Thread: Rood Screens Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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From Ralegh's MW report on St John’s, Southampton, New York, USA
quote:
And which part was like being in... er... the other place?
The church has a wooden rood screen dividing the nave from the chancel, and during the eucharist, I found it blocked my view of the celebration. At the few churches I’ve been to with rood screens I’ve found them to be not to my liking. I feel they separate the goings on around the altar from the congregation, making one feel as if one needs a special invitation and/or certification really to be part of the service – sort of like the Shinnecocks and their "public" beaches.
Not an earth shattering question perhaps, but do you agree?
There are a few genuine original ones, but there was quite an antiquarian fashion in late C19/early C20 England for installing replica ones. They were thought to be 'suitably medieval'.
About 45 years ago a country vicar told me that he'd gone into his church one day. As a result of an electrical fault, his rather nondescript one was just beginning to smoulder. He admitted that he was sorely tempted not to dowse it.
Apart from blocking the view, in my experience they also make it harder to hear. In some cases where churches are stuck with one, the altar now stands in front of it. That leaves the choir stuck behind it and the screen. So I do agree with Ralegh.
Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on
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Link to the report.
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on
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Agree completely. Rood screens just get in the way. Let the people see the altar.
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Apart from blocking the view, in my experience they also make it harder to hear.
Ofiginally most of the canon would have been whispered anyway, so rood screen or no rood screen, you wouldn't have heard much. A rood screen wouldn't bother me but then I'm used to have an iconotasis between the sanctuary and me. I suppose it all depends on how one understands participation.
[ 23. April 2015, 18:56: Message edited by: Ad Orientem ]
Posted by balaam (# 4543) on
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The roodness of the screen makes no difference, any screen between te congregation and choir has the same effect.
Wakefield Cathederal has a magnificent one though.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
The roodness of the screen makes no difference, any screen between te congregation and choir has the same effect.
Wakefield Cathederal has a magnificent one though.
I used to go to Wakefield occasionally in the days when they still used the high altar - you could see the beautiful ceremonial from the nave despite the screen.
[ 24. April 2015, 10:59: Message edited by: leo ]
Posted by Oblatus (# 6278) on
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Ours is my favorite. You can look at it and appreciate it, or ignore it and forget it's even there. French Gothic style with wrought-iron curlicues. And yes, there's a Calvary scene on top, which looks almost suspended in mid-air.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Ofiginally most of the canon would have been whispered anyway, so rood screen or no rood screen, you wouldn't have heard much.
If by "originally" you mean when rood screens first appeared, I would agree. (And I'd add that even if you could have heard anything, it would have been in a language you probably didn't understand.) But the practice of whispering the canon was, as I understand it, something that developed over time.
Posted by Ceremoniar (# 13596) on
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St. Paul's in Savannah, an historic Anglo-Catholic parish.
Posted by daisymay (# 1480) on
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Looks a very nice one !
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
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St. Mary's Episcopal, Asheville, North Carolina (USA).
(This photographer does like to enhance the blues in his photographs.)
Posted by BulldogSacristan (# 11239) on
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Tangent: Has anybody ever seen the sanctuary lamps suspended from the rood screen like that?
Posted by BulldogSacristan (# 11239) on
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Like at Saint Paul's, Savannah, that is.
Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Oblatus:
Ours is my favorite. You can look at it and appreciate it, or ignore it and forget it's even there. French Gothic style with wrought-iron curlicues. And yes, there's a Calvary scene on top, which looks almost suspended in mid-air.
The top of the screen didn't show on your link -- how about this?
Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on
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Interestingly, two of our local parish churches have rood beams i.e. across the chancel arch, bearing figures of Our Crucified Lord, along with Our Blessed Lady and St. John Evangelist. No screens below in either case, though.
One was added to a mediaeval church in a 19th C restoration (presumably there would have been a complete screen pre-Reformation), and is of plain wooden finish, whilst the other dates from the construction of the church in 1916, and is nicely painted.
