John Briggs’
interesting message reminded me of an interesting bell tower I saw yesterday at
the church of St. Mary of the Assumption at Ufford
in Suffolk. By
a happy chance, a group of very good bell ringers were ringing while we were
visiting this fascinating church (an amazing font cover and 15th century
bench ends amongst other treasures). The bell ringers were clearly seen in
their chamber through both a large window facing west out of the 14th
century tower and through the large 13th century window opening east
onto the nave of the church. Above this window, though, is a smaller one,
presumably on a level with the bells themselves, or certainly much closer to
them, which the guide book suggests gave the ringer in the tower a direct view
of the altar in order to ring the sanctus bell. Would a bell have been rung
from this level only at the Eucharist, or is chamber a later addition, allowing
longer ropes and so easier ringing? (and if so what purpose, if any, would the
large west facing window have had?) Maybe the sanctus window was only used
when there was an earlier tower there, and became redundant with the building
of the 14th century tower. I’m not expecting definitive
answers to this – merely adding to the interesting speculations on the
relationships between the evidence provided by buildings and knowledge of
liturgy etc.
Cate Gunn
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: