " a litil stondyng maser " to the Guild of
* From A. H. Cocks, July 5, 1890.

174 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
St. Nicholas, " holdyn in the College w*thyn the seid town of
Bury." The trade of "Braser" is in the list of abbey
property for that year.*
To Thomas Chyrche succeeded Roger Reve, who cast
the second bell for Depden, or Debden, in Essex, in 1533,
giving a bond for xl" for its remaining good for a year and
a day, the " saide meane Belle " to be recast if within that
time it should " discorde or broke through defaute of work
manship." The parish authorities were to take the bell down
if necessary, at their cost and to carry it to Bury and back,
as often as need be, at the cost of the founder. Then comes
in the vexata qucestio of weight, thus expressed, " Moreov'r,
it is agreed between the said p'ties that if the said meane belle
be more in pondes whan it is now new yoten than it was
before," then the parish authorities, or one of them, "to
content and pay to the said Roger aft' the Rate of xxx^ the
hundred of v^"^ and xij to the hundred." And if it " waye lesse,"
the said Roger " was to pay aft' the Rate of xv^ the hundred
aft' the same waight." This little difference is notable, as
well as the mixture of trades, for on the endorsement Roger
Reve is styled " clothear." With Roger Reve we leave the
mediseval foundry in the burgh of St. Edmund, with much
regret that no gun has been found with the Bury stamp.
The Woolwich collection is certainly destitute of them.
They did their work in their day, and it is not incredible that
among the artillery which riddled the galleys and galleons of
the Spanish Armada half a century later there may have been
some which bore the initials B S, and as they came forth from
the mould gratified the approving eye of one of the Chirches,
or of Roger Reve. The double brass with bells in St. Mary's,
Bury, has long disappeared. "¦ East Anglian, x. 298.

FROM SOUTH COAST EASTWARD 175
The only other indication of a foundry in East Anglia is
the mention in the Pedes Finium, Cambridgeshire, 1272, of a
"Frater Rog' de Ebor, Prioris Ordinis de Penitencia Jesu
X" V. Walter le Braszur & Aldretha ux. eius in ' Suburbs of
Camb.' " No casting can be traced to the town.

CHAPTER XII
THE MIDLANDS AND THE NORTH
EXCELLENT as was the work of the two great East
Anglian foundries, we find nothing of it further to
the north and west, save the two Northamptonshire
" travellers." In the Middle Ages there was scanty com
munication, and even a century ago a journey from South
Lincolnshire into West Norfolk was made partly by boat.
The coach dropped the wayfarer at the county border,
whence he was conveyed some distance by water to the
Cross Keys in the parish of Walpole St. Peter's, where King
John is said to have lost his baggage. At this hostelry
another coach was in readiness, and so the journey to
Lynn was completed. This accounts for the disappearance
of the Norwich and Bury marks. Indeed, in the "parts
called Holland " black-letter bells are hardly to be found.
. Passing into the "parts called Lindsey," the familiar
London stamps, those of Dawe, Jurden, and Kebyll, appear,
not far from the coast, and very likely sea-borne. An
undoubtedly local man, Robert Merston, turns up in the
vicinity of Louth, but not elsewhere. Like William Flint
at Cold Ashby, he marks his bells with his seal, a city gate
surmounted by a crescent. This may indicate some con
nection with Lincoln. A solitary bell in the county, that at
176

THE MIDLANDS AND THE NORTH 177
North Elkington, is by an equally untraceable maker, " Johan
nes Sleyht," who spells his name without the h at Glapthorne,
Northamptonshire. Much labour will be necessary amongst
civic and borough documents before these makers can be
run home, while at Boston, John Pynchbeck, c. 1497, and
Leonard Pynchbeck, c. 1506, are names to us, and nothing
more. Dr. Gasquet will tell us, in his Parish Life, of John
Red, c. 1503.
Want of localization also besets us in the case of the
lettering on the nine bells in Lincolnshire and one at Carlton-
in-Lindrick, Notts, which is absolutely unrivalled for design
and execution, mentioned in Chapter IX.
Stowed away in an outhouse at the Red Lion Inn at
Boston, is a most remarkable specimen, said, on what
authority I know not, to have been the sanctus bell at
Leverton. When I saw it on January i, 1881, it was in use
for the market ordinary. Narrow-crowned and spread out, the
crown much rounded, it might be called apetasus. One shank
acted for hanging purposes ; it never had inscription or bead
ing, and was painted a dull red, perhaps to match the Lion.
At Halam, Notts, is a bell very much of the same de
scription, and very possibly from the same hand. That
county requires thorough working up. I sent a paper to
the Nottingham Meeting of the Royal Archaeological In
stitute in 1901, which has had the effect of bringing me into
touch with some kind local correspondents, but at present
there are no black-letter bells to refer to. Yet in 1488 there
existed a foundry in the county town, under the care of
Richard Mellour, Alderman and Belyetter.* He was twice
mayor, in 1499 and 1506, and he must have died in 1508 or
* North's Church Bells of Lincolnshire, p. 102.
N '

lyS THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
1509, from the evidence of a deed to which his widow, Agnes
Mellers, was a party. His son Robert left his mark in
Lincolnshire in his day, though the bells cast by him for
Louth, and one by him at Wigtoft, have since been recast.
From the accounts of the latter parish it may be seen
how the journey was made thither from Mellour's foundry, ,
some time after his death in 1525. North quotes them as
between 1535 and 1543 : —
" The expenc and payment layd forth by John Alison church
maisf for the bell schottyng at Nottynggam £ s. d.
First for y' bell clapper  ... ... 006
Itm for the shoyng of vj horsis and for removis 018
Itm payd at Bottysforth for sope' and brekfast ... o o 10
Itm payd for the grysse of 9 horsis ... ... o o 8
Itm at Nottyngham for the mett of y' said horsis
from Wedonsdaye at none unto Thursdaye at
none ... .. ... ... ... ...016
Itm for their dyn'es ... ... ... ...006
Itm for drynk to y" hands at castyng y° bell ... o o 4
Itm for theer sopper at night & dyn' at Thursday
at none ,.. ... ,,. ,,. ... ...010
Itm for making of y" obligacyon ... ... o o 4
Itm for theer drynkyng by y" way toward and
froward... ... ... ... ... ...004
Itm at Thursday at nyght at potysforth * for ye
sopper ... .,, ,.. ,.. ,., ... 006
Itm for y" horsis matt 8'^. for John Sna'd break
fast 2''. ... ... ... ... ... ... o o 10
Itm for bryngyng y° bell Wele from boston ,..002
But somehow the Wigtoft bell did not suit, and in 1543
there was an exchange with Swineshead, when another two
pence was paid for drink " wan were at Swynshed to change
* Bottesford.

THE MIDLANDS AND THE NORTH 179
y° bell," fivepeiice to " nicolas bell for hengyng y° bell and for
ale and brede at y" tyme," and twopence to " henri daye for
caryng y" bell to y" abbay & bryngyng y other bell home."
If this amount seems trifling it must be remembered that
the distance between Wigtoft and Swineshead is small. The
bells in that " Abbey Church " were recast in 1794, and con
sequently we cannot get at the Nottingham marks, but before
this recasting there were four bells, and the inscriptions are
recorded in the Harleian MSS.* Either the treble or the
tenor might have been the Wigtoft changeling, probably the
former, with the well-known In SRultis JInnis hexameter. The
latter bore the salutation in full, ending with fructus.
At Leicester there was one William Millers, " Bell Haytaii,"
simultaneously exercising his craft with Richard Mellour the
elder at Nottingham. North f suggests that the two may
have been of the same family, and bearing in mind the usual
variations in spelling, I am quite of the same opinion.
William Millers was admitted a member of the Merchants'
Guild, Leicester, in the mayoralty of William Wigston,
junior, 1499-1500. He died in 1506, leaving two sons,
neither of whom seems to have entered into the business.
Like Joan Hille, the widow Margery carried on the foundry,
taking for her second husband another founder, Thomas New
combe, a surname which lasted long in the Leicester business.
After his death in 1520 she was married to a third of the
same trade, one Thomas Bett, mayor in 1529. Nichols %
relates from the Town Records that on March 27 " there was
brought" to him "hawthorn bud'yth furth, beane flowres,
and a cuUumbell flour." The connection between these three

9, fo. 224.
t Church Bells of Leicestershire, p. 41.
X Leicestershire, i. 391.

i8o THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
men and foundry stamps of the time is hot clear. The little
tenor at Markfield, with a blundered hexameter —
-I- Romen De cells JIbeo snicaelis snissi,
has also round the rim —
4- robarte -arlce and annis bps wcfe made me.
Regarding the prominence of ladies in this foundry business,
there seems no reason for taking this otherwise than literally,
and the clue is worth following up. The county has but a
scanty share of later Plantagenet bells. The existence of a
bell in the now ruined church of Leicester St. Peter, in 1306,
is shown by a tragic event in that tower. On Christmas
Eve, Simon de Waleys, clerk, went to the church about mid
night to " strike the bell " according to custom. William the
Vicar, there before him, reproached him for his delay, struck
him on the head with a meat knife called a " misericorde,"
and caused his death.
The period with which we are dealing is still more
sparsely represented in Northamptonshire, "There is no
trace discovered of a bell-foundry in this county earlier than
the seventeenth century," says Mr. North in the exordium to
his book, " consequently the interest attaching to the founders
here is not so great as that connected with the more ancient
ones of Leicester. There are no wills, with their quaint
provisions and phraseology to extract, and there are few
beautifully designed initial crosses and founders' stamps to
engrave," Londoners, however, are a little more plentiful
than in Leicestershire, while in little Rutland there is but a
solitary " Ring and Cross " on the bell at Tixover, dedicated
to St. Faith.
In Buckinghamshire, Mr. Cocks gives a list of nine bells,
within a radius of eleven miles from Buckingham. Two of

THE MIDLANDS AND THE NORTH i8i
them are in border parishes of Northamptonshire and
Oxfordshire respectively, and more may be found in the
latter county. Their position points to Buckingham as their
place of origin, and their lettering and ornamentation belong
to the fourteenth century. Thomas Swadling, mentioned
by the Rev. Dr. F. G, Lee, in his History of the Prebendal
Church of Thame, as at work there in 1450, may have been a
Buckinghamshire or Oxfordshire founder. The volume of
accounts in which his name occurs is unfortunately lost. In
it, according to Dr. Lee, was the mention of " Powells or Ap
Powells of Buckingham " employed at Thame in 1503. In
the oldest accessible volume John Appowell is recorded as
buying the great bell of Thame in 1552, and in the same year
there is an entry in the Buckingham Borough Court Record
about an action brought by him against John Foxley, gent,,
for xxxviijj. In the next year he was appointed a " taster
of vyctualle " ; and at Wing, Bucks, the man and the town
are specified in the same transactions about bells, " John
appowell" in 1557, "buckyngham" in 1556. Oxfordshire
and Warwickshire are both in much the same case as
Northamptonshire. Lukis gives the inscription on the treble
at Aston Rowant in the former county,
-f Sancte 3obannes ora pro nobis Pj^*
These initials look like a bell-founder's, but as yet the names
cannot be filled in, and there are a few other black letters
from London in the Lukis catalogue, but no hint as to local
work. Of Warwickshire, Mr. Tilley, in his paper on that
county, contrasts the prosperity of the Edgbaston foundry in
the beginning of the eighteenth century with the absence of
mediaeval work done, adding, " I have reason to believe that
no foundry for bells existed in the county before the

i82 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Reformation ; I have, however, no direct proof to support my
opinion, but must leave it to your own judgment to
decide." *
Judging from marks and lettering there are three distinct
groups of bells in Worcestershire, all centering round the
Cathedral city, and thus indicating it to be the home of the
foundry. In the first, the lettering and stamps used by John
Barber of Salisbury appear, neither remarkable for ex
cellence. There is an initial cross of fleurs-de-lis saltireways,
and some of the capitals are crowned. These extend into
Shropshire, Staffordshire, Hereford, and Warwick. The
second rather larger company has its representatives also in
Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire ; and from the identity
of lettering with that used by Derby and Rufford of London,
it seems that the foundry, though presumably at Worcester,
was a metropolitan offshoot. Lastly, with the same centre,
are seven bells still in the district, and one which has
travelled from Worcester St. Michael's to Devonport, with
unique inscriptions, of which two, the tenor at Grimley
and the larger bell at Worcester St. Michael's, bear respec
tively the dates 1482 and 1480. A royal head, used at
Worcester, has been found at Nettleton, Wilts, and Kerry in
Montgomeryshire. At Ludlow in 147 1-2 a Brasyer was
paid vijj. for " mendyng of the Belle," but there is nothing
further to show whether this operation was performed by a
local man. None of the four bells from Worcester Cathedral,
now at Didlington Hall, Norfolk, in the possession of Lord
Amherst of Hackney, appear to have been made in the
county. Shrewsbury had a 30Bflnnes B€£yi€CeR€ in the middle of
the fourteenth century. His name appears in the borough
* The Church Bells of Warwickshire, p. 3.

THE MIDLANDS AND THE NORTH 183
records, and on a bell at Longnor. In 1872, the late Mr.
Llewellynn Jewitt began an important series of articles on
the Church Bells of Derbyshire in The Reliquary. He found
mediaeval bells in scanty number, and metropolitan marks
conspicuous by their absence. As yet there is no trace of a
local foundry.
Staffordshire has a better share of the work of the Middle
Ages. Master Henry Michel of Lichfield, however, whose
name occurs in the Chronicles of Crokesden, is the only
founder to be named as at work in the county at this
period. John de Stafford and Michael de Lichfield are
found beyond its bounds, and, like William de Notyngham
and others kept, their surname for a time, at least, in their
migrations. The Worcester cross of fleurs-de-lis saltireways is on the
fourth bell at Chebsey ; there are two Culverdens at King-
stone, dedicated respectively to St. James and St. Leonard ;
the arms of England at Chebsey on the third are identical
with those in Shropshire and Gloucestershire from London.
Henry Jurden's cross keys, fish, garb, bell and laver may be
seen at Gnosall. Mr. Lynam's book is a collection of fine
engravings, but his other labours prevented that research
into documents by which the history of the foundry work
is unravelled. Of Cheshire I can say practically nothing, and South
Lancashire is in the same plight. Here the prosperity of
later days has led to an unusual amount of recasting, whereas
the Cheshire towers may be regarded as stores of information
for the time to come. Already North Lancashire has begun
to yield its treasures, and the researches of Mr. Harper
Gaythorpe, F.S.A, (Scot.), in five towers in the Archdeaconry
of Furness lead to the expectation that much interesting

i84 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
matter is awaiting the discoverer. At Colton is a bell in
scribed —
-I- cflsnpjinji = Bf jici E^ soBJinnes {sic) = jippEi,
with an initial cross of the York " Potter " type. Mr,
Whitehead would ascribe this bell to John de Kirkham, but
a comparison of marks, in Mr. Gaythorpe's opinion, does not
justify this conclusion, A recast bell from Kirkby Ireleth
had its inscription preserved, undoubtedly a dedication to
the Virgin Mary, but copied by one unfamiliar with the
characters of the period. At Broughton-in-Furness is a
rather short, wide bell inscribed —
-I- soBJinnes • esc • nosnen • snevsn,
which I should assign to the fifteenth century, regarding the
lettering as a survival.
Working eastward we have a very different tale to tell in
Yorkshire, where, in the West Riding, the labours of Mr. J,
Eyre Poppleton have resulted in the production of an im
portant list of craftsmen all along the line, from which the
following names are extracted, belonging to the period which
we are now discussing : —

Adam, Friar 

.., Doncaster ..

• 1335-49

Annington, Ric 

,.. York

• 151S

Asby, Thomas

.. York

• 1485

Aughton, Henry de

.. York

• 1384

Aughton, Henry de

.. York

• 1491

Bee, Gilbert 

.. York

- 1513

Bery, John 

., York

1461

Blakey, Ric 

.. York

1501

Bonyne, Gyliseus .,. .

.. York

¦ 1365-74

Bous, John  York ... 1354
Copgrave, John de ... York ... 11 40

THE MIDLANDS AND THE NORTH 185

Copgrave, William de .„ York
Dawson, William  York
Doe, Gilbert  York
Eschby, John  York
Fourness, Thomas .., Halifax
Gerveaux, John  York
Heathcote, George i ,.. York
Heathcote, George ii ... York
Hoton, William de i ... York
Hoton, William de ii ... York
Hoton, John de  York
King, William  York
Kirkham, John de ... York
Lonsdale, Thomas ... York
Lowesse, John  York
Lowesse, T  York
Marshall, John  York
Potter, John  York
Richardson, Richard ... York
Richardson, James ... York
Ryche, Thomas  York
Sowerby, Thomas de ... York
Stokesley, William .,. York
Tenand, John  York
Thwaites, William ... York

1297
1514 1515 1505
1472 1400
1490-1541
1540-1558 1297-1300
1409-45 1455-731435 1371 1432
1474 1485
1385
1359-80 1504
1515 15371380 1340
1508-16 1512

Of Friar William de Touthorp and of Richard Tunnoc
we have spoken already. The time may come when the
special works of these men which yet exist may be classed.
In Mr. Park's Church Belts of Holderness, there is no notice
of foundry stamps ; and all I can add to that part of York
shire is that two smaller bells were sold from the Chapel of
Ravenserre Odd to Aldeburgh between 1349 and 1353 after
the inundation.*

Boyle's Lost Towns of the Humher, p. 47.

i86 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
The second of the ballads in Ritson's Robin Hood throws
some light on the wandering life of the potter. If bell
business fell slack, and metal was lying about unproductive,
then the furnaces would be aglow for the turning out of
lavers, pots, and pans. The demand for these in the imme
diate vicinity being exhausted, the van must be requisitioned,
and a tour made further afield in the usual manner. Robin
Hood and his merry men are on the look-out for their kind
of business, and " He was war of a prowd potter
Cam dryfyng owyr the ley."
He remarks to Little John that this arrogant traveller
" Was never so corteys a man
On peney of pawage * to pay."
Little John rejoins by mentioning the seven strokes which
the potter had given him, and lays Robin forty shillings that
if they come to blows the potter will win. Accordingly,
Robin goes for the haughty artificer, but gets the worst of
it. The merry men come to the rescue, and the potter
yields, and agrees to change clothes with Robin, who takes
the pots into Nottingham to sell them.
" Pottys 1 pottys ! he gan crey foil sone,
Haffe hansell for the mar,"
apparently agreeing to take half price from the first buyer.
Business was brisk, for the good folk of the town saw that
he did not understand prices, and "seyde he had be no
potter long," for
¦* Pavagium, toll for passage, Cf. Shotford (Scottaforda, Domesday Book)
over the Waveney,

THE MIDLANDS AND THE NORTH 187
" The pottys that wer werthe pens feyffe
He solde tham for pens thre :
Preveley seyde man and weyffe
Ywnder potter schall never the."
When the "gode outlawe" and the tradesman met again,
the former inquired of the latter the value of the pots sold,
and finding that

't>

" They wer worth two nobellys, seyd he,
So mot y heyffe or the.
So cowde y had for tham
And y had ther be,"
he generously gives the owner ten pounds. The story is
one of the most racy in the collection which we owe to
Joseph Ritson.
But stories are about all that can be told in the bell
annals of the north, though a part of England always famous
for archEeological research, till Cumberland is reached. Here
light is thrown on one of the York founders, John de Kirk
ham, whose local name is from the parish in the Hundred
of Amounderness, Lancashire. We owe this to the excellent
work of the Rev. Henry Whitehead in the Transactions of
the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archceo
logical Society. At Dacre he found three remarkably interest
ing bells. Of these the second bears two inscriptions, the
upper one — 4- cjisnpjinfl : Bejice • snjiRie,
the lower — 4- 30BjiRnes : oe uvrkasr • sr€ ?ecic.
Now this John's name occurs in the Fabric Rolls of York
Minster for the year 1 371 * as follows : —
*' Surtees Society Publications, xxxv. 9, 10.

i88 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
" Et in mxij lb de ere et stagno emptis de ... xix" ix= viij''
Johanne de Kirkham dando pro C xxvjj viij;^
Et in permutacione facta cum Johanne de
Kirkham pro alia magna campana pro le clok et
habuit in emendacione cum campana ecclesie xx'' "
The first of these items is reasonably taken by Stahlschmidt
as a proof that John de Kirkham was a York citizen, for the
quantity of metal looks like a home store. I would that
John's arithmetic in that item were more clear. Perhaps
there is a mistake somewhere in the figures.
Lukis has noted the initial cross on the lower inscription
on this Dacre second as occurring also on the second at
Scawton, Yorkshire, where the foundry shield bears a pastoral
staff between a candlestick, a bell, and a pot. Round this
shield is an inscription —
+ 30jinnes De copgrh? sne fecic
The dedication is the same as at Dacre. Poppleton's date for
this founder, no doubt a native of Copgrave near Ripon, is
c. 1 140, and as there is a William later on from the same place,
the foundry seems to have passed from one to the other, and
afterwards to John de Kirkham. Subsequent York founders
may have made the other two Dacre bells, as also those at
Cumrew, Threlkeld, and other places.
But we must not leave the Cumberland folk without a
notice of their cathedral bells, of which Mr. Whitehead in
1883 used the words "disused and almost forgotten, no peal
rung on them within living memory." Though all but one,
the fifth, have been recast in later times, one early in the days
of James L, two during the Commonwealth, one in the reign
of George II,, and one as late as 1845, yet the metal is sure
to be the same (with additions) as that of Bishop Strickland's

THE MIDLANDS AND THE NORTH 189
four (1400-1419), of which Leland says, "Hie fecit mag.
campanile in cathedr. ecclesia a medietate ad summum, una
cum quatuor magnis campanis in eodem.* This remaining
fifth bears in grand floriated capitals the inscription —
+ 3BC + 3n : voce : svsn ; snvnoji i sraria ; sonjinDo • secvnDA
Mr. Whitehead gives two versions of voce, either from the
sound of the bell, or taking voce sum, as equivalent to vocor.
I am bound to say that I am strongly in favour of the former
interpretation, as he happily puts it —
" I, Mary, with pure accent sing
Second in the chiming ring."
Founders often used the opportunity of thus advertising the
excellence of their work. The initials I ; B appear just below
the sacred monogram, probably those of the founder, who
may be the John Bous of York, c. 1354, the date correspond
ing with the elaborate Longobardic lettering.
This completes our mediaeval pilgrimage to foundries.
Where there was a local habitation as well as a name there
was often much itineration, and some makers' names are met
with to which no fixed abode is assignable, men who alike
avoided the advantages and the responsibilities of citizen and
burgess life.
Of this kind was apparently Austen Bracker, who can be
traced by his cross and lettering from Shouldham in West
Norfolk to Newton and Harston in Cambridgeshire, where
the legend — esn Dflsn neucjiRB nee sji
on the tenor remains as a monument of his learning. The
bells at Babingley and Hales, Norfolk, attributed to him by
* Collectanea, i. 472.

I90 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Mr. Downman,* are, according to L'Estrange,t from Lynn.
The former writer attributes to him also bells at Little
Cornard and Little Welnetham, Suffolk, and a black letter
St. George at Anstey, Hertfordshire, which certainly bears
Bracker's radicated rose in a shield, conjoined as an enigma
with Robert Crowch's r c shield. Founders on tour would
naturally tarry in a place where business might be expected
to be found, and when their gear was required in some place
in the vicinity, they would bring it and the metal to the
churchyard, failing othfer accommodation. Traces of their
operations are sometimes found in digging graves, as lately
at p-ressingfield, Suffolk, and a little earlier at Empingham,
Rutland, and at Scalford, Leicestershire.! Business-like men
might have been expected not to leave much of their precious
stuff behind them ; yet in the last-named churchyard a mass
of bell metal was found which had clearly been in a state of
fusion on the spot. There are several instances of monastic
castings in abbey precincts.
Our ears are now ringing with many inharmonious sounds,
among them " Fiscal Reform," and we must not pass over
the legislation of 1483, prohibiting the importation of foreign
bells into England. So far as we can judge, this was a pre
cautionary measure ; at any rate, hardly anything can be
named as having come from abroad prior to that date. Yet
now and then we find, before the reign of Richard III,,
undoubted cases of the foreigner's intrusion, and cannot help
wondering what Norwich and Bury thought when the bell at
Whitton, in south-east Suffolk, was brought across the water.
It is inscribed with the Salutation, aiio * m • cccc ' xii, and the
* Ancient Church Bells in England, p. 126.
f Church Bells of Norfolk, pp. 24, 87.
X North, Church Bells of Rutland, p. 11.

THE MIDLANDS AND THE NORTH 191
word-stop is a trefoil of continental aspect, possibly Low
Country, possibly French. Six years afterwards came to
Baschurch, Shropshire, a bell from Venlo, inscribed -|- maria *
int • laer • ons • beeren • m • cccc • ende * xlvij, with the name
ian • van • venloe, which an enthusiastic Welshman, taking it
for his mother tongue, rendered " When cut off from life we
become dead earth, the soul departs, and proceeds through
the air to Eternal Glory." * The protective Act had been
in operation nearly half a century, when a bell was cast in
Mechlin which in some manner found its way to the tower
of Bromeswell church, near Woodbridge, Suffolk. The
village is not far from the estuary of the Deben, which
affords a convenience for landing this piece of contraband
goods. The tone of the bell, though clear, is not particularly
melodious, and I am glad to say that it has never been
chipped. It is inscribed in Roman capitals —
JHESUS BEN IC GHEGOTEN VAN CORNELIS
WAGHEVENS INT lAER ONS HEEREN MCCCCCXXX
The note is C J.
Through the kindness of the Reverend William van
Castor, one of the canons of Mechlin Cathedral, I received
much valuable information concerning the Waghevens family,
and Mons. S. de Schryver has immortalized our Suffolk
Fleming in his paper entitled Quelques Anciennes Cloches
d'Eglise (Bruxelles, 1903). The ornamentation of this bell
is most beautiful. There are four medallions, nearly two
inches in diameter, representing the Flight into Egypt, the
Annunciation, the Presentation in the Temple, and the
Victory of St. Michael over the Dragon ; and the design of
the border, if not elegant, is certainly masterly. The earliest
* See Morris's MS. Collection in Shrewsbury Museum.

192 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
of the family of Waghevens known is Henry, who died in
1483 — the very year of the prohibitive statute. We cannot
determine the relationship between him and Cornells, but
1530 seems to be the earliest date of the latter. From
Jacop, who ranges between 1542 and iS54( came the tongue-
less bell in Glasgow Tolbooth, called the St. Catherine
bell, weighing about 5 cwt.; others of the family are
recorded in my Church Bells of Suffolk.* At Vowchurch,
Herefordshire ; Peterhouse, Cambridge ; and Rye, Sussex,
also, are specimens of the work of the Low Countries.
The narrative has now been continued to about the
middle of the sixteenth century, when the stream of history
is somewhat broken by the Tudor tragedies. Much, of
course, has been omitted in the foregoing sketch of the
later , Plantagenet period, which requires a volume to itself;
but what has been recorded is enough to indicate what
treasures of local, commercial, and ecclesiastical information
yet remain to be brought to the surface, and to encourage
new labourers to enter into the counties as yet imperfectly
investigated. * Pages 76, etc.

INITIAL LETTER.S OF MONK RINGING, .\ND OF TWO BELLS
IN CHURCH SPIRE
FROM A FOURTEENTH CKNTUKY ALl'HABETICAf. COLLKCTION TEKMEl) O.U.Vff BO.vr.l/
Royal MS- 6 E- -.-i, ff. 132. !lS.

CHAPTER XIII
THE TUDOR PERIOD
IF judgment is to be formed from some of our histories,
the Reformation epoch would indeed have been, not
only a blank in the production of bells, but a day of
extinction for those existing. " Bells, rich in silver, still
hung silent in remote church towers, or were buried in
the vaults. . . . Some few peals of bells were spared for
a time, but only under conditions of silence," says Mr.
Froude.* I suspect that there is nearly as slender a basis for the
silence as for the silver. Somebody else tells us that only
one bell was left in each tower. This I have just tested for
Norfolk and Suffolk, with the result that at the present day
in the former county there are seventy-eight churches, and in
the latter eighty-one, in which hang more than one pre-
Reformation bell. In two little Suffolk churches, Athelington
and South Elmham St. Peter, hang the very three bells
which are named in the returns of 1553, Dr. A. D. Tyssen
makes a like remark about Sussex. Nevertheless, there
were some bad cases in East Anglian parishes,! as elsewhere.
Monastery bells, of course, generally disappeared. They
were useful for casting cannon, and from the county of
* History of England, v. 459.
t Church Bells of Suffolk, p. 91.
o 193

194 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Lincoln alone the value of metal handed over to Mr. Charles
Morris for this purpose amounted to ;^832. Much important
detail on this subject is given in Gasquet's Henry VIII. and
the English Monasteries.* In a few cases the monastery
bells were bought by parishioners of adjoining villages for
their churches. The amount of bell metal brought into the
market had its natural effect on price, so that it is no
matter of surprise that Richard Bellasis wrote to Thomas
Cromwell that he could only get fifteen shillings a hundred
weight for those at Jervaulx Abbey. The Commissioners
of 1553 did not ask for returns, but summoned the church
wardens before them. The original summons remains in
the church chest of Bedingfield, Suffolk, requiring these
oflScers to
" appere before the Kyng's ma"°'' sayde Comyssyoners at Ypswych the
Secounde day of Maye next ensuenge before ix of the clocke. And
that ye brynge before them (All excuses sett ap'te) All and everye
suche p'cell of plate Jewells metall or other ornamente (whatsoever
they be) belongyng to yo" churche chapell Guylde Brotherhude
ffraternytyes or copanyes as doe Remayne in yo custodye or of eny
other psonne or psonnes to y' knowledge the uses aforesayd as yow
wyll answere upon othe. The grete Belles and Saunce Belles in the
Steples only excepte."
Herein the procedure differed from that in 1547, when
returns sufficed. Unfortunately, most of these earlier cer
tificates have perished, only 179 from Essex and Suffolk
remaining out of a thousand and more in the "Miscel
laneous Books" of the Augmentation Officcf The Com
missioners' Book for 1553 gives 1669 great bells, and 85
" Sancts " bells for Suffolk, without Ipswich and Thetford
* Pages 273, 420-422, \ No. 510.

