The Land of Silent Bell Towers

One of the most beautiful sounds in my mind is the sound of church bells calling out. The campanological songs that one remembers in the old movies that were set in England (like Mr. Chips) come to mind. The image of the great bells being rung out in the movie Becket is stirring. But here, in the United States, our bell towers are silent. It seems so strange to me that churches would erect a building with small little towers appended to one or both sides of the front as if they were a necessary decoration only. If churches did purchase bells, they were usually penuriously limited in scope, usually with only one to three bells. This is fine if the church happens to be a small mission type. But if it is a genuine parish church it should actually be an embarrassment. Very few churches in the United States built a well-proportioned, heavy bell tower and far fewer filled it appropriately.

Bells are very much a part of our historic heritage--and this goes throughout the entire Christian world, not only in the West. Churches built towers, campaniles, and filled them bells to sing out to the community at large. The bells marked the great feasts, important moments of the liturgical services, certain daily devotions (like the Angelus), the time of the day, weddings, funerals, deaths and even civil dangers. Bells were a familiar voice of the entire community. They were part of the family in an existential sense.

The bells have not completely ceased ringing out in Europe, and in some places there has been a little renaissance of the campanological art. But in the United States, our towers are largely silent even when they have bells. We seem too timid to proclaim the faith beyond the interior of the church building by ringing a bell. We fear the complaint of neighbors, and perhaps a complete change of 2-1/2 hours may be out of the question here, surely 15 minutes or so shouldn't be out of the question.

I recall the story about bells from a former parishioner who was from Denmark. She said that before she embraced her Christian faith, she used to get irritated by the sound of the bells on Sunday mornings in Denmark. They would ring throughout the city and it disturbed her. Later, she embraced her faith very devoutly and when she revisited her native country, her attitude to the ringing of bells was markedly different. She loved the sound of them. I have read that there is a real link to one's love of the faith and how one responds the ringing of bells. The bells crash through one's comfortable experience of leisure and call to mind the community that is larger and has more claim on oneself as well as piercing the false wall one builds up against the worship of God in his Church. It is unsettling to sit and enjoy the morning coffee and Sunday paper with the sound of the Church calling to one. It should be so.

Bells are evangelical. They proclaim the Gospel of Christ throughout the area (they can actually be heard a mile or so away when hung properly). They sanctify the time and space that we live in, and so they are not popular with the secularist. They are an habitual voice of faith proclaimed. They speak out that there is a Christian church present, that the worship of God is taking place and as such they are perhaps some of the most cost efficient tools for "getting the word out" about one's community.

They are also comforting. There is something about the sound of a strong and large tenor bell (the largest and deepest bell in a peal, or set, of bells) in a church tower that brings a sense of solidity to one's heart. The slow, steady tolling of the bell at a funeral helps the heart find a beat to live by which aids it to stay afloat in the midst of sorrow. The bells mourn with the bereaved, showing the sadness of all of creation at the loss of a son of God. The comfort of the toll reaches near to a sacramental experience.

What is more celebratory than when near the midnight hour in the cold and frosty dark, the bells sing out in a peal to announce the birth of Christ? They begin with the treble bells and move down sequentially to the tenor, and then they begin moving through a complicated mathematical dance of joy. The darkness comes alive in thanksgiving and exuberance.

And while bells are common to the entire Christian tradition, there is certainly a particular character that is Western. The bells themselves are different. In the Christian East they are cast and hung as they are. In the West, they are turned upside down and turned on a special lathe following their casting so that they may be tuned musically. The West tunes a bell to speak or ring out five distinct tones in the bell. Easterners make an argument that their bells are more Christian because they take the bell as a unique personality as given by God and allow it to speak with its own voice. That certainly represents one campanological school's religious description. It is certainly a nice allegory. But we must note that there is nothing at all dogmatic about it though it a nice way of explaining their approach. The Western approach is not empty of an equally valid and edifying allegory. Bells are tuned just as we fallen human beings must be perfected in our lives until at last we can sing more perfectly the praises of God. The turning becomes an image, or icon, of our spiritual struggles. It's an argument that is equally valid, and, to me, more powerful of where are right now, what is required of us and the beauty of a transfigured life.

The Eastern school is also entirely based on a rhythmic system, which is why the bells don't need to be tuned since it is the rhythm that is important and not the musical tonality. This helps to point out why the East never developed an equivalent of the Carillon so popular among the Belgians who mastered it. Bells are purchased in the East specified by the physical weight of the bell. In the West, they are purchased both by weight and the musical note. Every Western peal of bells can be classified by its musical harmony (diatonic and so forth) and whether or not it is flat, sharp or natural. This would never be thought of amongst the Easterners.

The West is not homogenous in its campanology however. There are some places in which rhythm plays a greater part, although it was never the exclusive focus. Most country parish churches in Italy had three bells, while larger churches had many more. The same was largely true throughout the Mediterranean. But as one moved north the number of bells increased. And as one crossed the English Channel, the theory of bell ringing changed as well.

The English tradition of change ringing is perhaps the most highly developed of all the Western campanological schools. Dedicated teams still practice and play the bells even in smaller parish churches throughout the land. It is an organic and overwhelmingly physical musical experience. The bells seem to even add a little sense of clarity to those who benefit from the work of the bell ringers.

How tragic it is that our towers stand silent. What a farce it is that we so quickly adopt electronic loud speakers to sound out an artificial ring. What does that say about our faith? Is "artificial" really acceptable or an apt description of our faith? Perhaps it is for some. I can accept that one might not be able to have a ready-at-hand team of bell-ringers for every Mass, for every funeral (and sadly, not even for every Sunday), but ought not one strive for this? I would suggest that the ideal is to have bells hung in towers so that they can be rung by hand by use of ropes, and optionally, when necessary, by an electrical motor that swings the bell. I think it is still important that the bells be swung to ring out. It also seems to me that a normal parish church ought to have a peal of six to eight bells, anchored by a goodly sized tenor of at least 10cwt. This would not be a terribly expensive peal and it would be capable a great diversity and beauty. And it ought to be noted that the bells will last for a thousand years being cast of good bell bronze. The investment in a proper peal is very little over the centuries. But we don't think in terms of permanence any longer. A great example of a good parish peal is Bradford Abbas, consisting of 6 bells (13cwt-2-21 in F). A recording of this peal is here: http://www.freewebs.com/timrose2/towerbells.htm


What would our land be like if the bells began to sing? What would the little country churches that dot our country find if they consistently proclaimed the gospel with bells? I'm not sure that I can answer that with any certainty because I'm not sure how many people would recoil because of their spiritual state rather than be moved by the bells. Yet, I am certain that those who hold the faith would be encouraged, comforted and made more aware of their spiritual lives on a day-to-day, and minute-by-minute basis and surely this could help us begin to rebuild the faith in this formless world.