Both are now MOTR 'Parish Communion/Family Service-once-a-month-on-the-first-Sunday' places, but were both AIUI formerly a little higher up the candle.
Ian J.
Posted by BulldogSacristan (# 11239) on
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My parish once had a rood screen but it was cut down. We still call the waist-high remnant the rood screen and the rood is now suspended by chains. You can see what's left of the screen, and it's open gate, in these pictures of a Solemn Te Deum at Trinity Sunday. **Scroll down to see each mentioned picture**
I have read that some Anglo-Catholics did not like rood screens. They preferred the more Jesuitical open chancels.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
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There have been times, as a chorister, when I've been quite glad, to hide behind a rood screen. There are some fine examples in Devon, but sadly they are sometimes subject to vandalism and theft.
Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on
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![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
Hopefully, there is a special Circle In Hell for those who commit such crimes......
.......but it perhaps behoves those responsible for the upkeep of such churches to have at least an accurate photographic record of things. No substitute for the original, of course, but it might mean that the results of evil or mindless theft or vandalism could at least be mitigated by a reproduction....
Ian J.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by BulldogSacristan:
I have read that some Anglo-Catholics did not like rood screens. They preferred the more Jesuitical open chancels.
Anglo-papalists who followeed Ritual Notes didn't like them.
Those who followed Percy dearmer's 'Parson's Handbook' loved them.
Posted by Siegfried (# 29) on
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It would appear (and wikipedia backs this) that many rood screens are still easy to see through. I'm not sure how that is worse symbolically than an alter rail, or are those also offensive to the anti-rood screen crowd?
Posted by ldjjd (# 17390) on
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When George Regas became Rector of All Saints, Pasadena, he vowed that removal of the church's rood screen would be the first thing he would do. Upon his retirement 28 years later, he was presented with a small section of the screen, which had been cut back to a rood beam shortly before he left.
[ 25. April 2015, 00:15: Message edited by: ldjjd ]
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Siegfried:
It would appear (and wikipedia backs this) that many rood screens are still easy to see through. I'm not sure how that is worse symbolically than an alter rail, or are those also offensive to the anti-rood screen crowd?
If George Guiver is to be believed, the altar rail originated in very early basilicas simply as a device to stop the people from crowding so close to the altar that the celebrant had no room. But no, of course they're not the same. The altar rail is low and you can see over it and when you go up to receive, 'meekly kneeling'as a good Anglican should, it gives some support. It is, if you'll forgive a vulgar simile, rather like a bar or counter in a pub or cafe.
Posted by georgiaboy (# 11294) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Oblatus:
Ours is my favorite. You can look at it and appreciate it, or ignore it and forget it's even there. French Gothic style with wrought-iron curlicues. And yes, there's a Calvary scene on top, which looks almost suspended in mid-air.
But what I remember most vividly about the rood screen at Church of the Ascension were the GATES. It was I think the first time I visited that parish (way back in the day) for High Mass. After the presentation of the alms the MC came forward and closed the gates, since those were the days of non-communing high masses in that place. (It was not long after, IIRC, that the custom was changed.)
Posted by Knopwood (# 11596) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Oblatus:
Ours is my favorite. You can look at it and appreciate it, or ignore it and forget it's even there.
Ours is somewhere in the middle: just "there" enough to frustrate my sight lines a bit, but you can sit strategically to minimize the effect.
Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on
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The Episcopal Cathedral of St. Paul in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, has a carved wooden rood screen (or perhaps more correctly, a rood beam?) which you can see at the top of their webpage here. You can get a slightly better view of the sanctuary here (mid-page). The nave is lined with wooden statues of the apostles, giving an overall warm feeling to the place; these photos don't really do it justice.
Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on
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I have never been in a service in a church with a rood screen, so I was wondering - for those of you who have, did it change your experience of the Mass? Did it add anything? How is the rood screen supposed to be experienced/felt/understood by the congregation?
Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on
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Ours fell down in an earthquake in 1931 (along with the rest of the cathedral). The rood screen in particular pinned the then dean breaking his pelvis. He survived ... but the rood screen was not replaced!