THE TUDOR PERIOD 195
St. Mary's, the grand total being 18 12 against 1864 a few
years ago. A similar result will be found in Norfolk, the
gain in larger rings in towns more than counterbalancing the
loss in cutting down the pretty little threes in villages.
Whatever might be the intentions of such Edwardian
authorities as Somerset and Northumberland, the depreda
tions show the action of local churchwardens rather than of
the bureaucracy. The general stagnation of enterprise in the
cataclysm which lasted from the breach between Henry VIII.
and the Papacy till the accession of Elizabeth shows itself in
the blank in Stahlschmidt's list between William Culverden,
ob. 1522, and Robert Mot, of Whitechapel, whose earliest
date is 1570. Norwich work collapsed between the death of
the last of the Brasyers in 15 13, and the enfranchisement of
William Barker in 1530. He died in 1538, and after three
years came a four years' flicker under Thomas Laurence.
Then all subsides till the enfranchisement of John Brend,
first of that family, in 1573. At Bury St. Edmund's there is
a similar break between Roger Reve and Stephen Tonni.
The skilful Sir William Corvehill of Wenlock, who, among
other arts, was a good bell founder and maker of frames,*
lived on to 1546, with a possibly dull time of it in his later
years. We get glimpses of Cuffe of Ilchester, c. 1540, from
Bishop Hobhouse's Somerset Church Wardens' Accounts,^ of
Robert Cocke, or Coke, ten years' later, from those of Fram-
lingham, of two Londoners — John Owen, of Houndsditch,
and Thomas Taxstede, from Mr. J. R. D. Tyssen's Surrey
Inventories. But these exceptions and the like only sub
stantiate the general result, that little or nothing was stirring
till Elizabeth's time — indeed, till she had reigned some seven
or eight years. The remembrance of the writ de hceretico
* Willis's Current Notes, 1856, p. 39. f iv. 204.

196 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
comburendo in action, the wild talk of those who would
abolish all things which tended, according to their ideas, to
"noryshe any kinde of superstition," the general unsettle-
ment of the realm, took some time to work off.
Then about 1570 came a revival, and from that date till
the Parliamentary war foundries had a busy time. Then
John Wallis, of Salisbury, put his familiar initials on many
a cheerful bell now sounding over the downs or in the vales
of Wessex. Then a like work was done for East Anglia by
John Brend, of Norwich, and Stephen Tonni, of Bury St.
Edmund's, At Nottingham Robert Querneby and Henry
Ovlfeld joined their forces, casting, with many others, the
tenor of the eight which now hang in the west tower of
Lincoln Cathedral,*
The foundry at Whitechapel had a struggle at first. In
1578 Robert Mot twice petitioned the Lord Treasurer for the
payment of a debt of £\o ioj. due to him for eight years
past from Henry Howard, Esq., alleging that "your said
poor orator is greatly impoverished and come into decay, and
is likely every day to be arrested for such debts as he
oweth," t He died in 1608, and divers of his bells remain in
Surrey, the second at Fetcham being remarkable for bearing
the Norwich sprigged shield used by the Brasyers, which we
shall also find in evidence at Leicester. Here the foundry
seems to have suffered less than most others from the Tudor
troubles. Passing after the death of William Millers, of
whom mention has been made, to Thomas Newcombe, who
married the widow and died in 1520, it fell into the hands of
the widow's third husband, Thomas Bett, a wealthy man,
* The Querneby family wants looking up. V. Thoroton's Nottinghamshire,
p. 235- t State papers in the Record Office, quoted by Tyssen, Church Bells of Sussex,
p. 21.

THE TUDOR PERIOD 197
who left his foundry to his son-in-law, Robert Newcombe.
Three sons of this Robert were connected with their father's
business, and they appear to have done remarkably well.
Simultaneously with the later Newcombes were the three
Wattses, Hugh I., Francis, and Hugh II., of whom the two
latter used the Norwich sprigged shield. When North was
writing his Leicestershire book he obtained a rubbing from
South Luffenham, Rutlandshire, which turned out to read —
HEW WATTS MADE ME 1563.
In the following year Francis Watts bought the bell wheels
from St. Peter's, Leicester, then being taken down. There
must have been some connection with Norwich, the Brasyer
lettering also appearing on some of these midland bells.
A favourite inscription of the second Hugh was —
-1-JHS : NAZARENVS : REX : IVDEORVM : FILI :
DEI : MISERERE : MEI.
North says that there are still nearly ninety examples of this
inscription remaining in Leicestershire, and that they were
called " Watts 's Nazarenes." The latest date for the New
combes on a bell is 1617, so that their business was in some
way absorbed by the house of Watts. We shall find the last
of them engaged in making Old Tom o' Lincoln quite at the
end of his career.
The village of Datchworth, near Welwyn, in Hertford
shire, had its foundry in the days of Queen Mary, when an
inquiry was made in 1557 about the weight of the fourth
bell at Graveley, which formerly belonged to the Priory of
Wymondley. It was estimated at "xviij hundryth weyght
and tht is with the most," by " a bell founder woos name
is Clarke dwellyng at Thestwurth." The family seems to

198

THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

have been dispersed, and John Clarke, whose bells are found,
c. 1600, from Wrentham in Suffolk to Eastry in Kent, a son
or grandson of the Datchworth man, as it would seem, is

J

Fig. 45.
clearly itinerant. So is also the contemporaneous John Dier,
ranging over Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and
Essex. With Bury it is otherwise ; and under Stephen Tonni the

THE TUDOR PERIOD

199

old burgh of St. Edmund resumes the status which it pos
sessed in the later Plantagenet perrod. The spelling of the
surname in the previous generation had been Tonne. We
find " Stephene tonne " at Stanstead, Suffolk, 1544, and " John

Fig. 46.

Fig. 47.

Tonne," the patriarch of the house, invariably. The marks
used by the family (Figs. 45, 46, 47, 48, 49) have somewhat
of a continental character.
Both these founders used a grand floriated cross and

oool

s^

ri

oool

Fig. 48.

Fig. 49.

other ornaments and medallions, some placed French fashion
on the waist. This peculiarity, with the unusual surname,
has credited the family with a French origin, and Stahl
schmidt has suggested Antoine as the true surname. Our
Stephen of Bury, however, has discarded the floriated cross.

200 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
and taken up with a small Roman type, and other ornaments,
notably the crown and arrows of St. Edmund. His earliest
bell, known to me, is that at Reepham, Norfolk, dated 1559,
with a casting of the Crucifixion on the waist. At the
beginning and end of the inscription are stamps of the seal
for the subsidy of cloths for the county of Suffolk. This
rather points to his brother, Julian Tonney, a weaver in Bury,
who died in 1583, leaving what goods he might have to his
brother Stephen, the founder. We have about forty bells
from this foundry in East Anglia, mainly in Suffolk. The
inscription on one of them, now recast, the tenor at Cock-
field, fortunately was preserved by Flanders Green, and given
to me in my boyhood —
MANE CITVS LECTVM FVGE MOLLEM DISCVTE SOMNVM
TEMPLVM APPROPINQVES ET VENERARE DEVM.
Two pairs of initials often are seen on this group — W. L.
and T. D., William Land and Thomas Draper, both of whom
deserve a word. How I obtained the name of the former I
cannot recollect, though I have no instance of it on a bell till
Stahlschmidt brought it to light from Surrey. Long before
the Surrey book came out it was on my list. The earliest
occurrence of the pair of initials is 1576, and the latest of the
name of William Land is 1633, at Dulwich College Chapel.
Mr. R. C. Hope gives 1638 as the date of his death. Pro
bably, as suggested by our Surrey authority, there were three
at least of the name — the first, William Lawnd, who in the
Tudor upset purchased from Bermondsey parish " a crose of
copper and other olde mettyll of lattyn . . . weying xlvj
pound " ; the second, the fellow-worker with Stephen Tonni
and Thomas Draper ; the third, the Surrey man of the Stuart
period. It seems that Stephen Tonni and his companions

THE TUDOR PERIOD 201
were working together at Wattisfield, Suffolk, in 1578, the
parish book recording, " Itm the belfounders dyd dyne, thre
of them...x"." Perhaps one effect of their meal might have
been the gift of poetry which shone so brightly when, in 1584,
Land and Draper cast the present fourth in that tower,
inscribed —
WL TD IN THE RAYNE
OF QVENE ELSEBETH BIS XIII,
This bell was cast at " fetfor " (Thetford), and the removal
of the foundry from Bury necessitated a conscientious clipping
of St, Edmund's arrows from Tonni's stamp, and the trans
ference of his fleur-de-lis from an oblong to a lozenge.
Thomas Draper, however, reverted to the oblong, but with
another fleur-de-lis. In the Armada year he cast the sixth
for Redenhall, Norfolk, thought by some to be the finest bell
of that grand eight. It is a surprise to find his name on a
small bell at Hutton-in-the-Forest, Cumberland, also dated
1588 ; but the recollection of him may have been the motive
for entrusting the second at Kirkoswald, in the same county,
to William Land in 1619. The Draper family, whether
related to our Thomas or not, had an early connection with
Thetford, John Draper being mayor in 1409, and Bartholomew
Draper in 1439. The bellfounder Thomas was sworn into
the mayoralty October 17, 1592. As may be read in my
Churc.h Bells of Suffolk,* his office was not free from cares,
and he did little business. He cast Stradishall tenor in 1593,
and Yaxley tenor in 1594, but the old fourth at Hepworth,
made in the former year, bore the name of " Thomas Draper
the younger." He died in 1595, leaving six sons. From the
eldest, Thomas, we have hardly anything ; but the third son,
* Page loi.

202 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
John, had a long and successful career in the Stuart period.
The treble at St. Cuthbert's, Thetford, bears—
Cbomas Draper SRaper
with a crown.
In Shropshire the earliest dated bell is the second at
Easthorpe, from an unknown hand, inscribed —
THE GIFT OF RICHERD LVTWICH OF LVTWICH. 1584.
At Buckingham a founder named John Appowell has
been shown by Mr. Cocks * to have bought the great bell of
Thame in 1552. He was much involved in lawsuits, was
bayliff of the town in 1569, and churchwarden in 1572, He
died in 1577, and was succeeded by his son George. The
Reading foundry, which was removed from Wokingham,
passed through the management of John White and John
Saunders. The latter, about whom there is some curious
and interesting detail in respect of his trade and his chattels,
died in 1559; then after a gap came Joseph Carter. But
another foundry, which, from evidence adduced by Mr. Cocks,
seems to have originated from this Wokingham immigrant,
produced a large number of good bells in Berks, Bucks,
Hants, Wilts, Dorset, etc, in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The same authority speaks of some three hun
dred still in existence from various members of the Knight
family, ranging from a certain John Knyght who in 1498 was
paid vj'* for " makyng of a bawdryk " for St. Laurence, Read
ing, to Samuel Knight, who is described in his will proved in
1739 as of St. Andrew's, Holborn.
The Gloucester foundry disappears for a century and a
half after the death of Richard Atkyns in 1529. In Dorset
there were two brothers (as it seems), John and George Poole,
* Church Bells of Bucks, p. 174.

THE TUDOR PERIOD 203
who in 1580 cast a bell for Colyton, Devon. The bond
remains in the possession of the feoffees of the parish. They
are described as of " Yeatmyster in comitatu Dorset," but
there is nothing that can be traced to them.
By general consent, Richard Bowler, a very good work
man, is located at Colchester. He is only found in Suffolk,
Essex, and Cambridgeshire. His bold Roman lettering cer
tainly resembles that used at Colchester afterwards. I sus
pect him to be the " Dick Baker bell-founder," to whom the
following lines were addressed by one F. D. : —
" Could I mould and file and tune my Lines as well.
As thou canst mould and file and tune thy Bell,
My Muse should higher towre than Latham's Faulcon
And make all Faulkners and Bell-makers baulk on
This book ; and thy well-wrought both Bell and Varvell
And hearing th ' one and viewing th ' other, marvell.
Thence she should mount more high than vap'rous Cloud,
And ring thy prayse in y" vast Ayre more lowd
Then silver Bells : so stooping to the ground
At sowse shee should dull ignorance confound." *
From the style of writing, Mr. Walters judges t'ne piece not
earlier than the Restoration, but the spelling seems to be
that of the opening of the seventeenth century, and I would
suggest that this is a copy of a Jacobean original. " Varvells "
are the silver rings about a hawk's legs, and " sowse " is the
moment of pouncing. Richard Bowler's range is 1 583-1620,
as far as we know.
Contemporary with his first years of work was the brief
period of Henry Topsell, of Beccles, a beautiful nautical name.
He used to place the name of the parish to which bells
belonged on them. In 1585 he cast the fourth for Cratfield,
* Harl, MSS, Catalogue I. 213 (I. 367-8)-

204 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
which still hangs there with "Cratfeld" on it, and in the
same year one for Hedenham, Norfolk, inscribed " Hednam,"
now in Kirby Bedon tower, having been sold to that parish
when the Hedenham four were run into six in 1838. A
marriage licence for him* and Elizabeth Andrewes of Beccles,
was granted in the same year. But the next year was
disastrous to the dwellers in Beccles by reason of the great
fire there on November 29. Henry Topsel with his son
Roger, whose initials are usual on his father's bells, passed
from Suffolk to Sussex, and after an interval of fourteen
years we find H.T. on the second at Bury in that county,
and names of Henry and Roger at Felpham in 1600. Their
foundry was at West Tarring, where the father was buried,
October 5, 1604.
No bells have yet been found bearing the name or the
initials of Valentyne Trevor, probably a metropolitan. His
name, however, remains in the accounts of St. Margaret's
Westminster, for 1592, and the entry shows that we have
nothing to deplore in the absence of his works, it being
stated that the bells were " falsely and deceytfuUy made by
Valentyne Trevor." In Kent was one Giles Reve, who
cannot be located, and Thomas Hatch, probably of Ulcombe.
Some seven by the former remain in the county, and only
two (whereof one is cracked) by the latter, both dated 1599.
In the north one Bellingham occurs in the Doncaster church
accounts for 1579; and there are a few more of whom we
have traces up and down the country. From these notices
it will be seen that there was no great prosperity after the
blaze of earlier Elizabethan days had died out.
A new revival came after the Stuart settlement. Change-
ringing of a primitive order gave an impetus to parishes,
* The name is Toopsell in the licence, with Tapsell in the margin.

THE TUDOR PERIOD 205
which began to vie one with another in the number and
quality of the tenants of their towers. No better example
can be found than at Ulcombe. In the place of Thomas
Hatch came, in the very beginning of the seventeenth
century, his son Joseph. Their lineal descendant, Mr. James
T. Hatch, of Lenham, was in correspondence with Stahl
schmidt* For thirty-seven or thirty-eight years Joseph
Hatch wrought mainly in his county, doing "a business
which may fairly be described as enormous." f That this
epithet is no exaggeration may be understood by the fact
that at this day there remain one hundred and fifty-five of his
bells, and in five churches — Boughton Malherbe, Fordwich,
High Halden, Waltham, and Wouldham — are complete rings.
He died in September, 1639, just escaping the dead time of
the Parliamentary war, "full of years, riches, and honour,"
as is demonstrated by his will, having, as it seems, already
handed over the foundry to his nephew, William Hatch,
whose initials appear on many of the uncle's bells. This
Ulcombe foundry had to contend, not only against the near
metropolis, but also against the nearer parish of Borden,
where John Wilnar, a man not to be despised, was settled.
From him there are still seventy-two bells in Kentish towers.
The Purdues require much investigation. Lukis J placed
them at SaHsbury, but the Wells records, as quoted by
Ellacombe,§ are clear about Roger, who in 1624 cast three
bells for St. Cuthbert's, Bristol, for he is described as " of the
cyttie of Bristoll, bell founder." Next comes William, from
whom, generally acting in company with another, came many
bells. He ranged through the Parliamentary period to the
Restoration. We find him in conjunction with Roger, with
* Church Bells of Kent, p. 74. t Page 76.
t Page 12. § Church Bells of Devon, p. 57.

2o6 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Thomas, with Nathaniel Bolter, and with Frances Foster.
Thus we get an indication of Salisbury, after a time. One
Symon Purdue, of Winchester, had a son George, born in
1580, who may have been a Bristol citizen.
The Purdue bells have a deservedly good reputation, but
not equal to that which is accorded to the works of the prince
of founders. Miles Graye, of Colchester. His family had
long been connected with that historic borough. Miles
Graye's name occurs in highway rates as early as 1567;
perhaps the father of our man, whose earliest bell date,
known to me, is 1605, on the fourth at St. Matthew's,
Ipswich. There are ninety bells of his in Suffolk alone,
and many in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, In 1637 he was
at Saffron Walden, where he made a bell for Ickford, Herts,
His widespread reputation reached as far as to Newcastle-
upon-Tyne, for he cast the tenor for that parish church in his
own foundry at Colchester in 161 5 ; and in the opposite
direction to Chiddingly in Sussex, where he cast the treble in
1634. But Suffolk contains three of his masterpieces — the
eleventh, formerly the tenor, at St, Mary-le-Tower, Ipswich,
1610 ; the Stowmarket tenor, 1622 ; and his chef-d'oeuvre, the
Lavenham tenor, 1625. The ringing pilgrim, John Carr,
when he first heard her, said, " She came in with such a noble
sound that she vibrated a perfect octave," and he is not the
only one who has observed the absence of overtones. I have
been told that she varies with the weather. So far as I can
conclude, the peculiarity seems thinness, especially at the
crown. His falling off in business is painfully indicative of
the troubled period of the Parliamentary war. Little was
done after 1641. When, in 1648, the Cavaliers of Kent,
Hertfordshire, and Essex entered Colchester, Fairfax let them
" stew in their own juice," having first failed in an attack on

THE TUDOR PERIOD 207
Headgate, Miles Graye's " capital messuage or tenement . , .
scituate and being below Headgate, in Colchester," was
burned down, as we find from his will, proved on June 23,
1649, five weeks and three days after his death. The poor
old man describes himself as " weak in body and erased with
age, but yet in p'fect mind and memory." The registers of
St. Mary-at-Walls, Colchester, are a blank from 1642 to 1653,
no unusual thing ; but we have the entries of the baptisms of
two sons — Christopher, 1625, and Myles, 1628 — both of whom
followed their father's calling.* The old man spells his name
" Moyles," when he certifies the registers as churchwarden.
" Milonem Graye me fecit " is not uncommon on some of his
bells, his grammar being not so good as his craft-skill. This
is rather remarkable, for the family held a good position, Sir
Miles Graye, Kt., having in 3 James I, conveyed a messuage
to Edward Abdey, Mary his wife, and Thomas May.f His
loyalty to Charles II. was not diminished by his surroundings,
for in the borough records, under date March 18, 1649, is
mentioned, " Miles Gray's orchard in S'- Mary-at-Walls within
y^ suburdes {sic) of y= Towne next garden of S""- Thomas
Lucas, Kn'-" the well-known defender of Colchester in the
Royalist interest.
With regard to Puritans, it may be noted that William
Gurnall, M.A,, of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, the well-
known author of The Christian in Compleat Armour, was at
Lavenham from 1639 to 1679, and in that work there are two
pertinent allusions : " 'Tis harder to get a great Bell up, than
to Ring it when 'tis raised," $ and "If the Bells which call us to
the worship of God, were to give them notice of a Wrestling,
* There is another Christopher, son of Edward, born 1618 ; but Miles's son
must surely have been the founder.
t East Anglian, 3rd Series, VIII., 54. X 6th edition, p. 349.

2o8 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Foot-ball, or drunken Wake, O how soon should we have
them flock together? but Prayers and Sermon they care
not for." * Gurnall, who was a native of Lynn, must have
often heard the celebrated "Margaret" bell at Lynn, recast
in 1663. Though there are so many Colchester bells in Norfolk and
Suffolk, it was not from slackness at Norwich, Thetford, and
Bury St. Edmund's in the earlier Stuart days. At Norwich
was William Brend, son of the John already mentioned, and
the possible grandson of another William, "one of the
syngyng men of the Cathedral," who was examined in 1548
touching certain verses by " Echo," " Nemo," and " Vincent
Veryte," objecting to the mayor, etc., of Norwich,! John
Brend's relations with the municipality may have been more
amicable, but he died in 1582, " Greatlie indetted unto diuse
men in diilse somes of money." William Brend's business
lay mainly in the east of East Anglia. Of some ninety bells
of his in Suffolk, only one belongs to the western division
of the county ; while in Norfolk there are far more in the
east than in the west. None of them bear his name, only his
initials, sometimes joined with those of his brother John,
sometimes with his son John, but more often in monogram
with his wife's, Alice — A.B. over W. in a shield, alternating
occasionally with the arms of the city. Not long ago I was
shown a 1575 Bible, which had W. over A.B. written on the
New Testament title-page : also " Matt Wilby owe this
booke," and "John Buckenham," both in old writing.^ From
parishioners presenting Mrs, Brend with money "in reward,"
we may conclude her to have merited the introduction of her
* Page 399. t Eastern Counties Collectania, pp. 171-175.
X This Bible was in the possession of the Quantrill family, and now belongs to
Mrs. MuUenger, of Weybread, Suffolk.

THE TUDOR PERIOD 209
initial in the monogram. William Brend died in 1634,
leaving his chattels to her, his gear to his son John, and the
rest divided between the two. John had really been doing
the foundry work ; for instance, at Dennington, Suffolk, the
fourth bell bears the double initials, but in the parish book
John is the founder, while " Ould Brend " superintended the
hanging. This was in 1628, and six years before that the
agreement about the Framlingham old fourth was made with
John. The son's bells are better than the father's, some of
them, as the Cratfield tenor, cast in 1637, being of unusually
fine tone. In Norfolk there are some ninety of them, but not
many in Suffolk.
John Draper, of Thetford, seems to have married into the
Brend family, for in his will he calls John Brend, of Norwich,
his brother, and there is no daughter named in the will of his
father, Thomas Draper. From comparison of dates we may
see how the old Bury business went to Thetford, dominating
largely in West Norfolk, West Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire.
Like his brother-in-law, whom we find casting at Aylsham,
he itinerated, casting at Wells, for Beeston, in 1606, "divers
neighbours of the towne and Beeston-next-Mileham accom-
panyinge them merily together." * The fifth at Great Shelford,
Cambridgeshire, is undoubtedly his, and is inscribed made at
Cambridge. The date is 161 8, as also that of the tenor at
St. Benedict's, Cambridge, inscribed^
" John Draper made me in 1618
This bell was broake and cast againe ?
As plainly doth apeare.
Wich time Chvrchwardens were
Edwarde Dixson for the one whoe stode close by his tacklin.
And he that was his partner then was Alexander Jacklin."
* L'Estrange, p. 99.

2IO THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Here, again, we cannot fail to be charmed by the poetic
gift as strong as that of Dr. Ginery Dunkle in Martin
Chuzzlevuit. In tone these Thetford bells are not remarkable.
John Draper died in 1644.
The Stamford foundry supplied much to Lincolnshire and
the adjoining counties. The enfranchisement of Tobie, or
Tobias Norris, was in 1607, but he cast the tenor for Sutton
St. James four years before this. There is a brass to his
memory in Si George's Church, Stamford, recording his
death, November 2, 1626. A son of the same name dis
appears from that town, but may be the Tobias Norris, of the
city of Dublin, gent., an executor to the will of Samuel
Clarke, 1642.* Another son, Thomas, cast some good bells up
and down the country, but his municipal relations were not
happy, and he retired from his native town in 1678, the year
in which he made the sweet tenor at Fakenham, Norfolk.
Then came, after a while, Alexander Rigby,t immortalized
on the treble at Badgeworth, Gloucestershire —
" Badgworth ringers they were mad
Because Rigbe made me bad :
But Abel Rudhall you may see
Hath made me better than Rigbe."
His death ended the Stamford foundry.
Of the Keenes of Woodstock there is Httle at present to
be said. In the north of England, the frequency of recast
ing in towns, for new rings of eight and more, has reduced
the niftnber of bells made in the seventeenth century. In
Cumberland is a puzzling inscription, at Harrington. It is
read Sancte Sc Solute Sonore. C. W, I. W. i P, MT, 1674 VT.
* Ne^o England Historical and Genealogical Register, April, 1895, p. 259.
t Perhaps descended from another A. R., M,P. for Wigan in the Long
Parliament,

THE TUDOR PERIOD 211
Whatever it means, the lettering is a survival. George Lees
and Edmund Wright, as yet only names, were casting at
Carlisle in 1613. Even in great Yorkshire there is compara
tively little to record. At the Restoration there were two
foundries in York, James Smith's and William Seller's, and
both went on far into the eighteenth century. North and
Poppleton name one Augustine Bowler, of Wath-upon-
Dearne. He made the " little bell " for Kirton-in-Lindsey
in 1629, and North suggests that he may have been related
to Richard Bowler. But we must pass from the Stuart
period.

CHAPTER XIV
LATER FOUNDERS
THE progress in bell-ringing, and the consequent in
crease of bells in England experienced no sensible
interruption, after the Parliamentary War. There
was no repetition of the perfunctory peal at St. Mary's,
Cambridge, after the execution of Charles I., the parish
accounts stating, "we being thereto commanded by the
Justices." In London there was the Whitechapel foundry
which had- passed from Robert Mot through the Carters
to the Bartletts, of whom James, the last, died in 1701.
There was also an opposition foundry in the metropolis,
conducted by John Hodson, whose earliest date is 1654,
At first he had a foreman, William Hull, whose initials are
on most of his bells, who afterwards settled at South Mailing,
Sussex, where he died in 1687. After Hull's departure,
Christopher Hodson, probably John's son, takes his place,
and John and Christopher sometimes appear together, till
1677, when Christopher started at St. Mary Cray, doing a
brisk business for ten years ; his most notable performance
being "Mighty Tom" of Oxford in 1680, which happily
sounds now as in the days of Dean Aldrich.
William Wightman was foreman to John Hodson in 1653,*
* Surrey Bells, etc., p. 99, note.
212

LATER FOUNDERS 213
but after a while he sometimes left his initials on bells, as on
the " ting-tang " at Enfield in 1680. After him came Philip
Wightman, whom I stated to have been managing the White
chapel foundry,* whereas I should have said " a London
foundry." He cast a ring of six for Mortlake in 1694-5, ^^'^
with him ends the foundry once Hodson's. It fared far other
wise with the Whitechapel foundry, which, after the Bartletts,
had a glorious time under Richard Phelps. Lukis f proves
that he was a native of Avebury, Wilts, from the inscription
on the tenor there, " Richard Phelps, London, Nat. par. hujus
1 7 19." He may have been a Salisbury apprentice, for Wallis's
business went on under John Danton, Frances Foster, and two
men named Flower or Flo wry, and in 1666 came from Salis
bury two bells at South Damerham, which record the fire of
London, the tenor naming the year as " of Plagve, Warre, and
Fire," while the third gives a rhyme —
OVR ¦ THREE ¦ BECAME • FIVE.
WHEN • FEW • ELS • DID • THRIVE. 1666.
Richard Phelps's earliest date is at Burham, Kent, 1700,
before James Bartlett's death, for whom he seems to have
been acting. For nearly forty years he sent forth bells from
Whitechapel. Kent has nearly ninety of them still, a few
being entire rings, and Surrey more in proportion. In
Suffolk there are just over a score, but among them
the eight at St. Mary's, Bury, where he spliced in the
present fourth, a William Brend. The tenor weighs 24 cwt.,
in D sharp, a fine bell. His earliest in Suffolk, the Chars-
field treble, 17 10, must not be passed over, as a historic
monument. In that year the land was ringing with the name
* Church Bells of Cambridgeshire, p. 99. t Page i lo.

214 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
of Doctor Sacheverell, against whom Bishop Trimnell, of
Norwich, had taken a prominent part in the House of Lords ;
but Sir William Leman, of Charsfield, was otherwise minded,
and I give the mangled inscription on the bell, as it appears
in Carthew's MS., without attempting to translate it —
SIC SACHEVERELLVS [ORE MELOS] IMMOR-
TALI OLLI [ECCLESI.^ DEFENSORI H] ANC
DICAT [GVLIELMVS] LEMAN DE CHER[SFIELD
EQVES. 1710. R. PHELPS].
Phelps did little in Herts, hardly anything in Lincoln
shire and the Midlands ; but at Enfield the lower six of
the eight, and at Cambridge the eight middle bells of
the twelve at St. Mary the Great, bear witness to his
skill. He was succeeded by Thomas Lester, his foreman, to
whom he bequeathed his implements and business and the
lease of the foundry. The surname often occurs in the rolls of
the Founders' Company, as far back as the sixteenth century,*
Lester's earliest date is 1738, and his latest 1750, but the
name of Thomas Pack appears with his at Holy Trinity, Guild
ford, in 1749, and in many places for twenty years afterwards.
He died in 1769, when Pack took William Chapman, Lester's
nephew, into partnership, A few bells are found bearing the
three names, then Pack and Chapman appear by themselves
till 1780. Lester had removed the foundry from Phelps's site
to " The Artichoke,'' which the new firm renamed " The Three
Bells." I was fortunate enough in my boyhood to fall in with
a list, headed by three bells, respectively inscribed PERCUTE,
DULCE, CANO—
, "¦ Stahlschmidt, Surrey Bells, etc., p. 103.

LATER FOUNDERS 215
" Lester Pack & Chapman,
Bell Founders
At the Three Bells in Whitechapel
London
Have cast the following bells and peals since August, 1738,
The Number of Bells in each Peal and weight of the Tenor
Bell Dunstan at the Cathedral Church Canterbury
Weight 70 c."
Then follows a catalogue of 114 castings, from which I
extract some of the most important, viz. two in large print,
tens at St Mary le Bow and York Minster, each with a
tenor of 53 cwt,; also "For the Elector of Cologne 18
musical bells, the largest 2 cwt." ; " Petersburg in Russia,
7 bells, tenor 17 cwt ; Christ Church in Philadelphia, 8 bells,
tenor 18 cwt; St Martin's, Birmingham, 12 bells, tenor
36 cwt. ; Beccles, Suffolk, 10 bells, tenor 28 cwt ; Charles-
town, S. Carolina, 8 bells, tenor 18 cwt. ; Lynn St Margaret's,
8 bells, tenor 30 cwt, and St Nicholas, 8 bells, tenor i6 cwt. ;
Manchester St. John's, 8 bells, tenor 20 cwt ; St Giles,
Cripplegate, 10 bells, 36 cwt." The list deserves printing
in full, but would occupy too much space. Thomas Pack
died in 1781. In my undergraduate days I made the ac
quaintance of an old lady at Cambridge, a Mrs. Skinner,
who told me that she was Chapman's niece, and that once,
when her uncle was at work for a Kent church, he noticed a
young man who took such a lively interest in what was
going on, that he came to Whitechapel and learnt the busi
ness, starting at first for himself, as it appears from his
casting bells at Godstone and Tandridge, Surrey, in 1777,
but afterwards joining with Chapman. This was William
Mears, who, after Chapman's death in 1784, brought from
Canterbury his brother Thomas, said to have been a brewer
there, and the names of the two brothers are found together

2i6 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
till 1791, e.g. the fourth at Ightham, Kent, is inscribed,
" W. & T. Mears, late Lester Pack & Chapman of London
fecit 1789." Thomas Mears then held the business by him
self till 1805, when his son Thomas joined him. The latter
had from 18 10 a run of more than thirty years by himself,
the greatest of his works in that time being Great Tom of
Lincoln in 1835. Then came the two sons of Thomas IL,
Charles and George, and so the Whitechapel foundry passed
to Stainbank, and from him to Lawson.
Whitechapel was not the only London foundry in the
eighteenth century. Samuel Knight came from Reading
and started a foundry, as Stahlschmidt thinks, in Shoe Lane.
His bells are described as roughly cast, but exceptionally
fine in tone. He was succeeded by Robert Catlin. Then
there was Thomas Janaway's foundry in Chelsea, and that
of Robert Patrick, who married Lester's granddaughter, an
opposition shop in Whitechapel. Of later London founders
it is hardly within my sphere to speak.
After a break of a century and a half bell-founding was
resumed at Gloucester, under Abraham Rudhall (or Riddall,
as he first spells the name *), a local surname, apparently
traceable to Rudhall, or Roodhall, near Ross. His earliest
date is 1684, and he was assisted by a son of the same name,
who used the same pretty running patterns and a bell stamp,
to which this epithet cannot be applied. As the father died
January 25, 1735-6, according to the mural monument in
Gloucester Cathedral, and the son predeceased the father by
a month, if we are to accept Ellacombe's statement,! we

* The tendency to substitute i for ii is widespread. People named Rush in
Fressingfield are often called Rish.
f Church Bells of Gloucestershire, p. 79. Among some startling assertions
here is one which makes the son's will proved before his death.

LATER FOUNDERS 217
cannot conclude to whether of the twain we owe the later
bells of the Rudhall first half-century. Then came Abel,
third son of the second Abraham, who revived the foundry
after a collapse of some eighteen years. He also used the
running patterns and A i^ B. Among other debts of gratitude
which we bell-lovers owe to Mr. Alfred Heneage Cocks is
the insertion of part of a letter, dated March 30th, 1759,
written by Abel Rudhall to the Buckinghamshire antiquary,
Browne Willis. Its main subject is the bells of Wells Cathe
dral, cast by him in 1757, but he deals with his grandfather's
work at Bletchley, for here had been placed a five in 1712,
with such inscriptions as might have been expected from
Browne Willis, and the five had become an octave in 1718.
The writer says, " I remember to have heard Blechley Bells,
but it is so long since, that I can't account much for them,
any more than I thought them a very good Peat, & the
Tenor I suppose carit cost 20' the casting only without
Addition of metal. . . . Your much obliged & most humble
servant, Abel Rudhall'' * Then came a third Abraham, a
mercer, a brother Thomas, another brother Charles, and a
half-brother John, the foundry belonging all the time, after
the mercer's death, to his daughter, who in 1829 let it to
Thomas Mears, after whose death the Gloucester business
became merged in Whitechapel.
There can be no doubt as to the general excellency of the
Rudhall bells. Ellacombe has preserved their " Catalogue f
of Bells Cast from 1684 to 1830," the total number being
4521, comprising four twelves — St Martin's-in-the-Fields,
St. Bride's, Painswick, and Cirencester ; tens at Manchester
College ; Christ Church, Bristol ; Wrexham ; Fulham ; St.
•* Church Bells of Bucks, p. 320.
t Church Bells of Gloucester, p. 75 .

2i8 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Chad's, Shrewsbury ; All Saints', Worcester ; Bath Abbey
Church ; New Church, Macclesfield ; Ashton-under-Lyne ;
and eighty-two peals of eight, with sixes, fives, etc. Among
the eights is Halton, Warwickshire, where Dr. Parr was vicar.
He writes to his old pupil, Thomas Cottle, August 26,
1807, "I must stop at Glo'ster, and give some directions at
the foundery about my bells." *
At Closworth, Somerset, there was a little foundry about
the middle of the eighteenth century, belonging to John
Smith. At CoUumpton much more was done by the two
Thomas Bilbies, The elder of this pair was also at work at
Chewstoke, Somerset, in 1734. Two other members of the
family were William and Abraham. From the hands of one
or other of the Bilbies there are 352 bells in Devonshire
alone. Their inscriptions record their co-operators, as at
CoUumpton, 1746 —
" Bilbie the Founder. Bush the Hanger.
Heathfield's the man that rings the tenor."
Next year there was a change, as recorded at Kenton —
" Bilbie the Founder. Rugg the Hanger.
Carter the Smith and treble ringer,"
A rival, Evans of Chepstow, is not behindhand in couplet-
making, and transmits to posterity a real or imaginary victory
on the fifth at Backwell, Somerset —
" Bilby and Boosh may come & see
What Evans & Nott have done by me, 1758,"
Another rival firm was the Cockey family. The first of
the name, Mordecai, did a little casting at Totness, and died
at Plymouth in 1725, when we get William at Frome, where
* Warner's Literary Recollections, ii. 184,

LATER FOUNDERS 219
the foundry lasted a century. To judge from Bilbie's kindly
notice of him on the second at Dunkerton, Somerset, 1732,
his earlier operations were not always successful —
" Before I was a broke I was as good as aney.
But when that Cokey casted I near was worth a penny."
The West-country Penningtons were largely itinerant.
Ellacombe tells us that they lived on the borders of Devon
shire and Cornwall, at Lezant and Stoke Climsland, and he
blames them for hacking away portions of towers in order
to squeeze their peals in. We have Thomas Pennington also
at Exeter, who took for a trade-mark an archaic type of bell,
so transparent as to show the connection of the loop-handle
and clapper. From him and others of the same name are
remaining many bells in their part of the world, Ellacombe
counting up 480 in Devonshire alone, between 17 10 and 18 18.
The earliest date for Thomas Pennington is 16 18, on the
tenor at Eggesford. His foundry predecessor was probably
John Byrdan.*
Of Joshua Kipling of Portsmouth I know next to nothing.
Walking round the Isle of Wight in 1852, I found that there
had been a five of his at Brixton, dated 1740, when the
whole country was ringing (in more senses than one) with the
fame of Admiral Vernon and Portobello. This victory, over
party spite as well as foreign foes, took place on November
29, 1739, and is duly commemorated by the impressions of
the obverse and reverse of the well-known Vernon medal on
the second bell, with the foundry stamp, "Joshua Kipling
fecit" in a circle, surrounding a bell. The inscription is,
" God preserve the British armes." The treble, recast by the
* Ellacombe, Church Bells of Devon, p. 56. He gives 1613 as the date on
p. 115, but this is most likely a misprint.

220 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
elder Thomas Mears in 1800, bears the words : " In the year
1740 John Lord zealous for the promotion of Campanologla's
art cavsed me to be fabricated in Portsmouth and placed in
this tower. 60 years I led the peal when I was unfortunately
broken in the year 1800. I was cast in the furnace, refounded
in London and returned to my former station. Reader thou
also shalt know a Resurrection. May it be unto eternal life,"
Besides these Brixton bells are three in Sussex from Joshua
Kipling, the bell at Eastergate, 1737, the treble at Stedham,
1.741, and that at Racton, 1742, Perhaps some more will be
discovered in Hampshire,
Our difficulties at Chalcomb, or Chacombe, in Northamp
tonshire, are of another kind. Here for nearly a century and
a half wrought the family of Bagley. Like some others, they
passed from the smithy to the foundry. The earliest date
recorded by Mr. Cocks is 1632, and the latest 1779. They
were not tied permanently to the village near Banbury.
Northampton, Wolverhampton, Ecton, St. Giles Cripplegate,
have the name on their bells. In the end their business
apparently died a natural death. The members of the house
of Bagley who bore the name of Henry are a riddle. Six
appear in Mr. Cocks's pedigree. I can only quote his words :
" Mr. North failed to sort them out when working
Northampts ; the future chronicler of Oxfordshire will have
the next best opportunity of unravelling the tangle." I copy
these words, having only just heard of the death of our
lamented Oxfordshire fellow-labourer, the Rev. H. T.
Tilley. The Bagleys' bells abound in running ornamenta
tion, and my impression of the quality of those I have heard
is favourable. Mr. Cocks regards the Leicester foundry of the New
combes as having a branch at Bedford, and James Keene as

LATER FOUNDERS 221
having removed thence to Woodstock. Besides these,
Bedfordshire contributed but one foundry to our list, at the
village of Wootton, five miles south-west of the county town,
where in 17 15, Thomas Russell, clock and watchmaker, began
his fusorial labours without abandoning his original craft, for
the entry of his burial, January 22, 1744-5, describes him
as " Clock-maker and Bell-founder." Two sons of his, Thomas
and William, placed their names on a few bells, but dis
continued the business after their father's death. After the
lapse of a quarter of a century, William Emerton, who
hesitates between spelling his surname with single or double
m, revived the work, and is said to have been ruined by the
failure of the parish of St. John the Baptist, Bedford, to pay
for their bells. This seems rather strange, for that tower
now only boasts a Whitechapel bell of 1827.
But if Bedford produced no eminent founder it glories in
no less eminent a ringer than John Bunyan, whose Elstow
experiences need not be repeated here. Lest, however, he
should be thought insensible to the charm of bell music, I
will give in the poetry chapter some lines of his from A Book
for Boys and Girls, or Country Rhymes for Children, published
in 1686.* A long collapse at Leicester was broken by a short flicker
of life in the works of Thomas Clay, from whom came two
bells in that county in 1711, and the Southwell Minster eight
about the same time. They effectually damaged his reputa
tion, so that in 172 1 the whole were recast by Abraham
Rudhall, who expressed his gratitude by " Prosperity to the
town " on the third, " Prosperity to this chapter " on the sixth,
and " Prosperity to the Church of England " on the seventh.
Then came a seventy years' chasm, terminated by the
"¦ In East Anglian, N.S., iii. 275.

222 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
enterprise of Edward Arnold. The break-up of the Kettering
foundry in 1761, which had been started in 1717 by a son of
a clockmaker there, Thomas, son of Thomas Eayre, and
ended in the bankruptcy of a third Thomas in 1761, brought
this about For Joseph Eayre, the bankrupt's next brother,
had already started at St Neot's, and his cousin Arnold
helped him. When Joseph died, Thomas Osborn, the foreman,
and Arnold worked together some ten years. Then they
separated, Arnold starting an additional business at Leicester
and Osborn going to Downham Market. One might have
expected the former to have absorbed the business, but the
contrary was the result, and the works of Osborn and his
grandson William Dobson resound from many a tower, and
in my opinion thoroughly deserve their reputation. The
Downham list fell in my way in my youth, and I have my
copy of it, headed, " A List of the Peals of Bells that have
been cast at the Foundery {sic) of Will'" Dobson Church
Bell Founder & Hanger at Downham, Norfolk." It
contains seventy-two peals, all over the country — the most
distant from headquarters being three in the Island of St
Vincent and five in Dublin Post Office. Then there are
sixes at Beaumaris and Llandegai, eight at Poole and six at
Sturminster Newton, Dorset, three Yorkshire eights, Birstall,
Liversedge, and EUand, eight at Camberwell, and plenty in
Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Lincolnshire. His
greatest work was the twelve at St. Nicholas, Liverpool, tenor
41 cwt. I have been told that the Liverpool folk were deter
mined to rival St Peter Mancroft, Norwich, bell for bell, but
that they tied Dobson down too tightly, so that his heaviest
peal is not his best There is a very fine ten in the Norman
Tower, Bury St Edmund's, tenor 30 cwt, Osborn's casting in
1785. He died in 1806, and^his grandson, who prospered

LATER FOUNDERS 223
more in reputation than in finance, in 1833 sold his business
to the Whitechapel men, and died in the Charterhouse,
July II, 1842, aged 63, as may be read on his tombstone in
Downham churchyard.
Meantime, one Robert Taylor, formerly apprenticed to
Arnold, took the St Neot's foundry from his old master.
This was towards the end of the eighteenth century, and
shortly after Waterloo he co-opted his son John. But St.
Neot's was perhaps a little out of the way. Oxford had
some attractions, and thither the Taylor family removed,
the elder brother William joining with John. They call
themselves " Church Clock & Chime Makers " on the
treble at Calverton, Bucks, dated 1822. There was one
Symondson, a first-rate handbell founder, as many ringers
know, who seems to have been partner with them for a
little time. In 1840 came the separation of the brothers.
A Kettering six in All Saints, Loughborough, when the Rev.
William Holme was rector, was to be recast and augmented
to eight. Loughborough people would not have their bells
moved. John Taylor had to imitate Mahomet, and go to
that granite mountain. His success led to other work from
the vicinity, and there now is the foundry whence have come
glorious bells of which it is not my province to treat.
Sons were sometimes more successful than their fathers,
and if John Darbie of East Anglian fame was the son of
Michael Darbie of Southwark, as is likely from dates, he
will serve as an instance. Michael Darbie, I am informed,
came from Kelsale, Suffolk. He was wandering about in
the Commonwealth time. In 165 1 and 1652 he was at
Eynesford and Boxley in Kent; in 1655 at King's Sutton,
Northamptonshire ; and in 1657 at Oxford, as we learn from
Anthony a Wood.

224 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
" A. W. his mother and his two brothers Rob. and Christopher
Wood, gave 5'' to Merton Coll. towards the casting of their five bells
into eight. These five were antient bells and had been put up into
the tower at the first building thereof, in the time of Dr, Hen.
Abendon, Warden of Merton Coll., who began to be Warden in 1421,
The tenor or great bell (on which the name of the said Abendon was
put) was supposed to be the best bell in England, being, as 'twas
said, of fine mettal silver found.* The generality of people were
much against the altering of that bell, and were for a treble to be put
to the five, and so make them six : and old Sarjeant Charles Hollo-
way, who was a very covetous man, would have given money to save
it. . . . But by the knavery of Thom. Jones, the subwarden (the
warden being then absent) and . . . Derby the bell-founder they
were made eight." f
Later on, we find this miserable artificer in Norfolk, at
Mileham and Feltwell, in 1661. At the same time we have
John Darbie's earliest date. His reputation seems assured
by 1662, when the Yarmouth authorities sent our "fifty
bell " to Darby of Ipswich by water " to be new run." f His
bells abound in East Anglia, of fine tone, and he must have
had a busy time of it during his twenty years of labour.
For a few years Edward Tooke had a foundry at Norwich
on All Saints' Green, whence the approach to Surrey Street
is called Foundry Yard. His father kept his shrievalty in
1650 in Tooke's Wood, still called Tuck's Wood, in Laken-
ham. His bells, of good quality, are confined to Norfolk.
Samuel Gilpin and Charles Newman, who successively
followed Tooke, have left a few poor bells. The latter
certainly cast at Haddenham and Lynn for St. Michael's,
Cambridge, in 1683 and 1684.
* The universality of this error is wonderful. — J. J. R.
t See my Church Bells of Cambridgeshire, p. 90. Unfortunately " Derby's''
Christian name is missing.
X Palmer, Perlustration of Great Yarmouth, iii. 14.

LATER FOUNDERS 225
His son Thomas was born at Haddenham in 1682, where
remains a curious tradition about one of the two, preserved
by the Rev. J. M. Freeman, Vicar of Playford, near Ipswich,
formerly Curate of Haddenham.
" An old inhabitant recalls a tradition of his early youth, some
fifty years since, to the eifect that there lived a bell-founder in this
place in the olden time ; and that on one memorable occasion, when
the operation of melting the metal had reached a critical stage, it
was found that there was deficiency in the supply of material ; a few
moments more and the process would be endangered, if not spoilt.
Acting at once on the maxim that ' the end justifies the means ' our
traditional ' man of metal ' rushed frantically from his foundry, and
made his way to a neighbouring inn, the present ' Rose and Crown,'
so the story goes, making an unceremonious raid upon the establish
ment, ' whipping up ' the pewter pots and measures, as well as the
culinary vessels available for the purpose ; these were hurriedly con
veyed home and cast into the furnace, in time, let us hope, to meet
the exigencies of the case. Passing, however, to the present time,
I may just add, that in digging for the foundation of the new tower,
a cavity was found in the rock, containing cinder-ashes, portions of
bell-metal and mussel shells, from which circumstances it has been
conjectured that the church bells were for convenience sake cast on
the very spot over which they were destined to hang." *
Now, the three smaller bells at Haddenham were made
by Thomas Newman in 1706, but, of course, the story may
relate to the father. The son's bells are sweet and generally
true, but weak in tone, e.g., the third and fourth at Milden
hall, Suffolk, bearing a Norfolk rhyme : " Thomas Newman
cast me new In 1732." At Worstead we read on the tenor,
" I tell all that doth me see That Newman in Brakindel did
new cast mee." He appears to have itinerated much in East
Anglia, and died in 1745.
* Cambridge Chronicle, February 5, 1876. Quoted in my Church Bells of Cam
bridgeshire. Q

226 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
One John Stephens cast some fair bells in Norwich
between 1717 and 1727. Henry Pleasant, who was first at
Colchester and then at Sudbury, settled for a short time in
Norwich in the beginning of the eighteenth century. His
poetic gift came out in " Henry Pleasant did me run In the
year 1701," at Thetford St Cuthbert's, and " Henry Pleasant
have at last Made as good as can be cast," at St. Nicholas,
Ipswich, At Maldon he breaks into a quatrain —
"When three this steeple long did hold
We were the emblems of a scold,
No music then, but we shall see
What Pleasant music six will be."
The last Norwicher was Thomas Gardiner, who had a
Sudbury centre before and after his Norwich residence. One
of the same name, probably his father, cast three bells for
Wissett, Suffolk ; at Benhall, not far off, in 17 18, and three at
Edwardstone in 1709 and 17 10. As there is no break in the
years which have the name till 1759, ^ conclude that there
were two, half a century being phenomenally long for one
man's work. The Edwardstone business was a trial, as the
founder had to supply a treble, second, and tenor to rank with
three Miles Grayes (two of the elder and one of the younger)
in a peal of six. His second was found fault with by a local
genius, who compelled him to recast it with the words, " Tvned
by W" Cvlpeck, 17 10," Gardiner had his revenge on the
tenor, which is inscribed —
" About ty second Cvlpeck is wrett
Becavse the founder wanted wett
Thair jvdgments ware bvt bad at last
Or elce this bell I never had cast.
"Tho. Gardiner."
No bells have come from Norwich since the days of Gardiner.

LATER FOUNDERS 227
When the Stamford foundry was in its decline, Henry
Penn started one at Peterborough. His period was twenty-
six years, from 1703, when he cast the treble at Holcot, till
his death in 1729. I agree with North in classing his bells
as good. They do not range beyond the counties adjoining
Northampton, and one of his later performances, for him most
unfortunate, was the eight for St Ives in 1723. Mr. Owen *
says that of these "the second and fifth have been much
sharpened by turning off the rim, and the sixth and seventh
flattened by chipping inside." This being the case, we cannot
be surprised at the dissatisfaction felt by the townsmen, who
instituted a lawsuit against him. It was tried at the
Huntingdonshire Assizes, held in St Ives, in 1729. The
verdict was for the defendant, but the excitement proved
fatal to him. He fell to the ground while mounting his
horse for Peterborough in the inn yard, died from heart failure,
and was buried on July 23, at St Mary's, Huntingdon.
The trade had its heavy cares. The last of the Bilbies,
as I am told, committed suicide in 18 14 because he could not
get the CoUumpton bells in tune. Last in my chronicle of late
foundries comes York. In the seventeenth century there was
a James Smith, whose name is on the fifth bell at Ripon
Cathedral, dated 1663. To him North ascribes the third bell
at Crowle, dated 1656, with a monogram I. S. and a foundry
stamp with two bells and the initials W. C, which I should
regard as those of William Cuerdon, of Doncaster, who died
in 1678. This James Smith was succeeded by two Samuels,
son and grandson. The foundry of the latter was on Toft
Green. "S. S. Ebor." is well known on their bells. The
younger Samuel died in 1731. The foundry of the Sellars or
Seller family apparently began somewhat later.
* Church Bells of Huntingdonshire, p, 119,

228 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
There died in 1768 a Yorkshire centenarian, Robert
Oglebie, who at the age of fourteen was apprenticed to " Mr.
W"' Sellars of York, copper-smith and bell-founder." Edward
Seller, sheriff in 1703, may have been his son, and there was
a third Edward, whose sole known work out of Yorkshire
seems to be the second at Dunholme, Lincolnshire. There
was also a John Seller, working with this Edward at Calverley
in 1745. George Dalton, of Lendal Street, described himself
in 1764 as having a commodious foundry and good water
carriage for the Ouse and the Humber to the sea. C, and
R. Dalton cast the six for Tadcaster in 1784.
I trust that this necessarily imperfect account of later
foundries will not weary my readers. Much has been
omitted — Buckingham, Aldbourne in Wiltshire, Redgrave
in Suffolk, Wigan, Bromsgrove, Bridgewater, Worcester,
Nottingham, Burford, etc. For these reference must be
made to the historians of the various counties. Enough has
been said, I hope, to give an idea of the work in England, and
to throw light on some of the incidents which attend the
calling of a bellfounder.

CHAPTER XV
CHANGE-RINGING
THE expression consonantia campanarum, used with
reference to the Crowland bells, is a proof that
some scale, probably minor, had been successfully
adopted when a tower was honoured by the residence of
musical inmates. On the whole the comparatively few
sequences of bells of the Plantagenet period which remain
rather point to a major scale. It would not be long before
changeful man desired some variation in the arrangement
of sounds, however sweet in themselves ; and to this end
there must be a fair control over the movements of the
bells. Striking from outside or inside had not been a
success, unsatisfactory in bringing out tone, and often the
cause of irremediable cracks. The great change effected by
the use of pivots and sockets on which the bell, fastened
to a stock, could turn, gave the tongue the necessary
oscillation, and the lever attached to the stock was soon
worked by a rope from below. As towers improved in con
struction, more and more attention was given to the lower
chamber, or solarium (a word still remaining in setter), where
the ringers assembled. Then the lever gave place to a half-
wheel or three-quarter wheel, so bordered along its rim as to
steady the rope ; and the more power the puller thus obtained
the more there came into practice the call-changes which
229

230 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
became in their turn the introduction to those scientific
methods, dear to our ringers even from their difficulties, and
the delight of thousands who are sensible of their charms
without comprehension of them.
Call-changes were generally the alteration in the sequence
of two bells, indicated by a nod from the leader of the
company. The sequence indicated would go on as long as
the leader pleased, terminated by another nod. The earliest
notice we have of this practice is in the well-known story of
Dick Whittington, which there seems no reason to doubt.
Born in 1358, his arrested flight from London would have
been in the latter years of the reign of Edward III., when he
heard the call of the bells of St. Mary-le-Bow, supposing the
key to have been G —

i

s

tff=a

m

?=^-

:p3ziz

±

Turn a - gain, Whit-ting-ton, Thrice Lord Mayor of Lon-don.

In chiming, when the bells swing to and fro with only a
moderate amount of control, the call-changes still prevail,
and may be heard in town and country on a Sunday all
over England. Indeed, in ringing, where the hands are young
and inexperienced, and for other reasons, they are not extinct
Often at a wedding after " clashing," or as it is more usually
called " firing," the bells some twenty or thirty times, they
break out into " odds and evens," another name for the ex
tension of the " Whittington " system to peals of eight, ten,
or twelve. Indeed, I myself heard change after change rung
by call at Enfield, Middlesex, in December, 1905.
The excellence of the old frames still existing in so many
of our towers is a proof that the hanging was receiving good

CHANGE-RINGING 231
attention in those early days. Presently came the complete
wheel, by which a bell can be swung so as to have its mouth
upward, then not turning over, but back so to have its mouth
upward again, A clever contrivance, called the " stay and
slide," prevents the bell from falling over, should there be a
little overbalance, as almost always happens. Thus a thorough
mastery over the bell was accorded to the performer, with
the reservation that a certain time must elapse between two
strokes of the same bell. In this way there came about those
arrangements of changes in which any particular bell keeps
as near as possible to its previous place in changing. For
instance, if the fourth bell happened to strike in the second's
place in one change, in the next change it must be in the
treble's or the third's. But under some circumstances a bell
may pass over two places in one change. In my Church
Bells of Suffolk, written about fifteen years ago, I said —
"There are few common subjects on which there are such wild
ideas as on bell-ringing. Every Christmas in the illustrated news
papers you see the most grotesque views of ringers plentifully exerting
themselves in a way which would ensure their own destruction and
the ruin of the bell-gear."
In the interval I think that these illustrations have
changed for the better, not that I attribute the improvement
in the slightest degree to the expressions quoted above.
But I was certainly surprised in reading in a recently published
work of great ability, treating of the Stuart period, of " bell-
pulling at which men often fell fainting;"* and I wonder
what record of such sad events remains.
In chiming no great muscular effort is required, except in
the case of larger bells, and even then, the momentum once
* England under the Stuarts, p. 68.

232 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND.
generated does not take much force to keep it up. Nothing
is more usual than to find three bells, the largest weighing,
say, from lo to 12 cwt, chimed by one man, with the
ropes for the two smaller in each hand, and the third in a
loop on his foot Some of us have seen an expert chime five
at once — one and two in each hand, three on the right elbow,
four and five on the foot, the loop of the former shorter than
that of the latter. I well remember an instance of this at
Mildenhall in my boyhood. Such an effort, however, was
really exhausting, and soon came to an end.
In the days of Queen Elizabeth "one man one bell"
seems to have been the rule. In Udall's Ralph Roister
Doister, for instance, this is the case. No doubt call-changes
were all that could be attempted, and we have to wait till
the beginning of the Stuart period for anything like an
organized system of changes. My authority for this state
ment is Fabian Stedman, whose Tintinnalogia was published
in 1667. He was a printer, living in Cambridge, and is said
to have printed his changes on slips of paper in his leisure
hours, and taught them to his company in the tower of St
Benedict In this work, the first extant on change-ringing,
he says, " Within these fifty or sixty years Changes were not
known, or thought possible to be Rang. Then were invented
the Sixes, being the very ground of a Six-score: then the
Twenty, and Twenty-four, with several other Changes'' For the
four-and-twenty changes on four bells he " hunts " the treble
only. This sporting expression requires explanation. A
bell is said to be " hunted up " as she moves towards the
tenor's, or last place, and to be " hunted down " as she moves
towards the treble's, or first place. I print this method from
the Tintinnalogia, a copy of which was kindly lent me some
years ago. By printing the treble in stronger type its motion

CHANGE-RINGING 233
is made clearer. The other bells stay twice in each of the
middle places, and thrice in the treble's and tenor's—
1 2 3 4 4 3 2 1
2I34 43I2
2 3 1 4 4I 3 2
2 3 4I 1 43 2
324I I423
32I4 4I23
3I24 42I3
I324 423I
I342 243I
3I42 24I3
34I2 2I43
342I I243
In this way change is reduced to a minimum, as if the
intention of the composer had been to baulk his audience in
the matter of variety. Every change is called a " single,"
involving a change of place in two bells only. Still, every
possible change is introduced, the factorial twenty-four being
exhausted, although in a somewhat dull manner.
Local genius has left sometimes its name on a method,
and sometimes in remote places earlier peals survive, such as
that which Stedman calls the " Twenty all over," known in
Fressingfield and the neighbourhood by the name of " Christ
mas Eve." It is worth recording, for Stedman inserted it for
antiquity's sake. The method which requires five bells is
very simple. First, the treble "hunts up," the others only
changing to make room for it —
1 2 3 45
2 I34 5
2 3 1 45
2 3 4 1 5 ¦
2 3 4 5 1

234 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Then the second does the same thing —
3245134251 345 2 I
34512
Then third " hunts up "— 48512
45812
4518245128
Then comes the turn of the fourth —
54123
51423 51243
51234
And lastly, the tenor goes through the same perform
ance — 16234 12634
1236412346
So the bells are brought round, and every change is a
" single." Another of Stedman's peals is called Cambridge Eight
and Forty, doubtless from its having been rung first in St.
Benedict's tower. It is a curiously restricted variety of
the Six-score, the restriction being that the treble and
second are never allowed in the last place, or the fourth
and tenor to lead a change. So that whereas in the Six-
score twenty-four changes can be made on i, 2, 3, 4, with
the tenor always behind ; twenty-four on i, 2, 3, 5, with

CHANGE-RINGING 235
the fourth always behind ; twenty-four on i, 2, 4, 5, with the
third always behind ; twenty-four on i, 3, 4, 5, with the
second always behind ; and twenty-four on 2, 3, 4, 5, with
the treble always behind ; in Cambridge Eight and Forty
the last two of these sets are entirely excluded, and only
eighteen of each of the first two sets can be admitted, because
the fourth would lead in six changes of the first set, and the
tenor in six changes of the second set. And finally, in the
third set only twelve changes can be allowed, the other
twelve being fourth and fifth leads. Thus, with eighteen
from each of the first two sets and twelve from the third set,
we get Cambridge Eight and Forty. With this introduction
I give the peal complete —
I234S 3I2S4 2I453 I243S
2I345 3I245 24I53 I4235
2I354 3I425 245X3 I4325
2lS34 34I25 254I3 I3425
25I34 342I5 25I43 I324S
253I4 324I5 2X543 13254
235I4 32I45 12543 13524
23I54 23I45 I5243 I5324
32I54. 234I5 15423 I5234
325I4 243I5 I4523 I2534
352I4 24I35 14253 I2354
35I24 2I435 I2453 I2345
3 I5 2 4
It will be seen that the motion of the bells is very
complex, and that there is no "hunting." Such was the
condition of five-bell work in the earlier part of the seven
teenth century, and no attempt appears to have been made
to deal with a larger number of bells. The curious restric
tions of Cambridge Eight and Forty had been removed to
make way for the Six- score ; but no change beyond a

236 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
" single " occurred to the men of Fabian Stedman's day.
Now follow his Plain-changes.
I234S 4I235 SI432 SI324
2I345 42I35 S4I32 53I24
23I45 423I5 543I2 532I4
234I5 4235I 5432I S324I
2345I 2435I S423I 5342I
3245I 243I5 542I3 534I2
324I5 24I35 S4I23 S3I42
32I45 2l435 SI423 SI342
3I245 I243S I5423 15342
I3245 I2453 15243 I3542
I3425 2I453 5I243 3I542
3I425 24I53 52I43 35I42
34I25 24513 524I3 3S4l2
342I5 2453I S243I 3S421
3425! 4253I 2543I 35241
3452I 425I3 25413 352I4
345I2 42I53 25X43 35I24
34I52 4I253 2I543 3I524
3I452 14253 12543 I3524
I3452 I4523 12534 I3254
I4352 4I523 2I534 3I254
4I352 45I23 25I34 32I54
43I52 4S2I3 253I4 325I4
43Sl2 4523I 2534I 3254I
4325I 45321 5234I 2354I
4352I 4S3I2 S23I4 235I4
432I5 4SI32 52I34 23I54
43I25 4I532 SI234 2I354
4I325 I4532 15234 12354
I4325 I5423 15324 I2345
I42 3 5
Five was the usual number for a peal, and as the systems
of changes improved the pleasant combinations of sound

CHANGE-RINGING 237
attracted the notice of musicians. Dr. Burney, in his General
History of Music,* speaking of peals on five, six, and eight
bells in the Tintinnalogia, calls it —
" a work not beneath the notice of musicians who wish to explore
all the regions of natural melody : as in this little book they will see
every possible change in the movement of Diatonic sounds from 2 to
12; which being reduced to musical notes, would point out innumer
able passages that, in spite of all which has hitherto been written,
would be new in melody and musical composition.'' He complains
that " melody has not been consulted in the choice of changes :
there seems a mechanical order and succession in them all, without
the least idea of selecting such as are most melodious and
agreeable." Evidently he is referring to call-changes.
The amusement was becoming fashionable, for one of the
six-bell methods (fifth and tenor hunted down) is called The
Esquire's Twelve- score. When the systems of "singles"
became wearisome Stedman triumphed in bringing out
" cross peals." The earliest probably was " Old Doubles,"
and then " Grandsire Doubles," which is the prevalent Six-
score of the present day. His own invention was " New
Doubles," a pattern of symmetry. Some of these " cross-
peal" changes made an impression on the appreciative ear
of John Jenkins, born at Maidstone in 1592, composer of the
familiar round, " A boat, a boat, unto the ferry," of whom
Burney says, " Of all his conceits, none flew about with his
name so universally as the small piece called his Bells. In
those days the country fiddlers were not so well supplied with
light Music from London, as since ; and a master that
furnished them with new tunes, that they were able to play,
was a benefactor." Here follows The Five-Bell Consorte: —
¦* iii. 413-

238 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

^^f^W=,

-¦**S5h

^-.-^^

--d-_*=it^

'^

Slow.

