is not the slightest trace of any supporting screenwork ever having
touched, still less been attached to, its lower edge. I am disposed to
think that the arrangements at Wingerworth must have been analogous
to those of Sawley church, and that the solution of the problems they
both present is to be arrived at by a comparison of the existing
remains of rood-loft and screenwork in these several churches, the
one supplementing the details which lack in the other, for the
reconstruction of the original scheme. In both cases is a round-headed
arch—that at Wingerworth is not later than the beginning of the twelfth
century, while that at Sawley has been pronounced, on expert authority,
to have been erected still earlier, bearing as it does the evidences
of pre-Norman workmanship—an arch which, were it not for the impost
at the spring on either side, resembles more than anything else (with
its broad, flat soffit, no splays, no orders, no mouldings) a simple
aperture cut in the solid wall. The arch at Wingerworth has an opening
of 6 ft. 7 in. wide, or 7 ft. at the spring, by 8 ft. 8 in. (short
measure) from floor to crown; that at Sawley, 14 ft. 1 in. wide, its
height in proportion.
Now although at Wingerworth there is nothing of the sort remaining, at
Sawley, on the contrary, the original fittings of the chancel have,
fortunately, been preserved. These, comprising return stalls, with
the rood-screen behind them, stand complete _within_ the chancel. Nor
could the screen, so placed (because of the thickness of the wall,
interposing a bulk of 3 ft. 2 in. between chancel and nave), possibly
have formed one organic structure, with the rood-loft on the other
side, in the nave. I take it that in both cases the chancel was fully
and finally furnished with its stalls and screen at a time when
rood-lofts had not yet become a necessity—the fittings actually are of
a heavy and somewhat primitive type of Perpendicular—and that when,
later on, a rood-loft did require to be provided, circumstances left no
choice open but to treat it as something entirely independent of the
already erected screen. For to have set it up on the top of the latter,
on the chancel side of the arch, would have defeated the primary
object for which the rood-loft, as an adjunct to the performance of
public worship, existed. Without doubt the only place where it could
adequately fulfil the requirements of a rood-loft was against the east
wall of the nave, above the chancel arch. The length, then, of the
rood-loft at Sawley would be the same as the width of the nave, viz.,
26 ft. 3 in.
All this is no idle theory. It is confirmed by the existence, in Sawley
church, of a pair of stone corbels projecting from the masonry at the
east end of the nave above the chancel arch. The level of the corbel
in the north-east corner is 17 ft. 1 in. above the floor; that of the
opposite one in the south-east corner, 17 ft. 3 in. These would have
supported the ancient rood-beam, there being ample wall-surface at
the east end of the nave for the rood, as well as for the rood-loft
(containing, possibly, the “payre of orgyns” named in the inventory of
the sixth year of Edward VI.), to have been situated beneath, either
crossing the opening of, or (as at Wingerworth) crowning the summit of,
the chancel arch.
Neither are the above-named cases themselves without parallel. It is
recorded that there was in the nave (19 ft. 10 in. wide) of the old
church at Parwich (pulled down in 1872) a sort of rood-loft projection
similar in construction to that at Wingerworth, and that in the course
of demolition the ends of four stout, squared timbers were taken out of
the masonry about two feet above the crown of the Norman chancel-arch,
a low-pitched one like (although, being more richly ornamented, of
later date than) the Wingerworth example itself.
Owing to the scarcity of wills, churchwardens’ accounts, and such other
documents as might have thrown light on the subject, the exact date
of the introduction of the rood-loft cannot, in the case of the great
majority of churches in Derbyshire, be ascertained. At Elvaston church,
in 1474, the first Lord Mountjoy left instructions for the carrying out
of certain works, which would most likely have included the erection of
a rood-loft there, though the latter is not named in the bequest. In
fact, the earliest and only instance I know of in which the rood-loft
was explicitly provided for, is the will of Sir Henry Vernon, of
Haddon. The date of this document is 18th January, 1514, and the item
in point runs: “I bequethe to the churche of Bakewell and to makying of
the Rode lofte £6.” The will was proved on 5th May of the next year,
1515, not later than which date the testator’s wishes, so I assume,
would be carried into execution.
