What is a rood screen in a cathedral?
rood screen, in Western architecture, element of a Christian church of the Middle Ages or early Renaissance that separated the choir or chancel (the area around the altar) from the nave (the area set apart for the laity).
What was the point of the rood screens?
The rood screen was a physical and symbolic barrier, separating the chancel, the domain of the clergy, from the nave where lay people gathered to worship. It was also a means of seeing; often it was solid only to waist height and richly decorated with pictures of saints and angels.
What does rood screen mean?
What is an altar screen?
Definition of altar screen : a screen at the back of a church altar : reredos.
What are Cathedral Cloisters?
cloister, quadrilateral enclosure surrounded by covered walkways, and usually attached to a monastic or cathedral church and sometimes to a college. The buildings generally stood on the south of the church to get as much sunshine as possible.
What is a rood screen in a church?
Rood screen, in Western architecture, element of a Christian church of the Middle Ages or early Renaissance that separated the choir or chancel (the area around the altar) from the nave (the area set apart for the laity). The rood screen was erected in association with the rood, which in Old English means “cross,” or “crucifix.”
Where is the largest rood screen in France?
The largest and richest rood screen and loft in France were carved in the Albi cathedral about 1500. In 16th-century England, with Henry VIII’s establishment of the Anglican church, it was decreed that the rood and everything else above the rood beam had to be removed.
What is a rood beam in a church?
At first the great rood of a medieval church was supported by a single beam, spanning the nave at the entrance to the chancel and known as the rood beam. Later a rood screen was added, rising from the floor to this beam; the rood loft, above the screen, was also added.
When did the rood screen become a chancel screen?
In 16th-century England, with Henry VIII’s establishment of the Anglican church, it was decreed that the rood and everything else above the rood beam had to be removed. Rood screens were allowed to remain, but thereafter they were more often called chancel screens.