A journey exploring the place of the bell tower and its inhabitants in the medieval imagination Professor Christopher Page, Catherine King, mezzo soprano http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/medieval-music-the-lands-of-the-bell-tower

Many thousands of visitors to London each year return home thinking that Big Ben is the name of the great clock tower at Westminster. Londoners know that this is the name of the bell. This is a legacy from the Middle Ages when bells had names, ‘tongues’ and ‘mouths’. They could be baptized and might even be taken down, and filled with thorns, as a punishment if they did not ring of their own accord in a time of crisis. Where the bell-towers on the skyline ended, there Christian Europe had its frontiers.

This final lecture of the series, given in the church whose bells are commemorated in nursery rhyme as the ‘bells of the Old Bailey’, will explore the place of the bell tower and its inhabitants in the medieval imagination.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/medieval-music-the-lands-of-the-bell-tower

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,900 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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