I have already indicated how the general absence of aisles from the
chancels of its churches drove chantry-founders in Derbyshire to
occupy the space of the nave or nave aisles. But, more than that, it
effectually checked the expansion of the rood-loft and screen, and
confined them within the nave’s width. For wherever the eastern wall of
an aisle, conterminous with the nave, is pierced by a window (instead
of by an arch leading into a chapel beyond), it does not admit of
either screen or loft being carried across it in continuation of the
screen and loft in the nave. The only sure sign of the alternative plan
having been adopted, _i.e._, of rood-loft having extended to the outer
wall of the aisle, would be a rood-entrance in that outer wall. But
such a sign I have not met with anywhere in Derbyshire. I searched for
it in Chesterfield church, the plan of which, so it seemed to me, might
have admitted the rood-loft being carried right across the building,
including the aisles; but in vain. I cannot point to a single instance
in a Derbyshire church of which it could be positively asserted that
the rood-loft extended beyond the limit of the width of the nave.
The usual place for the rood-loft door and staircase in this county
would appear to be either in the nave or in the inner corner of an
aisle immediately adjacent to the nave. Such approaches, or traces of
them, exist or are known to have existed at, among other churches,
those of Ashbourne, Ashover, Aston, Bakewell, Barrow-upon-Trent,
Breadsall, Chaddesden, Derby (old St. Michael’s), Kirk Langley,
Monyash, Repton, Spondon, Tideswell, Wilne, North Wingfield, and
Wingerworth. Nevertheless, as compared with other districts of
England, Derbyshire cannot be reckoned among those counties in which
rood-entrances and rood-stairs are of very common occurrence. However,
where either they do survive or traces of them occur, they afford
no exception to the normal dimensions of such structures. Indeed,
in Derbyshire there are to be found rood-entrances as narrow as, if
not even narrower than, anywhere else in the kingdom. Thus those at
Chaddesden and Wingerworth measure each only eighteen inches wide.
In some cases the ascent starts abruptly at a very awkward height from
the ground. For instance, at Ashover the lowest step of the rood-stair
is 6 feet above the floor level; 6 ft. 3 in. at Wingerworth. Nor
in either case is there any perceptible trace of the steps having
descended lower towards the ground. For them to be reached, then, where
they are, is a feat that could not be accomplished without the help of
a ladder. In the case of Wingerworth, however, it is true that, as to
whether the rood-stair originally terminated at its present distance
from the floor, there is, for the following reasons, much uncertainty.
The mother of one Arthur Mower, of Barlow, dying in 1574, and being
buried in Wingerworth church, her son wrote down minute particulars of
the site of her interment; and the old memorandum book, still extant,
records how she “lyeth in the church in the north alley at the head of
the alley on the north side, and her feet lieth as nigh of the north
side of the grysse” (_i.e._, stair, from the Latin _gressus_) “that
goeth up into the Rood-loft as may be.” Now nobody at the present day
who wanted to be accurate—and the sole _raison d’être_ of a memorandum
like this is to preserve and hand down as trustworthy a record as
possible—would dream of describing the feet of a body lying in the
north-east corner of the north aisle as being close to the ascent of
the rood-stair! To obviate the discrepancy, then, is one not forced
to the conclusion that the rood-stair must have been somehow or other
prolonged downwards in a northerly direction until it reached the
ground at the spot indicated?
Rood-stairs, being no longer required once the lofts had been
overthrown, have met with shameful neglect, often with violent
maltreatment. In some cases they have been allowed to survive only
through having been turned into cupboards for brooms and ladders, gas
meters, or water cisterns; but, nevertheless, after full allowance
is made for rood-stairs that formerly were and now have perished,
there is still left a large percentage of Derbyshire churches in
which no permanent stone stairs can be supposed to have existed. In
such cases, unless there was a fixed wooden staircase, access must
have been obtained by no better means than a ladder the whole way
from floor to loft. The practical inconvenience of this proceeding,
together with the narrow dimensions of rood-doors and stairs—while
their builders were constructing them, it would in most cases have been
just as easy to make them half a dozen or so inches wider had there
been any occasion—affords corroborative evidence of the impossibility
of parochial rood-lofts having been used, or designed to be used, for
ceremonial purposes by the officiants at divine service.