=P=e:

t#^:^r:?E

:p=P=-^=^

¦P=J=^^e

:pH=*=^=i=

S— ir— ii^

i^"^'^S^

Si

:^

/r

:^

P=P=P:

?^

W^EM^=i

k--^

:=F:

^^

p=Prr:a:q»=^

t=t

^P=^

§

*=^

g^t::t^

-f=2-

=^

:ff=i»:

:r=p:

:^

-^ .

ir

3iilS

H

--p^^

icinrtzii

:t=t:

i^

SSJ^

~m=-r-

1 r

BEf3^^S^E3^

|^^==pr;zp=p

CHANGE-RINGING

239

g

5tt=P=P

^^-

:?2j

:f«=i*=

:prp:

¦^-r-i«-

3f=p==

S

tr

^

^=^=^-

w=ez

^

i^

^

-^-

itbt:

iEf^e

¦|•-#-™=^

[Si^i^l

=«T=^

s

eI
icifr.
^-¦^-^
s
:f=«:
t=t
EPE
ffiffgig^Ff^ffesMEF^
1^2=
-c:^-.
^
geSEsig
dr:
^
tit: It
iBi:^^:^^
^=n
S^
t==i:
^
:p:=P:
W?^
S¥
^
^=
:^:
^-
JiM:
:it=F
i^i^d
-s;'-'
240 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

pi^^iiii^giis

:t=r=r-:

fE^rSE-pErF^,^

aeeFeS

t=t

t=::^i

r^^=p:ip

=t=^t

^3^

£:£

::g=

-^=t

«^

rt:

.t=±z=i=

i

:&^P£-^

:p2-

^i

f?e=p^

^r-

pzfc

-S^M

Itpl

fe^::^E^e

9

:(=t

i^

^

r^^cp=:r:=p,:

:i=^:

P=f?:^t^p:Ji

:g:

-_ttz:tt:

fz:^

^^^

iM

t^=m--

-^-

:2±]

itit

:^t

*=£

H*'^^-:^-

^^

-Se^}

¥

«i:t=f=

^E=

¦^-gi-

trztzt

r=t

za-i^

i

i^=iij3^l^

;g=

-P=^'

CHANGE-RINGING

241

^

Efe;

^^

:p=t:

m^Ei

:P=t

:^t

i

:fc=i=^r

5te

^

:p=p=:^i±:iz:ar7p:

S

:-E=

^

't—

^^E^i

:^=

:?==

P=-t=?^

^ziz^-

j.-l_.

;t;

itztt

:fef?^

:P^^-^

:t=rp=p

:t=:

I

%7P=S=^:

S

^

^i:E^E?S

w^^^"^^

rprft

P^

>=^-

^=^^F

Canon.

^^^

^=^^

rp==^

:g=?c

-^^^-

^

4t-

=P=

-F— P— ^

S

fe^^N

il

=P=P=r=F=P=^:

s

X=-^

±=:t

t=t

:^=?s

,-1-

^-"^^pr:=^

^B

!tf=^2:i=h:izvz*:

I

it=^

ltd

i^diz^

Eg^S

=S-^?1=4

tX

"2=^

F^

'"i^'=iJ=?

:it^^:

^EEi^E^I^E^z^e

?Ei=^

r^r^;

i:^

t^^?3=i^=EiT — ,~fif=fl^'^^f¥=^^^^^=^^^-

:^

*%^

t^:

i:^=^:

if^-=^-g:zj^:^

:^=

^^fTp:r— ^1 — I— h-

EEsE: E^Ef^'E: :e^.^eee^ :pPe?^Ee$i

i^i—jim-w-

'M

ttdz^tt

¥

:t^.-^pp=

:f=t:?Lt4=:iiJ^^3

^j^=g-:K^

iiE^

rp-p=

rn:

it=t

=P=*=

ttt

:P=1r^=j=^*g:^

r=f

-C

I —  *-¦•— 1-^-

:?1=^:

i^rzqr

i:*:^

^EE^E^^:^^

:^=:i=ir

:^

-Wi

-(=2-

ipiz^

=P=pr:

apE^epEEi

it=t

=tz:t

:tzrt

¦f

ONViDNH do snaa hhi ^^^

CHANGE-RINGING

243

^tf-t=qr|

^-=£

SE^^Iggf^'

If

:t:

izp:

l^iiilig^rE^i^fNi

^EE^

jt-^ — ^-

j=

:;^=

i:±:

:i;=±

With this may be compared a course of Grandsire
Doubles, with the result, as it seems to me, that divers of its
movements have been utilized in the Consorte —

12345
21354 231453241534251435214531254132 51423 15243 12534

21543 25134 5231453241
3 S 4 2 I
34512
43152
41325 1423s
12453

2143s 24153
425134 5 2 3 r
54321 534123514231524 13254
12345

Here the changes start with leaving the third in its place, the
pairs before and behind " dodging." Then a general " hunt "
takes place, till at the-eleyenth change the bell in third's place
(in this instance the tenor) remains there for the next change,
the pairs "dodging " as before, followed by another "hunt ; "
and a similar plan at the twenty-first change gives the first
course of thirty, bringing the bells round to natural sequence
at the thirty-first change. Now this, of course, would spoil
the six-score, so that another plan has to be adopted, " bobs "

244 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
being called at the end of each score of changes, except at
the end of the third score (at the middle of the peal), where a
"single" is called. By this means every permutation is
introduced, and not one repeated. But the detail of these
various methods pertains to the special science of change-
ringing rather than to the archseology of the subject ; and
those desirous of pursuing the intricacies of Campanalogia
may be referred to such works as Troyte's Change-ringing,
or Wigram's Change-ringing Disentangled.
The first edition of Tintinnalogia was anonymous, but
registered at Stationers' Hall by "Fabyan Stedman." In
1671 appeared the second edition, " Printed for F. S., and are
to be sold by Tho. Archert at his shop under the Dyal of S.
Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street," and in 1700 another came
out, improved by J. White. In the interim, in The School of
Recreation, or Gentleman's Tutor in Various Exercises, 1684, a
portion was devoted to ringing.
When peals of eight began to abound, new treatises fol
lowed in their wake, dealing with Bob Major and Treble Bob
methods for that number, and Grandsire Tripples, which are
changes on seven with the tenor behind.
The earliest octave known to me is at Horham, Suffolk,
where a member of an old Suffolk family, John Club, Cloub,
or Cloube, was rector,* Of these the lower four are dated
respectively, 1605, 1663 (two), and 1568. The great effort
was made in 1672 and 1673, when the terrier records "Eight
bells, with frames, ropes, &c." They cannot be pronounced a
first-rate company, either in consonance or individual quality.
More enterprising towns had led the way; St Margaret's,
Lynn, had eight by 1663, and St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich,
*' The antiquity of this family is shown by the fact that one of the name was
resident at Thorndon, not far off, in 1340.

CHANGE-RINGING 245
by 1676. But still better times were at hand, and by the
beginning of the eighteenth century many towns and some
villages were gladdened by eight-bell methods.
In 1788, Jones, Reeves and Blakemore, by joint effort,
produced a Clavis Campanalogia, part of the MS. of which
Blakemore is said to have taken from a Norwich man. A
long list of similar publications may be found in Ellacombe's
supplement to his Devonshire book. Ringing companies and
societies naturally arose from conjoined action in belfries. A
very early instance is that of the Brethren of the Guild of
Westminster, mentioned in Chapter V. In this case the
connection between sets of bells and guilds of ringers is
manifest. It is a rare instance as far as record goes, but if
we had lived in those days we should have found it by no
means a peculiar case. In the library of All Souls' College,
Oxford, is a MS. entitled " Orders conceyved and agreed
upon by the Company exercising the arte of ringing, knowne
and called by the name of the SchoUers of Chepesyde, in
London, begun and so continued from the second day of
February, anno 1603." * The start seems to have been at
Candlemas. The date of the rules, however, is 1610. They
are to elect annually a Gennerall, four Wardens and a Warner,
whose function was most likely to call bobs, etc. There is a
list of members down to 1634, in which may be expected to
be found some names of interest. This MS. was the property
of Narcissus Luttrel in 1682. Three years after the last entry
in the " Chepesyde " list there commences that of the " College
Youths," now in the British Museum, part of a present t from
the widow of Thomas Osborn, who bought it from a Bristol
bookseller. Its history may be read at length in Ellacombe's
supplement^ The name seems to be tortuously derived from
* MS. cxix. t Add. MSS. 19368-19373. X P- 230.

246 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Whittington's College of the Holy Ghost and Hospital of
God's House, founded in 1424, though Shipway's account of
it * is not altogether correct ; and in substance it is a resusci
tation of the " Chepesyde " Society. The first master was
Lord Brereton, of Brereton in Cheshire, an Irish peer, of
whom we know nothing. The oflSce changed yearly, and the
master in 1638 was Sir Cliff Clifton. Among the officers, and
members are many scions of distinguished families, and to us
not the least interesting is Brian Eldridge, of Chertsey, 1649,
a bellfounder of some importance. The house called by his
name is in Windsor Street, and when I visited a well-known
local antiquary, Dr. Shurlock, in 1884, he kindly showed me
his title-deeds, which recorded the admission of Brian's son
William and his wife Barbara to the copyhold in 1661, " post
decessum Annse Eldridge, vidus," The only other society
for which I can find space is the Cumberland Society of
Change-ringers, the name being altered, according to a
tradition by no means improbable, from an older company,
the " London Scholars," by means of the notice acquired by
them in 1746, when they greeted the victorious Duke William
with a peal on the Shoreditch bells, as he entered London
from the north after CuUoden. It is certain that the society
possesses a gold medal, representing the Duke mounted on a
charger, which the master wears officially at their meetings ;
and the account given of it by tradition, that the great
William Augustus, pleased with his greeting, desired an inter
view with the ringers, and subsequently gave the society the
medal, is quite in accordance with other traces of him. In
my own neighbourhood are two taverns named after him, and
one after General Wolfe, his subaltern, who, with his superior,
visited Earsham Hall, the residence of the Duke's secretary,
Mr. Windham, in that same year.
*¦ Campanalogia, p. I9.

CHAPTER XVI
SIGNA
A GOOD ear-filling sound from one large instrument is
dear to man. There seems to be something satisfy
ing to the soul in it, apart from its utility as a call
to duty, an alarm when danger impends, or a mark of passing
time. No instrument can vie with a cast bell for a sound-
signal, and though England cannot be compared with some
other European nations or with the East in the size of
signa, we are happily possessed of a fair number of them up
and down the land. It is now my lot to describe the most
noted specimens which are above the size of the largest
tenors used in change-ringing.
And first, of our Metropolitan Canterbury. Here, almost
certainly in a detached campanile, were five bells in the
earlier part of the twelfth century. After the lapse of a little
more than half a century came a veritable signum, the word
used of Prior Wybert's addition : " Signum quoque magnum
in clocario posuit, quod triginta duo homines ad sonandum
trahunt," a clear indication of the method of setting men on
planks fastened to a stock to move the unwieldy mass.
Whatever may have been the size of this bell, it was out
done by another- dedicated to the martyred Archbishop
Thomas by Prior Henry of Eastry, in 1316. It is recorded
to have weighed 8000 lbs,, or 3 tons 1 1 cwt, 48 lbs. of our
247

248 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
modern avoirdupois. This was doubtless broken, with the
rest, including two campance (not called signa), Jesu and
Dunstan, of a somewhat later date, in the fall of the campanile
in 1382, from the shock of an earthquake. In 1430 came a
revival, when Prior Molass gave a bell which surpassed in
weight that of Prior Eastry's by 105 lbs. Its dedication in
honour of St Dunstan in 1459 is thus recorded : " Item hoc
anno xiiij die Mensis Junii dominus Ricardus episcopus
Rossensis benedixit magnam campanam in navi ecclesie in
honore sancti Dunstani archiepiscopi cum magna solempnitate;
prior istius ecclesie erat ibidem revestitus in pontificalibus. Ista
Campana facta fuit Lond anno Domini M° cccc" xxx° tempore
domini Willelmi Molass." * The Primate, Bourchier, might
well be absent, for this dedication was in a busy time, about
three months before the battle of Bloreheath. The Bishop of
Rochester who officiated was John Lowe. " Great Dunstan,"
possibly recast in the interval, survived in the Chicheley
tower till 1758, when it fell a victim to external percussion,
administered by a hammer. It was recast on the spot by Lester
and Pack in 1762, and weighs 3 ton 10 cwt. Meantime the
central to^er, according to tradition, received "Bell Harry,"
a gift from Henry VIII., brought from him out of France, as
the story goes. This was recast by Joseph Hatch of Ul
combe, about the central point of the county, in 1635. No
doubt there was a loss of weight in the recasting, but " Harry's"
claim to have deserved the degree of a signum is not so clear
as it might be.
Next to Canterbury, of course, comes York ; but here is
no signum cast in earlier days. What " Peter " lacks in
historical interest is atoned for in weight Cast by Charles
and George Mears at the Whitechapel foundry on January 18,
•* Searle's Christ Church, Canterbury, p. 77.

SIGNA 249
1845, it is estimated to weigh I2|^ tons, with a diameter of
7 ft. 4 in., and cost some ;^2000.
Lincoln's " Tom " will afford more matter. The earliest
reliable account of bells here is that of Giraldus Cambrensis,
in speaking of the vacant period in the see after the death of
Bishop Robert de Chesney. For about half this time (1173-
II 82) the temporalities were held by Geoffrey Plantagenet,
the natural son of King Henry II. Of him Giraldus says:
" Ipse quoque ornatus ecclesiae suae plurimum propriis dona
riis amplificavit. Cui inter cetera quoque campanas duo
grandes, egregias atque sonoras devota largitione donavit."
It is impossible to say what became of this pair, and whether
they were the precursors of a subsequent ring, of a subsequent
signum, or of neither. We know, however, that there was a
large bell there in Elizabeth's reign, for from it was cast the
"Old Tom" of 1610-11. North, who examined most care
fully the Lincoln history, gives, in his Church Bells of
Lincolnshire,* an extract from the muniments of the Dean
and Chapter, headed " Conc'neing y= greate Bell," and bearing
date "xxx die Januarii" of that year. From this we find
that " Henricus Olldfield de Nottingham et Robertus
Nevinson de Leyster, Bellfounders'' had recast the old
bell. Nevinson appears to be equivalent to Newcombe, and
Robert Newcombe was just coming on in the place of his
aged father. The weight of the old bell is given as 7807 lbs.,
"at 112 to the C," which will be found to amount to 8743 lbs.
or according to our avoirdupois, 3 tons 18 cwt. 7 lbs. Some
consider this union of founders to be due to the fact that
Newcombe lived in the diocese, and that Oldfield had the
higher reputation. The new bell was cast in the Minster
yard, near the sub-dean's house, and weighed 4 tons 8 cwt.
* Page 523.

250 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
38^ lbs. The bill for workmanship and extra metal amounted
to cxlvijA' xixj ij^. On Sunday, January 27, 161 1, the bell
having been hung up, " ronge owte and all safe and well," a
beautiful bell, with a running border, and in tone equal to its
appearance. In process of time the swinging of such a weight
was found injurious to the tower, and in the figurative language
of a newspaper writer,* " he has therefore been chained and
rivetted down ; so that instead of the full mouthful he has
been used to send forth, he is enjoined in future merely to
wag his tongue."
The result may be imagined. The unsatisfactory state of
things induced James Harrison, of Barton-on-Humber, bell
founder, twice to address the Dean and Chapter on the
subject of a general recast, not including Tom, who was
doomed soon afterwards from bad clock-striking and general
clocking. In 1827 a bad crack appeared near the rim, and
the cathedral surveyor consulted old John Briant, the Hert
ford bellfounder, a man of great ability, who was retiring from
business through age. Briant gave excellent advice. Dobson
of Downham Market, backed by the great Dr, Samuel Parr
and Harrison, approached the Dean and Chapter, who in the
end employed Thomas Mears, of Whitechapel. " Tom " was
sent thither, with other bells broken up by his own tongue,
on Wednesday June i8th, 1834, recast on November isth, left
on Monday, April 6th, 1835, travelled to Lincoln vid Hoddes-
don, Buntingford, Caxton, Stilton, Bourn, and Sleaford, was
triumphantly received on the 13th, and long may his noble
tones sound over the "never-ending plain."
What there may have been at Bury St Edmund's in the
Middle Ages must be a matter of uncertainty. The Great Bell-
tower which the well-known Sampson de Tottington erected
* Stamford Mercuiy, Kvignst 6, 1802.

SIGNA 251
with so much trouble while he held the office of sub-sacrist
was blown down, according to Taxster,* in an autumn gale
in 1210: "turris ecclesiae Sancti Edmundi aliquo impulsu
venti cecidit IX Kalendas Octobris." There were bells,
possibly oi signum size, in it, for when he returned to Bury
in 1 1 82, now Abbot, his historian Jocelin de Brakelonda
describes his reception : " Susceptus est autem dominus
abbas hoc modo : proxima nocte jacuerat apud Chenteford,t
et accepta temporis opportunitate, ivimus contra eum
solempniter, post exitum de capitulo, usque ad portam
cimiterii, sonantibus campanis in choro et extra." % This
"porta cimiterii" is what is now called the "Norman
Tower," containing the fine ring of ten bells belonging to
St James's parish. But it was not used for such a purpose
till after the fall of the second bell-tower in 1430, and
probably not then, for this ill-fated tower seems to have
been for a third time rebuilt. Very possibly the " Norman
Tower " contained the bells of St. James's church, of which
there were five in the return of 1553.
At Ely we are assured of a signum, a bell named after
Our Saviour, and weighing little short of two tons, a great
mass of metal for that time. Nor was this the first large
bell belonging to that cathedral, for in 1322 there was a
bell called " Bounce " in the western tower, as mentioned in
Chapter VI. In XX Edward III., however, there was a great
work going on. Alan de Walsingham, Prior, whom the
convent had unanimously chosen, and Pope Clement VI.
had refused, for the bishopric, nothing daunted by his disap
pointment, pressed on with his work, and the roll of Robarte
Aylesh'm, Sacrist, witnesses to the success which crowned their
* Fol. 35. t Kentford.
X Gage Rokewode's Jocelin, p. 1 8.

252 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
perseverance. The bell account which I have given is noted
in the margin, Cust' magn campan' de nov' Sacr in' me jam
expen'm.* It throws much light on the operations of the
fourteenth century. The founder is John of Gloucester.
His expenses to Lynn, whence is not stated, are given by
me as V, but the MS. at this point, as elsewhere, is not very
clear. The inference is that he had been itinerating, for he
would hardly have come from Gloucester to Lynn to get
to Ely. He is sent to Northampton and elsewhere to buy
tin and copper, and one Cok is twice sent to Lynn for the
same purpose. Clay for the mould is bought at Erith and
Lynn, and the casting may be inferred to have taken place
in the Minster yard, as there is no charge for the carriage
of the bells. The hanging of the bells, six in number, gives
the impression that Bounce and Peter were conjoined with
John of Gloucester's four. It is plain that -they were in
frames, for the cost of the wheels (trendel') is given, and the
carpenter, Roger, is regarded as a person of nearly the same
importance as the founder, John. When all was done, the
workmen of both masters were kindly remembered by the
Cathedral authorities, as recorded in the item : "Dat' Garcoib's
p'dict'r Mag'r' Joh'is et Rog'i in secessu eor' ]xs. v]d.," and
the famous ale of Ely was consumed, we may trust not to
excess, on the day on which the greatest bell was cast. The
reputation of the Ely brew was great in England, as we find
from a manuscript of the time of Edward II., which, in a
catalogue of things for which different towns were noted, gives
Cerveyse de Ely. The item is " In c'rv' emp. die qua fund't'r
metall' magna campana p't'r staur' iiij^ vij'V
These bells are said to have been hung in Alan de
Walsingham's Lantern, as thought to be proved by the
•* Church Bells of Cambridgeshire, pp. 5, etc.

SIGNA 253
discovery made by Bishop Harvey Goodwin while he was
Dean of the Cathedral : —
" It was a question," said he,* " when I first went to Ely, and
when the restoration of Alan de Walsingham's Lantern was under
taken as a memorial to Dean Peacock, how the bells in the Lantern
were rung : in fact, some bold sceptics questioned whether there
were any bells, notwithstanding distinct documentary evidence of
their existence. One day, while the work of restoration was going
on, a carpenter told me that he had found the marks of the ropes :
and he showed me, upon one of the vertical beams forming the
south side of the lantern, three parallel grooves, which had evidently
been worn by ropes. My remark was, 'If these be the marks of
bell-ropes, there ought to be four, as I know that there were four
bells.' A little examination soon brought to light the fourth rope-
mark. I then directed the carpenter to remove some of the wooden
groining below, in order that we might see where the rope-marks
pointed ; he did so, and we found that they pointed to the base of
the eastern column of the arch of the south transept. Here there
fore stood the brother whose business it was to chime the bells :
from the position occupied by him the ropes would clear the stalls
which then extended under the lantern ; and to complete the story,
I found in the discovery the explanation of two marks in the pillar
near which the chimer stood. I had never been able to guess what
they were, but I now found that they were the marks of the pegs
upon which the ends of the ropes were twisted when not used for
chiming. Thus the problem of ringing the bells in Ely Lantern was
completely solved."
It is not pleasant to raise doubts on conclusions drawn
by one so venerated as Bishop Harvey Goodwin, yet a
shudder passes through the soul on contemplating as tenants
of the Lantern the four weighty bells of John of Gloucester,
to say nothing of the additional two hung at the same time
* Essays on Cathedrals (Murray, 1872), p. 21, note.

254 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
by Roger the carpenter. Might they not have been in the
West Tower >
When I turn from Ely to Exeter, I feel rather ashamed
of claiming the largest bell of the former cathedral as a
signum, so overpowering is the comparative weight of the
corresponding bell at the latter. Here Ellacombe * speaks
of ten, noting that, according to Rocca and Carlo Borromeo,
seven was the number allowed to a cathedral tower. But
from his own account it is hard to make the ten, for his list
runs over nearly two centuries, and a bell bearing originally
one name might easily be recast under another name. He
notes the name "Walter" in 1286, from the donor, Bishop
Walter Bronescomb (1257-1280), and others, and gives some
puzzling detail.
The bell given by Bishop Grandison (1327-1370) may be
presumed to have been identical with one called by the same
name in the return of 6 Edward VI,, which weighed xl. cwt.
or two tons. In 1729 it was recast by William Evans of
Chepstow with additional metal. Its weight is stated by
Ellacombe as 67 cwt. i qr. 18 lbs., but I am informed by
Mr. Charles E. Borrett, of the Norwich Diocesan Society of
Change-ringers, that it is between 59 and 60 cwt. Its note
is B \f. In the North Tower hangs the bell Peter, the gift of
Bishop Courtenay of that Christian name. The original bell
was "erased 5th November last past," as the words run in
the Acts of the Chapter, 21st March, 161 1 ; and this effect
of exuberant rejoicing at the Powder Plot anniversary was
to be set right by a recast by Mr, John Birdall "in the
workhouse of the church or in Mr, Dean's yard, with such
addition as shall be convenient," John Birdall's performances
must have been few and far between. He is to us practically
'* Church Bells of Devon, p. 74.

SIGNA 255
a name and nothing more. Whether he was competent to
carry out the order is dubious, but if it was carried out there
must have been another " erase " before the bell reached its
threescore and ten years, for the present noble bell is the
work of Thomas Purdue, in 1676. The inscription has a
frieze, described by Ellacombe as mediaeval, above and below,
v/hich is identical with that commonly used by Purdue,
The words are —
EX o DONO o PETRI o COURTENAY o EPISCOPI
o EXON : ANNO DOM. : 1484 o PLEBS : PATRI^
: PLAUDIT : DUM : PETRUM : PLE o RENOVAT
: EX : IMPENSIS : DECANI : ET : CAPITULI :
EXON : ANNO : DOMINI : 1676 o PER : THO :
PVRDVE o.
The founder was more successful in his casting than
in his inscription, leaving out NIVS AVDIT after PLE.
The hexameter is found, with some variations, on a good
many other bells. At the same time the fourth, the seventh
(called Cobthorne, after a dean of that name), and the
ninth, named Stafford, after the bishop who presided over
the see from 1395 to 1419, were recast. As in the case
of Ely, the carpenter, Thomas Heart of Long Sutton, is
mentioned with Thomas Purdue of Closworth in the agree
ment "Great Peter" is hung on the regular stock-and-
gudgeons system ; and if the engraving in Mr. Pearson's
book represents him fairly, the shape is rather short, with
a rounded crown and very small cannons. Ellacombe gives
the weight as 6 tons 5 cwt. Pearson rejects the estimate,
and adds that "the diameter, height, thickness of sound
board, and musical note imply a weight of 80 cwt only." *
* Ringer's Guide to the Church Bells of Devon, p. loi.

256 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
The note is A, certainly higher than might be expected from
either estimated weight.
No bell in England is better known by name than Great
Tom of Oxford. From the account generally given, which
there seems no reason to doubt, at the dissolution of the
monasteries the great bell of Oseney Abbey was removed
to St Frideswide's, Oxford, at the end of the reign of
Henry VIII. The Oseney bells had long been famous,
Dugdale, in the Monasticon,* quotes a manuscript of Antony
a Wood, dated November 26, 1661 —
" At the west end of the church was situated the campanile, or
tower, which, enduring the brunt, stood firm and whole till 1644. It
contained a large and melodious ring of bells, thought to be the
best in England. At the first foundation there was but three bells,
beside the Saint and Litany bells ; but by Abbot Leech (elected
19 Henry III., 1235), they were increased to the number of
seven. The bells were christened and called by the names of
Hauteclare, Doucement, Austyn, Marie, Gabriel and John; all
which, for the most part, towards the suppression, being before
broken and recast, had gotten new names, which by tradition we
name thus : Mary and Jesus, Meribus and Lucas, New Bell and
Thomas, Conger and Godeston, which Thomas, now commonly
called Great Tom of Christchurch, had this inscription not long
since remaining upon it —
IN THOM^ LAUDE RESONO BIM BOM SINE FRAUDE
and was accounted to be six feet in diameter, which is eighteen feet
in compass." This would be veritably a signum, even allowing for a
little exaggeration in figures. The conveyance to Oxford
was managed by local hands, as shown by items from the
accounts of 1 546, when " there was payd to Wellbye of
* VI. 250.

SIGNA 257
Ensham for caryage of the great bell to Fryswids xxvj
September xx' ," and iiij"^ " for ale to theym laboreres at
y^ wyndyng up of the great bell into Friswides steple."
Ensham is conveniently near the river, "a Royal ville," as
Camden tells us, "seated very commodiously among most
delightful meadows." In Mary's reign a change of dedica
tion, partly out of compliment to her, was attempted, but the
old name held its own, and " Tom," through manifold cata
strophes, has survived to the present day. The first mishap
recorded was in 161 2, when recasting was necessary from
some injury, most likely caused by the inevitable clocking.
The genius of Dean Corbet, afterwards Bishop of Norwich,
celebrated the occasion in some quasi-jocular verses, which
will be found in the poetry chapter. Another return to the
furnace came off in 1654, April 22, the maker being
Michael Derby ; and in 1680 the operation had to be re
peated, when the work was entrusted to the unhappy Richard
Keene, living in the " Common Acker " at Woodstock. Thrice
did this luckless or brainless personage fail in his attempt,
twice from not allowing metal enough, though, like our
Haddenham friend, he surely might have run round and
collected pewter pots ; and on the last occasion the mould
burst, and the metal ran all over the place.
About this time Christopher Hodson, of London and
St Mary Cray, was itinerating over the district, as Mr. Cocks
has shown,* and to him the Dean and Chapter entrusted
the task, having first " made amends " to poor Richard.
The most satisfactory evidence which can be found as to
the place where Hodson did the work is derived from the
agreement with Keene, who in 1678 (August 5) was
allowed the use of one of the workshops at Christ Church
* Church Bells of Bucks, p, 253,
S

258 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
for casting this bell. Mr. Cocks thought naturally that
Hodson would have taken advantage of Keene's Woodstock
workshop; but if Keene preferred to do his work on the
spot so as to regard it as his own, for there exists " Ric'*.
Keene, his bill for worke done at his furnises at Christ
church," his more fortunate successor would be sure to follow
his example. There is no charge for land or water carriage
by either Keene or Hodson, whereas when Rudhall did some
similar work in 1741, there is a separate bill for wharfage,
amounting to £4 i6s. 6d. The spot is indicated by the old
name. Bell ,Yard, which became afterwards School Quad
rangle, given up for a consideration for the use of two of the
Canons. The inscription is —
MAGNVS • THOMAS • CLVSIVS • OXONIENSIS
RENATVS • APRILIS • VIII • ANNO • MDCLXXX
REGNANTE • CAROLO ¦ II • DECANO • JOANNE *
OXON • EPISCOPO • SVBDECANO • GVL • JANE
SS • TH • P • THESAVRARIO • HEN • SMITH • SS
TH • P • CVRA ¦ ET • ARTE • CHRIST • HODSON t
With regard to St. Paul's Cathedral, I am unable to give
any notes about bells before the fire of 1666. When in
1698 a clochard opposite Westminster Hall gate was taken
down after having been given by William III. to St.
Margaret's parish, its great bell, weighing 4 tons 2 cwt,
77 lbs, was sold to St. Paul's at lod. per pound. It was broken
near Temple Bar in its transit, and recast by Richard Phelps
in 17 16, with additional metal, so as to weigh 5 tons 2 cwt
50 lbs. Dr. Parr did not admire it, pronouncing its tone " not
fine." There can be no question, however, as to the present
* The well-known Dr. Fell.
t Much of this information was procured for me by my old pupil, George
Colborne, Ph.D., with kind help of the Christ Church authorities.

