Campanology

Watson's Database for the Church Bells of Britain

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Campanology is the scientific and musical study of bells. It encompasses the technology of bells - how they are cast, tuned, hung and rung - as well as the history, methods and traditions of bellringing as an art. It is common to collect together a set of tuned bells and treat the whole as one musical instrument. Such collections as a Flemish carillon, a Russian zvon, or an English ''ring of bells'' used for change ringing, have their own practices and challenges; and campanology is likewise the study of perfecting such instruments and composing and performing music for them. In this sense. however, the word campanology is most often used in reference to reliatively large bells, often hung in a tower. It is not usually applied to assemblages of smaller bells, such as a glockenspiel, a collection of tubular bells, or an Indonesian gamelan.

Campanology is a hybrid word. The first half if derived from the Late Latin campana, meaning 'bell'; the second half is derived from the Ancient Greek -λογία (-logia) meaning 'the study of'. A campanologist is someone who studies campanology, though it is popularly misused to refer to a bell ringer.

There are a number of forms of bell ringing, which has been developed down the years. They differ depending on the region in which the bells are hung, and the ways the bells are hung differ depending on the style of ringing practiced in that tower/location.
Below are a few of the different way in which bells are hung and rung:

Full circle ringing
In English style full circle ringing, the bells in a church tower are hung so that on each stroke the bell swings through a complete circle; actually a little more than 360 degrees.