It is interesting to note that the open fire-hearth, once used in domestic halls, was also called a "reredos." CHAPTER IX. BELLS AND BELFRIES. The history of bells is lost in antiquity, and little is known about them previous to the XVth century. It is probable, however, that they were used in India and China centuries before they reached Europe. Bells were used by the Romans for many secular purposes, and although their use was sanctioned by the Christian Church about 400 A.D., they were not in general use in England until 650 A.D. The earliest bells were hand bells, quadrangular in shape, and made of thin plates of copper or iron riveted together, and their abominable sound when struck must have been one of their chief merits, as the early bells were much used for the purpose of frightening the devil and other evil spirits. Our oldest bells are hand bells, S. Patrick's bell at Belfast (1091) and S. Ninian's bell at Edinburgh, which is probably of even earlier date. From 1550 to 1750 was the golden age of production for bells, more especially so in Belgium and the Low Countries, where the bells of the towers and belfries were rung to arouse the country in times of danger and invasion. It is quite possible that the bells used for secular and religious purposes were kept distinct. Bells played a very important part in mediæval life, and next to cannon were regarded as the chief city guardians, for he who held the bells held the town, and the first thing done by the invader on taking a town was to melt the bells and thus destroy the means of communicating an alarm. In England our old towns, being almost entirely constructed of wood, were liable to periodic and devastating conflagrations, which fact suggested to that genius, William the Conqueror, the institution of Couvre-feu, or in its more popular form, Curfew, which rang at eight o'clock in the evening, when all lights were to be extinguished. The ringing of curfew has survived in many of our towns and villages to this day, but it is doubtful if the custom has been continuous from its first institution. The secular use of the bell is, however, only incidental, and it is in its connection with religious life that we are now concerned, for all church history, church doctrine and church custom and observances are set to bell music. Bells in fact may be said to sum up the short span of our mortal life, for the birthday, the wedding and the funeral, are all welded to religion by the church bell. Bells were used for ecclesiastical purposes in England long before the erection of our parish churches, for Bede, speaking of the death of S. Hilda, A.D. 680, says that "one of the sisters in the distant monastery of Hackness, thought she heard as she slept, the sound of the bell which called them to prayers," and Turketul gave to Croyland Abbey a great bell called Guthlac, and afterwards six others which he called Bartholomew and Betelin, Turketul and Tatwin, and Pega and Bega.