In Derbyshire, as elsewhere, ornamental treatment, either of rood-stair
entrance or of rood-door itself, is so abnormal as to call, wherever
such does occur, for notice. Ashbourne church may be said to furnish an
instance in point. There, in the southern transept, the south-east pier
of the central tower contains a staircase, which, though constructed
doubtless contemporaneously with the building of the tower itself,
and, therefore, anterior to the general introduction of rood-lofts,
would certainly have served to give access to the rood-loft as soon
as ever that adjunct was provided at Ashbourne church. The door, then
(see illustration), may not unjustly be ranked among rare examples of
ornamented rood-doors. Under a moulded label, terminating on the left
in a sculptured head that cannot strictly claim to be an authentic
product of the period, stands this handsome oak door of late thirteenth
century workmanship. It is divided vertically into two ogival-headed
panels, and is enriched with wrought-iron bands and hinges, in a very
fair state of preservation, although it is to be regretted that their
elegant contour is partly hidden by a clumsy modern timber lining
inserted into the masonry opening.
It cannot have escaped the notice of attentive observers how often
the steps of rood-stairs in parish churches have been trodden into
hollows, as though they had been subjected to much wear and tear.
Such must, indeed, have been very constant to have left its mark thus
pronouncedly upon rood-stairs, and that, too, in the comparatively
short period of their use—in many cases, of not above, perhaps, a
hundred years’ duration—between the date of their erection and of the
Reformation changes, which sent them back again into disuse. Some
other explanation, then, more convincing and more in accord with the
evidence of fact than the suggestion of a mere ceremonial function in
the rood-loft on special occasions, must be adduced to account for
the regular employment of the rood-stair. That the lay folk, being
many, rather than the officiant minister and his clerks, being few,
were they who trod the stairs leading into the parochial rood-loft,
is evident. The main function of the rood-loft in parish churches was
to accommodate singers, musicians, and their instruments. Again, it
should be borne in mind that very often (as churches, for example, like
Ashover, Old Brampton, Edensor, Staveley, Tideswell, and Wingerworth
attest) a sacring-bell hung in the eastern gable of the nave, or (as
in cruciform churches like that of Ashbourne) in the central tower, in
either event immediately above the rood-loft. Than the latter, then,
there was no better position that the sacrist could be placed in; the
rood-loft affording him an excellent vantage-ground from which to keep
an eye upon the movements of a priest saying mass at any altar in the
building, and to summon the people at the bidding of the bell when the
right moment came for them to raise their eyes and worship the uplifted
Host.
[Illustration: Ashbourne Church: Door leading to the Rood-Stair.]
Incidentally, again, the rood-loft would have been resorted to as a
convenient place from which to reach the rood for its veiling and
unveiling. And it must have been hither, also, that those whose office
it was to tend and light the beam-lights would have had frequent
occasion of coming.
But these are points which open up the subject of the rood itself,
and of the various devotions and customs that grew up around it in
pre-Reformation days.
The great crucifix, with the flanking statues which usually accompanied
it, would either rise from the rood-loft direct, being attached to the
top of the parapet, or, in the case of churches which were lofty enough
to admit of it and not to cramp the heads of the figures by the roof
descending too closely upon them, would be carried above the level of
the rood-loft upon a separate beam crossing the eastern extremity of
the nave—always provided that the essential condition was to impart
the utmost dignity to the rood itself, and to insure its becoming the
most conspicuous object in the whole building. Specific mention of a
rood having existed in mediæval days is forthcoming in the case of the
three monastic churches of Dale, Darley, and Repton, already named; in
the collegiate church of All Hallows, Derby; as also in the parochial
churches of Ashbourne, Bakewell, Breadsall, Chesterfield, Morley, and
Repton.
