Rood Screen - After The Reformation, in England

After The Reformation, in England

At the Reformation, the Reformers sought to destroy abused images i.e. those statues and paintings which they alleged to have been the focus of superstitious adoration. Thus not a single mediaeval Rood survives in Britain. They were removed as a result of the 1547 Injunctions of Edward VI (some to be restored when Mary came to the throne and removed again under Elizabeth). Of original rood lofts, also considered suspect due to their association with superstitious veneration, very few are left; two surviving examples in Wales being at the ancient churches in Llanengan and Llanegryn. The rood screens themselves were sometimes demolished or cut down in height, but more commonly remained with their painted figures whitewashed and overpainted with religious texts. Tympanums too were whitewashed. English cathedral churches maintained their choirs, and consequently their choir stalls and pulpitum screens; but generally demolished their rood screens entirely, although those of Peterborough and Canterbury survived into the 18th century.

In the century following the English Reformation newly built Anglican churches were invariably fitted with chancel screens, which served the purpose of differentiating a separate space in the chancel for communicants at Holy Communion, as was required in the newly adopted Book of Common Prayer. In effect, these chancel screens were rood screens without a surmounting loft or crucifix, and examples survive at St John Leeds and at Foremark. New screens were also erected in many medieval churches where they had been destroyed at the Reformation, as at Cartmel Priory and Abbey Dore. From the early 17th century it became normal for screens or tympanums to carry the Royal Arms of England, good examples of which survive in two of the London churches of Sir Christopher Wren, and also at Derby Cathedral. However, Wren's design for the church of St James, Piccadilly of 1684 dispensed with a chancel screen, retaining only rails around the altar itself, and this auditory church plan was widely adopted as a model for new churches from then on. In the 18th and 19th centuries hundreds of surviving medieval screens were removed altogether; today, in many British churches, the rood stair (which gave access to the rood loft) is often the only remaining trace of the former rood loft and screen.

In the 19th century, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin campaigned for the re-introduction of rood screens into Catholic church architecture. His screens survive in Macclesfield and Cheadle, Staffordshire, although others have been removed. In Anglican churches, under the influence of the Cambridge Camden Society, many medieval screens were restored; though until the 20th century, generally without roods or with only a plain cross rather than a crucifix. A nearly complete restoration can be seen at Eye, Suffolk, where the rood screen dates from 1480. Its missing rood loft was reconstructed by Sir Ninian Comper in 1925, complete with a Rood and figures of saints and angels, and gives a good impression of how a full rood group might have appeared in a mediaeval English church - except that the former tympanum has not been replaced. Indeed because tympanums, repainted with the Royal Arms, were erroneously considered post-medieval, they were almost all removed in the course of 19th century restorations. The 19th-century Tractarians, however, tended to prefer churches where the chancel was distinguished from the nave only by steps and a low-gated screen wall as at All Saints, Margaret Street, so as not to obscure the congregation's view of the altar; this arrangement was adopted for almost all new Anglican churches of the period.