Memorials of old Derbyshire

by Unknown

Fenny Bentley Church: Rood-Screen.

The pulpitum and the parish church rood-screen, although the former is usually a solid stone structure, while the latter consists of openwork, and is of wood rather than of stone, so far resemble one another that both have a central doorway, whereas the cathedral and monastic rood-screen appears to have had, as a rule, two doorways in it, one at the north and the other at the south end, with an altar (which ranked as the principal one among the altars of the nave) placed between them. It was in front of this altar, and at the foot of the great rood, that the procession, which perambulated the church before High Mass on Sundays and great feasts, having traversed the appointed route, finally drew up to make a solemn station. This done, those taking part in the procession would file off to right and left in two divisions, either of them passing through one of the doors in the rood-screen, and thence under the pulpitum into the quire for the celebration of the chief service of the day.

In illustration of the foregoing, it is of interest to recall that excavations, carried on at the end of the seventies of the nineteenth century, on the site of the Premonstratensian Abbey of Dale, revealed, at the eastern crossing, the bases of the two parallel walls of the pulpitum, about five feet apart, and pierced by a central doorway, 4 ft. 6 in. wide. A year later much of the tile pavement of the nave was unearthed, disclosing the tiles spaced and arranged in bands to mark the exact position for the procession, as before described. Further may be cited the accounts of the sale of the effects of the abbey, drawn up by order of the Royal Commissioners on its dissolution in 1538. This document is dated 24th October, in the thirtieth year of King Henry VIII.’s reign. It enumerates, beside “the seats in the Quier; a crucifyx, Mary and John; a payre of organs; ... the rode alter in the Churche,” i.e., in the nave, “and a rode there,” i.e., presumably the great rood. Another item disposed of, viz., “The partition of tymber in the body of the Churche,” most probably refers to the rood-screen in the nave; while the before-named “rode alter” would be, by analogy, the altar in the midst of the rood-screen; for such was the usual dedication. The greater number of the fittings of Dale Abbey were acquired at the sale by Francis Pole, of Radburne. It is, therefore, not without good reason that certain linen-fold panels in Radburne Church—eighteen in all—have been identified as belonging formerly to the rood-screen of the abbey church. And yet another item sold, “a grate of yren” (iron) “abowte the Founder and the tymber worke there” would include parclose screenwork such as is described hereafter.

The church of another Premonstratensian abbey also, that of Beauchief (founded between 1172 and 1176), had its altar of the Holy Cross. Evidence of the fact is extant in the shape of a deed, circa 1300, by which Sir Thomas de Chaworth, lord of Norton, made over the entire village of Greenhill, moor included, by way of endowment, to maintain a canon to celebrate mass at the altar of that name in perpetuity. I have found no other particulars of Beauchief bearing on the present subject except in the inventory, dated 2nd August, 1536, wherein occurs:—“It’m a p’ of organnes,” which same may be assumed to have stood upon the top of the pulpitum.

Neither, again, has very much that is relevant come to light concerning the vanished church of the Augustinian canons at Darley. Their abbey, in its time the largest and most important of the religious houses of Derbyshire, was suppressed in the autumn of 1538, as the result of three months’ unremitting pressure on the part of Cromwell’s agent, Thomas Thacker. This man actually wrote, at the close of the first three months, to inform his master how little effect his cajoleries and threats had had upon the abbot; and to solicit the all-powerful minister’s favour and help in securing possession of the house and goods for himself, when he should have succeeded in the design of coercing the unhappy man. It is at least some slight satisfaction to know that Thacker’s petition was disregarded as far as Darley Abbey was concerned. The abbot’s consent to the suppression at length wrung from him, no time was lost before cataloguing and selling the effects of the abbey. The inventory of the sale is dated 24th October (only two days later than the signing of the act of “surrender”), and comprises the “Great Crucyfyx” of the abbey church and “tymber about ... Seint Sythes Chapell,” meaning, obviously, the parclose screens that surrounded it.

