It is not known exactly when bells were introduced into the Christian Church; but it is certain that large bells of the form with which we are familiar were not invented until after some centuries of Christianity. The small and often clandestine congregations of the ages of persecution needed no audible signal to call them together; but with the advent of peaceful times, and the growth of the congregations, some method of summons doubtless came to be considered necessary. Their invention is sometimes ascribed to Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, in Italy, about A.D. 400; sometimes to Pope Sabinianus (A.D. 604), the successor of Gregory the Great. At all events, from the beginning of the seventh century notices of bells of some size become frequent. The Venerable Bede in 680 brought a bell from Italy to place in his Abbey at Wearmouth, and mentions one as being then used at Whitby Abbey. About 750, we read that Egbert, Archbishop of York, ordered the priests to toll bells at the appointed hours. Ingulphus, the chronicler of Croyland Abbey, mentions that a peal of seven bells was put up there in the tenth century, and that there was not such a harmonious peal in the whole of England; which implies that rings of bells were then common. If any doubt on the matter still remained, it would be dispelled by the existence to this day of some hundred church towers dating from the Saxon period, and evidently, by their size and construction, intended to hold rings of bells (Plate 1). [Illustration: _Plate 1._ _Photo by_] [_C. Law._ SAXON TOWER, EARL’S BARTON, NORTHANTS. A tower built in the first half of the eleventh century and intended to contain bells. (See page 5.)] I speak of “rings of bells”--and that is a more correct term than “peal,” which refers to the sound they make--but it must be remembered that in those days bells were not rung as in modern times. At best they were “chimed,” i.e., sounded without being rung up; but change-ringing, which implies the full swinging round of the bell through a complete circle, so that the clapper strikes twice in each revolution, was only introduced in the seventeenth century, and moreover has always been peculiar to this country. [Illustration: _Plate 2._ A PERFORMER ON HAND-BELLS. From a MS. Missal in the British Museum. (See page 5.)]