Abell tower is atower that contains one or morebells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christianchurch, and will containchurch bells, but there are also many secular bell towers, often part of a municipal building, an educational establishment, or a tower built specifically to house acarillon. Church bell towers often incorporate clocks, and secular towers usually do, as a public service.
The termcampanile (/ˌkæmpəˈniːli,-leɪ/,alsoUS:/ˌkɑːm-/,Italian:[kampaˈniːle]), from the Italiancampanile, which in turn derives fromcampana, meaning "bell", is synonymous withbell tower; though in English usage campanile tends to be used to refer to a free standing bell tower. A bell tower may also in some traditions be called abelfry, though this term may also refer specifically to the substructure that houses the bells and the ringers rather than the complete tower.
Bells are rung from a tower to enable them to be heard at a distance. Church bells can signify the time for worshippers to go to church for a communalservice, and can be an indication of thefixed times of dailyChristian prayer, called thecanonical hours, which number seven and are contained inbreviaries. They are also rung on special occasions such as awedding, or afuneral service. In some religious traditions they are used within the liturgy of the church service to signify to people that a particular part of the service has been reached.[3]
A bell tower 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 Englishchange ringing. They may house acarillon orchimes, in which the bells are sounded by hammers connected via cables to a keyboard. These can be found in many churches and secular buildings in Europe and America includingcollege anduniversity campuses.[4]
A variety of electronic devices exist to simulate the sound of bells, but any substantial tower in which a considerable sum of money has been invested will generally have a real set of bells.
Some churches have anexconjuratory in the bell tower, a space where ceremonies were conducted to ward off weather-related calamities, like storms and excessive rain. The main bell tower of theCathedral of Murcia has four.
InChristianity, many churches ring their church bells from belltowers three times a day, at 9 am, 12 pm and 3 pm to summon the Christian faithful to recite theLord's Prayer;[5][6][7] the injunction to pray the Lord's prayer thrice daily was given inDidache 8, 2 f.,[8][9][10] which, in turn, was influenced by the Jewish practice of praying thrice daily found in theOld Testament, specifically inPsalm 55:17, which suggests "evening and morning and at noon", andDaniel 6:10, in which the prophetDaniel prays thrice a day.[8][9][11][12] The early Christians thus came to pray the Lord's Prayer at 9 am, 12 pm and 3 pm;[13] as such, in Christianity, manyLutheran andAnglican churches ring theirchurch bells from belltowers three times a day: in the morning, at noon and in the evening calling Christians to recite the Lord's Prayer.[5][6][14] Many Catholic Christian churches ring their bells thrice a day, at 6a.m., noon, and 6p.m., to call the faithful to recite theAngelus, a prayer recited in honour of theIncarnation of God.[15][16]Oriental Orthodox Christians, such asCopts andIndians, use abreviary such as theAgpeya andShehimo topray thecanonical hours seven times a day while facing in theeastward direction; church bells are tolled, especially in monasteries, to mark theseseven fixed prayer times (cf.Psalm 119:164).[17][18]
The Christian tradition of the ringing of church bells from a belltower is analogous toIslamic tradition of theadhan (call to prayer) from aminaret.[19][20]
Old bell towers which are no longer used for their original purpose may be kept for theirhistoric or architectural value, though in countries with a strongcampanological tradition they often continue to have the bells rung.
Historic bell towers exist throughout Europe. TheIrish round towers are thought to have functioned in part as bell towers. Famous medieval European examples include Bruges (Belfry of Bruges), Ypres (Cloth Hall, Ypres), Ghent (Belfry of Ghent). Perhaps the most famous European free-standing bell tower, however, is the so-called "Leaning Tower of Pisa", which is the campanile of theDuomo di Pisa inPisa,Italy. In 1999 thirty-twoBelgian belfries were added to theUNESCO'slist of World Heritage Sites. In 2005 this list was extended with one Belgian and twenty-three NorthernFrench belfries and is since known asBelfries of Belgium and France. Most of these were attached to civil buildings, mainly city halls, as symbols of the greater power the cities in the region got in the Middle Ages; a small number of buildings not connected with a belfry, such as bell towers of—or with their—churches, also occur on this same list (details). In theMiddle Ages, cities sometimes kept their important documents in belfries. Not all are on a large scale; the "bell" tower ofKatúň, inSlovakia, is typical of the many more modest structures that were once common in country areas. Archaic wooden bell towers survive adjoining churches inLithuania and as well as in some parts ofPoland.
^Church Words: Origins and Meanings. Forward Movement. 1996.ISBN978-0880281720. Retrieved16 August 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.
