Spike Bucklow & Richard Marks 
The Art and Science of the Church Screen in Medieval Europe [PDF ebook] 
Making, Meaning, Preserving

Fresh examinations of one of the most important church furnishings of the middle ages.


The churches of medieval Europe contained richly carved and painted screens, placed between the altar and the congregation; they survive in particularly high numbers in England, despite being partly dismantled during the Reformation. While these screens divided ‘lay’ from ‘priestly’ jurisdiction, it has also been argued that they served to unify architectural space. This volume brings together the latest scholarship on the subject , exploring in detail numerous aspects of the construction and painting of screens, it aims in particular to unite perspectives from science and art history. Examples are drawn from a wide geographical range, from Scandinavia to Italy.


Spike Bucklow is Director of Research at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge; Richard Marks is Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at the University of York and currently a member of the History of Art Department, University of Cambridge; Lucy Wrapson is Assistant to the Director at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge.


Contributors: Paul Binski, Spike Bucklow, Donal Cooper, David Griffith, Hugh Harrison, Jacqueline Jung, Justin Kroesen, Julian Luxford, Richard Marks, Ebbe Nyborg, Eddie Sinclair, Jeffrey West, Lucy Wrapson.

Table of Content

Introduction – Paul Binski

Framing the Rood in Medieval England and Wales – Richard Marks

Science and the Screen – Spike Bucklow

Towards a New Methodological Approach for Interpreting Workshop Activity and Dating Medieval Church Screens – Lucy Wrapson

Texting and Detexting on Late Medieval English Church Screens – David Griffith

Sacred Kingship, Genealogy and te Late Medieval Rood Screen: Catfield and Beyond – Julian Luxford

West Country Rood Screens: Construction and Practice – Hugh Harrison and Jeffrey West

The Polychromy of Devon Screens: Preliminary Analytical Results – Lucy Wrapson and Eddie Sinclair

Moving Pictures on the Gothic Choir Screen – Jacqueline E. Jung

The Preserving Power of Calvinism: Pre-Reformation Chancel Screens in the Netherlands – Justin E. A. Kroesen

Recovering the Lost Rood Screens of Medieval and Renaissance Italy – Donal Cooper

Choir Screens and Roodlofts in Scandinavian Parish Churches before 1300 – Ebbe Nyborg

About the author

SPIKE BUCKLOW is Director of Research at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge.