BELL-TOW'ER. A tower built to contain one or more large bells in connection with re ligious or civil structures. The use of bells for calling religious or political gatherings, or an nouncing times and seasons, does not seem to have obtained in antiquity. Public criers and heralds were the main announcers, as the •urz zinR still are in the East. Small bells, rumr by hand, were used, however, by the early Christians. It is certain that while large towers were erected in eonne•thm with churches as early as the.Fifth and Sixth centuries, the use of large bells sus pended in towers did not become general until much later, probably toward the close of the Eighth Century. Pope Stephen III. (768-772) erected a bell-tower with 3 bells at Saint Peter's, and Leo IV. (847-855) did the same for Saint Andrew's at Koine. For the bell-tower of Charle magne's Cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle, 'rancho, of Saint Gall, cast a bell weighing apparently between 400 and 500 pounds. These dimensions were increased, until bells weighing from 2000 to 3000 pounds were east in the Eleventh and Twelfth centuries, but it was not until the Thir teenth Century that any great weight was reached. Therefore, even after hells were placed in towers, they remained for centuries so small that the size, importance, and position of the church-towers cannot have been governed by their use as bell-towers, but rather by other considerations. In support of this we read in the account of the original plan for the Monas tery of Saint Gall that the round towers were ud unircrsu inspiricnda for a general lookout.
And even as late as the Twelfth and Thir teenth centuries there is an upper story in church-towers, above the belfry story, which is the 'crow's-nest,' where the watchman stands. Originally there were two ways of grouping the tower with the church: it was either a separate structure, as in the round and square towers of the Fifth and Sixth centuries at Ravenna; or it was part of the facade, like the one or two towers at the end or ends of the facade at Shak ka, Turmanin, and other churches of Syria. also of the Fifth and Sixth centuries. The type of the separate tower prevailed in Italy in its campanili: the attached towers in the rest of Europe. The comparative freedom allowed in designing such structures, the rivalry in regard to their size and richness between monasteries, cathedrals, and even communities, make of the church-towers of the Romanesque and Gothic eras the most characteristic and finished product of each architectural school. For details see TOWERS.
There are several other terms in use for constructions supporting, bells: Belfry (q.v.). which is either a civil hell-tower or the wooden frame supporting the bell: bell-pable, a flat piece of wall or gable pierced with an opening for a bell ; bell-rote, a small steeple that. does not break out much from the general design: bell-turret, usually octagonal or circular, and of high, slender proportions, on a small scale.