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<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Comic Sans MS">As Richard knows, I can never quite
resist a jibe against the County where I spent the least happy years of my life
- but they weren't all bad, and I don't really have it in for the Men of Kent or
their Kentish fellows.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Comic Sans MS">There was, though, an underlying question
to my comment. The piece posted by Hazel referring to Prior Wybert, the
Canterbury bells and the number of ringers needed to ring them is well known.
But do we actually believe that in the mid C12 Canterbury had huge bells - as
suggested by DLC's comparison with Cologne - or that the bells there were
so VERY much heavier than any others known in this country until the C19th?
Great Tom of Oxford (1680) was the heaviest at 6 tons until the first Great
Peter of York (10 tons) came along in 1845.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Comic Sans MS">Hence my "wimps?" question. What do we
actually make of it? Were the bells so very heavy? - and if so, what other
information to we have on the casting / existence of very large bells in Britain
or in Europe at that date? The idea that these bells were rung by treading beams
certainly seems plausible - but do we know anything from elsewhere about how
many people (e.g. per ton of bell) it took to operate this system. If they
weren't that heavy, why were so many ringers needed? Are there any real grounds
for accepting the Canterbury information at all - or is it just a piece of
unreliable anecdotal evidence? Just a few prompts for
consideration.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Comic Sans MS">I have a slight interest in getting to
the bottom of this for something I'm writing. It's too easy just to trot out the
usual quote - and tempting, as it's a great reference to bells in the C12th -
but there are significant questions about its validity and meaning. The answer
could well be that we really don't know - but I'd value any observations that
others might make. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT><FONT size=2
face="Comic Sans MS"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face="Comic Sans MS">CP</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>