Occasionally, as at Chipping Ongar, we find indications of a rood-beam having been placed across the east end of the chancel, immediately above the altar, and, of course, carrying on it the rood. At Stow, in the chancel, in the jambs of the side windows north and south of the altar space, there was a fracture and displacement of the mouldings exactly in the same place in each, no doubt to support a beam for the crucifix.
In some cases these altar-screens were double walled, with a kind of platform or gallery on the top, whereon the sacred relics could be displayed, while the space between the walls served as a sacristy or feretory. At Lincoln Minster, for instance, the original reredos-screen was double, with a long narrow space, serving as a sacristy, between the two screens lighted by the quatrefoils, still open in the back screen wall, with aumbries, &c., in the walls, and a newel-stair at the north-west corner leading to the tabernacle above. A similar arrangement, according to the late Precentor Venables, of a narrow slip sacristy behind the reredos may be seen at St. Nicholas’, Great Yarmouth, and at Llantwit in South Wales. A somewhat similar example exists at Beverley Minster; at the back (i.e. eastwards) of the altar-screen is a platform, reached by a stair at the north end, and supported by three elegant arches on shafts, with a vaulted roof, an excellent specimen of Decorated work. At York Minster, again, there was a double screen—
“The wooden screen behind the high altar of the same work as the rest of the quire, surmounted with triangular coats-of-arms containing each a rose, &c., of the common form, supported behind by angels. It was handsomely painted and gilt. It had a door at each end which opened into a place behind the altar, where antiently the archbishops used to robe themselves at the time of their enthronization, and thence proceeded to the high altar, where they were invested with the pall. On the top of this screen was a gallery for musick.... By the taking away of this the altar was carried back one arch to a stone screen behind it of excellent Gothick architecture.”
Professor Willis believed that this was the place where the portable feretrum or shrine of St. William was kept. At Winchester Cathedral, behind the high altar (the beautiful altar-screen of which will be mentioned presently), is a raised platform in the feretory, cut off from the choir by the reredos-screen, with originally an arcade in front of it, making a platform of about 10 feet broad. This probably sustained the shrine of St. Swithun, and also those of SS. Birinus, Edda, and Ethelwold. The eastern face is ornamented with tabernacles of Decorated work, and the floor under the platform is carried by a small vault, to which entrance is gained below the range of tabernacles. This vault is supposed to be the “Holy Hole” of the records.
An altar-screen with rood, &c., is to be seen in an illustration of the hearse of Abbot Islip in Westminster Abbey. At St. Cross, Nuremberg, a rood with St. Mary and St. John and several angels, contained in very fine and lofty tabernacle work, surmounts a carving of the Deposition by Veit Stoss, which is protected by triple doors, with paintings by Wohlgemuth, over the high altar. This may also have been the case at Chichester, as in the years 1276 tapers are mentioned: “Supra trabem pictam supportantem crucifixi imaginem viii ejusdem ponderis.” In the Laudable Customs of Hereford, in the twelfth century, there is an allusion to the beam in “Missa accenduntur xiii cerei supra trabem”; and, on great feasts, “iv ante majus altare quinque in basinis xiij super trabem et vij super candelabra.” Joceline de Brakelond tells us that at Bury St. Edmunds, in the Abbey Church, there was a “Crux que erat super magnum altare, et Mariola et Johannes, quas imagines Stigandus archiepiscopus magno pondere auri et argenti ornaverat, et Sancto Ædmundo dederat.” The following quotations from the Liber Niger of Lincoln Minster (about the year 1236) refer to this in all probability: “Item in eisdem festis invenire, xvi cereos supra trabem secus altare,” &c. “Omnes prescripti cerei exceptis cereis super candelabrum ereum et trabem secus altare,” &c. “Item in principalibus festis debent ponere xvj cereos parvos super trabem secus altare et illuminare et extinguere et in depositione habere unum illorum quem voluerint.”
Then on the choir-screen top, whether of wood or stone, there was a gallery—the rood-loft which came into general existence in the fourteenth, although as we have seen it was mentioned in the eleventh century, and in parish churches often the only evidence left of this rood-loft’s existence is the stone staircase of approach.
The names of the rood-loft are various: Holy Loft, Candlebeam, Pulpitum (Englished as poulpete, &c.), Rood Soller or Soler (the latter a word used by Chaucer, who speaks of the “Soler Hall at Cantebrige”; it is interesting to note that there is still a Garret Hostel Lane and Bridge there). In Norfolk it was called the Perk or Perch; in France, the Jubé; in Germany, the Letter; and in Wales, Lloft y Grog. The screen itself has been termed the trelyse, as in Mr. Gibbon’s Early Lincoln Wills we find one R. Bradley bequeathing 3s. 4d. for “gilding of the trelyse.” Also it was termed spur or spere, as J. H. Parker gives us in a contract for a rood-loft at Merton College Chapel, c. 1486, “with speres and lynterns for two awters.”
As there is a great difference between the solid stone screens of cathedral, monastic, and collegiate churches, and the light wood ones of parish churches, both in material, design, and uses, it will be well to describe each class separately.
The solid chancel-screens of cathedrals, abbeys, and collegiate churches have first to be considered. They may conveniently and naturally be divided into two classes, of both of which Lincolnshire, in spite of much ambonoclastic energy, can still show examples.