The choir of Wimborne Minster, Dorsetshire, was fitted up in the beginning of the seventeenth, or end of the sixteenth century, quite after the old traditions, as regards screen-work and arrangement, though the details were of course debased.
The collegiate chapels of the universities present several remarkable examples of post-Reformation screens, as Wadham, Baliol, Lincoln, the old screen of Magdalene, before the recent alterations, at Oxford; and Peterhouse, Caius college, Clarehall, at Cambridge; even the screen of King's college chapel itself was not erected till after the schism, as the initials of Anna Boleyn occur in its decorations.
I have been informed of a screen in one of the churches at Leeds, erected in the seventeenth century; and an oak screen of a still later date is standing in the church of St. Peter, upon Cornhill, London. Lady Dudley, a most pious lady, in the time of Charles I. set up a screen in the church of St. Giles-in-the-fields, which was afterwards destroyed by the Puritan faction. The whole transaction is so illustrative of the spirit of those times, and so applicable to the fanatics of our own days, that I have printed it at length at p. 74.
From these instances it will be seen that the principle of screening off chancels has been retained in the church of England since its separation from Catholic unity, and the partial discontinuance in the eighteenth century was purely owing to extreme ignorance of ecclesiastical traditions, which prevailed throughout the members of this communion at that period, remarkable only for debased taste, and a total disregard of the wonderful productions of Catholic antiquity.
To this brief account of screens in England, I have subjoined some interesting extracts from churchwardens' accounts and other documents, printed in Nichol's illustrations, which will illustrate their history and decoration.
ACCOUNTS OF ST. MARGARET'S, WESTMINSTER.
"1510.
"Item. The said wardens, now accomptants, received of Mrs. Elizabeth Morley, widow, towards the new making of a Rood, Mary, and John, in the roodeloft, at the time the parish be of power and substance, to build and make the same rood loft, the sum of £10. 0s. 0d.
"Item. Received of the gift of Watir Gardynar, to the making of the rode-loft in the middle isle within the church, as more plainly appeareth by acquittance made by the said churchwardens to the said N. Watir, dated the ... day of October, the 9e yere of the reign of King Henry VII., £38. 0s. 0d."
The next item occurs in the reign of Edward VI.—