author

Fabian Stedman

d. 1713

Best known as one of the early architects of English change ringing, this 17th-century writer helped turn bell-ringing into something both practical and deeply patterned. His books shaped the tradition for generations and even drew later interest from mathematicians.

2 Audiobooks

Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing

Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing

by Richard Duckworth, Fabian Stedman

Campanalogia: or the art of ringing improved. : with plain and easie rules to guide the practitioner in the ringing all kinds of changes. to which is added, great variety of new peals.

Campanalogia: or the art of ringing improved. : with plain and easie rules to guide the practitioner in the ringing all kinds of changes. to which is added, great variety of new peals.

by Fabian Stedman

About the author

Fabian Stedman (1640–1713) was an English writer, printer or bookseller, and bell-ringer whose name is closely tied to the beginnings of campanology, the study and practice of church-bell ringing. He is especially remembered for his role in Tintinnalogia (1668), produced with Richard Duckworth, and for Campanalogia (1677), his own book; these are widely described as the first two major publications on change ringing.

Sources found during research also place him in Cambridge for part of his life, where he served as parish clerk at St Bene’t’s, and later in London, where he worked in government service connected with customs and excise. Bell-ringers have long regarded him as a foundational figure, and the method named after him keeps his influence very much alive.

He is sometimes also described as an early pioneer of ideas that resemble group theory, because change ringing is built on ordered permutations. Whether readers come to him through music, mathematics, or English social history, his work opens a window onto a surprisingly rich and inventive corner of the 17th century.