The figures, to wit, the Christ upon the Cross and the Mary and John
beside it, were usually sculptured and coloured, or, less commonly,
gilded; and sometimes even clothed also. The existence of the
last-named practice is attested in respect of images in general by a
long list of jewels and garments belonging to the statue of the Madonna
and Child in the Bridge Chapel at Derby, and by an item of “2 cootes of
ymagys of lynen cloth and 1 of sylke” at Kirk Ireton; and in respect
of roods in particular, by another item which occurs in the inventory
of the church goods at Ashbourne, drawn up by order in the first year
of Edward VI. The entry in point runs thus: “1 holde cote,” _i.e._,
one old coat, “for the roode.” This garment, being described as “old,”
would imply, not so much that the custom of employing such things had
declined, as that the particular coat in question had become worn
through long using. It is more than likely, indeed, that the rood’s
wardrobe had been replenished through the generosity of some devout
donor with fresh and costlier clothing when required, to take the
place of that which had become worn out—for it was very far from being
in accord with the spirit of our mediæval ancestors to offer to the
Lord and His service that which cost them nothing—but that it had been
forfeit already ere this time. It must be borne in mind that the best
of everything worth looting had been seized by Edward’s predecessor,
and that the catalogues of ecclesiastical ornaments and utensils,
drawn up officially in the boy-King’s reign, represent but the pitiful
remnants, of little value, left over because they had failed to tempt
the rapacity of Henry VIII. And yet, poor and insignificant as they
might be, they were not to be allowed to escape further diminution at
the hands of Edward VI.’s counsellors and ministers, men whose conduct
exhibits a peculiarly revolting blend of avarice and puritanism.
That these foregoing remarks are well-founded is illustrated by the
language of the inventories themselves, wherein frequently occur such
qualifying descriptions as “old,” “outworn,” “torn,” or “broken,”
whereas those items are rare to which the adjective “whole” is appended
for differentiating the good and complete state of such few articles as
happen to be above the average mediocrity of the greater number.
The great rood, as well as all images and pictures in churches, was
veiled throughout Passiontide until the latter end of Holy Week, as is
exemplified by the mention, in 1466, in a list of the ornaments then
belonging to All Hallows’, Derby, of a “grete clothe that coverethe the
Rode.” But an item in the inventory taken of the goods of Morley church
at the beginning of Edward VI.’s reign, viz., “a shete y^t hanged afor
y^e Rode,” would appear to have been rather a hanging for the front of
the rood-loft, in the presence of or at the foot of the rood itself.
Rood-lofts, as is known from other sources, were often covered with
“stayned” or painted hangings to enhance their ornamental qualities;
or, on the other hand, veiled in white shrouds, like the rood, in Lent,
in churches where the imagery and decoration upon the woodwork of the
loft itself was too gay and garnished in appearance to be consistent
with the solemnity of the penitential season. The past tense in the
case of the hanging at Morley church is evidence that the ancient use,
whichsoever alternative is referred to, had, by the date of the taking
of the inventory, been already discontinued.
In the parish church at Bakewell was an altar of the Holy Cross, “built
by the said cross,” situated, that is, near to the great rood, at the
eastern end of the south aisle of the building. And in connection with
this altar, in the reign of Edward III., a chantry was founded and
endowed by Sir Godfrey Foljambe, ratification of the same being granted
by royal letters patent in 1345. Further, the deed of confirmation by
the Dean and Chapter of Lichfield is extant, wherein are set forth in
detail the duties of the office of chaplain of the Holy Cross. From
this document it appears that the chantry priest, though celebrating
at the same altar, was to say a different votive mass on every day of
the week in specified rotation, the mass on Friday being always that
of the Holy Cross. Moreover, at every mass, after the _Confiteor_, he
was to turn to the people and say, in his mother tongue: “Pray ye for
the soul of Sir Godfrey Foljambe, and Anne, his wife, and his children,
and brothers of the guild of the Holy Cross, and all the faithful
deceased.” Again, a grant of the date 1405 exists, by which one Dom
John Chepe, chaplain of the chantry of the Holy Cross in Bakewell,
makes over in reversion certain landed property to the service of the
said chantry for ever. Another document, of the year 1535, incidentally
makes mention of “the burgage of the Holy Cross,” by which is to be
understood a piece of land, probably with house property upon it, lying
within the bounds of the town, and forming part of the endowments
either of the chantry or the guild of that title. The last incumbent of
this chantry was William Oldeffeld. On its dissolution, as the pension
roll of 30th October, 1552, shows, he was allowed an annuity of £6 in
lieu of his former stipend; while William Hole, chantry priest of the
holy rood at Wirksworth, is known, from Cardinal Pole’s pension roll,
to have been granted £5 per annum. The “rode chauntrye” at Wirksworth
was founded, in his lifetime, by Sir Henry Vernon, the same whose will,
as already recorded, contained a bequest for the rood-loft at Bakewell.
