on either side of ChristUsual location of a rood screen
The rood screen (also choir screen, chancel screen, or jubé) is a common feature in late
medieval church architecture. It is typically an ornate partition between the chancel and nave, of more or less open tracery constructed of wood, stone, or wrought iron. The rood screen would originally have been surmounted by a rood loft carrying the Great Rood, a sculptural representation of the Crucifixion.[1] In English, Scottish, and Welsh cathedrals, monastic, and collegiate churches, there were commonly two transverse screens, with a rood screen or rood beam 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; however, in
Eastern Christian churches is a visually similar barrier, but is now generally considered to have a different origin, deriving from the ancient altar screen or templon.[citation needed
representation of the Last Judgement.[7] The roof panels of the first bay of the nave were commonly richly decorated to form a celure
or canopy of honour; or otherwise there might be a separate celure canopy attached to the front of the chancel arch.
The carving or construction of the rood screen often included 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 passage through the rood screen was fitted with doors, which were kept locked except during services.
The terms pulpitum, Lettner, jubé[10] 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 English parish churches are rarely, if ever, found to have 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 lofts being substantially a late medieval development.
Until the 6th century the altar of Christian churches would have been in full view of the congregation, separated only by a low
baldacchino
, carrying veiling curtains, over the altar itself.
Many churches in Ireland and Scotland in the early Middle Ages were very small which may have served the same function as a rood screen. Contemporary sources suggest that the faithful may have remained outside the church for most of the mass; the priest would go outside for the first part of the mass including the reading of the gospel, and return inside the church, out of sight of the faithful, to consecrate the Eucharist.[12]
Churches built in England in the 7th and 8th centuries consciously copied Roman practices; remains indicating early cancelli screens have been found in the
San Miguel de Escalada. Some 19th-century liturgists supposed that these early altar screens might have represented the origins of the medieval rood screens; but this view is rejected by most current scholars, who emphasize that these screens were intended to separate the altar from the ritual choir, whereas the medieval rood screen separated the ritual choir from the lay congregation.Rood and beam of 1275, but no screen, at Öja Church on the island of Gotland
cherubim and other figures are sometimes seen.[14]
Parochial rood screens
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 as noted above, a curtain might be drawn across the altar at specific points in the
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. Hence the origin of the chancel screen was independent of the Great Rood; indeed most surviving early screens lack lofts, and do not appear ever to have had a rood cross mounted on them. Nevertheless, over time, the rood beam and its sculptures tended to become incorporated into the chancel screen in new or reworked churches. Over the succeeding three centuries, and especially in the latter period when it became standard 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 loft 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.
The provisions of the Lateran Council had less effect on monastic churches and cathedrals in England; as these would have already been fitted with two transverse screens; a
friars
; but not in parish churches, there being no equivalent in the Roman Missal for the ritual elaborations of the Use of Sarum.
The screen and Tridentine worship
The decrees of the
Carlo Borromeo published Instructionum Fabricae et Sellectilis Ecclesiasticae libri duo, making no mention of the screen and emphasizing the importance of making the high altar visible to all worshippers; and in 1584 the Church of the Gesù was built in Rome as a demonstration of the new principles of Tridentine worship, having an altar rail but 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 their screening effect reduced, in other Catholic countries, with exceptions like Toledo Cathedral, Albi Cathedral, the church of Brou in Bourg-en-Bresse; and also in monasteries and convents, where the screen was preserved to maintain the enclosure. In Catholic Europe, parochial rood screens survive in substantial numbers only in Brittany, such as those at Plouvorn, Morbihan and Ploubezre
.
Symbolic significance
The rood on a rood screen: a crucifix on the elaborate 16th-century jube in the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, Paris
The rood screen was a physical and symbolic barrier, separating the
Host on Sundays. In some churches, 'squints' (holes in the screen) would ensure that everyone could see the elevation,[17] 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
Passion story would then be read from the Rood loft, at the foot of the crucifix by three priests. In the 1400s the rood screen in Dovercourt
, UK, became a shrine when it gained a reputation for speaking.
Elizabeth). Of original rood lofts, also considered suspect due to their association with superstitious veneration, very few are left; surviving examples in Wales being at the ancient churches in Llanelieu, Llanengan and Llanegryn.[5] The rood screens themselves were sometimes demolished or cut down in height, but more commonly remained with their painted figures whitewashed and painted over 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
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 chancel screen, retaining only rails around the altar itself, and this auditory church plan was widely adopted as a model for new churches from then on.[23]
In the 18th and 19th centuries hundreds of surviving medieval screens were removed altogether; today, in many British churches, the rood stair (which gave access to the rood loft) is often the only remaining trace of the former rood loft and screen.
In the 19th century, the architect
Tractarians tended, however, to prefer an arrangement whereby the chancel was distinguished from the nave only by steps and a low-gated screen wall or septum (as at All Saints, Margaret Street
), so as not to obscure the congregation's view of the altar. This arrangement was adopted for almost all new Anglican parish churches of the period.
Painted rood screens occur rarely, but some of the best surviving examples are in East Anglia.[25][26]
The earliest known example of a parochial rood screen in Britain, dating to the mid-13th century, is to be found at
Thurlby in Lincolnshire preserve rood stairs which can be dated stylistically to the beginning of the 13th century, and these represent the earliest surviving evidence of parochial screens; effectively contemporary with the Lateran Council. The majority of surviving screens are no earlier than the 15th century, such as those at Trull in Somerset and Attleborough in Norfolk. In many East Anglian and Devonian parish churches, original painted decoration survives on wooden screen panels, having been whitewashed over at the Reformation; although almost all have lost their rood beams and lofts, and many have been sawn off at the top of the panelled lower section. The quality of the painting and gilding is, some of it, of a very high order, notably those from the East Anglian Ranworth school of painters, of which examples can be found in Southwold and Blythburgh, as well as at Ranworth itself. The magnificent painted screen at St Michael and All Angels Church, Barton Turf in Norfolk 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. The 16th-century screen at Charlton-on-Otmoor, said by Pevsner to be "the finest in Oxfordshire", has an unusual custom associated with it, where the rood cross is garlanded with flowers and foliage twice a year, and until the 1850s the cross (which at that time resembled a large corn dolly) was carried in a May Day procession. A particularly large example can be found at the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Uffculme
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