SIGNA 259
" Great Paul," which came from the well-tried Loughborough
foundry in 1881. Its note is E[j, its diameter is 114I inches,
and its weight i6 tons 14 cwt. 75 lbs. This is truly a
"record." An interesting account of its conveyance from
Loughborough to London may be found in Tyack's Book
about Bells.* The tenor of the peal of twelve, given by the
Corporation of London, weighs 3 tons 2 cwt.
At Westminster the fate of the original " Big Ben " was a
melancholy one. Many will remember the great attention
given to it by Sir Edmund Beckett Denison, afterwards
Lord Grimthorpe. It was cast by Messrs. Warner and Son,
of the Crescent Foundry, Cripplegate and Stockton-on-
Tees, in 1856, with an estimated diameter of 9 feet, and
weight of 14 tons. There were some curious stories afloat
about its being found to be cracked. When broken up, it
was recast by the Mears brothers at Whitechapel, with a
slightly reduced weight and diameter, and a remarkable
reduction in the weight of the clapper — 6 cwt. instead
of a ton.
Peter of Gloucester is notable for being a survival of a
signum. The date is, I should say, pretty early in the
fifteenth century. It bears two large shields, flower-bordered
above, of which one bears two keys saltireways and a sword
in pale for St. Peter, and the other a foundry stamp of three
bells, also a hexameter —
jne • fecit ¦ fieri • Conventus • nomine • Petri.
The diameter is 5 feet 8J inches, and the weight 2 tons,
18 cwt " Short was my life, longer my rest may be," might
have been the motto of the Manchester Town Hall bell, a
"' Page 105.

26o THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
beautiful Loughborough cast in 1876. It first gave voice
on New Year's Day, 1879. but its last note was uttered
on May 20, 1880. The clock hammer, again, was the fatal
instrument, the crack being 3J inches from the dent caused
by the hammer. Its weight was 6 tons 9 cwt, and its
diameter 7 feet 5 inches. In 1882 it was recast at Lough
borough with additional metal, to the same note, G. Though
its diameter is increased only by 2j inches, its weight is now
8 tons 2 cwt 84 lbs.
Worcester owes to the Rev. Canon Richard Cattley its
grand hour bell, and much else. Four of a discordant eight
were purchased by Lord Amherst of Hackney, and stand on
the floor of Didlington Church, Norfolk. The largest only
weighs about 16 cwt, but is notable in lettering and stamps.
The smallest, very long waisted, seems to belong to the ring
placed in the cathedral in 1220. There is no record of an early
signum. The present one is from Messrs. Taylor, 6 ft 4I in,
in diameter, and weighing 4 tons 10 cwt Its date is 1868,
and it bears as an appropriate motto, " Surge qui dormis et
exsurge a mortuis et illuminabit te Christus."
The name of St, John of Beverley, ,Archbishop of York,
687-718, is now celebrated by the great bell of Beverley
Minster, hanging in the south tower. This is another of the
Loughborough glories, cast in 1902, weighing 7 tons 3 qrs,
I lb. ; note G ; diameter, 7 ft. 3 in. A MS. quoted by
Leland speaks of a church earlier than the Archbishop's days.
In 1664, the venerable man's tomb was discovered, with a
leaden plate bearing a long inscription. From it we find that
the church was burnt down on September 22, n88, and that
remains of the Archbishop were discovered on March 10,
II 97, and re-interred. But though the investigator is
debarred from following the Beverley relics into this remote

SIGNA 261
period, it is a satisfaction to find that something has been
preserved from mediaeval days. Ellacombe, in his Miscel
laneous Scraps,* appended to the Devonshire book, has
engraved a beautiful cross and word-stop from a bell (he
does not say which) at St. Mary's, Beverley.
"¦ Page 512.

CHAPTER XVII
CARILLONS, HAND-BELLS, AND TINTINNABULA
IT has been seen that perfect freedom as to the succession
of musical notes in rings of bells cannot be attained by
any system of ringing, or even by the swing of chiming.
Percussion, however liable to abuse, must be the method
used ; and external percussion, the most primitive of all
causes of sound from metal, is the only course open to
those who will adopt mechanical agency for the purpose.
Great uncertainty prevails as to the dates of the water-clock
and the wheel-and-weight clock, nor can we assign the
appearance of the second train of wheels, for striking purposes,
to any definite time. Hour-striking, no doubt, had to suffice
for the use of bells in clocks for many years. Then, as
machinery improved, the pleasure of hearing familiar pieces
of music, or others likely to win their way and so become
familiar, was gratified by the introduction of a third train
of wheels. Doubtless many a time before this invention
came into play, ingenious sextons or their deputies " clocked "
the bells, and played such tunes as the numbers and notes
allowed ; doubtless, also, many are the ancient bells which
thus " perished in the using," But with the introduction of
the third train of wheels and the chime-barrel with its pegs,
worked from them, came a support for the hammer. In this
way the tower bells, which have for decades " contrived a
262

INTERIOR OF TURRET WITH BELL AND CLOCKWORK
ILLUSTKATING -STATEMENT THAT THE DIVINITY REGULATES THE 'i'lME AND ACTIONS
OF HUIMANITY AFTER THE FASHION OF A CLOCK

FROM THE EPISTLE OF OTHEA, WORKS OF CHRISTINE DE I'ISAU ;
Harl. MS. 4431, f. g6b

FIFTEENTH CENTURY

CARILLONS 2b3
double debt to pay," may continue so to do without much
fear of a collapse, a sufficient turn of the striking-place pre
venting too much impression being made on one spot by the
constant blows of the hammer.
That the mediaeval method was mainly identical with
that of the present day is shown by the will of that sub
stantial citizen of Bury St Edmund's quoted in Chapter IX.
The arrangements there transcribed from the will must have
been of the later Plantagenet time, like others which are
dignified with the title " Catholic Practice." The music for
" Al Lenton Requiem," the short Requiem, I have not been
able to find. No mention of chimes occurs in John Myrc's
Instructions for Parish Priests, or in The Lay Folks' Mass
Book, both published by the Early English Text Society.
The former was edited by Mr, Edward Peacock, F.S.A.,
from Cotton MS. Claudius A., II. It is a valuable work,
evidently issuing from the mind and heart of a man anxious
not only about correct ritual, but also concerning the spiritual
work of the clergy. The editor says that the copy in the
British Museum, from which his imprint was made, is in his
opinion "not later than the year 1450, perhaps a little earlier ;
but the language is of a somewhat older date." The Lay
Folks' Mass Book is printed from four MSS., edited by
Canon Simmons, with various readings from two others.
MS. A was transcribed for him from the Advocates' Library,
Edinburgh, by my cousin, the late Rev. T. Milville Raven ;
B is in the British Museum, from the King's Library; C,
written for the Cistercian Abbey of Rievaulx, is in the
Library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and is the only
one without a prayer for the Queen. Canon Simmons, there
fore, assigns to it a date between the death of Joan of
Navarre, widow of Henry IV., in 1437, and the marriage of

264 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Henry VI. with Margaret of Anjou in 1445. A referred to
the early part of the sixteehth century, is in the Cambridge
University Library ; E seems nearly a century earlier. It is
in the Library of Gonville and Caius College, and incorporated
with it is a calendar in the same handwriting, headed : " This
Kalender hath his begynnyng in the yere of oure Lorde
Ihesu a Mill cccc. xl. and iiij." F was copied by Pro
fessor Skeat from a MS., the property of Mr. Henry Yates
Thompson, of Thingwall, Liverpool, and is apparently of
about the same date as E. It seems strange that in not one
of these is any allusion to such a Trental as John Baret's ;
but perhaps the custom was local.
Though I have used the word Carillon as the keyword of
this chapter, it is not to be found in Johnson's Dictionary.
Carol is spelt with an i in the late mediaeval Manipulus
Vocabulorum, but the more modern quadrigtio derivation given
by Tyack * may be the origin of the word carillon, not noticed
by Thomas Blount in his Glossographia, " interpreting all such
Hard Words of Whatsoever Language now used in our
refined English Tongue" (2nd Ed,, 1661). This Italian
term seems to have first of all indicated the music for a
dance in which four persons could take a part, a quadrille.
In France its derivative, the subject of our investigation,
sometimes means the tune played, but more often the little
bells on which it is played. When a keyboard like that of a
piano is used, it is called le carillon a clavier.
Many chimes of the type provided by John Baret's will
disappeared at the Reformation, though quarter-chimes, and
perhaps something more, survived in a few places ; and the
revival of tunes may be traced to the reaction after the
dull days of the Commonwealth. There were chimes at
* A Book about Bells, p, 272,

CARILLONS 265
Grantham in 1646, for the Corporation in that year issued an
order for their protection. The belfry door was to be locked
on Shrove Tuesday because " an innumerable concourse of
old and young," under the influence of pancakes and more,
used to " jangle the bells and break the chime wires," * The
Doncaster chimes were entrusted with the clock to the care of
one Christopher Shaw at an Archidiaconal Visitation in i69i,t
As eights came in more and more, the carillon system extended
itself accordingly,' tunes being used which had no modulation.
A good instance is Holbeach, specified thus on a brass
plate in the. tower : —

W"-- Stukeley, Esq :

Capt. Edw. Northon

i" Ladies of London

tn

2^ Riggadoon

A ^

3'^ Oswald's Air
4"' Lovely Nancy

i2
S S 8
¦^ iJ '7
W -o Z

5'" Lady Chatham's Jigg
6'" Seely's Gavott (?)
7* Three Gen= Healths
8'" A Minuet by Norris
9"' 113 Psalm

g "S ¦T3" '-'
^^< 0 ^

The William Stukeley here named was probably the
well-known antiquary, who had been in practice as a surgeon
at Holbeach, Boston, and Grantham, and died Rector of St.
George the Martyr, Queen Square, London, in 1770, Other
names of notables in various departments of learning are
connected with chimes.
At St Mary the Great, Cambridge, the chimes, for which
* Page 177. t Page 273.

266

THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

;^69 19s. id. had been collected in 1673, became discontinued
when Phelps cast the eight middle bells of the present twelve
in 1722. In March, 1793, the University agreed to put up a
new clock, and arrangement was made for quarter-chimes.^
The whole work was completed in about eleven months. As
the melody of these chimes is of world-wide fame, I give the
history, as I derived it from Mr. Amps, then organist of
Christ's College, to whom it came from Mr. Pratt, formerly
organist of King's. At this time Dr. Jowett was Regius
Professor of Laws, and Dr. Randall Regius Professor of
Music, Crotch and Pratt being among his pupils. Jowett
was an expert mechanician, and took the warmest interest in
the new clock. The University authorities largely trusted to
him, and he is credited with having taken young Crotch into
his counsels. This precocious prodigy, only eighteen, but in
his fifteenth year of instrumental performance, was said to
have taken a movement in the fifth bar of the opening
symphony of Handel's sublime air, " I know that my
Redeemer liveth," and expanded it into the system of chimes
to which few who travel are strangers —
Quarter.

-t

f^^>

't^

-P-^-

i

Half.

W-

-F— =q^

\=l

t^

Mzi

zwr^

W=^-

1^^

Three-quarters.

^

^ift

WEL^.

fjiz^t

e±

r^-,

I^^Lz:

Hour.

-P:^:^

i

=p:r

3

^1

^p^?:

Ife5l=^

=t=t

Hour.

CARILLONS

267

" It was said by Mr. Pratt that when the chimes were first
heard they were thought so strange that they were nick
named 'Jowett's Hornpipe.' Very few, except those who
had known Crotch, were aware that he had anything to do
with their composition, and till they were copied for the
Royal Exchange their merits were but little appreciated.
But now they sound from many towers and are dear to many
ears, and Crotch and Jowett may say in the words of
iEneas, ' Quae regis in terris nostri non plena laboris ? ' " *
The arrangement is such that the chime-barrel revolves
twice in an hour. The first revolution takes five move
ments — one from the first quarter, two from the second, and
the former two out of the three of the third ; the second
revolution these same movements again, and in the same
order — the last of the third quarter, and the four for the hour.
The same double-revolution-in-an-hour scheme was
adopted by another great musician. Sir John Stainer, for the
" Tennyson " Chimes, which first sounded from Freshwater
Church in the Isle of Wight.
Quarter.

i

^»:i=

5

i

Half.

1=^-

1^^^

i2:i

^

i*ii;

Three-quarters.

m

@^

iz*;

:^:

S

at^:

id:*.

Hour.

m

m=^^^i^-^=^

-.^.

i

j=n

ti=T

=^=

*--^

lid:*:

Hour.

* Church Bells of Cambridgeshire, p. 106.

268

THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

Other beautiful compositions are the " Derby " Chimes
for ten bells, the machinery by the famous firm of John
Smith and Sons of that town. Here the twice-in-an-hour
revolution is used ; and the " Chard " Chimes for eight bells,
in which there is no such repetition.
Messrs. Gillett and Bland, of Croydon, have also done
much excellent work of this kind, notably for the carillon at
Boston, consisting (with the octave of peal bells) of forty-four
bells ; thirty-six smaller ones and the tenor, weighing 28 cwt.
I qr, 11 lb., from the foundry of Mons. A. L. J. Vanaer-
schodt at Louvain. When this famous tower was struck by
lightning in the storm of August 5, 1900, the bells were not
injured, though the tenor was hurled down, and the frame
shattered. Subjoined is a list of the notes and weights of
the tenants of " Boston Stump," who led the way for other
carillons, as at Eaton Hall, Cheshire, at Chertsey, at Catti-
stock, Dorset, and divers other places.

No.

Note.

Diameter.

Weight.

I

Eb

6|in.

19I lb.

2

D

7 in.

i8i lb.

3

Db

7 in.

18 lb.

4

C

7? in.

i9ilb.

S

B

7f in-

20i lb.

6

Bb

7f in.

20| lb.

7

A

7f in.

20i lb.

8

Ab

7f in.

17I lb.

9

G

Si in.

i9ilb.

10

Gb

8|in.

25I lb. ,

11

F

8|in.

2li lb.

12

E

Sfin.

24| lb.

13

Eb

9f in.

26i lb.

.d
ji
jQ
5
j£
j£
-Q
jd
;9
,
ja
rHl«
• — '
^\e>
£
r^W
Kitji
H|N
HiCI
VO
¦*
i>-
Tj- 00
c<
VO
rti*
.
fO
ON
0
N
M
N
H
rtl*
M
M
M
.Q
-Q
:S
^
;9
a
^
;a
ji
a'
S^
&
S^
c
u"
^
&
S'
a"
&
^
•— *
0
N
CO
U-)
o
o
>o
VO
r--
00
r-lO
' — '
¦Si-
o
M
M
H
CO
0
H
M
to
N
H
N
H
M
w
M
H
N
N
N
N
H
H
r.-.
M
^
_
^
,
+j
-I-*
.J
4J
¦iJ
-4J
4J
+J
.J-J
¦i-t
U
vl
L^
}-4
J-^
^H
)-i
t^
>^
IH
>-3
VJ
^
u
&:
&:
^
&:
^
&
&:
&:
S:
&:
»
a*
C7^
O^
a^
O^
CT-
o^
a"
cr^
O^
cr
a*
CT<
o'
(J
O
0
0
0
b
0
0
0
0
0
H
M
w
H
M
H
iH
H
M
M
N
ro
to
ro
H
M
H
H
H
N
C«
CO
CO
t^
X
00 C4
s
c
G
.2
c
.s
.2
c
d
d
d
_d
_C
_d
d
.2'
.2'
.2'
•
d
.2
d
.2t-loo
OJ
• •-1
• l-H
d
.PH
.2
_d
.s
..-(
C)
s
el»
H*
M|rJ(K|-^
wim
,h|^«C|X
-iTfinW
H«
• i-H
Hcq
t-|M Hlx t-lx eclx
"OlCO
H*
K|.tl
rHin O|a0
:
3
ON
O
o
o
I-l
)-)
M
N
W
N
^
¦+
¦* so
VO
00
00
Ov
H
N
N
¦*
10
*i
Q
M
M
H
H
M
H
H
M
M
M
M
H
M
H
M
H
w
M
N
M
N
N
¦*•
aj
>£i
-il
_Ci
»Ci
-C>
Jb.
_Cv
J^
.C^
JN.
rs .e.
£^
o
iz;
QQUmpp<!<;C30f=HHWQQ
u
pq
m
<i <: 0 0 ft< w
wPum<!c5f=HW
^
^3
TJ
XJ
-d
J3
.g
I-l
3
(U
Ci
^.4
j-i
+j
K
C4
CO
'^
m
VO
t^ D
H
H
Tf
lO
¦o
r^
00
OS
0
M
«
CO
Tl-
in VO
t^
00
cv
0
H
N
CO
rf
in
VO
t^
00
ov
0
H
N
CO ¦*
M
H
I-l
w
M
I-l
M
N
N
N
N
N
N
N
N
N
CO
CO
ro
CO
CO
CO
CO
CO
CO
CO
¦*
¦*
^
Tt- -r
270

THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

The tenor, when I visited the tower in 1868, was rather
over-flattened by chipping, and of the whole thirty-six only
four are " maidens."
The Norwich Cathedral Chimes are on the system of one
revolution of the chime-barrel in the course of an hour. I
am greatly obliged to Mr. C. E. Holden, of that city, for the
detail. They were put up a little more than thirty years ago
at the expense of the late Dean Goulburn and Mrs. Goulburn,
and are said to have been arranged by Precentor Medley.
Quarter.

12345

:#=pf:

1^

pzizii

Half. 54123

:fe^

2 5 3. 4 S

'-^--^t^-

mtiz

W-

i

Three-quarters.
.. *S 4 3 I 5 31

4 3 54235

q=*

^

ES

Hour.

^mm^

5 43241 51234 23451

=1=^.:

i

:i=i=

w

2Z

Hour.

The tenor is in FJ, and the key is FJf Minor.
In the view of ringers these are the first five of a ring
of six, and the tenor would have been E,
In Belgium the Carilloneur with his system of a
manual keyboard and pedals is often proclaiming his skill
and the tunefulness of his bells. Dr. Burney,* travelling on
the Continent in 1772, was rather annoyed at the confusion
caused by the overtones of so many of these bells struck in
* The Present State of Music in Germany, i. i6.

CARILLONS 271
rapid succession. He calls it a " Gothic invention," and a
"barbarous taste," and is pleased that neither French,
English, nor Italians have encouraged it At St Giles's,
Edinburgh, however, is something very much like it. Here
are twenty-three bells arranged outside on the top of the
tower. To prevent " clocking," a spring is attached to each
clapper, and by wires and cranks the whole are connected
with a keyboard manipulated by a lady. One man, Mr.
George Morris, steeple-keeper at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields,
London, used to chime six bells unaided, one on each foot,
one in each hand, one on each elbow ; and having the free
dom which comes of "clocking," he would sound what
sequences he pleased. It is not to be recommended ; but a
few hands can, after a little training, produce a like result
At Harwich, I am told that the favourite tune to Keble's
beautiful hymn, " Sun of my soul. Thou Saviour dear," sounds
out from the tower on Sunday evenings, missing, of course,
the fifth note in the first line.
When a priest was called to Communio Infirmorum, he
caused a handbell to be rung before him ; it was the custom
to muffle this bell in the sick-room, as shown in an illustration
to Clifi"ord's Pontifical, CCC. Camb. (Fig. 8).
The practice of perambulating a town with one bell or
more after a death, or at a funeral, or year-day, was very
general. The will of John Baret again affords an example.
After bequeathing his house to "the priest of Seynt Marie
Churche," on the condition " he to pray for my soule at eu'y
meel, mete, or sopeer, and gif he gynne gracys and sey De
profundis he to reherse my name John Baret openly that they
y' here it may sey God haue mercy on his soul," he arranges
for a year-day procession for his soul, and for " his faderys and
his modrys, the bellemeen to have iiij-^- for that service."

272 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
And in 1510, Jone Mason, of the same town, widow, directs
the bellmen to go about the parish at her anniversary and
earth-tide. A reaction^ however, was setting in, for John
Coote "will neyther ryngyn nor belman goynge," but his
almsgivings and dinners on his thirty day " to be don in secret
manner." Soon it would come to pass that the bellmen
would take care to have their bells in musical sequence, the
principles of tuning being very easily applicable to them.
The excessive vibration if the tongue was off the striking-
place, or the hard dull sound if it was not, would not be
pleasing to the ear.
Another form of bell came in, of a more uniform thick
ness throughout, and springs were placed on each side of the
tongue to keep it off the striking-place after the blow was
given. In this way there came about the present system of
sets of hand-bells, now exquisitely in tune, generally two
bells to a man, by which the dark evenings about Christmas
time are enlivened in town and village. I know of no allusion
to this our present hand-bell ringing even in the Stuart period.
Lord Bacon says, "The strength of the percussion is the
principal cause of the loudness or softness of sounds, as in
ringing of a hand-bell harder or softer," but there is no allusion
to melody ; nor, according to my experience, do any of our
sets of hand-bells now in use indicate an earlier date than the
eighteenth century. The oldest which I can remember was
in West Suffolk, the work of Robert Wells, of Aldbourne in
Wiltshire, probably about 1780. We get some idea of him
from the following extract from the Marlborough Journal
newspaper of Saturday, June 6, 1772, vol. ii. No. 63. Among
the advertisements is —
"At the Bell-Foundery at Aldbourne, Wilts, Church-bells are
cast in a most elegant and as musical a manner as in any Part of

INITIAL LETTERS OF KING PLAYING ON FOUR BELLS, AND OF
BOY PLAYING WITH TWO HAND-BELLS (STORY OF DAVID)
FROM THIRTEENTH CENTURY PSALTER
Add. MS. 30,04s, ff40b, 8b

HAND-BELLS 273
the Kingdom, the Founder having made the Theory of Sounds as
well as the nature of Metal his Chief Study ; Also hangs the same,
finding all Materials in a complete and concise manner ; And also
Hand-Bells prepared and strictly in Tune in any Key. Horse-bells,
Clock and Room Bells, the neatest of their several kinds.
Likewise Mill Brasses Cast and Sold at the lowest Prices.
All orders will be punctually observed by Rob. Wells, Founder.
l^° He gives Ready Money and best Prices for Bell Metal." *
Another founder of hand-bells, to whom not only the ringer
but also the listener owes a debt of gratitude, was Henry
Symondson. His tuneful sets are all over the country, many
bearing his name. Blessed with an excellent ear for music,
he was for some years tuner to good old John Briant, of
Hertford, and after the retirement of the latter and the
break-up of the Hertford foundry, he attached himself to the
Taylor family, witness the inscription on the fourth bell at
Radbourn, Herts —
TAYLOR & SYMONDSON BELL-FOUNDERS
OXFORD, LONDON & LOUGHBORO' 1839.
In the development of the young ringer this hand-bell
discipline is of the greatest service, and among our performers
are now to be numbered several ladies, of whom some have
proceeded to competent tower practice.
"Reversion to type" is not confined to the animal crea
tion, and we must not leave the subject of these smaller
bells without due notice of the existence of crotals in historic
times, and, indeed, at the present day. As yet no one has
arisen to tune them, to the best of my belief ; and as the
quality of sound given forth from their enclosed circum
ferences is of the poorest, perhaps it is not worth the trouble
* Lulcis, Account of Church Bells, p. lo.
T

274 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
to get them into scale. Yet, as in the days of Aaron, small
bells, closed or open, have had their ends to serve, and these
two notices of them may be acceptable.
The first is from Congleton, Cheshire, and I cannot do
better than give it in the words of Mr. Tyack —
" A curious custom formerly prevailed ... on the Eve of Lammas
Day, or S. Peter's Chains (August ist). The chapel of the place—
the parish church being at Astbury — was dedicated in the name of
S. Peter ad Vincula, and consequently the local wake took place on
that day; though (as is the case in so many instances) the altera
tion in the calendar has never been accepted there so far as this name
is concerned, so that Congleton wake now takes place on the 1 2th of
the month. For a long time it was customary for three acolytes to
parade the town at midnight on the vigil, girt about with leather belts
to which were hung a number of globular bells. The ceremony was
known as ' ringing S. Peter's chains,' and ended with an address at
the Market-cross on the duties of the coming festival. The bells, or
' chains,' fell afterwards into lay hands, and were used in a fashion
more provocative of tipsy jollity than of devotion ; so that finally the
town authorities interposed, and took possession of the bells. They
are now preserved at Congleton, among other relics of the past, by
the corporation." *
The county is marked by another old crotal custom, of
a more specifically mundane character, this being at Chester
itself. Lysons, the county historian, thus describes it — t
" In 1609, Mr. William Lester, mercer, beinge Mayor of Chester,
and Mr. Robert Amerye, ironmonger, Sherife of the city, at his own
coste chief, did cause three silver cuppes or bells, to be made, of good
value, which bells he appointed to be run for with horses, upon St.
George's Daye, upon the Roode-Dee ; that horse which did over rune
the rest to have the best bell ; the seconde to have the seconde bell
for that year, putting in money, and for to  and shuerties to deliver
in the bells that day twelvemonth."
* A Book about Bells, p. 269. f Page 588.

TINTINNABULA'

'¦7S

The other bell was run for the same day upon the like
conditions. " Among the Corporation records are some old articles of a race
for two bells ; and likewise for a cup to be rung for at the rings ; the
bell appears to have been first given for a prize at the horse races at
Chester in 1512. From this custom of running for a bell as a prize
arose, it is probable, the proverb, ' to bear the bell.' "
A late mediaeval development of the small - bell use
shall close this chapter — the " Jack o' th' Clock." Those at
St Paul's perished, of course, in the fire of 1666. Those
at St. Dunstan's were sold when the church was pulled down
in 1830. Oxford, Horsham, Norwich, had
them ; and they still remain at Norwich.
In Suffolk there are two, very near each
other, one in the parish church of Blyth-
burgh, the other in Southwold church
(Fig. 50). In the last case a gift from a
guild may be conjectured ; and I should
assign the date to the latter part of
the fifteenth century. There is another
early seventeenth-century Jack, in yeoman
costume, on the fine rood-screen of the
church of Minehead, Somerset, known as
"Jack Hammer." One of the Dukes of
Burgundy brought from Courtray to Dijon
a celebrated clock which has two figures, a man and a
woman, who strike the hours from one to twenty-four.
The name commonly given to these figures is Jacquemart,
which thus passed over the water and became our "Jack
o' th' Clock," Some controversy has arisen over the origin of
Jacquemart. One derivation was jacco marchiardus, a Low-
latin word for a coat of mail {jacque de mailles). Plausible

Fig. 50.

276 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
as this may seem, a less philological origin may commend
itself to the reader, the clock-maker Jacques Marck, or
Jacquemart. It has been shown that there was a man of
this name and calling at Lille in 1422, himself apparently
a grandson of one of the same name, living at Courtray in
1360.* By the time of Elizabeth Jack o' th' Clock had
become a " household word." Thrice does Shakespeare
make use of it. He puts it into the mouth of Richard IL,
who says — " My time
Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,
While I stand fooling here, his Jack o' th' Clock." t
The great dramatist turns all nationalities into the English
man ; and we feel no surprise when in Coriolanus, J Mene-
nius Agrippa, stopped by the guard at the Volscian camp,
and then rather unexpectedly addressed by Coriolanus, says,
" Now, you companion, I'll say an errand for you ; you shall
know now that I am in estimation ; you shall perceive that
a jack guardant cannot office me from my son Coriolanus."
In Richard III. \ Jack comes in splendidly —

" Buck. My Lord,-

K. Rich. Ay, what's o'clock ?
Buck. I am thus bold to put your grace in mind
Of what you promised me.
K. Ricli. Well, but what's o'clock ?
Buck. Upon the stroke of ten.
K. Rich. Well, let it strike.
Buck. Why, let it strike ?
K. Rich. Because that, like a Jack, thou keep'st the stroke
Betwixt thy begging and my meditation.
lam not in the giving vein to-day."
* See Lacroix, Les Arts de Moyen Age (Paris, i86g).
t Act v. sc. 5. X Act v. sc, 2, § Act iv, sc, 2.

CHAPTER XVIII
LEGENDS— TRADITIONS— MEMORIES
IN point of antiquity no object found in bell-marks can
compare with the Fylfot It is in truth a marvellous
survival. Six centuries before the Christian era,
under the name Swastika, it was recognized as a Buddhist
symbol. Next we find it as the hammer of Thor, in Scandi
navian mythology. This instrument, also called Mjolner,
had the peculiarity of returning to the hand of the god after
having been thrown forth by him. It survived the extinction
of Thor-worship, regarded as a general representation of
strength and power, and appears in monumental brasses, on
the earliest in England, that of Sir John D'Abernon senior
(1277), at Stoke D'Abernon, Surrey, as also on that of Thomas
de Hop (1320), at Kemsing, near Sevenoaks, and at a church
in Essex.* It was reserved for Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt, in his
papers on the " Church Bells of Derbyshire," \ which he kindly
sent to me, first to discover the fylfot on bells. Connected
with Thor, it was readily connected with the thunder of Thor's
chariot, and as the power of bells in quelling thunderstorms
was unquestioned, it is no matter for surprise that some
founders adopted it as a quasi-heraldic " charge " in their
* "St. Leigh's" (whatever it may mean). North's Church Bells of Lincoln
shire, p. 83.
t Reliquary, July, 1872, et seq. 277

278 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
shield-shaped marks. " Fulgura frango," in the old hexa
meters did not entirely give way to " Sabbata pango."
Four several fylfot-charged shields are engraved in The
Reliquary, two with the symbol under the initials G. H,,
one under the initials R, H., and one under g, with a bell
under R, and a double cross in pale. All these connect^them-
selves with a foundry at Chesterfield, under one Ralph
Hethcote, whose will is dated 1502. His son, Ralph IL, died
in 1525, and another son, George, in 1558. There was also
another George, son of Ralph II. None of the fylfot bells
are dated. The Thor symbol also occurs in the letter D,
used instead of an initial cross on the fifth bell at Appleby,
Lincolnshire, which also has an imperfect shield-stamp re
sembling that used by Thomas Bett of Leicester who died in
1538. So far as we can'judge, no bells, save in the early half
of the sixteenth century, have the fylfot, and these as yet are
confined to Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and Stafford
shire, those in the last county being at Blithfield and Ellastone,
both deserving further investigation. For a similar origin,
Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt compares a mermaid, with a comb in
her left hand and a mirror in her right hand, found at Appleby,
Derbyshire. He notes, however, the appearance of this
personage on tiles at St. Alban's and elsewhere. Perhaps in
the Derbyshire instance it may be the crest of the Vernon
family, so well known in those parts.
Richard of Cirencester, in his Speculum* hands on a story
about the Cambrian Saint Illtyd, said to have been ordained
by Dubricius, Bishop of Llandaff, and to have led a holy life,
adorned with divers miracles, in South Wales —
" Tradunt Historise Brittanicse et Vita Sti, Eltuti, quod cum Rex
Edgarus regionem Glamorganensium propter eorum inobedientiam
* III. 23.

