BELFRY (ME. berfrcy, bcrfrcit, M. Lat. ber[c]f redus, 5111G, berefrit, a watchtower, from berc, protection, Ger. bergen, to cover, hide ± frit, frid, place of security, tower, Ger. Friede, peace). Originally a wooden movable tower for protecting a besieging force in an attack On a fortification, such as Cesar mom than once mentions. Froissart describes one that was employed at the siege of the Castle of Breteuil in 1356: and at the siege of Jerusalem, by the Crusaders. one was carried in picoes, put to gether just beyond bowshot, and then pushed on wheels to a proper position. Such towers some times rested on six or eight wheels, and had as many as fifteen stories or stages; but the height was usually limited to three or four. They were often covered with rawhides to protect them from boiling oil or grease thrown them by the besieged, and there was a hinged drawbridge at the top, which was let down upon the parapet of the wall to assist in landing. The lower stage frequently had a battering-ram, while the others were crowded with archers and slingers. See FORTIFICATION.
From this use, the word came to be applied to a watch-tower, beacon, or bell-tower used for alarm and refuge in towns and monasteries, and particularly to the wooden framework from which the bell Was hung. In medir•val towns the
bell was used not only on special occasions, but regularly, to announce work-hours, sunrise and sunset, town gatherings, as well as fire-alarms and calls to arms. The hell and belfry thus be came the emblems of communal freedom ; the most conspicuous belfries were those of the town halls, such as those of Florence and Siena, Saint Quentin and Douai, Brussels and Ypres, Glas gow and Aberdeen; others were isolated square towers, as at Venice, Auxerre and Evreux, Bruges and Ghent, and this was the primitive form; others were connected with city gates, as in some of the Hanse towers, Bordeaux, etc. In the Fourteenth Century clocks as well as sun-dials were for the first time placed on belfries. The term belfry is even more commonly used of the wooden frame for the bell in any bell-tower, even any church-tower, and it was extended to in clude that part of the structure containing it, that is the upper part of the tower, the bell chamber or bell-cage. But it is an error to use belfry and bell-tower or campanile as synony mous. The extension of the term belfry- from civil structures to include religious ones is late and incorrect. See BELL-TOWER; CAMPANILE.