Bell-gable

The bell gable (Spanish: espadaña, French: clocher-mur, Italian: campanile a vela) is an architectural element crowning the upper end of the wall of church buildings, usually in lieu of a church tower.

It consists of a gable end in stone, with small hollow semi-circular arches where the church bells are placed.

They replaced the bell tower beginning the 12th century due to the Cistercian reformation that called for a more simplified and less ostentatious churches, but also for economical and practical reasons as the Reconquista accelerated and wider territory needed to be re-christianized building more temples and espadañas were cheaper and simpler to build.

Today, they are a common sighting in small village churches throughout Spain and Portugal.

This simple and sober architectural element would later be brought to the Americas and the Philippines by the Iberian colonizers, where it would find widespread use especially in the earliest structures.