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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Technically, I think I'm right in saying that the screen and the rood are different. The rood is a large crucifixion with Mary the Mother of the Lord on one side and St John on the other. It can be placed on top of a screen, on a beam across the chancel arch or even suspended from above. In both the latter cases, the space below is not blocked. It is also possible, and quite frequent to have a screen, diving the church in effect into two compartments, without having a rood on top of it.
Is there an ecclesiastically minded shipmate who can say whether this analysis is correct?
Ralegh's criticism is really about the effect of having a screen. Is this in principle an enhancement or something that one has to put up with if your church has a genuinely ancient one?
Incidentally, in terms of theology, if the idea is to mark a more holy, priestly, area round the altar, separate from the nave where the grubby laity go, isn't that defeated once one puts the choir in the chancel, rather than in front of it, or upstairs at the back?
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on
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Historically the choir was the ordained or those in holy orders. I suspect some special scheme for boy sopranos but would not be too sure.
Jengie
[ 26. April 2015, 11:16: Message edited by: Jengie jon ]
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
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Didn't rood screens also keep the secular from the holy in the days when churches were also meeting places for the community, rather than only used on Sundays? Aren't many churches in a situation when recreating that model could be a key to their survival? Could it be that there is even more need for rood screens now?
Posted by Oblatus (# 6278) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
quote:
Originally posted by Oblatus:
Ours is my favorite. You can look at it and appreciate it, or ignore it and forget it's even there. French Gothic style with wrought-iron curlicues. And yes, there's a Calvary scene on top, which looks almost suspended in mid-air.
The top of the screen didn't show on your link -- how about this?
Thank you very much indeed. I couldn't come up with that better photo for some reason. Cheers.
Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Didn't rood screens also keep the secular from the holy in the days when churches were also meeting places for the community, rather than only used on Sundays? Aren't many churches in a situation when recreating that model could be a key to their survival? Could it be that there is even more need for rood screens now?
I cannot remember the church where they used the modern version of a rood screen for this, with accordion folding doors so that the nave/main body of the church could be used for day-car activities and so forth, but it would be a good example of where a rood screen could be useful.
Posted by Stephen (# 40) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Didn't rood screens also keep the secular from the holy in the days when churches were also meeting places for the community, rather than only used on Sundays? Aren't many churches in a situation when recreating that model could be a key to their survival? Could it be that there is even more need for rood screens now?
Hmmm - interesting point. I don't know! But wasn't the origin of them back in the days when the monasteries were in existence. The Benedictines allowed the townspeople to use their church as the parish church and I thought the choir screen was to separate the 'people's church' from the monastery? I could be wrong here though - although a lot of our city churches and cathedrals do seem to have had a Benedictine foundation......
I quite like them personally. We haven't got them in mine which is quite open and I wouldn't want to see one installed either but I'm quite happy to accept it if I find myself in a church with a rood screen. ( The reaults of going abroad on my holidays - in England. Travel broaden the mind or so it is alleged.....)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on
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There was definitely some issue about different people/ bodies having ownership of or responsibility for the chancel and for the nave, wasn't there? I can't remember the details, now, but has chancel repair liability got something to do with the same division? Or is that a red herring?
Posted by Corvo (# 15220) on
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The earliest (?) known church in Britain had a 'rood screen'.
The 4th century Hinton St Mary mosaic in the British Museum is the floor of a Christian 'worship space' clearly divided into two spaces - an inner one (with image of Christ) for the initiated (baptised) and an outer one (just inside the interface) for catechumens. The screen between them (by some interpretations) prevented the latter from observing the altar and the 'mysteries', but still included them in the same 'space'. The screen 'materialised' the division (and union) between the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Sacrament.
Posted by Corvo (# 15220) on
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We tend to think of rood screens as simply concealing the action but in the Middle Ages they might have been thought of as concealing the action in order to reveal it. A bit like the priest standing with his back to the congregation but then elevating the host for all to adore.