In Ashbourne church, until the middle of the sixteenth century
(as scheduled in the chantry roll drawn up for the purposes of
confiscation shortly after the accession of Edward VI.), there stood
near the nave, at the foot of the rood-screen, or as near unto as
might be, in the south aisle, an altar dedicated to the Holy Cross;
to which was attached a chantry, founded in 1392 by the feofees of
Nicholas Kniveton, for the daily celebration of the Holy Sacrifice
in perpetuity. The deed of confirmation of the same by the Bishop,
Dean and Chapter of Lincoln, dated 1404, is extant; as well as an
indenture, dated 15th January in the seventh year of Henry VIII. on the
occasion of the appointment of a new chaplain. By this document the
incoming “rood-priest” covenants to take due care of, and not to waste
nor alienate, the chantry goods committed to his custody; the list
of which, set forth at length, comprises all the requisite ornaments
for the performance of divine service (including “two chests in ye
Roodequere” for the safekeeping of the aforesaid ornaments), and the
domestic furniture and utensils of the chaplain’s residence as well.
At the Reformation, the property and endowments were forfeited to
the Crown; but it is of interest to recall how long and in what wise
the memory of the institution has been kept alive by the people, for
in the ancient garden of the chaplain’s house is a well, which, down
to within the eighteenth century, used, by time-honoured custom, to
be “dressed” or garlanded with flowers every Ascension Day after a
special service in the church, and which, as lately as the last decade
of the nineteenth century, was known among the oldest inhabitants of
the place by the traditional name of “the rood-well.” For similar
reasons a certain parcel of meadow-land in Ashbourne, being another
piece of chantry property secularised, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth
was named “Lampholme”; while certain tenements, as appears from the
negotiations which preceded the endowing of the grammar school in 1585,
were termed “candle-rents.” Again, a curious illustration of analogous
tradition in another part of Derbyshire is furnished by a manuscript
commonplace-book which belonged to one Roger Columbell, of Darley Hall.
As he died in 1565, it cannot have been written later than in the early
years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. The entry is to the effect that in
former days the custom prevailed of paying, at Easter, on every house
in a parish a duty of “1 fartheynge called a wax farthinge ... for
lyght of the alter.”
I have met with no earlier recorded example of a rood-light endowment
in Derbyshire than of that at Breadsall. Its charter is dated 1330, on
the Sunday after the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin
Mary. By this instrument one Geoffrey, “the Reve” (or steward), son
of Ranulph de Breydishale, gives and concedes half an acre of land
in Breadsall to the light of the Holy Cross in the church there, “in
pure and perpetual alms for ever, freely, quietly, well and in peace.”
The charter concludes with, “Warranty to the said light against all
people,” above the signatures of the witnesses.
Again, in a list of “serges” (wax candles; in French, _cierges_)
“holden up” (maintained) by the bounty of individuals or by the several
craft guilds connected with the church and parish of All Hallows,
Derby, it is recorded that, in 1484, five such lights had been provided
to burn before the rood. For it was not unusual for lay folk to band
themselves into a confraternity under the style of the Holy Cross,
among the chief duties undertaken by them being that of keeping up
the requisite light or lights to burn before the rood in their parish
church. Among their privileges, as in the above case of the chantry in
Bakewell church, would be that of being specially remembered whenever
the chaplain offered the Holy Sacrifice. Chesterfield had its guild of
the Holy Cross, for whose sodality meetings and offices was set apart,
with the same dedication, the east chapel of the north transept—the
very chapel now enclosed by the ancient rood-screen. There was a guild
of the rood at Repton also, towards whose funds, in the year 1520, one
William Bothe, of Barrow, bequeathed 10s. in his will.