LEGENDS— TRADITIONS— MEMORIES 279
devastaret, ablata fuit nola S, Eltuti, et in coUo cuiusque equi
suspensa. Qua de causa regi Edgaro hora meridiana quiescenti
apparuit quidam pectus regis percutiens lancea. Unde post somnum
iussit rex ut rapta restitueretur."
Mr. Rees gives the following in his translation of the Life
of St Illtyd, now in the British Museum : " Many scholars
flowed to him, of which were these four, Samson, Paulinus.
Gildas, and David ; being learned they studied deeply, and
many others like them," Well might a bell bear his name,
for, like many of his kind, he had a miraculous bell of his own.
He fled from royal persecution, to the great sorrow of his
people. While they were indulging in lamentations,
" a certain person passed by who was a messenger of Gildas the
historian, carrying a brazen bell, which was made by the said Gildas,
to be brought to Saint David, a bishop, as a present in memory of
former acquaintance and friendship, and as he passed by the cave,
which was near the public road, the bell sounded without being
moved by any human being. And Illtyd hearing the sweet sound
came to the person who carried the bell, and proved the sweetness
of the sound by moving it three times, and enquired of him where he
was going, and from whom he carried the beautiful bell, which was
more valuable than gold ; who answering said, ' I am going, and do
carry this bell to Saint David, by the order of the celebrated Gildas.'
Having mentioned this he departed, and came to the valley of
Menavia, and presented the Bishop with the gift. When given, he
moved the bell, but from the motion given it returned no sound ;
and the Bishop, being surprised at the wonderful circumstance, en
quired of the messenger whether it had been moved and proved by
any one on the way as he came. He being asked mentioned what
had happened, as above related, and the Bishop befieving it to be
truly told said, ' I know that our master Illtyd wished to possess it
on account of the sweetness of its sound, but he would not ask for it,
having heard that it was sent to me as a gift from Gildas ; but the
Lord is not willing that I should have it ; return therefore to the cave

28o THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
without delay, and give to Saint Illtyd the aforesaid article, which he
wished to have.' The messenger then returned to Illtyd, and executed
the Bishop's orders, and left there its solitary inhabitant, who received
the frequent visits of angels."
This being an ante-Conquestal story, I assign an early
place in the chapter to it, and turn to the mediaeval and
Tudor-period notices of the influence of bells on thunder
storms, as bearing on our opening theme. The Scandinavian
hammer idea certainly did not hold undisputed sway, that of
the Divine message, as it were through a trumpet, commend
ing itself more to the people. Thus in the Golden Legend
Wynkyn de Worde says —
"It is said ye evil spirytes that ben in ye region of ye ayre
doubte moche whan they here the belles ringen ; and this is ye cause
why the belles ringen whan it thundreth, and whan grete tempeste
and rages of wether happen, to ye ende that ye feinds and wycked
spirytes should ben abashed and flee and cease of ye movynge of
tempeste." Without bringing in diabolical agency, it is quite possible
that the atmospheric vibration caused by the ringing of bells,
especially large ones, may not be without effect on impending
clouds charged with electricity, especially if it be resorted to
while the clouds are yet coming together. More experiments
are needed in this matter.
There are few West-Country legends better known than
that of "The Silent Tower of Bottreau by the Severn Sea,"
the title used by that brilliant but somewhat erratic poet,
Robert Stephen Hawker, Vicar of Morwenstow. The story
shall first be given in his own words — *
? Echoes from Old Cornwall, p. 28.

LEGENDS— TRADITIONS— MEMORIES 281

' Tintadgel bells ring o'er the tide !
The boy leans on his vessel's side,
He hears that sound, and dreams of Home
Soothe the wild orphan of the foam.
' Come to thy God in time ! '
Thus saith their pealing chime ;
' Youth, manhood, old age past,
' Come to thy God at last ! '

' But why are Bottreau's echoes still ?
Her tower stands proudly on the hill ; —
Yet the strange chough that home hath found.
The lamb lies sleeping on the ground.
' Come to thy God in time ! '
Should be her answering chime ;
' Come to thy God at last ! '
Should echo on the blast.
3
" The ship rode down with courses free,
The daughter of a distant sea.
Her sheet was loose, her anchor stor'd.
The merry Bottreau-bells on board : —
' Come to thy God in time ! '
Rung out Tintadgel chime ;
Youth, manhood, old age past,
' Come to thy God at last ! '
4
" The pilot heard his native bells
Hang on the breeze in fitful swells ;
' Thank God ! ' with reverent brow, he cried,
' We make the shore with evening's tide.'

282 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
' Come to thy God in time ! '
It was his marriage chime ;
' Youth, manhood, old age past ! '
His bell must ring at last.

" ' Thank God ! thou whining knave, on land.
But thank, at sea, the steersman's hand, —
The captain's voice above the gale, —
Thank the good ship and ready sail ! '
' Come to thy God in time ! '
Sad grew the boding chime ;
' Come to thy God at last ! '
Boom'd heavy on the blast.

' Up rose that sea as if it heard
The Mighty Master's signal word !
What thrills the captain's whitening lip ?
The death-groans of his sinking ship !
' Come to thy God in time ! '
Swung deep the funeral chime ;
' Grace, mercy, kindness past.
Come to thy God at last ! '

' Long did the rescued pilot tell.
When gray hairs o'er his forehead fell.
While those around would hear and weep,
That fearful judgment of the deep !
' Come to thy God in time ! '
He read his native chime ;
' Youth, manhood, old age past ! '
His bell would ring at last.

LEGENDS— TRADITIONS— MEMORIES 283
8
" Still when the storm of Bottreau's waves
Is waking in his weedy caves,
Those bells, that sullen surges hide.
Peal their deep tones beneath the tide.
' Come to thy God in time ! '
Thus saith the ocean-chime ;
' Storm, billow, whirlwind past.
Come to thy God at last ! ' "
The account given by Wilkie Collins* adds some un
certain detail, as that Tintagel bells had rung for Arthur's
funeral There is an allusion to the transmigration of the
Royal Soul in the form of the Cornish chough in Hawker's
suppressed Records of the Western Shore, if my memory does
not deceive me —
" And mark that bird of sable hue,
Talons and beak all red with blood —
The spirit of the long-lost King
Passed in that shape from Camlan's flood."
Forrabury Church, unquestionably the " Bottreau " of Hawker,
a name taken from the great family of the place, certainly
had three bells in 1553, as testified by the Edwardian
inventory. This, of course, taken by itself, would not be
conclusive against the legend. The tower is a well-known
landmark, standing about 350 feet above sea-level, and
surrounded by common land and pasture.
Romantic narratives about stolen bells are endless. I
give one that I picked up while walking over the Dorset
Downs from Blandford to Damerham in the autumn of 1852.
I had shaped my course by Horton to see Monmouth's ash on
* Rambles beyond Railways, pp, 248-250.

284 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Horton heath, and. noticing a small ruined tower, I asked a
man whom I met what place it was, and found that it was
Knowlton. He also told me that at a very distant period
there was a valuable bell in that tower, so much so that it
excited the cupidity of some fellows, who planned to steal it,
take it to the coast, and having crossed the Channel, sell it in
France, This, considering the loneliness of the church, would
be no very difficult matter ; but somehow, after they had got
the bell out of the tower, they were discovered, pursued, and
overtaken at the bridge of Sturminster Marshall, and being
unable to proceed further with it, they threw it into the Stour,
and made off. The Knowlton people let down ropes and
pulled it up nearly within reach of hand, when down it went,
without there being any apparent reason for the ropes
breaking. A second and a third attempt were attended with
the same result, till, weary and dispirited, they gave it up, and
returned to Knowlton. The old man said that there was a
verse extant to the effect that —
" All the devils in hell.
Could never pull up Knowlton bell."
Thus runs the story in my MS. A., containing my juvenile
researches, with my comment, " The tale seems to me very
pointless and incomplete." This is a not unfair specimen of
the kind of tradition about stolen bells. The Dorset historian,
Hutchins, may be consulted for a more prosaic version, possibly
more accurate.
At Worcester a Dane is said to have stolen a heavy
sanctus bell, to have been caught and flayed alive by the
people. Some of the traditional skin is, I believe, yet to
be seen on an old door in the Cathedral Library. Sanctus
bells, by the way, are notoriously not heavy. The Jersey

LEGENDS— TRADITIONS— MEMORIES 285
episode is another example of the disregard of all proba
bilities, even in the part of the history which need not be
incredible. All the twelve churches in the island are credited
with beautiful and intrinsically precious rings of bells. These
the states determined to sell in order to raise money for war
expenses. They were accordingly collected. Allowing for
only five bells for each tower, there would have been a
good three-score of them, and if they were so beautiful in
sound, 6 cwt. would be quite a low estimate for an average
weight At this rate there would have been at least 18 tons
of metal shipped for France. The ship foundered, and the
bells went to the bottom. Here the credible gives way to the
incredible. To this day, when a storm is impending, their
sound comes up from the briny depths, and it is said that the
fishermen of St. Ouen's Bay always go down to the beach
before starting on one of their expeditions to listen for " the
bells upon the wind." If their tones are heard they will not
leave the shores, but if there is silence they embark without
hesitation. One who took the trouble to hear the story on
the spot has gracefully put it into verse —
" 'Tis an omen of death to the mariner
Who wearily fights with the sea.
For the foaming surge is his winding-sheet,
And his funeral knell are we ; — ¦
His funeral knell our passing bell.
And his winding-sheet the sea,"
This legend is quoted by Ellacombe in the Miscellaneous
Scraps, appended to his Church Bells of Devon* from an
article in the Penny Post,] written evidently by an enthusiast
in campanalogical traditions, who, in several points, improved
* Page 445, t VIIL 31,

286 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
considerably upon Sir Henry Spelman's relation of the same
incident. The great antiquary tells us that —
" at the end of Queen Mary*s days Sir Hugh Paulet pulled down
the bells of the churches of Jersey ; and sending them to S. Malo's
in Bretagne, fourteen of them were drowned at the entrance to that
harbour. Whereupon it is a bye-word at this day in those parts,
when any strong east wind bloweth there, to say, ' The bells of Jersey
now ring.' "
This is a specimen of the way in which a story gathers
bulk and colour as the years pass by.
Another drowned bell is recorded in Spelman's History
and Fate of Sacrilege. He was born at Congham, Norfolk,
in 1564, and tells us that in his childhood he had heard " much
talk of the pulling down of bells " in his native county, and
" that in sending them over sea, some were drowned in one
haven, some in another, as at Lynn, Wells or Yarmouth."
This talk did not appear to have made much impression
upon him at the time, but, he continues —
" The truth of it was lately discovered by God Himself; for that
He, sending such a dead neap (as they call it) as no man living was
known to have seen the like, the sea fell so far back from the land at
Hunstanton that the people, going much further to gather oysters
than they had done at any time before, they there found a bell with
the mouth upward, sunk into the ground to the very brim. They
carried the news thereof to Sir Hamon L'Estrange, lord of the town,
who shortly after sought to have weighed up and gained the bell ;
but the sea never since going so far back, they hitherto could not find
the place again ; " adding, " This relation I received from Sir Hamon
himself, being my brother-in-law."
He had married a daughter of John L'Estrange, of
Hunstanton. It is melancholy to find the episcopal oflfice degraded by

LEGENDS— TRADITIONS— MEMORIES 287
these venal and dishonest transactions, a& in the case of Arthur
Bulkeley, Bishop of Bangor. No sooner was he raised to his
high oflfice, in 1541, than he sold the" five fair bells belonging
to his cathedral, and went to the sea-side to see them shipped
away ; but at that instant was stricken blind, and so continued
to the day of his death." This Spelman calls " a sad peal at
parting," and compares the stroke of blindness to that " where
with Alcimus the high-priest was stricken, for offering some
sacrilegious violence to the temple.* These Bangor bells, be
it observed, seem to have reached their destination safely.
At Crosmere, Salop, the writer in the Penny Post already
mentioned gives a tradition of a submerged chapel in one of
the lakes in the parish, adding that " the villagers still tell how
that constantly the bells may be heard ringing beneath the
still waters." He also records cases of bells heard under
ground in Notts, Essex, and Lancashire. The first is near
Raleigh, where, centuries ago, a whole village with its church
is believed to have been swallowed up by an earthquake. In
days long ago the people used to assemble on Christmas Day
in this valley to listen to the ringing of the buried bells, audible,
it was said, if only you would put your ear to the ground and
attend carefully. Within the last half-century the old people
would encourage their young friends to go to the valley and
hear the merry ringing. So too at Romford, where the old
church was pulled down towards the close of the fifteenth
century, the site is still preserved in the name " Old Church,"
retained by a meadow. Here on St, Andrew's Day the
cheerful bells are alleged to have been heard, and a similar
tradition pertains to a place called " The Church " at Kilgrimel,
near Blackpool, where Christmas Eve is the time for listening.
* Pages 211, 212. Cf. I Mace. ix. 55 ; Jos., Ant., xii. lo. 6. In both of
these places sleeplessness is recorded, not blindness.

288 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Another of these terrible stories comes from a village in
East Norfolk, on a tongue of land between the rivers Bure
and Wensum and on the edge of the marsh. It was till
recent days the parish of Tunstall or Tonstall, but is now
united to Halvergate. The tower is in ruins, as the vicar,
the Rev. H, Dallimore, tells me. A tradition, however, exists
about the bells, which appeared in The Quarterly Review,
and is still a matter of common talk in the parish. The
Review version of it runs —
"According to a tradition at Tunstall in Norfolk the Church
wardens and Parson disputed for the possession of some bells which
had become useless because the tower wasiburnt, while the ' Quarrel '
was in progress the Arch-fiend stepped in and carried off the bells.
The Parson pursued him with hot haste and much Latin, but the
evil one dived into the earth with his ponderous burthen, and the
place where he disappeared is marked by a boggy pool, popularly
known by the name of Hell Hole. Notwithstanding the aversion
of the powers of darkness to such sounds, even these bells are
sometimes permitted to favour their native place with a ghostly
peal." This legend is also related by Tyack,* who adds a most
convincing piece of evidence : " Of all this there is ample
proof; you have but to go to Hell-hole and there you will
frequently see bubbles rising from the surface of the water ;
which show conclusively that the bells are sinking, ever
sinking, down to the bottomless pit."
Mr. Walters, in his Church Belts of Shropshire^ records a
ringing custom at Wentnor, which, according to the Rev. H.
North's notes, was called a " Dead Man's Peal," rung annually
on Church Stretton Fair Day, the last Thursday in November,
in memory of one Smith of Wentnor, who lost his way and
* A Book about Bells, p. 284. f Page 190.

LEGENDS— TRADITIONS— MEMORIES 289
his life in crossing the Longmynd at that time of the year.
The family left an annual sum for the ringers for this office,
in order that the sound of the bells might be a guide to
travellers crossing the hills. The money seems to be lost,
but the ringers out of good will continue the traditional peal.
The death of Bishop Grosseteste in 1253 was related to
have been marked by mysterious ringing. Matthew Paris, on
the authority of John de Crackale, a clerk in the Bishop's
confidence, and of good repute with all his acquaintance, tells
how Fulco Basset, Bishop of London, happened to be in the
neighbourhood of Buckden, Hunts, the residence of Bishops
of Lincoln at the time, and heard the melodious sound as it
were of a great convent bell coming from the sky, there being
no convent near.
" On the same night," he proceeds, " also certain Minorites, who
were journeying in haste towards Buckden, where Robert Bishop of
Lincoln then was, — for he was a comforter and father to the
Franciscans and Dominicans — lost their way in the royal forest of
Wauberge, and while wandering about, heard in the air a sound as
of bells, amongst which they clearly distinguished one bell of sweeter
note than any they had heard before. When the dawn appeared
they met some foresters, of whom, after obtaining directions to
enable them to regain the right road, they inquired what meant that
solemn peal of bells which they had heard in the direction of
Buckden ; to which the foresters replied that they had not heard,
and did not then hear anything, though the sound still greatly filled
the air. Greatly wondering, the brethen made their way to Buckden,
and were there told that at the very time of night when they had
heard those melodious sounds the Bishop of Lincoln had breathed
forth his happy spirit." *
At Lincoln itself a similar manifestation is recorded as at
the burial of the child-martyr, Hugh, when —
* Hist. Maj. V. 408, translated by Stevenson, Grosseteste, p. 405.

290 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
" A' the bells of merrie Lincoln
Without men's hands were rung ;
And a' the books of merrie Lincoln
Were read without men's tongue ;
And ne'er was such a burial
Sin' Adam's days begun."
Another St. Hugh, of Avalon, Bishop of Lincoln, one of
the predecessors of Grosseteste, had his year-day (November
17) honoured by annual ringing for some three centuries, as
attested by entries in the churchwardens' accounts in several
parishes in the county.
Ellacombe,* in speaking of the towerless church of East
Bergholt on the south border of Suffolk, quotes a tradition
that Cardinal Wolsey was engaged in the work of building
the church when he fell into disgrace, and so the tower was
never finished. Certainly the whole work was not depending
on him only, if we may judge from the will of Robert Cole,
of Stratford, Suffolk, cloth-maker, 1527: — -f
" I will that my executors, after my departure, at times con
venient, do deliver or cause to be delivered to the use and building
of the Church of East Bergholt as much freestone as shall make up
the work there, that is to say the body of the same church with the
North Aisle, according to such promise as I have made."
This bequest is not inconsistent with Wolsey's idea of
building the tower. He was then well up in dignity and
wealth, holding the See of Durham in commendam with the
Archbishopric of York. The cage still contains one bell by
Henry Jordan, who died in 1468.
But one legend must not stand in the way of another,
which says "it was far back in the fifteenth century first
"¦ Miscellaneous Scraps, appended to Church Bells of Devon, p. 501.
t New England Historic Genealogical Re^ster, L. 419.

LEGENDS— TRADITIONS— MEMORIES 291
erected in another corner of the churchyard, but the squire
was so annoyed at the sound of the chimes that he had the
curious building removed, so that the intervening church
might deaden the sound." * The bell-house is only on a
brick foundation about a foot above ground, and the bells
are rung from the stock, without wheel or rope.
I may be excused for wandering over the border, to
bring a Scotch story from Kincardineshire, f the sole com
pleted Caledonian county for our lore. Two bells were cast
at the same time, the better for Strachan, the worse for Birse.
As they were being brought up the Dee valley in the same
cart they got changed, a local saying arising, " As clear as
the bell at Birse," which parish gets the credit of what was
meant for Strachan. " If there is anything in this story,
which is very doubtful," says Mr. Eeles, " it must refer to
an older bell than that now at Birse, which was recast in
1813 from one dated 1675." I have mentioned the Vernon
medal on a bell at Brixton in the Isle of Wight dated 1741.
The Portobello victory is likewise recorded on the largest
of the three bells at St. Just, Cornwall, bearing the same
date, with the names of James Reynolds and James Tregere
churchwardens, "and Admiral Vernon." This is rather
staggering, but the idea is that the parishioners made him
honorary churchwarden in commemoration of the "six
ships " victory. Much could be said as to memories excited
by bells, but some can come into the next chapter.
In bidding farewell to traditions and memorials one
cannot fail to be struck with the evolution of the legend,
" Mighty things from small beginnings rise," and a slender
foundation has to support a vast superstructure.
* Daily Mail, August I J, 1900.
t Eeles, Bells of Kincardineshire, p. 14.

CHAPTER XIX
BELL POETRY
A DANGEROUS subject is this. Those who, like the
character in Martin Chuzzlewit, "have the poetic
element uncommon strong," must not be disappointed
if our selection contains mainly versified prose. Not that
the greatest of our bards are indifferent to the charms of
steeple-music, to which there are allusions in most of Shake
speare's plays, and more than allusions in Milton, Tennyson,
and many of our most revered poets. This chapter will be
devoted to pieces dealing more directly with our subject,
and the transcendental element will not be so conspicuous
as the more humble descriptive and the hypothetically
humorous. To begin with a fulfilment, there follows the epic of Dr.
Richard Corbet on the Oxford Great Tom of 1612. Some
day the skits in these facetious lines will perchance receive
illumination from one interested in the writer or in the
subject, or in both. The learned doctor became Bishop of
Oxford in 1628, and was translated to Norwich in 1632. He
is the author of " The Distracted Puritan," in Percy's Reliques,
a composition which cannot have done much to heal the dis
tractions of his time. In the fifth stanza we should like to
know the surname of "Myles," and what founder is desig
nated by "Broute," or "Broutes." It is probably a skit
292

BELL POETRY 293
Perhaps the MS, has "Bronte," a play on thunder. No
name like it is known to us. The joke in the last couplet is
a reminder of the inscription on the recast bell at Okeford
Fitzpaine, Dorset, preserved by Hutchins. The references to
measurement show the technical interest taken at the time.
The original MS. is in the Ashmolean collection, 36 and 37,
fol. 260-1. " Bee dum you infant chimes, thump not the mettle
That nere outrung a tinker and his kettle.
Cease all your petty larums, for to-day
Yonge Tom's resurrection is from the clay.
And know when Tom shall ring his loudest knells.
The big'st of you'll be thought but Dinner Bells.
" Old Tom's growne yonge againe — the fiery cave
Is now his cradle that was erst his grave.
Hee grewe upp quickly from his mother earth.
For all you see is not an howre's birth :
Looke on him well — my life I dare engage.
You nere nere saw preteyer babie of his age.
" Some take his measure by the rule — some by
The Jacob's stafFe take his profunditie :
And some his altitude ; some bouldly sweare
Yonge Tom's not like the old ; but Tom nere feare
The Critiche Geometrician's lyne.
If thou as loude as ere thou didst ringe nyne.
" Tom did noe sooner peepe from under ground
But straight St. Marie's * tenor lost his sounde.
Oh how his Maypole's founder's hart did swell
With full moone sydes of joy, when that crackt bell,
Choaked with envie, and his admiration.
Rung like a quart pott to the congregation.
* " The very day that Tom was cast, St. Marie's tenor was burst in a peale."

294 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
" Myles,* what's the matter ? Belles thus out of square
I hope St. Marye's Hall wont longe forbeare.
Your Cockscombe-pate, the Clock hanges dumb in towre.
And knowes not that foure quarters makes an howre.
Now Broutes f joyes ringe out, the Churlish Cur
Nere laughes aloude till great belles catch, the mur.
" This Bell is proude and hopes noe other
But that in time hee shal be great Tom's brother ;
Thou art wise if this thou wishest : be it soe.
Let one henn hatch you both ; for thus much know,
Hee that can cast great Christchurch Tom so well,
Can easily cast St. Marye's greatest bell.
" Rejoyce with Christchurch — look higher Oseney,
Of Gyante Belles the famous treasury :
The base vast thunderinge Clocke of Westminster,
Grave Tom of Linconne — Hugh Excester —
Are but Tom's eldest brothers, and perchance
Hee may call cozen with the bell of Ffrance.
" Nere grieve, old Oseney, at thy heavy fall,
Thy reliques build thee up againe : they all
Florish to thy glory ; thy sole fame
When thou are not will keepe great Oseney's name.
This Tom was infant of thy mighty steeple,
Yet hee is lord controwler of a people.
" Tom lately went his progresse, and lookt ore
What hee nere saw in many yeares before.
But when he saw the old foundation %
And little hope of separation.
He burst with griefe, and lest he should not have
Due pomp, hee's his own bellman to the grave ;
* " The Clarke of the Universitie."
+ " The name of the Bell-caster."
X " Christ CIrurch." Qy. of the gateway ?

BELL POETRY ~ 295
" And that there might of Tom bee still strange mention
He carried to the grave a new invention :
They drew his browne bread face on pretty gines *
And made him stalke upon two rowlinge pinnes.
But Sander Hill f swore twice or thrice by heaven,
Hee nere sate such a loafe into the oven.
" But Tom did Sanders, his Cyclops Maker,
As much as hee did Sander Hill the baker.
Therefore loud thunderinge Tom be this thy pride.
When thou this motto shalt have on thy side —
Great World, one Alexander conquered thee.
But two as mightie men scarce conquered mee.
" Brave constant spirit, none could make thee turne
Though hanged, drawne, quartered, till they made the burne.
Yet not for this nor tenn times more be sory
Synst thou wast martyred for the Churches glorie.
But for thy meritorious sufFeringe
Thou shortly shalt to heaven goe in a stringe !
And though wee grieve when thou wast thumpt and bang''.
We all be glad (Great Tom) to see thee hanged."
This for a bell. In praise of ringing there are two composi
tions in Fabian Stedman's Tintinnalogia, 1668. One is entitled
" On the Ingenious Art of Ringing," and alleged to be " by
an Ancient Author ; " but a very cursory examination will
show to a critic of ordinary altitude the hollowness of the
claim to antiquity, " What music is there that compared may be
To well tun'd bells enchanting melody !
Breaking with their sweet sound the willing air.
And in the list'ning ear the soul ensnare ;
The ravisht air such pleasure loath to lose.
With thousand echoes still prolongs each close ;
* Engines. t " Christ Church batler."

296 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
And gliding stream which in the vallies trills,
Assists its speed unto the neighbouring hills ;
Where in the rocks and caves, with hollow grounds.
The warbling lightsome element rebounds.
This for the musick ; In the Action's health,
And every bell is a wifs Commonwealth ;
For here by them we plainly may discern,
How that civility we are to learn.
The Treble to the Tenor doth give place
And goes before him for the better grace.
And when they chance to change, 'tis as a dance,
They foot A GALLIARD A LA MODE DE FRANCE,
An eighteen score's a figure dance, but Grandsire
Hath the jig-steps, and Tendrings Peal doth answer
The manner of CORANTS : A plain six-score
Is like a SARABAND, the motion slower.
When bells ring round, and in their order be.
They do denote how Neighbours should agree :
But if they clam, the harsh sound spoils the sport.
And 'tis like women keeping DOVERCOURT,
For when all talk there's none can lend an ear
The other's story, and her own to hear ;
But pull and hall, straining for to sputter
What they can hardly afford time to utter.
Like as a valiant captain in the field.
By his conduct, doth make the foe to yield ;
Ev'n so, the leading bell keeping true time.
The rest do follow, none commits a crime :
But if one soldier runs, perhaps a troop
Seeing him gone, their heart begins to droop :
Ev'n so the fault of one bell spoils a ring,
(And now my PEGASUS has taken wing)."
Stedman's other ode makes no pretensions to archaeo
logical importance. It is entitled "The Grandsire Bob,"
and was composed "Upon the Presentation of Grandsire
Bob to the Colledge of Youths by the Author of that Peal."

BELL POETRY 297
" Gentlemen of the noble crew.
Of Colledge Youths — there lately blew
A wind, which to my noddle flew
(Upon a daye, when as it snew)
Which to my brains the vapors drew.
And there began to work and brew
Till in my Pericranium grew
Conundrums, how some peal that's new
Might be compos'd ; and to pursue
These thoughts (which did so whet and hew
My flat invention) and to shew
What might be done, I strait withdrew
Myself to ponder — whence did accrue
This Grandsire Bob, which unto you
I dedicate ; for there's but few
Besides so ready at their Queue
(Especially at the first view)
To apprehend a thing that's new,
Tho' they'll pretend and make a shew.
As if the intricat'st they knew,
What Bob doth mean, and Grandsire true.
And read the course without a clue
Of the new peal : Yet tho' they screw
Their shallow brains, they'll ne'er unglue
The method on't : (and I'm a Jew
If I don't think this to be true,)
They see no more on't than blind Hugh.
Well, let their tongues run Tityre tu,
Drink muddy Ale, or else French Lieue,
Whilst we our sport and art renew.
And drink good Sack till sky looks blew.
So Grandsire bids you all adieu. R. R."
About a century elapsed between these tintinnalogic
effusions and the appearance of more lengthy and stately
Campanalogia, by one candidly taking the nom de plume of

298 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
J. Copywell. His real name was William Woty. It was
printed for the author and sold by J. Coote, in Paternoster
Row, 1 76 1.
" Ye sacred nine ! Assist a daring bard
Who scorns the vulgar hackney'd road to fame
Parnassian — one who aims, elate with hope
Adventurous, to reach your sweet abodes
Through paths, which poet never trod before ;
Oh ! harmonise my numbers, while I sing
The Art of Ringing. Let the measure sound
Tuneful as is my theme, nor think it aught
Ignoble, insignificant. For health
This exercise awaits — and hence the nerves
Brace into strength. Hence too the life-blood rolls
In sprightUer torrents through the sweUing veins.
And ev'ry manly muscle looks robust
Such as distended great Alcides' arms.
To you, my countrymen ! I strike the lyre.
Ye Britons ! who delight to ring the change
Of bells melodious, smile ! Oh ! smile applause.
Ye festive College Youths, attend my song.
And let the sentiment supply the rhime.
" Critics ! to your good nature much I owe.
But should your taste this barren choice condemn,
I shall not weep. I shall not rend my hair,
Nor let my tongue speak aught in your dispraise.
Enough for me, if those for whom I breathe
The voluntary pipe, applaud the lay.
First the Youths try one single bell to sound,
For to perfection who can hope to rise,
Or climb the steep of science, but the man.
Who builds on steady principles alone.
And method regular ! Not he who aims
To plunge at once into the midst of art.
Self confident and vain. Amaz'd he stands

BELL POETRY 299
Confounded and perplex'd, to find he knows
Least, when he thinks himself the most expert.
As well the school-boy might assume the skill
Of rhetoricians, and as well declaim
In British periods, whom his tutor taught
Beginning at the Alphabet's extreme.
" In order due in Rounds they next proceed.
And each attunes numerical in turn.
Adepts in this, on three bells they assay
Their infant skill. Complete in this they try
Their strength on four, and musically bold
Full four and twenty changes they repeat.
Next, as in practice, gradual they advance.
Ascending unto five, they ring a peal
Of Grandsires, pleasing to a tuneful soul.
On they proceed to six. What various peals
Join'd with plain Bobs loud echo thro' the air
While ev'ry ear drinks in the harmonick sound !
With Grandsire triples then the steeple shakes
On seven with tenor behind. From eight alone
The musical Bob- Major next is heard.
Cators with tenor behind on nine they ring.
On ten Bobs-royal, from eleven Cinques,
Accompanied with tenor, forth they pour.
And the Bob-Maximus results from twelve.
" These are the rules, on which depends the art.
But yet from these, far other peals are heard
Of infinite variety. Suffice,
The chief are mentioned. Endless were the task
To record and enumerate the whole.
To you, ye seniors ! I submit, pleased most
To stand corrected there, where most I err.
Hail to thee Geary ! * tho' expert of skill
In matters naval — though the azure deep
' In command of the Channel Fleet, June, 17S0.