^abGeorge Herbert Dryer (1897).History of the Christian Church. Curts & Jennings.…every church-bell in Christendom to be tolled three times a day, and all Christians to repeat Pater Nosters (The Lord's Prayer)
^abJoan Huyser-Honig (2006),Uncovering the Blessing of Fixed-Hour Prayer, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship,Early Christians prayed the Lord's Prayer three times a day. Medieval church bells called people to common prayer.
^Matthew: A Shorter Commentary. Continuum International Publishing Group. 2005.ISBN978-0567082497. Retrieved16 August 2012.Moreover, the central portion of the Eighteen Benedictions, just like the Lord's Prayer, falls into two distinct parts (in the first half the petitions are for the individuals, in the second half for the nation); and early Christian tradition instructs believers to say the Lord's Prayer three times a day (Did. 8.3) while standing (Apost.const. 7.24), which precisely parallels what the rabbis demanded for the Eighteen Benedictions.
^James F White (2010).Introduction to Christian Worship, 3rd ed.: Revised and Enlarged.Abingdon Press.ISBN978-1426722851. Retrieved12 October 2012.Late in the first century or early in the second, theDidache advised Christians to pray the Lord's prayer three times a day. Others sought disciplines in the Bible itself as ways to make the scriptural injunction to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17) practical. Psalm 55:17 suggested "evening and morning and at noon," and Daniel prayed three times a day (Dan. 6:10).
^Catechism Of The Catholic Church.Continuum International Publishing Group. 1999.ISBN0-860-12324-3. Retrieved2 September 2014.Late in the first century or early in the second, theDidache advised Christians to pray the Lord's prayer three times a day. Others sought disciplines in the Bible itself as ways to make the scriptural injunction to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17) practical. Psalm 55:17 suggested "evening and morning and at noon," and Daniel prayed three times a day (Dan. 6:10).
^Beckwith, Roger T. (2005).Calendar, Chronology And Worship: Studies in Ancient Judaism And Early Christianity. Brill.ISBN978-90-04-14603-7.So three minor hours of prayer were developed, at the third, sixth and ninth hours, which, as Dugmore points out, were ordinary divisions of the day for worldly affairs, and the Lord's Prayer was transferred to those hours.
^John P. Anderson (2009).Joyce's Finnegans Wake: The Curse of Kabbalah, Volume 2. Universal Publishers.ISBN978-1599429014. Retrieved16 August 2012.The Angelus is a Christian devotion in memory of the Incarnation. Its name is derived from the opening words, Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariæ. It consists of three Biblical verses describing the mystery, recited as versicle and response, alternating with the salutation "Hail Mary!" and traditionally is recited in Catholic churches, convents and monasteries three times daily, 6:00 am, 12:00 noon and 6:00 pm, accompanied by the ringing of the Angelus bell. Some High Church Anglican and Lutheran churches also use the devotion.
^Mary Cecil, 2nd Baroness Amherst of Hackney (1906).A Sketch of Egyptian History from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Methuen. p. 399.Prayers 7 times a day are enjoined, and the most strict among the Copts recite one of more of the Psalms of David each time they pray. They always wash their hands and faces before devotions, and turn to the East.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^Church Words: Origins and Meanings. Psychology Press. 1996.ISBN978-0880281720. Retrieved2012-08-16.But even for Muslims who pray infrequently, the adhan marks the passage of time through the day (in much the same way as church bells do in many Christian communities) and serves as a constant reminder that they are living in a Muslim community.
^Islamic Beliefs, Practices, and Cultures. Marshal Cavendish. 2009. p. 77.ISBN978-0761479260. Retrieved16 August 2012.Muslims living in predominantly Islamic lands, however, have the benefit of the call to prayer (adhan). In the same way that much of the Christian world traditionally used bells to summon the faithful to church services, so the early Muslim community developed its own method of informing the entire community that the time for prayer had arrived.
^abRoger J. Smith (1997)."Church Bells". Sacred Heart Catholic Church and St. Yves Mission. Archived fromthe original on 2021-12-07. Retrieved2012-10-26.Bells came into use in our churches as early as the year 400, and their introduction is ascribed to Paulinus, bishop of Nola, a town of Campania, in Italy. Their use spread rapidly, as in those unsettled times the church-bell was useful not only for summoning the faithful to religious services, but also for giving an alarm when danger threatened. Their use was sanctioned in 604 by Pope Sabinian, and a ceremony for blessing them was established a little later. Very large bells, for church towers, were probably not in common use until the eleventh century.
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