Church bell

Cutaway drawing of a church bell, showing construction.
Church bell ringing in Aldeboarn, Friesland (Frisia), the Netherlands, June 2022.

A church bell is a bell in a church building designed to be heard outside the building. It can be a single bell, or part of a set of bells. Their main function is to call worshippers to the church for a communal service, but are also rung on special occasions such as a wedding, or a funeral service. In some Christian traditions they signify to people outside that a particular part of the service has been reached.[1]

The traditional European church bell (see cutaway drawing) used in Christian churches worldwide consists of a cup-shaped metal resonator with a pivoted clapper hanging inside which strikes the sides when the bell is swung. It is hung within a steeple or belltower of a church or religious building,[2] so the sound can reach a wide area. Such bells are either fixed in position ("hung dead") or hung from a pivoted beam (the "headstock") so they can swing to and fro. A rope hangs from a lever or wheel attached to the headstock, and when the bell ringer pulls on the rope the bell swings back and forth and the clapper hits the inside, sounding the bell. Bells that are hung dead are normally sounded by hitting the sound bow with a hammer or occasionally by a rope which pulls the internal clapper against the bell.

A church may have a single bell, or a collection of bells which are tuned to a common scale. They may be stationary and chimed, rung randomly by swinging through a small arc, or swung through a full circle to enable the high degree of control of English change ringing.

Before modern communications, church bells were a common way to call the community together for all purposes, both sacred and secular. In some Christian traditions bell ringing was believed to drive out demons.[3][4][5]

  1. ^ Church Words: Origins and Meanings. Forward Movement. August 1, 1996. ISBN 9780880281720. Retrieved August 16, 2012. There are two sorts of liturgical bells in the history of the Christian Church-church bells in spires or towers used to call the faithful to worship, and sanctuary bells used to call attention to the coming of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
  2. ^ Adato, Joseph; Judy, George. The Percussionist's Dictionary. Alfred Music. p. 11. ISBN 9781457493829.
  3. ^ Booth, Mark (February 11, 2014). The Sacred History: How Angels, Mystics and Higher Intelligence Made Our World. Simon and Schuster. p. 274. ISBN 9781451698589. Church bells would be rung to drive away demons.
  4. ^ Cohen, I. Bernard (1990). Benjamin Franklin's Science. Harvard University Press. p. 119. ISBN 9780674066595. The practice of ringing church bells to dissipate lightning storms and prevent their deleterious effects had a long tradition in Europe and had been a concomitant to the general belief in the diabolical agency manifested in storms. ... Typical inscriptions on church bells described their power to "ward off lightning and malignant demons"; stated that "the sound of this bell vanquishes tempests, repels demons, and summons men," or exhorted it to "praise God, put to flight the coulds, affright the demons, and call the people"; or noted that "it is I who dissipate the thunders."
  5. ^ Lewis, James R. (2001). Satanism Today. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781576072929.