With the foregoing may be compared the priory church of another Augustinian house, founded in 1172 at Repton. The inventory of the sale, dated likewise in October in the year 1538, specifies, besides the rood, at least six partitions of timber, or parcloses, fencing round the chapels respectively of Our Lady, St. John, St. Nicholas, and St. Thomas. The church, dismantled, as has been stated, under Henry VIII., still continued standing “most beautiful,” according to the testimony of the historian Fuller, until the reign of Queen Mary, when, in a single day, it was utterly demolished by the intruder in occupation, Gilbert Thacker. This miscreant belonged to a family deeply tainted with the guilt of sacrilege. He was, in fact, son and heir of the before-named Thomas Thacker, and becoming alarmed at the news of the rehabilitation of the religious orders, and determined to prevent such an eventuality in the case of Repton Priory, promptly acted on that resolve by destroying, as he himself expressed it, “the nest, for fear the birds should build therein again.” Excavations conducted in 1882 and two successive years on the site of the former church, discovered practically all that is ever likely, under the circumstances, to be learned from investigations on the spot. The results, embodied in two reports by Mr. W. H. St. John Hope, were published in volumes vi. and vii. of the Journal of the Derbyshire Archæological Society, from which, as comprising the whole of the available information relevant to the present subject, the following particulars have, for the most part, been extracted.

The stone pulpitum, like that at Dale, occupied the space between the two piers of the eastern crossing; but, unlike the Dale pulpitum, the Repton one was a solid structure. It measures 5 ft. 4½ in. deep from east to west, and is pierced by a central doorway 4 ft. 4½ in. wide. Its eastward front, against which backed the return stalls, measures 26 ft. 2 in., the total width of the quire. The westward façade (except for the door-jambs, which are moulded and flanked on either side by an ornamental buttress, and when uncovered in 1883 showed traces of brilliant scarlet and black colouring) was austerely plain. Its flatness was relieved, however, by the loft above being made to overhang. That this was so is deduced from the fact that had the loft-floor not projected beyond the area of the base of the pulpitum, there would have been insufficient room for anyone ascending to the top to turn round on emerging from the staircase. The latter, 3 ft. 2½ in. wide, was hollowed out of the solid in the northern half of the pulpitum, and raked upwards in a straight flight from south to north. The “pair of organs” named in the inventory, stood, it may be assumed, on the platform at the top. That the pulpitum itself must have been coeval (circa 1275–1300) with the piers and integral in structure with them, is manifest from the plinth that forms the base of pulpitum and piers alike being finished with the same hollow chamfer continuously all round it. A curious feature is that, notwithstanding there is a step leading up from the nave to the pulpitum door, on the east side there is a descent of one step again on to the floor of the quire. South of the pulpitum a screen of wood shut off the quire’s south aisle (which is ten feet wide) from the transept. Another screen, in line with the last-named one, extending 21 ft. 9 in., i.e., as far as the south wall of the transept, enclosed the spacious chapel of Our Lady, which was situated parallel to the quire, on the south side of the quire’s south aisle. The former existence of these screens is proved by holes sunk in the masonry to receive the timber work. The north transept was too ruinous to furnish any indication of its ancient screen arrangements; but there were found some signs of a screen having stood between the first pair of piers in the nave (which, exclusive of the aisles, is 22 ft. 2 in. wide). This would, of course, be the position of the rood-screen proper.

To resume, as to collegiate churches, some were provided, like cathedrals, with a solid pulpitum, others with a rood-loft only, which in their case had to do duty for pulpitum; that is to say, the ceremonial singing of the Gospel was wont, as in cathedrals and monastic churches, to take place on the top of it at High Mass on Sundays and great feasts. The knowledge of this circumstance has given rise, apparently, to the mistaken notion that the rood-loft in ordinary parochial churches was used for the same purpose, which was decidedly not the case. Nay, in some parish churches sculptured stone desks, projecting from the north wall of the chancel, near the high altar, were provided expressly, as authorities on the subject agree, for the reading of the Gospel at that spot, in contradistinction to the cathedral, monastic, and collegiate usage. The Derbyshire parish churches of Chaddesden, Crich, Etwall, Mickleover, Spondon, and Taddington are especially remarkable as being fitted with lecterns of this description.

Against the east side of a pulpitum return stalls for clergy or monks were invariably fixed; but that this arrangement was not confined exclusively to cathedral, monastic, and collegiate churches is proved by the fact that certain Derbyshire churches, which have never belonged to any of those categories, and could scarcely even be described as connected except indirectly with cells of religious houses in their neighbourhood, e.g., those at Chaddesden, Elvaston, Norbury, and Sawley, were provided with return stalls in the chancel. And again, not least extraordinary, in the out-of-the-way parish of Chelmorton, the ancient rood-screen, itself of stone, to this day still has a stone bench attached to it, and running the length of its eastern side, for clergy to occupy, backs to the screen and faces towards the altar, just as though in a cathedral quire or in that of some religious order.