Rood screen
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The rood screen (also choir screen or chancel screen) is a common feature in late medieval church architecture. It is typically an ornate screen, constructed of wood, stone or wrought iron. It divides the chancel (the area with the main altar in a church) from the nave (the main part of the church for the congregation).[1] In English, Scots and Welsh cathedral, monastic and collegiate churches, there were commonly two transverse screens, with a rood screen or rood beam being located one bay west of the pulpitum screen,[2] but this double arrangement nowhere survives complete, and accordingly the preserved pulpitum in such churches is sometimes referred to as a 'rood screen'. At Wells Cathedral the medieval arrangement was restored in the 20th Century, with the medieval strainer arch supporting a rood, placed in front of the pulpitum and organ.
Rood screens can be found in churches in many parts of Europe: the German word for one is Lettner; the French jubé; the Italian tramezzo; and the Dutch doksaal. However, in Catholic countries they were generally removed during the Counter-reformation, when the retention of any visual barrier between the laity and the high altar was widely seen as inconsistent with the decrees of the Council of Trent. Accordingly rood screens now survive in much greater numbers in Anglican and Lutheran churches. The iconostasis is a more elaborate development of this partition in Eastern Christian churches.
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[edit] Description and origin of the name
The word rood is derived from the Saxon word rood or rode, meaning "cross". The rood screen is so called because it was surmounted by the Rood itself, a large figure of the crucified Christ, Commonly, to either side of the Rood, there stood supporting statues of saints, normally Mary and St John,[3] in an arrangement comparable to the Deesis always found in the centre of an Orthodox iconostasis (which uses John the Baptist instead of the Apostle, and a Pantokrator instead of a Crucifixion).
Latterly in England the Rood tended to rise above a narrow loft (called the "rood loft"), which could occasionally be substantial enough to be used as a singing gallery; but whose main purpose was to hold candles to light the rood itself.[4] The panels and uprights of the screen did not support the loft, which instead rested on a substantial transverse beam called the "rood beam" or "candle beam".[5] Access was via a narrow rood stair set into the piers supporting the chancel arch. In parish churches, the space between the rood beam and the chancel arch was commonly filled by a boarded or lath and plaster tympanum, set immediately behind the rood figures and painted with a representation of the doom or last judgement.[6]
The carving or construction of the rood screen often includes latticework, which makes it possible to see through the screen partially from the nave into the chancel. The term "chancel" itself derives from the Latin word cancelli meaning "lattice"; a term which had long been applied to the low metalwork or stone screens that delineate the choir enclosure in early medieval Italian cathedrals and major churches.
The terms; pulpitum, Lettner, jubé and doksaal all suggest a screen platform used for readings from scripture, and there is plentiful documentary evidence for this practice in major churches in Europe in the 16th century. From this it was concluded by Victorian liturgists that the specification ad pulpitum for the location for Gospel lections in the rubrics of the Use of Sarum referred both to the cathedral pulpitum screen and the parish rood loft. However rood stairs in parish churches are rarely, if ever, found to have been been built wide enough to accommodate the Gospel procession required in the Sarum Use. The specific functions of the late medieval parish rood loft, over and above supporting the rood and its lights, remain an issue of conjecture and debate. In this respect it may be significant that, although there are terms for a rood screen in the vernacular languages of Europe, there is no counterpart specific term in liturgical Latin. Nor does the 13th century liturgical commentator Durandus refer directly to rood screens or rood lofts. This is consistent with the ritual uses of rood screens being substantially a late medieval development.
[edit] History
For most of the medieval period, there would have been no fixed screen or barrier separating the congregational space from the altar space in parish churches in the Latin West; although a curtain might be drawn across the altar at specific points in the Mass. However, following the exposition of the doctrine of transubstantiation at the fourth Lateran Council of 1215, clergy were required to ensure that the reserved sacrament was to be kept protected from irreverent access or abuse; and accordingly some form of permanent screen came to be seen as essential, as the parish nave was commonly kept open and used for a wide range of secular purposes. Over the succeeding three centuries, and especially in the latter period when it became common for the screen to be topped by a rood loft facing the congregation, a range of local ritual practices developed which incorporated the rood and screen into the performance of the liturgy; especially in the Use of Sarum, the form of the missal that was most common in England. For example, during the 40 days of "Lent" the rood in England was obscured by the "Lenten Veil", a large hanging suspended by stays from hooks set into the chancel arch; in such a way that it could be dropped abruptly to the ground on Palm Sunday, at the reading of Matthew 27:51 when the Veil of the Temple is torn asunder.
Monastic churches and cathedrals in England, which would already have had a pulpitum screen separating off the ritual choir, in the late medieval period commonly erected an additional rood screen one bay further west. This double arrangement is not found elsewhere in Europe; but many major churches, such as Albi Cathedral, reconstructed their screens on a greatly increased scale in the 15th and 16th centuries. In Italy, massive rood screens incorporating an ambo or pulpit facing the nave appear to have been universal in the churches of friars; but not in parish churches, there being no equivalent in the Roman Missal for the ritual elaborations of the Use of Sarum. The decrees of the Council of Trent (1545 - 1563), however, enjoined that the celebration of the Mass should be made much more accessible to lay worshippers; and this was widely interpreted as requiring the removal of rood screens as physical and visual barriers, even though the Council had made no explict condemnation of screens. Already in 1565, Duke Cosimo de Medici ordered the removal of the tramezzi from the Florentine friary churches of Sante Croce and Santa Maria Novella in accordance with the principles of the Council. In 1577 Carlo Borromeo published Instructionum Fabricae et Sellectilis Ecclesiasticae libri duo, emphasizing the importance of making the high altar visible to all worshippers, and in 1584 the Church of the Gesu was built in Rome as a demonstrastion the new principles of Tridentine worship, conspicuously lacking either a central rood or screen. Almost all medieval churches in Italy were subsequently re-ordered following this model, and most screens that impeded the view of the altar were removed, or the screening effect reduced, in other Catholic countries, with exceptions like Toledo Cathedral, Albi Cathedral, the church of Brou in Bourg-en-Bresse, and many monasteries and convents, where the screen was preserved to maintain the enclosure. Parochial rood screens survived in substantial numbers only in Brittany.
[edit] Notable British examples
The earliest known example of a parochial rood screen in Britain, dating back to the 13th century, is to be found at Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire. The majority date back to the 15th century, such as those at Trull in Somerset and Attleborough in Norfolk. Many East Anglian wooden screens retain their original decoration; the quality of the painting and gilding is, some of it, of a very high order, notably those from the Ranworth school of painters: notable examples can be found in Southwold and Blythburgh as well as at Ranworth itself. The magnificent painted screen at Barton Turf is unique in giving an unusually complete view of the heavenly hierarchy, including nine orders of angels. Nikolaus Pevsner also identified the early 16th-century painted screen at Bridford, Devon, as being notable.
[edit] Symbolic significance
The rood screen was a physical and symbolic barrier, separating the chancel, the domain of the clergy, from the nave where lay people gathered to worship. It was also a means of seeing; often it was solid only to waist height and richly decorated with pictures of saints and angels. Concealment and revelation were part of the mediaeval Mass. When kneeling, the congregation could not see the priest, but might do so through the upper part of the screen, when he elevated the Host on Sundays. In some churches, 'squints' (holes in the screen) would ensure that everyone could see the elevation,[7] as seeing the bread made flesh was significant for the congregation.
Moreover, while Sunday Masses were very important, there were also weekday services which were celebrated at secondary altars in front of the screen (such as the "Jesus altar", erected for the worship of the Holy Name, a popular devotion in mediaeval times) which thus became the backdrop to the celebration of the Mass.[8] The Rood itself provided a focus for worship according to the medieval Use of Sarum, most especially in Holy Week, when worship was highly elaborate. During Lent the Rood was veiled; on Palm Sunday it was revealed before the procession of palms and the congregation knelt before it. The whole Passion story would then be read from the Rood loft, at the foot of the crucifix by three priests.
[edit] Destruction and restoration
At the Reformation, the Reformers sought to destroy abused images i.e. those statues and paintings which they alleged to have been the focus of superstitious adoration. Thus not a single mediaeval Rood survives in Britain. They were removed as a result of the 1547 Injunctions of Edward VI (some to be restored when Mary came to the throne and removed again under Elizabeth). Of original rood lofts, also considered suspect due to their association with superstitious veneration, very few are left; two surviving examples in Wales being at the ancient churches in Llanengan and Llanegryn.[4] The rood screens themselves were sometimes demolished or cut down in height, but more commonly remained with their painted figures whitewashed and overpainted with religious texts. Tympanums too were whitewashed. English cathedral churches maintained their choirs, and consequently their choir stalls and pulpitum screens, but generally demolished their rood screens entirely; although those of Peterborough and Canterbury survived into the 18th century.
In the century following the English Reformation newly built Anglican churches were invariably fitted with chancel screens, which served the purpose of differentiating a separate space in the chancel for communicants at Holy Communion, as was required in the newly adopted Book of Common Prayer.[9] In effect, these chancel screens were rood screens without a surmounting loft or crucifix, and examples survive at St John Leeds and at Foremark. New screens were also erected in many medieval churches where they had been destroyed at the Reformation, as at Cartmel Priory and Abbey Dore. From the early 17th Century it became normal for screens or tympanums to carry the Royal Arms of England, good examples of which survive in two of the London churches of Sir Christopher Wren, and also at Derby Cathedral. However, Wren's design for the church of St James, Piccadilly of 1684 dispensed with a full chancel screen, and this auditory church plan was widely adopted as a model for new churches from then on.[10] In the 18th and 19th centuries hundreds of surviving medieval screens were removed altogether; today, in many British churches, the rood stair (which formerly given access to the rood loft) is often the only remaining trace of the former rood loft and screen.
In the 19th Century, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin campaigned for the re-introduction of rood screens into Catholic church architecture; and his screens survive in Macclesfield and Cheadle, Staffordshire; though others have been removed. In Anglican churches, under the influence of the Cambridge Camden Society, many medieval screens were restored; though until the 20th century, generally without roods or with only a plain cross rather than a crucifix. A nearly complete restoration can be seen at Eye, Suffolk, where the rood screen dates from 1480.[11] Its missing rood loft was reconstructed by Sir Ninian Comper in 1925, complete with a Rood and figures of saints and angels, and gives a good impression of how a full rood group might have appeared in a mediaeval English church - except that the former tympanum has not been replaced. Indeed because tympanums, repainted with the Royal Arms, were erroneously considered post-medieval, they were almost all removed in the course of 19th century restorations. The 19th century Tractarians, however, tended to prefer churches where the chancel was distinguished from the nave only by steps and a low gated screen wall as at All Saints, Margaret Street, so as not to obscure the congregation's view of the altar; and this arrangement was adopted for almost all new Anglican churches of the period.
[edit] References
- ^ Friar, Stephen (1996). A Companion to the English Parish Church. Bramley Books. p. 386. ISBN 1-85833-738-0.
- ^ Friar, op. cit., p. 369
- ^ Friar, p. 382
- ^ a b Friar, p. 384
- ^ Friar, p. 383
- ^ Friar, p. 464
- ^ Duffy, Eamon (1992). The stripping of the altars. Yale. p. 111. ISBN 0-300-05342-8.
- ^ Duffy, op. cit., p. 113
- ^ Addleshaw, G.W.O; Etchells Frederick (1948). The architectural setting of Anglican worship. Faber. p. 111.
- ^ Addleshaw, op. cit., p. 55
- ^ Friar, p. 385
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rood screen |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Triumphkreuz |
- Norfolkchurches.co.uk/screens Painted screens in Norfolk churches.
- Norfolkchurches.co.uk/norfolkroods More about the painted rood screens of East Anglia.
[edit] See also
- Iconostasis — a wall of icons and religious paintings serving a rather different role in Eastern Christianity.
