This account of screens in Germany and Flanders is necessarily very incomplete; but it is sufficient to illustrate the intention of the work, and anything like a complete list would be both too voluminous and tedious to the reader.
Chancel screens appear to be very general in the old timber churches of Norway, and I have figured one in the church of Urnes, near Bergen, which is exceedingly interesting; and though it is by no means easy to affix dates to these rude productions, there is every reason to suppose this to be a work of considerable antiquity. This church is now used for Lutheran worship, but, like every ancient edifice erected for Catholic rites, it bears indelible evidence of the enclosure of the chancel and the erection of the rood.
[11] I have been informed, from good authority, that one of the churches in Amsterdam has preserved its brass screen-work, but I am not able to supply the name.
[12] The screen across the Bootmakers' Chapel, in the north transept of this church, is of a great antiquity, probably of the middle of the fourteenth century. It is executed entirely in oak, most beautifully carved; and skilfully framed in the rails of the doors are bas-reliefs of angels bearing the cognizance of the confraternity of bootmakers, at whose cost this chapel was erected and founded. There are other oak screens in the south transept of a later date,—fifteenth century, and the choir and lateral chapels are all arched, with marble screens, filled with perforated brass-work.
[Plate V: _Rood Screen of the Marienkirche, Lubeck._ _Rood Loft, Cathedral, Munster._]
[Plate VI: _Screen in the Dom Kirke, Lubeck._ _Screen & Rood Loft, Hospital, Lubeck._]
[Plate VII: _Screen & rood Loft Dom, Hildesheim._ _Rood Loft Sᵗ Katherine's church, Lubeck._]
[Plate VIII: _Choir; Gelnhausen._ _Choir; Sᵗ Elisabeth's Church at Marburg._]
[Plate IX: _Screen at Oberwesel._ _Plan of the Jubé. Cathedral, Metz._ _Plan of the Jubé. Cathedral, Toul._ _Screen of Sᵗ Nicholas church, Lorraine._]
[Plate X: _From an Old Picture by Peter Neefs._ _The Rood Screen, Cathedral, Antwerp. 17 Century._ _One of the Altars, erected against the nave Pillars, with its Brass Screen work._]
Previous to the year 1755, the choir of Amiens cathedral had retained its ancient and magnificent fittings,—altar, sedilia, jubé, all were perfect; but at that fatal period, Mons. de la Mothe, a pious and well-intentioned bishop, but a man of execrable taste, and devoid of all feeling for true ecclesiastical architecture, conceived the unfortunate project of modernizing this glorious choir: and, at an enormous expense, the ancient works were demolished, to be replaced by the incongruous masses of marble clouding and meretricious decorations that so wofully disfigure this noble church. Then was it, and _not till then_, that the great jubé was removed, that most wonderful book of stone, as Mons. Duval most aptly terms it, in which the people had, for so many centuries, beheld a lively representation of the life and sufferings of our Lord. At the same time, eight of the unrivalled stalls were hewn down to widen the choir gates; and the remainder of this matchless work of Arnould Boulen were only suffered to remain on account of the immense cost of replacing them by modern work.