JOANETES, Spain - In the tranquil, verdant valley of Vall d’en Bas, the age-old tradition of manual church bell ringing is experiencing a renaissance. Xavier Pallàs, the founder and director of the Vall d’en Bas School of Bell Ringers, stands in the belfry of the 12th-century Sant Romà church. With a firm grip on the rope, he fills the valley below with the rich, reverberating peal of a church bell.

Clang-clong! Clang-clong! Clang-CLONG! The resonant sound echoes through the stone tower, momentarily overpowering the natural soundscape of birdsongs and rooster crows. Pallàs and his 18 students are dedicated to preserving and revitalizing the ancient art of manual bell ringing, which has been largely supplanted by mechanical tolling devices over the past century.

“For centuries, the tolling of church bells was our most important communication method,” says Pallàs. “Machines cannot reproduce the richness of the sounds that we used to hear, so there has been a simplification and unification of bell ringing. The language has been lost little by little until now, when we are finally recognizing its worth.”

Historical Significance of Church Bells
Church bells have long been integral to community life, serving as the primary means of communication before the advent of newspapers, radio, telephones, television, and the internet. Introduced to Europe by the early Christian missionaries, the practice of bell ringing dates back to the early Middle Ages. The rhythmic tolling of bells not only marked the passage of time but also conveyed important messages—summoning the faithful to prayer, warning of impending danger, and signaling times of celebration or mourning.

In earlier centuries, bell ringers were vital members of the community, often holding the respected position of the human clock and public loudspeaker. Their work was physically demanding, requiring strength, precision, and a deep understanding of the various sequences and rhythms that communicated specific messages.

Decline and Revival of Manual Bell Ringing
While manual bell ringing has continued in Eastern Orthodox countries, it has largely been replaced by automated systems in Catholic and Protestant churches in Western Europe. Many of Spain’s church bell towers, automated in the 1970s and ’80s, are now in disrepair. Pallàs observed these widespread issues while researching the belfries of Garrotxa, a county in northeast Catalonia known for its picturesque villages and rich cultural heritage.

Pallàs’s initiative to revive manual bell ringing comes two years after UNESCO added the practice to its compendium of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage. UNESCO highlighted how the bells historically knitted communities together, even before the formation of modern states.

“The first thing we have to do is rediscover the bells. That is why this school is so important,” says Roman Gené Capdevila, president of Catalonia’s Bell Ringers Brotherhood. “There are so many ways to ring a bell, what we need are bell ringers.”

Teaching the Next Generation
Pallàs’s inaugural class, officially recognized by the ISCREB theology school in Barcelona, concluded last week with a demonstration by the students. Drawn from diverse professional backgrounds, including engineering and teaching, the students ranged in age from their 20s to retirees. Over the past few months, they researched old chiming sequences, documented their origins, and learned to perform them.

Roser Sauri, one of the students, embraced the opportunity to reconnect with her childhood by recovering and playing the chiming sequence from her grandfather’s village. “The bells formed a part of my life,” says Sauri, who now works in artificial intelligence. “When I visited my family, I began to associate the sound of church bells with being back home.”

The students practiced tolling sequences for various occasions—from Easter Mass calls and bad weather warnings to death announcements and fire alarms. Each sequence conveyed specific information, such as gender and social class in the case of death announcements.

Emotional Impact of Manual Bell Ringing
Juan Carles Osuna, a church mural painter, described the profound experience of manual bell ringing. “Whew! It’s an emotional experience. You feel your blood pumping. You feel the strength, and how you are communicating with everyone in earshot,” he says. “For me, it is an honor, it’s a way to honor both humans and God.”

The human element, with its inherent variations and occasional mistakes, adds an emotional depth to the bell’s tolling that automated systems cannot replicate. “The (automated) hammer will always be mathematically precise,” Osuna explains. “There is emotion in the human touch. There is a human element.”

While Pallàs acknowledges that his dream of having a bell ringer for every bell tower is “utopian,” the initiative has had a promising start. With a full class lined up for the fall and a waiting list of 60 people, the interest in manual bell ringing is growing. Many of the graduating students, including Sauri and Osuna, hope to continue playing at their local parishes or help convert their belfries to allow manual ringing.

Pallàs believes that reviving bell ringing can strengthen communities in this age of rapid technological, economic, and political change. “This is a means of communication that reaches everyone inside a local community and can help it come together at concrete moments,” he says. “That can include a death in the community or the celebration of a holiday. It can help mark the rituals that we need.”