Rood-Screen, St. Peter’s Church, Middle Rasen.
Then, in connection with the parish church rood-screen and rood-loft, there was an altar or altars. A favourite position for these, when the width of the church allowed, was on either side of the central door of the screen, against the western face of the screen. Those at Ranworth have been mentioned already; at Patricio, in South Wales, are two stone altars, one placed on each side (beneath the rood-loft) of the entrance into the chancel, westward of and against the screen supporting the loft. On either side of the entrance into the apse of Peterchurch, Herefordshire, is a stone altar—probably the rood-screen altars; on the western side of the stone screen of St. Mary Berkeley, on the north, an altar to St. Mary the Virgin, the piscina of which remains; on the south, one to St. Andrew. At Limber Magna the steps to the rood-loft are quite perfect, and exactly under where the rood-loft was placed there is on both sides the trace of what looks like a piscina, but no marks of any altar-slab have been discovered. At St. James’, Castle Bytham, at the restoration in 1900, were found at the east end of the nave, on either side of the chancel arch, remains of shallow, semi-circular-headed recesses, bearing traces of coloured decoration, forming the reredoses of the two small altars. At Winthorpe, close to the rood-screen, on the south side, is an aumbry, most probably for use in connection with an altar on the western front of the screen. Below the rood-loft staircase at Colsterworth is a little aumbry. In the base of a pier close by the rood-loft staircase at Barkston is a small hollow, possibly intended as a piscina or stoup for the service of a rood-altar. Mention has been made of an altar on the rood-loft of the perished screen at Grantham. At Frampton a beautiful little quatrefoil window, just under the roof at the south end of the rood-loft, has been opened out, as well as a hole in the wall beneath it, probably for an office book.
The fate of the roods and rood-lofts has been mentioned above; since those days much damage has been done to the screens which were left, by actual destruction, accident, ignorance, and neglect. Fortunately, in the last thirty years opinion has got educated somewhat, and many of the old screens have been restored, repaired, and (where necessary) replaced, while new ones, designed by the first architects of the day, are furnishing our churches. “Le bon temps viendra” for screens, and indeed has already come in part.
In domestic chapels of any size it is not unusual to find a chancel screen, as at The Mote, Ightham, figured by J. H. Parker. Also, in not a few instances, the western part of the chapel thus shut off has been divided into two storeys, the upper chamber being for the use of the lord and his family, the lower one for the domestics. This arrangement, according to J. H. Parker, continued to be usual in the fifteenth century, and even later, as at East Hendred, Berks, at Studley Priory and at Godstow Nunnery, in Oxfordshire. The chapel at Markenfield Hall, Yorkshire, has also been an example of the same. At East Hendred, the screen to both upper and lower chambers still exists; at Berkeley Castle the screen in front of the upper chamber is original, though altered, that of the lower one is modern. Here, as not infrequently, there is a fireplace in the upper chamber. At Chibburn, Northumberland, and at Trecarrel House, Cornwall, the same arrangement has prevailed. “In Hawarden Castle, Flintshire (said the same authority), the chapel is very small, and must have been merely a private oratory, or, as seems more probable, the chancel or sacrarium only, separated by a screen from the principal chamber in the keep, and with also a ‘squint’ or opening from the passage in the thickness of the wall, to enable persons thus placed to see the elevation of the Host.”
In the Chancery at Lincoln, at the north end of what was the Hall (pulled down by Chancellor Maundeville in 1714), are three pointed doorways of fourteenth-century date, the easternmost of which leads to the buttery, the western one to the cellars, while the middle one leads up a flight of steps with a timber-framed plaster partition on each side, and at the top of these stairs a door on the right hand (easterly, therefore) leads into a room which almost certainly was the chapel. On the eastern side of the partition is a screen of three double bays, open from the middle upwards, with contemporary ironwork. In the opposite side of the partition are two double loops, all being probably, according to the late E. J. Willson, of Henry VIII.’s date.
In hospitals also, a somewhat similar arrangement obtained, the chapel being equal in height to two storeys, and separated from a room above and below by a screen. These rooms were dormitories, so that the sick could, as it were, attend service while they were in bed. In Browne’s Hospital at Stamford, the chapel is open to the roof, and on the ground floor it is separated at the west, from a common room once a dormitory, by a handsome oak screen with doors groined over on both sides. There are returned stalls on the east side thereof. In the ancient hospital at Chichester, the chapel consists of a sacrarium only, and is separated from the hall or principal chamber by an open screen with a curtain. In the almshouses, Sherborne, Dorset, is or has been a similar arrangement.
Note.—Considerations of space, unfortunately, have prevented any allusion to Chantry Chapel Screens.