Rood screen
The rood screen (from Latin lectorium , lectern, also lect (o) rinum , lectricum ), also called doxale , is a stone or wooden, head-high to almost room-high barrier that provides space for the The college of priests or monks was separated from the rest of the church, which was intended for lay people . In abbey churches (e.g. the Cistercian Abbey of Pforta ) the rood screen was used to separate the priest monks and the lay monks ( conversations ). It is a further development of the older altar or choir screen and developed in late Romanesque , had a heyday in the Gothic and was then gradually replaced by the pulpit in its function as a lectorium .
The cross altar stood in front of the rood screen . Accordingly, the often rich figurative decoration of the rood screen was often used to illustrate the Passion of Christ . Behind the rood screen was the room for the clergy with choir stalls , a bishop's or abbot's seat and the main altar , which usually had its place at the front of the apse .
function
Catholicism
In liturgical history , two motifs played a role in the creation of rood screens:
- the division of the Christian community into clergy and lay people
- the separation of the universal church and the monastic church .
Liturgical texts were read from the rood screen, the sermon was given , and it could serve as a pulpit for the choir.
With the custom of the Easter Games , which emerged in the 10th century and performed in the church during Holy Week , as well as the general spread of the Mystery Games , the rood screen was increasingly included in the dramaturgy of the pieces. The right and left openings became the gate of paradise and the gate of hell, respectively, and the choir was placed on the rood screen and appeared there as the angel choir of paradise .
Since the 13th century, the sermon shifted to the wooden sermon chair or the stone pulpit in the believers' room, the choir found its place on the gallery . With the Tridentine liturgical reform in the wake of the Reformation , the rood screen in the Catholic Church completely lost its function. The main or high altar of a church, which previously usually stood at the front of the apse , and the cross altar for lay people in front of the rood screen were combined to form the main altar. The new high altar was enhanced by the constant presence of the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle , and accordingly the sacrament house , the predecessor of the tabernacle, also lost its meaning in the liturgy. Rood screens were superfluous and removed. Only a few remains of the rich sculptural decoration, especially the Gothic rood screen, have been preserved in museums. In the provost church on the Remigiusberg (Palatinate) the rood screen was relocated and took over the function of an organ gallery.
In France, most of the rood screens fell victim to the turmoil of the Wars of Religion, when many churches were destroyed and stones and decorative elements continued to be used as building materials. In the former Notre Dame abbey church in Saint-Seine-l'Abbaye (Burgundy), the Gothic rood screen was supposedly moved to the wall of the apse. However, this is more likely a simultaneous barrier between the choir yoke and the Matutin altar. In Germany, especially in Protestant churches, a number of rood screens have been preserved, which performed different tasks there. At first they served the preacher as a suitable place for the sermon, until the sermon pulpit became generally accepted. Occasionally the organ, which continued its triumphant advance as the main instrument of church music, was installed there, and even today the rood screen occasionally serves as a stage for the choir.
On the East Frisian Peninsula, three-arched, bridge-shaped structures were built into numerous village churches in the course of the 15th century. Five of the 26 documented letters have been preserved. Outside the north-west German coastal area, rood screens were found in only three German village churches. Although they look like rood screens , these are not choir screens , but pure rood screens ziborien . The two outer arches were bricked up towards the choir and provided space for one or two side altars. The East Frisian rectangular choirs or the only slightly retracted apses offered no space for side altars. The main altar was unobstructed through the open central arch. After the Reformation, organs were placed on the rood screen, where they were ventilated from all sides and could easily be seen by the community. Such rood screens have been preserved in the churches of Holtrop , Nesse , Buttforde , Cleverns and Schortens .
Viollet-le-Duc choir of the Abbey of Saint Denis in Paris with rood screen , choir stalls and high altar
Gothic rood screen in the Sint Pieterskerk of Leuven (Belgium)
Gothic rood screen in St. Pantaleon , Cologne
Rood screen of the provost church of St. Remigius , moved from its original position to the west side
Staircase on the choir side of the rood screen in Magdeburg Cathedral
Protestantism
In Protestantism , other considerations played a role in the emergence of rood screens that are diametrically opposed to the Catholic ones. The choir became superfluous, particularly in the case of Reformed church buildings that came from the Middle Ages. In order to position the pulpit as the new center of the liturgy in a clearly visible position and to bring the pastor and congregation closer together in the spirit of the general priesthood, pulpit stalls were often created in the wake of the Reformation . However, there were also Protestant churches in which the rood screens remained for hundreds of years after the Reformation. The old late Gothic rood screens in the Hamburg main churches of St. Petri, St. Nicolai, St. Katharinen and St. Jacobi and the platforms on them were used to make music in the time of Telemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach .
Iconostasis
In churches of the Byzantine rite , the central furnishing element is the picture wall or iconostasis . It is often mistaken for a rood screen, but actually represents an independent further development of the early Christian barriers ( Templon ) on which icons were placed.
literature
- Monika Schmelzer: The medieval rood screen in German-speaking countries. Typology and function (= studies on international architecture and art history . Volume 33 ). Imhof, Petersberg 2004, ISBN 3-937251-22-7 ( dissertation University of Cologne 1999).
- Ralf van Bühren: Church building in Renaissance and Baroque. Liturgical reforms and their consequences for spatial planning, liturgical disposition and image decoration after the Council of Trent . Ed .: Stefan Heid (= operation on the living object. Rome's liturgical reforms from Trento to Vaticanum II ). Be.bra-Wissenschaft, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-95410-032-3 , p. 93–119 ( dl.dropboxusercontent.com [PDF] full text).
- Tobias Schrörs: The rood screen in Münster Cathedral. History and liturgical function (= research on folklore . Volume 50 ). Books on Demand , Norderstedt 2005, ISBN 3-8334-2658-6 ( digitized - diploma thesis at the University of Münster 2001).
- Regnerus Steensma: Lettner in north German village churches (= yearbook of the Society for Fine Arts and Patriotic Antiquities in Emden . Volume 83 ). East Frisian Landscape, 2003, ISSN 0341-969X , p. 88-100 .
- Matthias Untermann : Choir screens and rood screens in southwest German city churches - observations on a typology of medieval parish churches . In: form and style. Festschrift for Günther Binding on his 65th birthday - Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2001, ISBN 3-534-14959-9 , pp. 73-90, digitized version (PDF).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans Bernhard Meyer: Eucharist. History, theology, pastoral (= church service. Handbook of liturgical science . Part 4). Regensburg 1989, p. 222.
- ^ Bernhard and Ulrike Laule, Heinfried Wischermann: Art monuments in Burgundy. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1991, p. 447.
- ↑ Ulrike Köck: rood screens and choir galleries in the north-west German coastal areas, supplemented by a catalog of West German rood screens from 1400. Dissertation, University of Munich 1972, pp. 199 ff.
- ↑ Justin Kroesen, Regnerus Steensma: Churches in East Friesland and their medieval furnishings . Michael Imhof, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-159-1 , p. 173 .
- ↑ Justin Kroesen, Regnerus Steensma: Churches in East Friesland and their medieval furnishings . Michael Imhof, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-159-1 , p. 166-168 .
- ^ Heinrich Schneider: Journey of discovery. Reformed sacred building in Switzerland. P. 9.
- ^ Siegbert Rampe: Georg Philipp Telemann and his time, p. 218 f.