[Bell Historians] Royal, or other names

[edward martin]

On 8/19/06, Richard Offen <richard at Ow6Rkt-pLE7BCLbcwxaZrb1MMeiYYsxY2stVD22I5uuPs2whyEk6_ERgpTW2FUHGCyxrEFom2A.yahoo.invalid> wrote:
>
> >
> > More recently (by which I mean during the 18th century),
> > doubles came to mean any five bell method, and the terms
> > 'minor', 'major', etc., came into being.  But I'm unsure
> > exactly where these came from and why, for example, 'minor'
> > refers to six bell ringing rather than (say) four bell
> > ringing.  And 'royal' is a complete mystery to me.
> >
> > Richard
> >
>
> It's doubles because a maximum of two pairs of bells can be swapped in
> any one change; triples has a maximum of three pairs; Caters
> (derivation from French for four), four pairs; etc. Quite when this
> convention came to be I am unsure.
>
> R
>
It really isn't "doubles because a maximum of two pairs of bells can
be swapped in
any one change" but rather that two pairs of bells are changed
EG Even though the maximun of 3 pairs could be swapped on 6 bells, the
following was called "London Doubles" (see page 146 of Stedman's
Campanalogia)
123456
213465
231456
234165
243615
246351
426531
425613
452163
451236
415263
145236
154263
Every change is a double

mew