[Bell Historians] The sound of bells in 1170

[Chris Pickford]

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.

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.

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.

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. 

CP           
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