300 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
Thou know'st — tho' navigation has disclos'd
Her stores to thee, pregnated thy mind
With useful knowledge. — Yet dost thou vouchsafe
To patronize this manly British art.
Nor Blackwell ! * thoii^not least, altho' the last,
In silence be forgotten. At thy fame
Detraction lays her finger on her lip,
Tho' sullen, yet convinc'd, and (truth to tell ! )
Envy herself to admiration turns.
But Hardham ! t shall my young, good-natur'd muse
Be silent in thy praise ? No — she applauds
Thy strict sincerity of mind, and deigns
To call thee no mean patron of this art.
Nor may'st thou blush to own it, since thy soul
With milk of human kindness is replete ;
And truth and open honesty are thine.
Long may'st thou live accompanied with health.
The sweetest, comeliest progeny of love !
Without whose presence, all that meets the eye.
Wears an unpleasing aspect, and the hand
Of wealth devolves her golden tide in vain.
" Be others pleas'd with trifling gew-gaw sights
Unmeaning — but let me behold a band
Selected, and of twelve compos'd, with arms
Ascending, and descending, stand, while health
Sits wreathing roses on their damask cheek
And jocund pleasure dances in their eyes ;
While ev'ry bell strikes true, and not a note
Of jarring discord hurts attention's ear.
Toe-wracking gout ! begone — with limping foot
Hobble on other ground. To man of ease
Who sits in pamper'd state in elbow chair
Thy steps direct. He shall support thee long
And wrap thee in the flannel's warmest coat.
* M.P. for Cirencester.
t Eminent tobacconist and snuffman of London.

BELL POETRY 301
" Bells what can equal ? is not public joy
By them demonstrated, when gales benign
Waft o'er victorious news — when Prussia's King,
Pours his dread thunder o'er th' ensanguin'd field,
Scatt'ring the Austrian host, while all dismay'd
Their leaders own him victor of the day ?
These for the sacred, nuptial tie proclaim,
And ev'ry sound and ev'ry varied peal.
Call smiles of transport from the happy pair.
' Can none remember ? ' Yes, I'm sure — ^all must.
When gracious Charlotte, prime of all her sex,
The Queen of rare accomplishment arriv'd
How ev'ry bell divulg'd it thro' the isle.
And ev'ry steeple nodded high applause,
These in most climes, but most in British land
Tell to the travelling winds their monarch's birth.
Oft as the annual blessed day returns
For thee, O George ! superior they aspire
And bid the nation triumph at thy name.
Ev'n grief lifts up her melancholy head.
Wipes from her face the slow descending tear,
And for a day grows convert unto mirth.
" Go ! view the rural region, where the blush
Of innocence is seen ; where health imprints
Her kisses on the cheek. Soon as the peal,
By rusticks rung, each virgin's ear salutes.
How blithe her eye ! Now sprightly is her mien !
And ev'ry stripling gambols with delight.
Ev'n infants, hanging at their mother's breast,
Quit the sweet nutriment, their pleasure smile
Ineffable, clench hard their little hands.
And seem convuls'd with agonies of joy.
Echo, coy nymph, who loves to dwell unseen,
Unrival'd mistress of uncounted sounds.
Dear memory's sister-twin her voice exalts.
Mellifluous, and ever fond to learn.
Repeats distinct the bold harmonious tones.

302 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
" Nor you, ye social spirits ! let me pass
Un-notic'd, who around the festive board,
With hand-bells charm the minutes. Tho' ye shine
In miniature, not less ye merit praise.
Indulge your honest joy. By turns regale
Your cheerful hearts with nectar from the vine.
But let sobriety present the glass.
Yours is the tie of friendship ; yours the bond
Till death indissoluble. Long in mirth
May ye survive, and bid old care good night !
And if the Muse can prophesy with truth
Your names shall flourish longer than the verse
Of him who aims to register your praise.
Far better thus to close the mirthful eve
If scandal be away, and mad excess
That drowns the struggling soul. Far better thus
Than at one fatal cast to sink your fame
And substance to perdition, or to tire
Your constitution in the harlot's arms.
" Now rise accordant. Pull the pendant ropes,
Bid ev'ry bell strike true. The noble touch
Rouses the lethargy, that clogs my mind.
And prompts me on to action, swell my heart
And dance without control ! for sweeter far
These lofty sounds, than those dead, languid airs.
That tremble on an instrument of wire ;
As far superior as th' expressive notes
Of Blard and Lowe are to the Eunuch's trills.
Britons arise — resume the reins of taste.
And let the natives of your isle receive
Your amplest tribute of deserv'd applause ;
For whilst 'tis yours to boast an Arne or Boyce,
No skill is wanting from a foreign land."

BELL POETRY 303
AN ODE
To BE SUNG AT THE ANNUAL FeAST OF THE COLLEGE YOUTHS.
(Tune, " The Early Horn.")
Recitative.
" The annual day, once more with joy returns,
And pleasure brightens in each sparkling eye
To usher in the feast ;
The jocund feast, where smiling plenty fills her copious horn.
And pours her bounteous gifts with lavish hand.
The god of wine, his welcome visit pays.
And brings the nectar of empurpl'd grapes.
The sons of humour smile immense applause.
Each object to the mirthful scene invites ;
But most this room, where ravishingly sweet.
Harmonious hand-bells lull the ear.
And rivet each attentive College Youth,
Each lively stroke a different change diffuses round.
And gives new spirits to the festive board."
Air.
" Ye Youths so gay !
To hail this day.
Your chearful music bring.
No sound excels
The fine toned bells,
When merrily they ring.
The list'ning crowd around.
Their joy reveal,
To hear the peal.
All, all applaud the enliv'ning sound."
Hawker's "Ringers of Lancell's Tower" may well come in
now to bridge the period of that lengthy reign.

304 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
They rang at the accession of George III., and they all
lived to ring again on the fiftieth anniversary of his reign.
" They meet once more ! that ancient band.
With furrow'd cheek and failing hand.
One peal to-day they fain would ring.
The jubilee of England's King !
" They meet once more ! but where are now
The sinewy arm, the laughing brow.
The strength that hailed, in happier times.
King George the Third, with lusty chimes ?
" Yet proudly gaze on that lone tower !
No goodlier sight hath hall or bower, —
Meekly they strive — and closing day
Gilds with soft light their locks of gray !
" Hark ! proudly hark ! with that true tone
They welcomed him to land and throne ;
So e'er they die they fain would ring
The jubilee of England's King !
" Hearts of Old Cornwall, fare ye well !
Fast fade such scenes from field and dell !
How wilt thou lack, my own dear land,
Those trusty arms, that faithful band ! "
Some of these old men lived to ring at the accession of
George IV., and one at that of William IV.
To Charles Lamb we owe the following sweet characteristic
lines : — " The cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard.
Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice
Of one, who from the far-off hills proclaims
Tidings of good to Zion : chiefly when

BELL POETRY 305
Their piercing tones fall sudden on the ear
Of the contemplant, solitary man.
Whom thoughts abstruse or high have chanced to lure
Forth from the walks of men, revolving oft
And oft again, hard matter, which eludes
And baflles his pursuit — thought — sick and tired
Of controversy, where no end appears.
No clue to his research, the lonely man
Half wishes for society again.
Him, thus engaged, the Sabbath bells salute.
Sudden ! his heart awakes, his ears drink in
The cheering music ; his relenting soul
Yearns after all the joys of social life.
And softens with the love of human kind."
A contemporary of Lamb's was William Lisle Bowles.
His " Sonnet to Oxford" and " Sonnet at Ostend " drew forth
an unamiable comment from Byron, in English Bards and
Scotch Reviewers. Let the reader judge. Here is the latter
sonnet. " How sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal I
As when, at opening morn, the fragrant breeze
Breathes on the trembling sense of wan disease,
So piercing to my heart their force I feel !
And hark ! with lessening cadence now they fall.
And now, along the white and level tide
They fling their melancholy music wide ;
Bidding rae many a tender thought recall
Of summer days ; and those delightful years
When by my native streams, in life's fair prime.
The mournful magic of their mingling chime
First wak'd my wondering childhood into tears.
But seeming now, when all those days are o'er.
The sounds of joy once heard, and heard no more."
Byron calls him "the maudlin prince of mournful
sonneteers," adding —
X

3o6 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
"And art thou not their Prince, harmonious Bowles !
Thou first, great oracle of tender souls ?
Whether in sighing winds thou seek'st relief.
Or consolation in a yellow leaf;
Whether thy muse most lamentably tells
What merry sounds proceed from Oxford bells.
Or, still in bells delighting, finds a friend.
In every chime that jingles from Ostend?
Ah ! how much juster were thy muse's hap.
If to thy bells thou would'st but add a cap."
Blood is thicker than water, and most of us know how
closely our transatlantic brethren cleave to all that tells of
their ancestors' island home. I make no apology for once
more presenting the stanzas of Archdeacon Cleveland Coxe.
" The Bells and Chimes of Motherland,
Of England green and old.
That out from grey and ivied tower
A thousand years have tolled.
How heavenly sweet their music is
As breaks the hallowed day,
And calleth with a Seraph's voice
A nation up to pray !
Those bells that tell a thousand tales,
Sweet tales of olden time !
And ring a thousand memories
At Vesper and at Prime ;
At Bridal and at Burial,
For Cottager and King, —
Those Bells and glorious Christian Chimes,
How blessedly they ring,
" Those JBells and Chimes of Motherland,
Upon a Christmas Morn,
Out breaking, as the Angels did.
For a Redeemer born :

BELL POETRY 307
How merrily they call afar
To cot and baron's hall.
With holly deck'd and mistletoe
To keep the festival 1
The Bells of England, how they peal
From tower and Gothic pile,
Where hymn and swelling anthem fill
The dim Cathedral aisle ;
Where windows bathe the holy light
On priestly head that falls.
And stain the florid tracery.
And banner-dighted walls !
" And then those Easter Bells, in spring.
Those glorious Easter Chimes,
How loyally they hail thee round.
Old Queen of holy times !
From hill to hill, like sentinels,
Responsively they cry.
And sing the rising of the Lord
From vale to mountain high.
I love ye. Chimes of Motherland,
With all this soul of mine.
And bless the Lord that I am sprung
Of good old English line.
And, like a son, I sing the lay
That England's glory tells ;
For she is lovely to the Lord
For you, ye Christian Bells ! "
Whence I obtained the following verses I cannot now say.
They are copied in my MS. A, and are attributed to the
Rev. William Knight, well known for his interest in ringing.
He was thirty-two years incumbent of St, James's, Hull, and
died in 1862 —

3o8 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
" One Tuesday night, not long ago.
My mind to disencumber,
I took a solitary walk
Upon the banks of Humber.
" While musing there of by-gone days.
Which thought delights to cherish.
Of early friends, whose once lov'd forms.
From memory ne'er can perish.
"At once I paus'd, dismiss'd my thoughts
And put them to the wing ;
As well I might, when suddenly
The Bells began to ring.
" The sound was sweet, the music full.
The notes distinct and clear ;
A gentle breeze convey'd the tone.
And brought them to my ear.
" I linger'd on the water's brink.
And heard the careful rise ;
'That's good,' thought I, 'and merits praise
And censure it defies.'
" The Bells they paused a little while.
And then they made a start
With beat so true, as prov'd them rung
By men who knew the art.
" The dulcet changes soon struck off.
In regular succession,
Like soldiers train'd, or lodges taught.
To move in the procession.
" The peal was ' Grandsire Tripples ' called.
So termed by all our Ringers,
For they have names for every peal,
As tunes have name for singers.

BELL POETRY 309
" It sounded well, and promised fair
To reach its destined round ;
'Twas like a vessel gliding soft.
And to a haven bound.
" When lo ! a misadventure came,
I cried, ' What's now the matter ? '
For all at once the music ceased.
And all was jar and clatter.
" The Bells were jumbled in the peal.
And no one knew its place ;
The dogs came falling on the fox,
And finished up the chase.
'' And now a silence interven'd
And all was still and quiet ;
' Dear me,' thought I, ' how sweet the calm
That supercedes a riot.'
" But since I know those worthy men
Who labour in the steeple,
I'll e'en go in and ask of them.
Why thus annoy the people ?
" The resolution form'd — I went,
A private key befriending ;
And as I mounted up the stairs
Kept bending — bending — bending.
" At length I reach'd the door I sought,
And lifting up the latch,
I found the youths assembled there,
A neat and goodly batch.
" ' How's this, my lads ? ' I soon exclaimed,
' Why — don't you know your peal ?
Ben T — k — h taught you how to ring,
And this you know and feel.'

310 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
" The first that spoke I long had known.
His name was William P  ;
His words were few, he merely said,
' I'm sure it is not me.'
" ' Nor me,' said Joseph H  , ' I'm sure
My Bell ne'er left its place ;
When I was clearly in the hunt.
How could it be the case ? '
" Said Thomas S  , ' I made my thirds.
And down again to lead ;
In one I met the treble bell.
So I'm from censure freed.'
" The next to speak was Thomas N  ,
And he express'd no doubt.
That some near neighbour — not himself,
Had put the ' Grandsire ' out.
" ' It was not me,' said Edward A  ;
' I met the bell in two.
So I was dodging four and five.
What ought I else to do ? "
" ' Come, come,' said Charley P  ; ' be still.
We some of us were wrong ;
The fault, however, let me say.
Does not to me belong.'
" James A  was equally convinced
That he was in the right ;
He always counted up and down.
And kept the ropes in sight.
" The last to speak was Joseph B-

Upon the platform mounted ;
The Tenor Bell, of all the peal,
Most worthy being accounted, —

BELL POETRY 311
" To clear himself he neady said,
' Of order I'm a lover ;
I never wander up and down.
But always wait to cover.'
" ' Well, this is passing strange ! ' I thought ;
' A singular affair ! '
The men were all so confident.
It made me stand and stare.
" At length a lucky thought occurr'd.
Which showed the matter clear.
And prov'd a fact which should be known
By Ringers far and near.
" Now, gentle reader, don't be stunn'd
While I this fact unfold,
Altho' it be the strangest thing
That poet ever told.
" As sure as mourner ever wept.
Or singer sang a song,
Altho' the ringers all were right.
The Bells themselves were wrong.
" There every voice at once proclaimed,
When once they saw the matter,
' 'Tis plain enough where lies the blame —
Of all this noise and clatter.
" 'Twas not with us who pull'd the ropes.
And pullbd them so true ;
The ciilprits are above our heads,
As sure as blue is blue.
" ' The rascals are on mischief bent.
They've joined in firm alliance,
To play the master when they please.
And set us at defiance.'

312 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
" And now from henceforth be it known.
When e'er a peal turns lame.
The Ringers never are va. fault,
The Bells are all to blame.''
Lastly, I am allowed to present some sweet and touching
lines addressed to the venerable author of the completed
counties of Devon, Somerset, and Gloucester, on the appear
ance of the first of them. The author was the Rev. W. L.
Nichols. " 'Tis Christmas Eve, sing ding, dong, bell.
The western gale from Quantock fell
Howls round the Woodland home ;
The hearth is bright, with holly digbt.
And on a lettern, goodly sight — >
There lies a pictured tome.
The lone hermit likes it well.
And sings its praise with ding, dong, bell.
" From Holford Tower the west wind brings
The fitful music on its wings.
Of Christmas chimes that merrily
Ring out their carols — one, two, three ;
The hermit turns the page, and ' Well,'
Quoth he, ' comes in that ding, dong, bell'
" Now whirl-blasts wild and driving rain,
Capricious, against the window pane.
From eastward rush, and bear along
The mellow chimes of Dodington ;
But heard in snatches, faint and low
Their mournful voices come and go j —
' Ah, well-a-day,' the hermit cries,
' Of vanished years what visions rise
Commingled with those notes ' — that knell
Rings out, methinks, their ding, dong, bell.

BELL POETRY 313
' Now to my tome I'll turn,' quoth he ;
' One fault alone methinks I see ; ' —
Out of his brain things new and old,
Fruit of long travail, brave and bold.
Mine antient friend hath brought ; but he
Hath not prefixed his effigy !
For if his readers gazed intent
On each familiar lineament.
They'd cry, ' 'Tis he ! let's greet him well
With cheerful peals of ding, dong, bell."
' From youth to age, we two together.
In winter and in summer weather.
Have both grown old, and now we stand
Expectant, on the border land,
Till Time's commissioned voice shall say.
To one or other, ' Come away.'
Alas 1 for days of ' Auld lang syne,'
'Twere wrong as bootless to repine.
Since first I heard from Bitton tower.
Its tuneful chimes, with voice of power
(How many years I may not tell),
Ring out their merry ding, dong, bell.
"Again those Christmas bells ! Oh list.
As momently ' the wild winds whist,'
Mid howling storm, and groaning trees.
Alternate, borne upon the breeze.
From either tower a voice I hear.
The coming or the dying year.
Soon lost shall be to me and you
In ages past old seventy- two ;
May heaven vouchsafe to you and me
A better friend in seventy-three ;
And as time speeds, yet once again
To listen to the old refrain
(The new year's birth, the old year's knell,)
With blessings fraught, of ding, dong, bell."

CHAPTER XX
USAGES— LAW -CONCLUSION
THE Lex non scripta, the Common Law of England,
is based so largely upon Custom and Usage that
it may be well expected to include church bells
among that "infinite number of minuter particulars" which,
in the words of Blackstone,* " diffuse themselves as ex
tensively as the ordinary distribution of common justice
requires." There is also a Jus Commune Ecclesiasticum, dealing only
with Church matters, in which Custom is again an im
portant element. As Custom generates Precedent, so
Precedent, appearing in judicial records, brings about a Lex
scripta. Beyond these there is the Canon Law, consisting
of canons either originating in our own National and Pro
vincial Synods, or adopted by them from foreign sources.
Thus, briefly and imperfectly attempting to indicate the
foundations of the law which, though little recognized, is
latently powerful in the Soller and the Belfry, and without
attempting anything more than a very general application of
it, we may say that anything like uniformity of usage does
not and cannot exist, and that local peculiarities, differing in
each several locality as the years pass away, must be expected
to appear. Unknown to the Church of the Apostles and of
* Commentaries, i.. Introduction, iii.
314

USAGES— LAW— CONCLUSION 315
the Apostolic Fathers, traceable only with difficulty and
uncertainty in the centuries which have given us our General
Councils, bells are, nevertheless, not unscriptural in their
essence, or the outcome of mere individual fancy.
When churches and their towers began to multiply in
England in the Saxon Period, they were mainly the result of
activity of guilds and corporations in towns, and the goodwill
of manorial lords in the rural districts. The bell (or bells, if
more than one) fell in a measure under the control at first of
those to whose benevolence they owed their existence, and
afterwards of their successors. Meetings of brethren of the
guild, or of the burgesses, in the towns ; and in the country
manorial courts, occasionally hundred motes and the like,
were often announced from the tower or the bell-cot, though
some guilds, as at Lincoln, had bells of their own. Nor are
there wanting indications that the ordinary meals in the
manor house were notified in the same way.
Conflicting requirements arose, of which a most instructive
instance may be taken from difficulties in the parish of
Wymondham, Norfolk, given by Mr. Harrod.*
In the parish chest is a copy of an undated commission
which must have been issued about 1410, which —
" recites that the prior had alleged that his predecessors and
himself had from time to time immemorial possessed the nave of the
priory church, and that the parishioners had been always called to
church by the sound of the priory bells, and never had bells of their
own, so that the prior and convent were not disturbed in their services,
such being usually the case in divers other abbeys and priories ; but
that one William Grout and others of the parishioners broke into a
certain tower of the priory church and suspended three bells there, to
the disturbance of the prior in divine worship, and also broke down
* Archceologia, xliii. 264.

3i6 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
many strong walls of the priory and ejected the prior from his
parlour, and prevented his entering it for three days," etc.
This commission was addressed to Norfolk magnates of
some standing. Sir Thomas Morley, Sir Simon Felbrigge,
Sir Ralph Shelton, Edmund Oldhall, and John Winter, and
the Sheriff of Norfolk. In the Coram Rege Rolls of Trinity
Term, 12 Henry IV., is the return made by Sir Ralph
Shelton and other commissioners, finding that the parishioners
had been from time immemorial called to church by the
sound of the priory bells, but that on the Thursday before
St Faith,* in the eleventh year of the King, certain of the
parishioners entered the church, and broke into a tower
standing upon the porch of the church, and suspended three
bells there, to the disturbance of the prior and convent
" In the octaves of Trinity following, the defendant appeared and
pleaded not guilty. Hereupon without delay the King assigned to
Archbishop Arundel, by letters patent, the duty of inquiring into and
determining the dispute. The Archbishop's decision seems a wise
compromise between the conflicting authorities. He granted to the
parishioners the power to convert a tower at the west end of their
church, on the north part of the same, into a belfry for tfieir said
church, and to place, find, keep, and have sufficient bells in the
same, ringing them at their pleasure, but closing all apertures within
the church except holes for the ropes, so as not to disturb the monks
occupying the priory. This was dated at Horncastle on the 17 th
June, 141 1. In the following year the case was called in the
Exchequer Court, where before John Cockayn, Chief Baron, and
William Cothristoke, came Thomas Boteler and the other defendants,
but, no one appearing on the part of the King, the jury say that they
are not guilty, and so the defendants and their bail are without a
day," etc.
And so ended the bell dispute at Wymondham.
"¦ October 6

USAGES— LAW— CONCLUSION 317
Another kind of remedy was found at Bungay at the same
period. Here the nuns allowed the parish of St. Mary's to
build a tower on their ground, paying an annual rent, which
is still paid by the town to the Duke of Norfolk,
In Chapter VII. I have mentioned that most important
secular use — the Curfew, called Ignitegium, introduced by
William the Conqueror in 1068. Its legal sanction came to an
end shortly after the death of William Rufus, but the custom
remains in many places to the present day. The hour is some
times seven, sometimes eight, sometimes nine, sometimes eight
in the summer and nine in the winter, and very often, after the
Curfew proper is ended, the day of the month is tolled.
Ringing on public occasions is a very wide subject, ranging
from such honoured anniversaries as an Accession or a King's
Birthday to a horse-race or even a pigeon-shooting match.
At Chesterfield a custom of ringing at the races had
arisen, probably during the Georgian period, but was suc
cessfully resisted by the vicar (afterwards Archdeacon Hill),
in 1830, A full report is given in the History of Chesterfield
(1839). The mayor had put himself at the head of the race-
adoring party, but was open-minded enough to be convinced
by arguments adduced by a lawyer at the meeting which
had been convened for the continuance of the ringing ; and
better counsels prevailed against bets. The final decision as
to the propriety of the occasion lies with the incumbent,
subject to any complaint in an ecclesiastical court, should he
overstep his authority.
A number of important cases have been collected by
Ellacombe, in his Devonshire Supplement, and they all tend
towards this conclusion. In usages purely religious there
have been great variations. There was a time when the
sanctus bell was entirely unknown, and there are many

J

i8 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

parishes where it has never been heard, so that the expres
sion "Catholic usage" is not applicable to it. Death uses,
again, must have changed much from time to time, and
attempts to revive such trental ordinances as those which
prevailed at Bury St. Edmund's in the fifteenth century
would meet with the same disapprobation which repressed
a five-o'clock morning bell at Hammersmith in the days of
George I. An invalid parishioner named Martin, living near
the church, found this custom an intolerable nuisance, and
on his promising to furnish the church with a cupola, to con
tain a new clock and bell, the parochial authorities consented
to stop this early call to the neighbourhood. A new church
warden, one Nutkin, resumed it Thereupon Martin brought
an action against him, and obtained an injunction in Chan
cery from the Earl of Macclesfield. This was in 1724.
With regard to the consecration of church bells, there has
been much controversy as to their baptism. As usual, it is
mainly verbal. Words, which were designed to be the ser
vants of mankind, have in a multitude of instances become
their masters. Certainly, in the very earliest mention which
remains as to consecration, that of Alcuin, tutor of Charle
magne, towards the end of the eighth century, the word
"baptism" is conspicuous by its absence. His words are
" neque novum videri debet Campanas benedicere et ungere,
eisque nomen imponere."
Another instance of the absence of any mention of
affusion is in the record of the dedication of the "Jesus " bell
given by Dean Heywood to Lichfield Cathedral in 1477.
" Sanctificacio sive benediccio magne campane de lesu.
"Memorandum quod xiiij" die mensis Novembris videlicet in
crastino Bricij episcopi Anno Domini Millesimo CCCC". lxx° vij"""

USAGES— LAW— CONCLUSION 319
Reverendus in Christi pater et dominus Dominus Robertus Archa-
den * episcopus, et sufTraganeus domini Johannis f divina gracia
Covent et Lich. episcopi. consecravit et sanctificavit maximam cam
panam vocatam in vulgari Ihc belle, in campanili ex parte australi
ecclesie cathedralis Lich habitam ex industria et donacione Magistri
Thome Heywod, decani ecclesie cathedralis predicte, ad honorem
Dei et nominis lesu, ac omnium sanctorum et ecclesie predicte
decorem, presentibus ad tunc in dicta solemnitate in campanili pre-
dicto dicto decano et Magistro Rogero Walle Canonico residenciario
cum pluribus vicarijs et choristis dicentibus psalmos et decantantibus
antiphonas et latanias {sic) prout ipsum servicium satis devotum re-
quirebat, una cum dicto Reverendo patre consecratore dicente con-
secraciones obsecraciones et oraciones decantantes satis et valde
devotas cum signis et crucibus et uncionibus quas pluribus vicibus
super eandem campanam lesu, sic descriptam in quinque partibus
campane et unctam sacra unccione delibatam. % Et post hie cum a
campanili usque in ecclesiam pervenerint Dominus episcopus incepit
Te Deum laudamus. Et totus chorus illuc veniens et obvians pro-
cedebat a fine ecclesie occidentali, bini, bini, cantando et solenniter
complendo, dicto episcopo subsequente in pontificalibus usque ad
altare Jesu in parte boriali situatum ex fundacione dicti decani
ibidem celebravit et decantavit solenniter missam, cum melioribus
cantatoribus ecclesie. Et omnibus completis dictus dominus epis
copus consecrator et dicti cantatores et coadjutores seu coadjuvantes
in domo dicti decani prandiderunt leti. In nomine Jesu salvatoris
nostri. Datum in tempore Regis Edwardi iiij". Anno Septimo
decimo." {
Assuredly this bell was a signum. Cast in London, and
costing ;^ioo, it must have been a grand specimen for that
time of day. Would that we could name the founder ! The
great Henry Jordan, whose bells are still objects of admira
tion to eye and ear, had been gathered to his fathers some
* Achonry. t John Hales.
X From =. paper by the Rev. J. Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A., in Archaiologia,
LIL, part 2, p. 617.

320 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
seven years, his will having been enrolled at Guildhall in
1470. "William Chamberleyn Ffounder," probably Jordan's
foreman, was one of his executors. He was found by Stahl
schmidt to have been still living, and a member of the Court
of the Founders' Company, in 1497-8, the year in which
their records begin. There are, however, no bells existing
which can be traced to him. Another name belonging to
the time is that of Thomas Harrys, who is found in the
Mundum Books of King's College, Cambridge,* for the years
1478-9. Mr. Cocks suggests as an alternative that he may
have intervened between Jordan and Chamberleyn, or that
he and Chamberleyn may have been rivals. Bells traced to
him are found at Hampton Court ; Limpsfield, Surrey ;
Nettleden, Bucks ; and Blatherwycke and Potterspury, North
amptonshire. At work thus in the Midlands, there is some
likelihood that this noble " Jesu " bell. Dean Heywood's gift
to his cathedral, may have been his handiwork.f
Possibly this naming was accompanied by washing with
holy water, but it is not specified. The probability is
enhanced by the oft-quoted capitulary of Charlemagne,
forbidding what Durandus calls an ancient custom : " Etsi
capitularia Caroli Magni, anno 789, jubeant ut Clocae non
baptizentur, antiquus tamen usus Ecclesiae obtinuit, ut
signorum seu Campanarum benedictio Baptismi indigetur."
The nearness in time of the utterances of Alcuin and
Charlemagne is to be observed. The " antiquus usus," of
course, was not to be taken in the letter : it was only a setting
apart from ordinary purposes. But "the letter killeth," as
in apostolic days, and at the Reformation the letter was found
to have killed itself. All was swept away, to be revived in
* History of the Bells of King's College, Cambridge, p. 23.
t See Cocks's Church Bells of Bucks, p. 41.

USAGES— LAW— CONCLUSION 321
a new and exceedingly mundane form, thoroughly character
istic of the Georgian era. My old friend Gatty describes it as
in his parish of Ecclesfield — *
" Two wagons, decorated with boughs and evergreens, and drawn
by teams of grey horses bedizened with ribbons, set out for the merry
peal, and returned in the fine afternoon with their welcome load.
The shouts of the multitude greet their arrival, and at the ancient
public-house on the village green the procession comes to a stand.
Then commence the profane christenings. In one of the bells,
which has been inverted for the purpose, mine host mixes a motley
compound of beer, rum, &c., which is liberally dispensed to the
good-humoured bystanders. The bell founder's representative is
busy on the occasion, and in the treble has a more delicate mixture,
from which he offers a libation to the more distinguished persons of
the company." Comparing this with the antiquus usus, we should shrink
from saying in the words of the Eton Grammar, Utrum
horum mavis accipe. Happily, a third course was found, and
a beautiful simple Service of Dedication with appropriate
prayers and hymns was arranged, and being sanctioned forty
years ago by the Bishops of Oxford and Salisbury, has now
obtained very general acceptance. The hymn, " Lift it gently
to the steeple," is by John Mason Neale, and is worthy of
the genius of that gifted poet.
We will now speak of the bells as markers of time.
Long before the clock had found its way to the tower they
had been turned to this most useful purpose, often united
with the observance of the canonical hours. By this usage
a monastery became time-marker to the neighbourhood, and
Peck, in his Desiderata Curiosa,\ notes the use at Oseney :
"Thus at Ousney they had six bells, called Douce, Clement,
Austin, Hautecler, Gabriel, and fohn. And in an old MS. relating
* The Bell, p. 22. t VI. 33.
Y

322 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
to the religious offices proclaimed in that abbey it is said (in
Hearne's Discourses, p. 305), ' Finito Agnus Dei enoUentur Douce,
Clement, et Austin; et post missam, per non magnum spatium,
pulsentur. Et notandum quod semper post magnam missam,
^xA^eivcc Hautecter ; ad completorium, Gabriel vtX fohn."
Here there is a plain distinction drawn between the verbs
enollare and pulsare, the former denoting the tolling by
" clocking," and the latter a blow from outside the bell~at
least, so it seems so me.
Another note of time on a Sunday remains in many
parishes by means of two bells chimed at 8 a.m. and 2 p.m.
This is said by some to be the old Catechising Bell, of
which I have failed to find any notice, but when we bear in
mind the great pains taken in towns and larger villages to
instruct the young, the help given sometimes by carvings,
sometimes by windows, in teaching by eye as well as by ear,
the theory is probable enough. Most of our chroniclers of
the bells of different counties have been very careful to pre
serve the record of all ancient usages remaining in the
different parishes, and I much regret that I failed in this
respect The subject is very wide, and I would refer my
readers for a convenient conspectus to chapters ix., x., and
xi. of Mr. Tyack's Book about Belts, entitled " The Church-
Going Bell," "Bells at Christian Festivals," and "The Epochs
marked by Bells."
The last ringing society which I mentioned was "The
Cumberland Youths," These companies sprung up in a mul
titude of places after the Restoration. One must perforce
claim a brief notice, "The Cambridge Youths," who can
trace themselves back to the end of the seventeenth century,
and were in a very flourishing condition in 1800. Members
of the University frequently joined this society, as in 1726

USAGES— LAW— CONCLUSION 323
Robert Hesketh, of Christ's College, and William Windle, of
Caius. Dr. Glyn says that he practised the art in his day,
and the august name of Sir Isaac Newton is reported to have
adorned the list* Such societies had be held together by
rules, nor was there wanting poetic skill to turn these into
verse, which, varying in detail, and alas ! in grammar, from
time to time, and from place to place, may yet be read in
many a tower, side by side with those steeple boards which
display the names of ringers who have well and truly brought
through their 5040 of Bob Major, or a higher number of
some Triple Bob Method, or even of Caters, Bob Royal,
Cinques, and Bob Maximus.
That which claims the greatest veneration on account
of antiquity is at Scotter, a village to the north of Gains
borough, and not far from the Trent The composer begins
with a rhyme, but though he relapses into " plain homespun
yeoman's prose," as thus —
" You ringers all
Who heare doe fall
And doe cast over
a bell doe for feit
to the Clarke theirfore
A Groute I doe yow
tell & if yow
thinck it be to
little & beare
A valiant minde
y" more yow give
vnto him than
yow prove to him
more kinde,"
it will not require a very keen critic to trace the poetic
* J. J. Smith, Cambridge Portfolio, T. 206.

