See also: Belfry (homonymy)

One indicates by belfry (or baffraiz as old French) a work of Charpente intended to contain and allow to make drive bell S; taking the container for the contents, one gave the name of Beffroi to the turns containing the bells of the commune.

History

The belfry is a wood frame designed to isolate the walls from stone of the bells. It consists of a complex interlacing of cross in oak and rests on an exceeding stone edge of the interior walls of the tower. When the bells sound, the more lenient material absorbs the vibrations. If the bells were connected directly to the stone, their dangerous vibrations would weaken the walls which would end up collapsing.

As from the 11th century, the common free made raise belfries. After obtaining their lords of the right to manage they-even by Charter S, the erection of such monuments marked their autonomy and their power. Moreover, one clock striking the hours symbolized a change in the time splicing. Previously, the day was rythmée by the five prayers sounded by the bell-towers of the churches: Crossbred, Nuns, Vespers, etc the time which these ringings marked was a divine time. The construction of a belfry sounding the hours marks the passage to a profane time, devoted to the trade, and thus devotes the advent of the urban middle-class.

Belfries of frame

The Clocher S of the churches are always laid out to contain belfries out of frame, in the medium of which the bells operate. These belfries are posed on a retirement or corbels spared in the construction of the turns, and rise while narrowing towards their top in order not to touch the interior walls of the Maçonnerie when the movement printed with the bells makes them oscillate, and also to have a greater resistance to the action of to and from of these bells set in motion. When the mass of the bells used reached tops, one had to suspend them in belfries of frame independent of construction in masonry. In France, in Belgium, Germany, one already built, at the 10th century, of the bell-towers of a diameter such as it makes suppose the use of strong and many bells, the construction of interior belfries of frame very important. There does not remain to us only one of these frames former to the 16th century. We could not thus give an example pressed on an existing monument.

Construction of the belfries

The first belfry of France was built with Millau, it acts of the Beffroi of Millau builds at the 12th century. 2nd is that of Poitiers built in 1199.

The towns of Belgium are famous for their belfries. In the South one speaks rather about Campanile.

The belfries of the Région Nord-Pas-de-Calais were registered on the Liste of the world heritage of UNESCO.