Posted by Oblatus (# 6278) on
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quote:
Originally posted by georgiaboy:
quote:
Originally posted by Oblatus:
Ours is my favorite. You can look at it and appreciate it, or ignore it and forget it's even there. French Gothic style with wrought-iron curlicues. And yes, there's a Calvary scene on top, which looks almost suspended in mid-air.
But what I remember most vividly about the rood screen at Church of the Ascension were the GATES. It was I think the first time I visited that parish (way back in the day) for High Mass. After the presentation of the alms the MC came forward and closed the gates, since those were the days of non-communing high masses in that place. (It was not long after, IIRC, that the custom was changed.)
I believe one of our rectors made the abolition of non-communing Masses a condition of his accepting the call to the parish.
A more recent rector entered the church one day for Low Mass and noticed someone (cleaning crew?) had closed the gates. Before beginning the Mass, he went to the gates and opened them, then said to the small congregation, "Don't worry; we haven't gone Eastern Orthodox." And on with the Mass.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
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In Exeter cathedral, the screen is made of solid stone. It was once described to us by a guide as 'passing through the gates into heaven'. That might sound exclusive except that, in Exeter cathedral, everyone who attends Evensong sits in the Quire, therefore they have all passed through the gates, not just the bigwigs. And at the Eucharist, all are in the nave as there is also a nave altar.
I can't think of anywhere locally which does not have a see-through screen, where the Eucharist is held up at the high altar, so the congregation is excluded - but would be interested to hear of any that are.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
There have been times, as a chorister, when I've been quite glad, to hide behind a rood screen. There are some fine examples in Devon, but sadly they are sometimes subject to vandalism and theft.
Great news - they have been found!! Offered for sale on the internet, so tracked down. Story here.
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Ralegh's criticism is really about the effect of having a screen. Is this in principle an enhancement or something that one has to put up with if your church has a genuinely ancient one?
A really good question. And I suppose it depends on what kind of worship experience the worshipper expects or wants.
I love the history of old buildings, so I'd probably get a kick out of a fine rood screen, and wouldn't necessarily consider it a barrier in my worship. But it would depend on what style of worship it was - how important it was for clear vision up to the altar, or opened-up space for carrying out a different kind of worship, than the traditional sort.
I would be torn between the historicity of ancient ecclesiastical art-form and the need for clear communication and inclusion of the worshippers who may not find it that edifying to peer through wooden bars or panels at the action up at the altar.
We're all so different in how we experience worship.
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on
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Ma Preacher and I were watching Willie and Kate's wedding together. Ma is a sop for weddings of all sorts. When the camera panned across the Rood Screen in the Abbey, she asked me what it was (and she does have an M.Div!). So I explained, and she replied it would be annoying and block the view.
I would have taken the sledgehammer to it centuries ago. ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Philistine ...
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Some are worth checking out ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bettws_Newydd
I'm too technically-challenged to provide short URL links but Google Image the rood screen at Llangwm in South Wales.
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
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You need to specify Llangwm Uchaf (or Llangwm in Monmouthshire) because there is another Llangwm in Pembrokeshire...
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Ma Preacher and I were watching Willie and Kate's wedding together. Ma is a sop for weddings of all sorts. When the camera panned across the Rood Screen in the Abbey, she asked me what it was (and she does have an M.Div!). So I explained, and she replied it would be annoying and block the view.
I would have taken the sledgehammer to it centuries ago.
The screen in Westminster Abbey is a pulpitum, not a rood screen. (Note the lack of a rood and the presence of organ and space for musicians in the loft atop the screen, as well as the thickness of the screen.)
I don't know whether Westminster Abbey ever had a rood screen, but if it did and if it followed convention, it would have been one bay west of the pulpitum, and would have had an altar under it. The pulpitum, then, had the effect of dividing the space into two churches—one for the monastic community to the east and one for the laity to to the west—though ithe entire space could also, of course, function as one church.
[ 25. May 2015, 16:25: Message edited by: Nick Tamen ]
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