# Question about Church/Cathedral Bell Ringing **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 4, 2011, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-church-cathedral-bell-ringing/595193 "2011-09-04T22:27:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Full_Metal_Lotus)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-church-cathedral-bell-ringing/595193/1 "2011-09-04T22:27:53Z")
As I understand it, some bells weigh thousands of pounds, and obviously carry a huge amount of momentum when being swung. How do they make them stop for precise number of ringc - say when ringing out 6 “Gongs” for 6 oclock? I am especially interested in how they did it in pre technological times - before electrical assistance and such. ---
**Author:** ![Pitchmeister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pitchmeister/32/3459_2.png) [@Pitchmeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pitchmeister)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-church-cathedral-bell-ringing/595193/2 "2011-09-04T22:32:59Z")
They simply strike the bell with a hammer instead of swinging it around. That would certainly work just as well with a mechanical clock. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-church-cathedral-bell-ringing/595193/3 "2011-09-04T22:38:16Z")
They do have swinging bells, too, but those are only used when you just want to cause a general racket, and don’t care precisely how long it lasts. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-church-cathedral-bell-ringing/595193/4 "2011-09-04T23:08:14Z")
When I was a kid, in a rural area, a guy was ringing the bells the old-fashionned way, by pulling a rope to make them swing. It didn’t prevent him from ringing them a specific number of times. When sounding the death knell, for instance, it was 7 times for a man and 9 for a woman (or the other way around). I’ve no clue how he was doing that, though. But at least, it shows it’s possible. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2011, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-church-cathedral-bell-ringing/595193/5 "2011-09-04T23:17:08Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > I’ve no clue how he was doing that, though. But at least, it shows it’s possible. On a second tought, I’ve never seen him rings the bells this way(\*) , but only when he was swinging them widly, to announce the mass, for instance. So, in fact he might have used another method than pulling the rope when he needed a precise number of rings. (\*) The death knell was sounded when a death was announced, not for the funerals (sending everybody on an errand to find out who had died where), so nobody was present. ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-church-cathedral-bell-ringing/595193/6 "2011-09-05T00:01:53Z")
Here’s a thread from a few years ago in which **Siege** gives some very interesting information about campanology: [The Nine Tailors: “Raising” a bell](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=325050). ---
**Author:** ![ltfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@ltfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ltfire)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-church-cathedral-bell-ringing/595193/7 "2011-09-05T00:17:18Z")
Igor was the hunchback simpleton that used his head to ring the village bells.He would knock himself unconcious and then somehow wake up before the next scheduled ringing. One day. Igor. feeling quite dizzy. ran past the bells and plunged to his death 6 stories down into the court yard. Concerned villagers came running to his body. all asking who was this man? One fellow came forward and said…I don’t know his name but his face rings a bell. Thank you. I’ll be here all week…😃 ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-church-cathedral-bell-ringing/595193/8 "2011-09-05T00:22:27Z")
> [@ltfire](#): > > Igor was the hunchback simpleton that used his head to ring the village bells.He would knock himself unconcious and then somehow wake up before the next scheduled ringing. > One day. Igor. feeling quite dizzy. ran past the bells and plunged to his death 6 stories down into the court yard. > Concerned villagers came running to his body. all asking who was this man? One fellow came forward and said..I don’t know his name but his face rings a bell. > > Thank you. I’ll be here all week…😃 He had a twin. Same exact thing happened. When they asked what this guy’s name was, the answer, “Don’t know. But he’s a dead ringer for his brother, isn’t he?” ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-church-cathedral-bell-ringing/595193/9 "2011-09-05T00:23:28Z")
> [@Full\_Metal\_Lotus](#): > > As I understand it, some bells weigh thousands of pounds, and obviously carry a huge amount of momentum when being swung. How do they make them stop for precise number of ringc - say when ringing out 6 “Gongs” for 6 oclock? I am especially interested in how they did it in pre technological times - before electrical assistance and such. I’ll just point out that two of the most fundamental machines – levers and pulleys – lend themselves perfectly to moving heavy objects, and were well known to all our ancestors. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-church-cathedral-bell-ringing/595193/10 "2011-09-05T02:01:15Z")
> [@Pitchmeister](#): > > They simply strike the bell with a hammer instead of swinging it around. That would certainly work just as well with a mechanical clock. They also tied a rope to the clapper, and pulled the clapper to hit the bell, rather than move the bell around. ---
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-church-cathedral-bell-ringing/595193/11 "2011-09-05T02:05:35Z")
some are meant to swing 360 degrees, having counterweights. watch the sound of music. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-church-cathedral-bell-ringing/595193/12 "2011-09-05T02:56:00Z")
I have rung a heavy church bell - the kind that is heavy enough to lift two or three people off the ground if they don’t let go of the rope. Pulling the rope moved the bell, not the clapper. Starting from scratch, you had to pull two or three times, building up momentum with the swing getting bigger each time, before the bell would make any contact with the clapper. You then let the bell strike as many times as you wanted, keeping the swing just large enough to get a strike. It was easy, with very little practice, to judge what swing you needed to build up so that a small pull on the rope in each cycle would result in a strike, while failing to pull would not. When you’d got the number of strikes you wanted, you just stopped pulling. The bell would continue to swing, and the rope to rise and fall, but there would be no more strikes. You could let it wind down itself, or you could pull against the swing, rather than with it, to damp down the movement of the bell. ---
**Author:** ![Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/df705f/32.png) [@Full\_Metal\_Lotus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Full_Metal_Lotus)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2011, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-church-cathedral-bell-ringing/595193/13 "2011-09-05T18:23:46Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > I have rung a heavy church bell - the kind that is heavy enough to lift two or three people off the ground if they don’t let go of the rope. Pulling the rope moved the bell, not the clapper. > > Starting from scratch, you had to pull two or three times, building up momentum with the swing getting bigger each time, before the bell would make any contact with the clapper. You then let the bell strike as many times as you wanted, keeping the swing just large enough to get a strike. It was easy, with very little practice, to judge what swing you needed to build up so that a small pull on the rope in each cycle would result in a strike, while failing to pull would not. When you’d got the number of strikes you wanted, you just stopped pulling. The bell would continue to swing, and the rope to rise and fall, but there would be no more strikes. You could let it wind down itself, or you could pull against the swing, rather than with it, to damp down the movement of the bell. Thank you… I suspected it was something like this, but was hoping it would be a more esoteric answer.., and thanks to everyone for their responses too.