Rood screen
It is typically an ornate partition between the chancel and nave, of more or less open tracery constructed of wood, stone, or wrought iron.
Rood screens can be found in churches in many parts of Europe; 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.
[3] The iconostasis 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.
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.
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.
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.
Numerous near life-size crucifixes survive from the Romanesque period or earlier, with the Gero Cross in Cologne Cathedral (965–970) and the Volto Santo of Lucca the best known.
The prototype may have been one known to have been set up in Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel at Aachen, apparently in gold foil worked over a wooden core in the manner of the Golden Madonna of Essen.
The original location and support for the surviving figures is often not clear; many are now hung on walls - but a number of northern European churches, especially in Germany and Scandinavia, preserve the original setting in full – they are known as a "Triumphkreutz" in German, from the "triumphal arch" (chancel arch in later terms) of Early Christian architecture.
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.
The monastic rood screen invariably had a nave altar set against its western face, which, from at least the late 11th century onwards, was commonly dedicated to the Holy Cross; as for example in Norwich Cathedral, and in Castle Acre Priory.
In 1577 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.
In Catholic Europe, parochial rood screens survive in substantial numbers only in Brittany, such as those at Plouvorn, Morbihan and Ploubezre .
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.
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.
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.
In the 19th century, the architect Augustus Pugin campaigned for the re-introduction of rood screens into Catholic church architecture.
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.
For parish churches, the 19th-century 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.
However, some early screens, now lost, may be presumed to have had a loft surmounted by the Great Rood, as the churches of Colsterworth and 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.
