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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Rood Screens
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
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.
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Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
Link to the report.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Agree completely. Rood screens just get in the way. Let the people see the altar.
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Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
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 ]
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
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.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Oblatus
Shipmate
# 6278
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Posted
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.
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
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.
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
Looks a very nice one !
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London
Flickr fotos
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
St. Mary's Episcopal, Asheville, North Carolina (USA).
(This photographer does like to enhance the blues in his photographs.)
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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BulldogSacristan
Shipmate
# 11239
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Posted
Tangent: Has anybody ever seen the sanctuary lamps suspended from the rood screen like that?
Posts: 197 | From: Boston, Massachusetts | Registered: Apr 2006
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
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?
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
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.
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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BulldogSacristan
Shipmate
# 11239
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Posted
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.
Posts: 197 | From: Boston, Massachusetts | Registered: Apr 2006
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
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.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
![[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.
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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Siegfried
Ship's ferret
# 29
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Posted
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?
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Siegfried
Life is just a bowl of cherries!
Posts: 5592 | From: Tallahassee, FL USA | Registered: May 2001
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ldjjd
Shipmate
# 17390
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Posted
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 ]
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
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.
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georgiaboy
Shipmate
# 11294
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Posted
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.)
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You can't retire from a calling.
Posts: 1675 | From: saint meinrad, IN | Registered: Apr 2006
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Knopwood
Shipmate
# 11596
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Posted
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.
Posts: 6806 | From: Tio'tia:ke | Registered: Jun 2006
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Mamacita
Lakefront liberal
# 3659
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Posted
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.
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Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
Posts: 20761 | From: where the purple line ends | Registered: Dec 2002
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
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?
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
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?
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
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 ]
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
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?
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Oblatus
Shipmate
# 6278
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Posted
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.
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
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.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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Stephen
Shipmate
# 40
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Posted
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)
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Best Wishes
Stephen
'Be still,then, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations and I will be exalted in the earth' Ps46 v10
Posts: 3954 | From: Alto C Clef Country | Registered: May 2001
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
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?
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Corvo
Shipmate
# 15220
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Posted
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.
Posts: 672 | From: The Most Holy Trinity, Coach Lane, North Shields | Registered: Oct 2009
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Corvo
Shipmate
# 15220
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Posted
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.
Posts: 672 | From: The Most Holy Trinity, Coach Lane, North Shields | Registered: Oct 2009
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Oblatus
Shipmate
# 6278
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Posted
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.
Posts: 3823 | Registered: May 2004
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
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.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
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.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
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.
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Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
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)
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
You need to specify Llangwm Uchaf (or Llangwm in Monmouthshire) because there is another Llangwm in Pembrokeshire...
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
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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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
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