324 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
element to the termination. This is painted in red and black
letters on the south wall of the tower, over the belfry door. *
A later composition I copied in 1852 from the belfry of
Shilling Okeford, otherwise Shillingstone, Dorset It is a
fine specimen of what may be effected by neglect of punctua
tion and orthography. " Praise the Lord with Lowd Symbols,
if you curse or sware during the time of ringing you shall
pay threepence." Below this are the lines —
" There is no musick play'd or sung
Is like Good Bells if well Rung
Put off you hat coat & spurs
And see you make no brawls or iares
Or if you chance to curse or sware
Be sure you shall pay sixpence here
Or if you chance to break a stay
Eighteenpence you shall pay
Or if you ring with gurse or belt
We will have sixpence or your pelt. 1767."
Here are several points for the higher critic. The penalty
for the mere casualty (as it is beautifully expressed) of a
curse is in verse double what it is in prose. It looks as if the
prose was by a later hand. In the lak couplet the memory
of the versifier has failed him, for the ordinary reading in
other towers is —
" Or if you ring with belt or gurse
We will have sixpence or your purse."
With this unseemly doggerel may be contrasted some
grave and thoughful lines which I lighted upon a year or
two afterwards at Much Hadham, Herts —
"^ North's Church Bells of Lincoln, p. 632.

USAGES-LAW— CONCLUSION 325
" Reade and marke well these lines I Pray
Keep full in mind y" Judgment Day
Of all your sin Confession make,
God's pardon beg, for Christ his sake.
Now is the time while breath we have.
There's no Repentance in the Grave.
Then tho' our Passing-bell shall ring
Praises to God we still may sing.
Amen & Amen.
Will: Matthews, Church Gierke,
Thom: Hawkins, Sexton,
Benj: Some, Writer, 1715."
To Mr. Dunkin, in his Church Bells of Cornwall, we are
indebted for several sets of these belfry regulations. Two of
them, from Gulval * and Fowey,t are worth transcribing,
especially as the former has disappeared. It ran —
" Good Sirs ! our meaning is not small.
That God to Praise assemblies call ;
And warn the sluggard, when at home
That he may with devotion come
Unto the church and joyh in prayer ;
Of Absolution take his share.
Who hears the bells, appears betime,
And in his seat against we chime.
Therefore I'd have you not to vapour,
Nor blame ye lads that use the clapper.
By which are scar'd the fiends of hell.
And all by virtue of a Bell."
The Fowey rules remain, painted on a board attached to
the wall of the ringing-floor. Above' the lines is a section of
the tower, showing the ringers, bells, and ropes —
* Page 15. t Page 38.

326 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND
" Hark how the Chirping Treble Sings most Clear,
And Covering Tom Com's rowling in the Rear,
We Ring the Quick to Church, the dead to Grave,
Good is our Use, such Usage let us have.
Now up on end at Stay, Come let us see
What Laws are best, to keep Sobriety.
To Swear, or Curse, or in a Choleric Mood
To Strike or Quarrel, tho' he draw no Blood,
To wear a Hat, or Spur, to or'e turn a Bell
Or by unskiffull handling marrs a Peal
Such shall pay sixpence for each single Crime,
T'will make him Cautious gainst another Time.
What Forfeitures are due as here it is Exprest
Here is a Box to take the same when y" have transgres'd
And we the whole Society of Ringers do agree,
To use the same in Love and Unity."
With these later steeple pieces, to which I regret to be
unable to put dates, I close this imperfect chronicle of the
Bells of England. Had I not begun my collection nearly sixty
years ago I might never have taken up the subject at all ;
but the boyish curiosity which I felt when first noticing the
decorated lettering and trade-marks of the fifteenth century
took too firm a hold to be dislodged by mathematical,
scholastic, or even theological labours. Nor can I regret the
time and labour bestowed on what might seem at first to be
but an unspiritual subject, concerned chiefly with the outer
senses and effects produced on them.
"Triflers," said Dr. Johnson, in dedicating to the Earl of
Rochford a mere introduction to the Game of Draughts, " may
find or make anything a trifle, but since it is the great characteristic
of a wise man to see events in their causes, to obviate consequences,
and ascertain contingencies, your lordship will think nothing a trifle
by which the mind is inured to caution, foresight, and circumspection,"

USAGES— LAW— CONCLUSION 327
What is true of draughts, chess, and a multitude of other
games is true of change-ringing, which unites in itself im
portant mental faculties. So, too, those who have never studied
a subject may regard the time bestowed upon it as entirely
out of proportion to its importance. It must be remembered
that what seem mere externals have a power of penetrating
the sensual faculties. As in Virgil's cosmogony, so there
is nutritive power to the inward man through a subtle
" spiritus intus."
From a few instances quoted in these pages it may be in
some small degree imagined what great effects have been
brought about by the voices of our bells. May the day be
far distant when neglect shall reign in our ancient towers !
"The form of religion," said the great Bishop Butler, in his " Charge
to the Clergy of Durham," in 1751, "may indeed be where there is
Httle of the thing itself; but the thing itself cannot be preserved
amongst mankind without the form. And this form frequendy
occurring in some instance or other of it, will be a frequent admoni
tion to bad men to repent, and to good men to grow better ; and
also be the means of their doing so."
The counties at present uncompleted will be sure, in their
turn, to add largely to our subject, and very possibly may
correct some of our conclusions. The story of Hampshire and
Berkshire remains to be told, and Wiltshire, the first begun,
is not yet done. These will give a clean sweep to the south
of England. There must be somewhere the collections made
for Warwickshire and Oxfordshire by our lamented friends,
the Rev. H. T. Tilley and the Rev. T. Archer Turner. Essex
is soon to be expected, as news comes that our fellow-labourer,
Mr. H. B. Walters, F.S.A., has gathered up the inscrip
tions of that important county. This will clear the east coast,

J

28 THE BELLS OF ENGLAND

with the adjoining inland counties, Hertfordshire, Bedford
shire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and the Peterborough
three. Much good work has been done for Derbyshire, but
much remains to be done. The same is true of Shropshire,
Worcestershire, and Nottinghamshire. Yorkshire is a gigantic
task, like Middlesex, but the Riding and Holderness are to
hand. We know something of Cumberland and Westmore
land, but practically nothing of Northumberland and Durham,
Cheshire, Herefordshire, and Monmouthshire. Lancashire,
though eminently a county of recasts, has given us the earliest
dated bell, nor will this be its latest offering. The names of
Ellacombe, North, Cocks, Stahlschmidt, Dunkin, Tyssen,
Lukis, L'Estrange, Lynam, Jewitt, Owen, Poppleton, Park,
and Whitehead will ever live in their published works.
Equal gratitude we owe to innumerable workers who have
climbed towers, taken rubbings, pored over faded manu
scripts, gathered up traditions, and in various ways made the
author's labours possible.
With this tardy acknowledgment of benefits received for
many years, as well as with thankfulness to the Giver of all
good things for strength sustained and renewed, I write the
final words — " The Bells of England,"

INDEX

Aberdeen, 129
Acton Scott, 121
JEs, 10
yEschylus, 17
Alban's, St., 46, 67-69
Albourne, 159
Alcuin, 38
Aldbourne, 123, 272
Aldgate, St. Botolph, 140, 143
Aldworth, n6
Allen, 168
Althorpe, 129
Alwoldus, 44, 139
Amherst of Hackney, Lord, 133,
260
Amiens, John of, 139
Angelus bell, 95
Anstey, 190
Antony, St., 127, 128
Apollonia, St., 126
Appleby, 278
Appowell, 181, 202
Arch, pointed, antiquity of, 30
Arnold, Edward, 222
Arreton, 158
Ash Priors, 151
Ashby, Cold, 176
Ashfield, Great, 128
Ashton-under-Lyne, 218
Aslac, Aslacton, 130
Assington, 104
Aston Rowant, 18 1
Athelington, 193
Athelstan's laws, 29

182,

Atkyns, Richard, 149, 202
Aubray, 126
Aylsham, 209
Babingley, 189
Backwell, 218
Bacon, Lord, 272
Badgeworth, 210
Bagley, 220
Baker, 142, 203
Bale, 116
Barbara, St., 104, 126, 169
Barbor, John, 150, 182
Baret, 134
Barker, William, 168, 195
Barking, Suffolk, 119
Barkway, 168
Barley, 170
Barnardiston, 108
Barre Garreagh, 2i
Barry, St., 24
Bartlett, 212
Baschurch, 191
Basque words, 7
Bath, 218
Bawde, 142
Baxter, 131, 161
Beauchamp, 131
Beaumaris, 222
Beccles, 203, 204, 215
Bedale, 123
Bedford, 220, 221
Bedingfield, 194
Beesby, 134

329

330

INDEX

Beeston, 209
Bell, origin of word, 8
Belleyetere, William, 160
Bellingham, 204
Benedictus Campanarius, 80
Bene't-at-Hulme, St., 48
Benhall, 226
Bergholt, East, 290
Bermondsey, 200
Bernard, 130
Bett, 179
Beverley, 260
Bilbie, Bilby, 218, 219, 227
Billesdon, 123
Birdham, 159
Birinus, St., 155
Birkbeck, 137
Birmingham, 215
Birstall, 222
Blackburn, Lord, 166
Bletchley, 217
Bloxham, 155
Blythburgh, 275
Boddington, 116
Bolter, Nathaniel, 206
Bond, Anthony, 152
Boniface, St., 21
Boosh, Bush, 218
Borden, 205
Boston, 44, 177, 268-270
Bottesford, 178
Bottreau, 280
Boughton Malherbe, 205
Bous, 189
Bowler, 203, 211
Bowles, William Lisle, 305
Boxley, 223
Bozeat, 168
Bracker, Austen, 189
Bradfield, 148
Bramber, 94, 159
Brass, uses of the word, 4
Brasyer, etc., 131, 152, 161-168, 175,
19s
Breaston, 122
Brend, 19S, 208, 209, 213

/

Brereton, Lord, 246
Briant, John, 250
Bride's, St., 217
Bridgewater, 63
Bristol, 147, 206, 217
Brixton, 219
Broadwinsor, 154
Brockdish, 122
Bromeswell, 191
Bronze, composition of, 4
Broughton-in-Furness, 184
Buckingham, 181
Buckstead, 142
Bulkeley, Bishop, 287
Bullisdon, 1 19
Bungay, 317
Bunyan, John, 221
Burford, 109
Burham, 213
Burney, Dr., 2, 237, 270
Bury St. Edmund's, 53, 65, 66, 105,
168-174, 19s, 198-200, 213, 222,
250, 271, 272
Butler, Bishop, quoted, 327
Bykenore, Thomas de, 139
Byrdan, John, 219
Byron, Lord, 305, 306
Caldecote, IJS
Calverton, 223
Cambridge, 49, 61, 126, 172-178, 192,
209, 212, 214, 224, 265-267, 322
Campana, 8, 10, 37
Canons of a bell, 5 1
Canterbury, 45, 52, 85, 160, 247, 24S
Carlisle, 108, 211
Carlton-in-Lindrick, 131
Carr, John, 206
Carter, John, 202
Cassiterides, 5
Catlin, Robert, 216
Cattistock, 268
Catwick, 94
Caversfield, 6l
Chacombe, Chalcombe, 220
Chains, St. Peter's, 274

INDEX

331

Chaldon, 51
Chapman, William, 214, 215
Charfield, 116
Charlestown, 215
Charsfield, 214
Chebsey, 183
Chelsea, 2l6
Cherthill, 147
Chertsey, 102, 246, 26S
Chester, 274
Chesterfield, 278, 317
Chickney, 125
Chiddingley, 206
Chiffenham, 106
Chirche, Church, Chyrch, 170-174
Chladni, 9
Choke, 164
Christchurch, 107, 108
Christopher, St., 148
Cirencester, 217
Cirencester, Richard of, 278
Cista, 113, 114
Clare, 161
Clark, Dr. J. W., 49, 145, 155
Clarke, 197, 198
Claughton, 63
Claxby, 124
Clay, 221
Clifton, Sir Cliff, 246
Clocae, 37
Clocking of bells, 48
Clog-na-fulla, 19, 21
Clog-na-Mogue, 21
Closworth, 125
Cloub, Club, 244
Cocke, Coke, 195
Cockey, 218, 219
Cockfield, 200
Co£5nswell, 119
Colchester, 141, 203, 206, 226
Colkirk, 104, 125
CoUumpton, 227
Cologne, 215
Colton, 184
Colyton, 203
Congleton, 25, 274

Conington, 169
Coote, 137
Copywell, 298-303
Corbet, Bishop, 292-295
Cornard, Little, 190
Cornwallis, 140
Corrie, Dr., no
Corvehill, Sir William, 195
Coton, 122
Coventry, 137
Coxa, Archdeacon Cleveland, 306,
307
Crane, 112
Cray, St. Maiy, 212
Cratfield, 203, 204
Cripplegate, St. Giles, 218, 220
Crokesden, 74
Cromhall, 116
Crosmere, 287
Crostwright, 130
Crotals, 3, 16, 273
Crotch, 266
Crowch, Robert, 190
Crowland, 33, 44
Crowle, 227
Cuerdon, William, 227
Culpeck, 226
Culverden, William, 145, 195
Cumberland, Duke of, 246
Curfew, 95, 317
Cuthberga, St., 153
Cymbals, 17, 49
Dalton, 228
Damerham, South, 213
Danby, C. J., 164-166
Danton, John, 213
Darbie, 223, 224
Darsham, 127
David, Saint, 279
Datchworth, 197
Dawe, William, 140, 147, 148, 161
Debden, Depden, 174
Dedication of bells, 37
Dekun, Thomas, 94
Deopham, 114

INDEX

Dergny, M. Dieudonne, 43
Desborough, 125
Devonport, 182
Dickleburgh, 129
Didlington, 182, 260
Dier, John, 198
Dionysius Periegetes, 6
Dobson, William, 222, 250
Doncaster, 204, 227, 265
Dover, 86, 142
Dowdeswell, 116
Down, Downe, 142, i6o
Downham, Lane, 142
Downham Market, 25, 222, 223
Downman, 190
Draper, 200-202, 209, 210
Driffield, 116
Dublin, 222
Duffield, 107
Dulwich, 200
Dunholme, 228
Dunkerton, 219
Durandus, 50, 112
Eastergate, 220
Eastry, 198
Eaton Hall, 268
Eayre, 222
Ecclesfield, 321
Ecton, 220
Edelmeton, Edmonton, 139
Edinburgh, 271
Edmund, St., 128
Edward I., 105, 107
Edward III., 106
Edwardstone, 226
Egbert, St., 32
Eggesford, 219
Eldridge, Brian, 246
Eleanor of Castile, 105, 107
Eleigh, Monks, 129
EUand, 222
Elmham, South, 29, 193
Elmstone, Hardwicke, 116
Ely, 48, 74-79
Emerton, William, 221

Empingham, 190
Enfield, 214
Episwych, 109
Etheldreda, St., 127
Evans, William, 218, 254
Exeter, 47, 67, 96, 153, 219, 254
Eynesford, 223
Fakenham, 210
Farmington, 116
Faversham, 143
Felpham, 204
Feltwell, 127, 224
Fergas, 44
Fergusson, 30
Festus Avienus, 9
Finchley, 141
Fitz Lewes, 141
Flint, William, 176
Flower, Flo wry, 213
Ford, 108
Ford Abbey, 167
Fordington, 143
Fordwich, 205
Forrabury, 283
Foster, Frances, 206
Founder, John, 147
Founder, WiUiam, 140, 142
Fowey, 325
Freeman, Rev. J. M., 225
Fressingfield, 100, 127, 138, 190
Frettenham, 124
Frome, 218
Fulham, 217
Fylfot, 277, 278
Gabriel bells, 115
Gainford, 140
Garboldisham, 128
Gardiner, Thomas, 226
Gasquet, Dr., 177
Genney, Sergeant, 164-166
Geoffrey Plantagenet, 46
Gerbertus Scholasticus, 59
Gestingthorpe, 168
Gildas, 279

INDEX

333

Giles, St., 129
Gilpin, Samuel, 224
Giraldus Cambrensis, 23
Glapthorne, 177
Gloucester, 91, 116, 148, 149, 216, 259
GnosaU, 183
Godstone, 215
Godynge, 63
Googe, Barnaby, in
Gosselin, John, 147
Grafton Regis, 105
Graham, 4
Grandison, Bishop, 96, 254
Grantham, 265
Graveley, 197
Graye, 206
Grayingham, 124
Greystoke, 119
Grimley, 182
Grindal, Archbishop, 112
Grosseteste, Bishop, 289
Guilds of Westminster, 69
Gulval, 325
Gunby, 134
Gumell, 207
Hackness, 31
Haddenham, 224
Hadham, Much, 324
Halden, High, 205
Hales, 189
Halvergate, I2I
Hammersmith, 318
HandbeUs, 40
Handley, Robert, 149
Hardres, Upper, 142
Hargrave, 128
Harleston, 172
Harleton, 143, 144
Harrington, 210
Harrison, James, 250
Harrys, 320
Harston, 189
Hartley, 108
Hasylwood, 157
Hatch, 204, 205, 248

Haweis, 113
Hawker, 280-283, 303
Hawstead, 100
Hedenham, 204
Henley, 156
Henry VIII., 248
Henshawe, William, 149
Hepworth, 201
Hesiod, 5
Hethcote, 278
Hewelsfield, 116
Hickham, Thomas, 71
Hieronymus Magius, 1 1
Hilda, St,, 31, III
Hille, Richard, 143, 144
Hoath, 160
Hodson, 212, 257
Holbeach, 265
Holcombe, 123
Holcot, 227
Holyoake, 10
Homer, 5
Hooper, Bishop, 112, 137
Horham, 244
Horsham, 275
Hull, 212, 307
Hunstanton, 286
Huntingdon, 227
Hutton-in-the-Forest, 201
Iberians, 6, 7
Ickford, 206
Iglham, 216
Ilketshall St. Margaret, 161
Illtyd, St., 278-280
Insh, bell found at, 54
Ipswich, 129, 206, 226
Isham, 124
Isleham, 130
Ives, St., 227
Jack o' th' Clock, 275
James, Dr. Montague, 65
Janaway, Thomas, 216
Jenkins, John, musician, 237
Jersey, 284

334

INDEX

Jewitt, 133, 183
Jordan, Jurden, 143, 145, 161, 183
Just, St., 261
Katherine, St., 125
Keble, KebyU, 145, 161
Keene, 210, 220, 257
Kelsale, 223
Kempton, 121
Kemsing, 45, 277
Kencote, 147
Kerry, 182
Kettering, 222, 223
Kilberry, 24
Kilgrimel, 287
Kincardineshire, 291
King's CUffe, 113
Kingstone, 147, 183
Kipling, 219, 220
Kirkby Ireleth, 184
Kirkham, John de, 184, 187
Kirkoswald, 201
Kirton-in-Lindsey, 211
Knight, Knyght, 202, 216
Knight, Rev. William, lines by, 307-
312
Knowlton, 284
Kyrkeby, Roger de, 140
Lamb, Charles, 304, 305
Lancell's Tower, 303, 304
Land, Lawnd, William, 200, 201
Landen, Roger, 155-157
Langton Matravers, 147
Latimer, Bishop, no
Laurence, St., 129
Laurence, Thomas, 195
Lavenham, 206, 207
Lavers, 91, 92
Law, Mrs., 113
Lawley, 116
Lawson, 216
Lay Folks' Mass Book, 263
Layard, 15
Lees, George, 211
Leicester, 88, 90, 179, 180, 221, 222

Leigh, 116
Leman, Sir William, 214
Lenham, 205
Leonine hexameters, 102
Lester, Thomas, 214, 215, 248
Letton, 117
Lever system, 50
Leverton, 177
Lewes, 115
Leyton, 148
Lezant, 219
Lichfield, 61, 74, 183, 318
Lincoln, 46, 216, 249, 289
Liverpool, 222
Liversedge, 222
Llandegai, 222
Llanelly, 147
London founders, 82, 139-157, 212
Lorchon, 139
Loringe, Mr. WUliam, 153
Loughborough, 143, 144, 223
Louvain, 268
Loxton, 147
Lucas, 207
Ludlow, 182
Luffenham, South, 197
Luppit, 151
Lutwich, 202
Lydgate, 100
Lyndewode, 97, 98
Lynn, 61, 62, 93, 106, 190, 208, 215,
224, 244
Lyttleton, 164
Macclesfield, 218
Madingley, 103
Maldon, 226
Mailing, South, 212
Manchester, 215, 217, 259
Marden, bell found at, 18
Margaret, St., 127
Markfield, 180
Marland, Peter, 119
Marston, Butler's, 117
Marston St. Laurence, 105
Martene, 37

INDEX

335

Martial, ii
Martin, St., 129
Martia's-in-the-Fields, 217, 271
Mary-le-Bow, St., 215
Mears, 215-217, 220, 248, 250
Mechlin, 191
Mellour, Millers, 177-179
Melton Mowbray, 112
Membury, 119
Mere, 123
Merston, Thomas, 176
Mettingham, 162
Michael, St., 112, 113
Michel, Master Henry, 183
Michell, John, 156
Mildenhall, 163, 225
Mileham, 224
Minehead, 275
Morley, 127
Mortars, 71
Mortlake, 213
Moyle, 164
Myrc, John, 263
Nahash, 4
Naogeorgus, III
Needham, 164
•Neot's, St., 222, 223
Nettleton, 182
Newcombe, 179, 197, 220, 249
Newman, 224, 225
Newton, 189
Newton, Sir Isaac, 323
Nicholls, 112
Nichols, Rev. W. L., lines by, 312,
313
Ninfield, 129
Nola, 8, 10
Normandy, 43
Norris, 210
Northampton, 220
Northwold, 162
Norton, Robert, 153, 154
Norton, Stephen, 87, 102
Norwich, 47, 94, 161, 167, 195, 208,
224, 226, 244, 245, 270

Nottingham, 94, 161, 177, 186
Numburg (Nuremberg), in
Odson, 69
Odyngton, Walter of, 56-59
Offchurch, 117
Oldfield, 249
Oliver, Dr., 38
Osborn, Thomas, 222, 245
Oseney, 321
Otham, 142
Overbury, 117
Owen, John, 195
Oxford, 123, 212, 223, 224, 256-258,
275, 292-295
Pack, Thomas, 214, 215
Paignton, 61, 62
Painswick, 217
Parr, Dr., 250, 258
Passing bell, 26
Paston, 163
Paul's, St., 258,259
Paulinus of Nola, 8
Pausanias, 1 01
Pelham Stocking, 128
Penn, Henry, 227
Pennington, 219
Peterborough, 227
Petersburg, St., 215
Peyton, 130
Phelps, Richard, 213, 214, 258
Philadelphia, 215
Pigot, Sergeant, 165
Pilkington, Bishop, in
Pittington, 127
Plantagenet, Geoffrey, 249
Pleasant, Henry, 226
Pliny, 7
Plymouth, 218
Plymptree, 154
Plot, John, 142
Plumbum candidum, 7
Polydore Vergil, 9
Poole, 222
Poole, John and George, 202

33^

INDEX

Pope, Henry, i66
Portobello, 219
Potters, 80-83, 161, 186, 187
Potterspury, 105
Purdues, 205, 206
Pynchbeck, John and Leonard, 177
Quidenham, 122
Quivil, Bishop, 62
Races, bells used as prizes, 274, 275
Racton, 220
Radljourn, 273
Raleigh, 287
Raphael bells, 116
Rashoold, 156
Raughton, William de, 140
Raveningham, 127
Reading, 155, 157, 202
Redenhall, 172, 201
Reepham, 200
Reimann, 39
Rendham, 122
Reve, Giles, 204
Reve, Roger, 174
Revel, 161
Rider, Robert, 108
Rigby, Alexander, 210
Risby, 128
Ritson, 186, 187
Robin Hood, 186, 187
Romeneye, John, 140
Romford, 287
Romney, Old, 160
Rowston, 124
Rudhall, 210, 216-218, 221
Rufford, 141
Russell, Thomas, 221
Rye, 192
Sacheverell, Dr., 214
St. David's Cathedral, 151
Salisbury,. 150, 196
Saltfleetby, 122
Sandwich, no
Saunders, John, 202

Saxon towers, 32, 33
Scalford, 190
Schep, WiUiam, 128
Schelby, John de, 46
Scotter, 323
Sellor, William, 211
Semson, Roger, 151
Sevenhampton, 116
Seynter, Beneit le, 189
Shaftesbury, 152
Shapwick, 148
Sheep bells, 20
Sheepwash, 147
Shelford, Great, 106, 209
Sherburn-in-Elmet, 40
ShiUingstone, 324
Shoe Lane, 216
Shouldham, 189
Shrewsbury, 182, 218
Signum, 10, 37, 50
Silisden, Silsden, 109
Sista, 113, 114
Slaughter, Lower, 116
Sleyht, John, 177
Smith, James, 211
Smithfield, St. Bartholomew, 128
Somercotes, 134
Somersby, 134
Southwell, 221
Southwold, 275
Spelman, Sir Henry, 280
Squilla, etc., 7, 50
Stafford, Archbishop, 154
Stainbank, 216
Stamford, 210
Standish, n5
Stannum, 7
Stanstead, 199
Stanton All Saints, 125
Stedham, 220
Stedman, Fabian, 232-2^, 295-297
Steeple, 47
Stephens, John, 226
Stock of a bell, 51
Stoke Ash, 169
Stoke Climsland, 219

INDEX

337

Stoke D'Abernon, 277
Stonham, Little, 122
Stourpaine, 121
Stowmarket, 206
Stradbroke, 161
Stradishall, 201
Stratford St. Andrew, 126
Stretton, Church, 288
Stukeley, Dr., 35, 46, 265
Sturdy, 102, 143, 144
Sturminster Newton, 222
Sudbury, 124, 161, 172, 226
Suffolk, A. de, 108
Suffolk, W. de, 108
Sundon, io5
Sutton, Chart, 87
Sutton, John, 161
Sutton, King's, 223
Sutton St. James, 2io
Swadling, Thomas, 181
Swineshead, 178
Symondson, 223, 273
Tadcaster, 228
Taddington, 112
Tadlow, 155
Talaton, 131
Tandridge, 215
Tarring, West, 204
Taxstede, Thomas, 195
Taylors, 223
Teigh, 106
Teilo, St., 22
Thame, 156, 181, 202
Theddlethorpe, 122
Theodorus of Samos, loi
Thetford, 201, 202, 209, 210, 226
Thomas, St., of Canterbury, 103, 105,
128
Thor's hammer, 277, 278
Thurcaston, 106
TiUey, Rev. H. T., 220
Tintagel, 281-283
Tintinnabulum, 7, 15
Tixover, 180
Toley, 168 Z

Tonne, Tonni, 115, 195, 198-200
Tooke, Edward, 224
Topsell, Henry, 203
Totness, 218
Tough, 145
TrenduU, 78
Trevor, Valentine, 204
Tunnoc, Richard, 72
Tunstall, 288
Turrets, 41
Tyssen, 115, 131, 150, 152, 156, 163
Ubbeston, 147
Udall, 232
Ufford, Philip de, 109
Ulcombe, 205
Underbill, 141
Van Castor, Canon, 191
Vanaerschodt, 268
Varvells, 203
Vernon, Admiral, 219, 291
Vincent, St., 128
Vincent (the island), 222
Voss, Gerard, 9
Vowchurch, 192
Waghevens, 192
Walafridus Strabo, 8
W^algrave, John, 142
Wallis, John, 196
Walsingham, Old, 109
Waltham, 205
Warblington, 158
Warner & Son, 259
Warwick, 55
Wath-upon-Deame, 211
Wattisfield, 201
Watts, 197
Waverley, Annals of, 64
Week, 158
WeU, 94
Wells, 209
Wells, Robert, 272
Welnetham, Little, 190
Wentnor, 288

338

INDEX

Westminster, 204, 259 ; Guild of, 69
Weston, Buckhorn, 121
Weston, Market, 122
Weston, Peter de, 140
Weston, William, 147
Whitby, in
White, John, 157, 202
Whitechapel, 212-216, 259
Whittington, Dick, 230
Whitton, 190
Wightman, 212, 213
Wigston, 179
Wigtoft, 178
Wilby, 122
Willis, Browne, 217
Wilnar, John, 205
Wimbish, the family, 80, 82
Wimbledon, 147
Wimborn Minster, 152, 153
Wimbotsham, 106
Winthorpe, 104, 128
Wisset, 147, 226
Wokingham, 155, 156
Wolsey, Cardinal, 290
Wood, Anthony i, 223, 224
Woodbury, 151

Woodstock, 210, 221, 257
Woodton, 16
Woolaston, 116
Wootton, 221
Worcester, 182, 183, 218, 260, 284
Worstead, 225
Wouldham, 208
Wragby, 129
Wrentham, 198
Wrexham, 217
Wright, Edmund, 211
Wyddial, 106
Wymington, 116
Wymondham, 315, 316
Wynkyn de Worde, 280
Xiphilinus, 16
Yarmouth, 224
Yarnscombe, 147
Yarpole, 117
Yatton, 147
Yaxley, 201
Yeatminster, 203
York, 71-74, 88, 211, 215, 227, 228
Yorkshire founders, 184, 185, 228, 248

PRINTED BY ^
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

3 9002 04078 4531

BRITISH H^ ;^'
PRESERVATION

¦m>'iH

(ii.;'^ .

^

Wm^.j^h

m

tf, ¦ -

h

"•'liih

tuami

¥it%' \

.^Srs M

HBw

MtS'}]

' M

m^P

iK') «.

HHMii1~tl

*?IP
mm^^
V
H^'i ^
.< & "• '
*• --
- T-