erged from the
principal uprights of the screen beneath. In Long Sutton Church,
Somersetshire, is a splendid wooden rood-loft, elaborately carved,
painted, and gilt, which extends across the whole breadth of the church,
and is approached by means of a staircase turret on the south side of the
church. In the churches of Great Handborough, Enstone, Great Rollwright,
and Hook Norton, Oxfordshire, are considerable remains of the ancient
rood-loft, and numerous other instances where it is still retained could
be adduced. Sometimes this gallery was so small as to admit of the rood
and two attendant images only, and had no apparent access to it, as that
in Wormleighton Church, Warwickshire. Hardly a rood-loft is, however,
remaining of earlier date than the fifteenth century; prior to that
period, and in many instances even during it, the crucifix or rood and its
attendant images appear to have been affixed to a transverse beam
extending horizontally across the chancel arch; this was sometimes richly
carved, and a beam of this description still exists in the chancel of
Little Malvern Church, Worcestershire. An earlier date than the eleventh
century can hardly be assigned for the introduction of the rood, with the
figures of St. Mary and St. John, into our churches, though in illuminated
manuscripts somewhat before that period we find such figures pourtrayed
with the crucifix[167-*]. In the abbey church, Bury St. Edmund's, the rood
and the figures of St. Mary and St. John, which were placed over the high
altar, were (as we are informed by Joceline, who wrote his Chronicle in
the twelfth century) the gift of Archbishop Stigand[167-+]. Gervase, in
describing the work of Lanfranc in Canterbury Cathedral, as it appeared
before the fire, A. D. 1174, notices the rood-beam, which sustained a
large crucifix and the images of St. Mary and St. John, as extended across
the church between the nave and central tower[168-*].

[Illustration: Rood, Sherborne Church, Dorsetshire.]

All the carved wooden roods appear to have been destroyed at the
Reformation in compliance with the injunctions issued for that purpose.
We occasionally meet, however, with bas relief sculptures of our Saviour
extended on the cross, with a figure on each side representing the Virgin
and St. John, but in a mutilated condition. On the outside of the west
wall of the south transept of Romsey Church, Hants, and close to the
entrance from the cloisters into the church, is