ROOD
181
ROOD
BiNET, La vie de Pierre, de Ronsard (Paris, 158G), re-edited,
with notes and commentaries by liAUMONiER (Paris, I'JIO); Brune-
TlfeRE, llisl. de la litt. rlass., I (Paris, 1908) ; Laumonier, L'oemrc
de Ronsard {Psirifi, IIUO), wtiieh work contains a full and complete
bihliograpliy.
Louis N. Delamarre.
Rood (Anglo-Saxon Rod, or Rode, "cross"), a term, often used to signify the True Cross itself, which, with the prefix Holy, occurs as the dedication of some churches — e. g. Holyrood Abbey, in Scot- land. But more generally it means a large crucifix, with statues of Our Lady and St. John, usually placed over the entrance to the choir in medieval churches. These roods were frequently very large, so as to be seen from all parts of the church, and were
Rood Loft in the Chirch of St-Etienne, Paris
placed either on a gallery, or screen, or on a beam spanning the chancel arch. Roods are al.so occasion- ally found sculptured outside churches, as at Sher- borne and Romsey, and on churchyard and wayside crosses. As to the antiquity of the rood in the church, there is no certain evidence. The silver crucifix set up in the middle of St. Peter's at Rome by Leo III, in 795, is sometimes claimed as an early example, but there is nothing to prove that this was a rood in the medieval sense. By the thirteenth or four- teenth century, however, the great rood or crucifix had become a common feature in almost every church of Western Christendom, and the addition of the figures of Sts. Mary and John, in allusion to John, xix, 25, came in about the fifteenth. Numerous ex- amples still remain, both in England and elsewhere. They were usually of wood, richly carved, painted or gilded, with foliated or crocketed sides, and with the arms of the cross terminating either in fleur.s-de- lys or in emblazoned medallions of the symbols of the four evangelists.
Rood-lights were kept burning before the rood in medieval times, consisting either of a wick and oil in a cresset, or rood-bowl, or of a taper on a pricket in the centre of a mortar of brass, lattern, or copper. During the whole of Lent, except at the procession of Palm Sunday, the Rood was covered with a veil (rood-cloth), which in England was either violet or
black, and often was marked with a white crosa.
When the rood was ('xcc])tionally large or heavy, its
weight was sometimes taken partly by wrought-
iron rood-chains depending from the chancel arch,
which were generally of elaborate design ; the staples
to which they were fixed may still be seen in some
churches from which the rood itself has been removed
— e. g. at Cullompton, England. The rood, however,
striking and prominent as it was intended to be, was
often eclipsed by the rood-screen over which it was
placed. The precise origin of the screen and its
connexion with the rood is somewhat obscure, and ap-
parently varied in different churches. The custom
of screening off the altar is very ancient, and
emphasizing, as it did, the air of mystery surrounding
the place of sacrifice, was possibly a survival of
Judaism; but the placing of a screen, more or less
solid, between the chancel and nave — i. e. between
clergy and people — must have originated from prac-
tical rather than from symbolic reasons, and was
probably an attempt to secure privacy and com-
fort for those engaged in the work of the choir, more
especially at times when there was no congregation
present. This was certainly the case with the heavy
closed screens, usually of stone, in the large conventual
and collegiate churches, where the long night offic^es
would have been impossible in winter without some
such protection.
Over such screens was a loft or gallery (rood-loft), which, according to some authorities, was used for the reading of the Epistle and Gospel, certain lec- tions, the pastorals of bishops, the Acts of councils, and other like purjjoses. The episcojial l)en('diction was also soincf iuics pronounced, and penitents ab- solved, from the loft, and in .some clunches of France the i)aschal candle stood there. The Blessed Sacra- ment was exposed on the loft in Lyons cathedral and, according to De Moleon, similarly also at Rouen in the eighteenth century. The loft likewise frequently provided convenient accommodation for the organs and singers. In large monastic churches it was called the pulpilum and was separate from the rood- screen supporting the rood, the latter being placed westward of the pulpitum; but in secular cathedrals and parish churches there does not seem to have been usually a separate rood-screen, the rood, in such cases, being either on or over the pulpilum itself. In France the rood-loft was called the ju}>c, which seems to imply that it was used liturgically for the reading of lessons and the like. A gallery or loft corresponding to the medieval juhe was not unknown in the early Church, but there is no satisfactory evidence to show that it was surmounted by a roo(l. Thiers, taking Sens cathedral as his example, suggests that the loft began merely as a sort of bridge connecting the two ambos on either side of the chancel arch, and that it was gradually made more spacious as it proved useful for other purposes. This could only have been so, however, in the smaller churches where there was no puljntum, unless perhaps it was itself the origin of the pulpitum.
In smaller parish churches it seems probable that the loft was originally only a convenience for reach- ing the rood-lights, and that its obvious suitability for other uses caused its enlargement and elaboration. Nothing, however, can be stated with absolute cer- tainty. Many of these medieval screens, both with and without lofts, remain to the present day, in spite of the iconoclasm of the Reformation period. Notable screens that may be mentioned as typical examples are at Cawston, Ranworth, Southwold, Dunster, and Staverton in England; at Troyes, Albi, St-Fiacre-le-Faouet, and St-Etienne-du-Mont, Paris, in France; at Louvain and Dixmude in Bel- gium; at Lubeck in Germany. Some are constructed of stone, and some of the later ones of metal-work,
