“De crucifixo, et tabulâ aureâ in introitu chori.
Introitumque chori majestas aurea pingit;
Et proprie propriâ crucifixus imagine Christi
Exprimitur, vitæque suæ progressus ad unguem
Insinuatur ibi. Nec solum crux vel imago
Immo columnarum sex, lignorumque duorum
Ampla superficies, obrizo fulgurat auro.”
On which my friend, the late Precentor Venables, remarked, “The meaning is not free from obscurity, but we see that the rood-screen consisted of six pillars—three, we may suppose, either side the entrance to the choir—supporting two beams, on which stood the crucifix, the whole being gilt.”
This, then, may have been the screen on which the rood stood. Abroad, as can be seen at the present day (e.g. at Louvain St. Pierre), it frequently stands upon the screen itself. In other cases it may be supported by a beam above the screen. At Canterbury Cathedral, in Lanfranc’s time, we learn from Gervase that “above the loft, and placed across the church, was the beam which sustained the great cross, two cherubim, and the images of St. Mary and St. John the Apostle.” In later times it probably stood on the existing arch (built by Prior Goldstone II. about 1495 to 1517) inserted under the western arch of the central tower. At Exeter Cathedral the rood stood on a separate bar of iron, high above the screen, and was erected in 1324, after the screen was finished. The rests for it, cut out of the narrow arches on either side, were brought into view recently. At Nuremberg the same arrangement prevails, or prevailed. At Winchester Cathedral the second easternmost bay of the nave from the chancel-screen was occupied by a rood-loft, on which stood the “magna crux cum duabus imaginibus sc. Mariæ et Johannis et illas cum trabe vestitas auro et argento copiose,” &c., made and set up by Bishop Stigand, who was buried at Winchester in 1069. At Glastonbury Abbey we read of William de Taunton, Abbot (1322-1335), making the “front of the choir, with the curious stone images, where the crucifix stood.” Also at St. Edmondsbury, in the earliest part of the thirteenth century, Hugh the Sacrist “pulpitum in ecclesiæ ædificavit, magna cruce erecta,” showing the close connection between the rood and the loft. At Worcester Cathedral there are stone brackets for the rood-beam on the western pillars of the lantern, 28 feet from the floor of the nave. There seem to be no traces of rood or rood-beam in Lincoln Minster.
In the Hereford Consuetudines, one of the duties of the Thesaurarius was to keep three lamps burning day and night, one of which was “in pulpito ante crucem.” The same officer was ordered in the Liber Niger of Lincoln, “Minutam etiam candelam invenire in choro et in pulpito et alibi in ecclesia quandocumque necesse fuerit,” the Eastern use differing from the Western on the score of economy! There seems to be no reasonable doubt that the pulpitum and platform already described was the one from which the Gospel and Epistle were read or intoned, and other portions of the pre-Reformation services sung or said. Dr. Hopkins[102] says: “For the accommodation of the singing monks there was a projecting gallery or pulpit, as it was sometimes termed, standing out from the centre of the east front of the rood-loft, near to the organ.” The author of The Rites of Durham speaks of “the pair of organs over the Quire dore” in the eastern screen. No doubt there were variations in what was read, sung, or chanted from the rood-loft in different dioceses and different cathedrals. According to Wild, at High Mass, as soon as the reading of the Epistle by the sub-deacon was ended (at the altar, we may presume) the deacon, leaving the altar, preceded by the crucifix and taper-bearers, and holding the book of the Gospels conspicuously elevated in his hands, walked slowly and processionally along the south side of the choir (while the choristers sang the graduale) to the steps leading to the rood-loft, where, being arrived and kneeling under the great crucifix usually erected there, he addressed the bishop or priest in these words, “Jube, Domine, benedicere,” to which the officiating clergyman answered, “Evangelium Domini Nostri Jesu Christi,” or some other benediction. And then the deacon would read the Gospel from the rood-loft and would return to the altar. From this custom, especially in France, the gallery over the screen obtained the name of Jubé. The Liber Niger, or Statutes of Lincoln Cathedral, have the following directions for this use:—