Editing Rood screen (section)

===Early medieval altar screens and chancel screens===
[[File:Santa Maria in Cosmedin Interior.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|left|East end of the 8th-century Roman basilica of [[Santa Maria in Cosmedin]] in [[Rome]], showing the altar, under a 13th-century [[ciborium (architecture)|ciborium]] behind a [[templon]] screen of columns. The foreground forms the liturgical choir, surrounded by low [[cancelli]] screens, to which are attached two [[pulpit|ambo]]s, left and right.]]
Until the 6th century the altar of Christian churches would have been in full view of the congregation, separated only by a low [[altar rail]] around it. Large churches had a [[ciborium (architecture)|ciborium]], or canopy on four columns, over the altar, from which hung [[altar curtains]] which were closed at certain points in the liturgy. Then, however, following the example of the church of [[Hagia Sophia]] in [[Constantinople]], churches began to surround their altars with a colonnade or [[templon]] which supported a decorated architrave beam along which a curtain could be drawn to veil the altar at specific points in the consecration of the [[Eucharist]]; and this altar screen, with widely spaced columns, subsequently became standard in the major churches of [[Rome]]. In Rome the ritual choir tended to be located west of the altar screen, and this choir area was also surrounded by [[cancelli]], or low chancel screens. These arrangements still survive in the Roman basilicas of [[basilica di San Clemente|San Clemente]] and [[Santa Maria in Cosmedin]], as well as [[St Mark's Basilica]] in [[Venice]].{{sfnp|Bond|1908|p=3}} In the Eastern Church, the templon and its associated curtains and decorations evolved into the modern [[iconostasis]]. In the Western Church, the cancelli screens of the ritual choir developed into the [[choir stalls]] and [[pulpitum]] screen of major cathedral and monastic churches; but the colonnaded altar screen was superseded from the 10th century onwards, when the practice developed of raising a canopy or [[baldacchino]], carrying veiling curtains, over the altar itself.

Many churches in Ireland and Scotland in the early Middle Ages were very small which may have served the same function as a rood screen. Contemporary sources suggest that the faithful may have remained outside the church for most of the mass; the priest would go outside for the first part of the mass including the reading of the gospel, and return inside the church, out of sight of the faithful, to consecrate the Eucharist.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Adamnán of Iona |author-link1=Adamnán |translator-last1=Sharpe |translator-first1=Richard |orig-year={{Circa|697|700}} |title=[[Vita Columbae]] |trans-title=Life of St Columba |language=la |location=Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England |publisher=Penguin Books |date=1995 |pages=368–369 |isbn=978-0140444629}}</ref>

Churches built in England in the 7th and 8th centuries consciously copied Roman practices; remains indicating early cancelli screens have been found in the [[Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey|monastic churches of Jarrow and Monkwearmouth]], while the churches of the monasteries of [[All Saints' Church, Brixworth|Brixworth]], [[St Mary's Church, Reculver|Reculver]] and St Pancras Canterbury{{sfnp|Bond|1908|p=6}} have been found to have had arcaded colonnades corresponding to the Roman altar screen, and it may be presumed that these too were equipped with curtains. Equivalent arcaded colonnades also survive in 10th-century monastic churches in Spain, such as [[San Miguel de Escalada]]. Some 19th-century liturgists supposed that these early altar screens might have represented the origins of the medieval rood screens; but this view is rejected by most current scholars, who emphasize that these screens were intended to separate the altar from the ritual choir, whereas the medieval rood screen separated the ritual choir from the lay congregation.[[File:Gotland-Oeja kyrka 06.jpg|thumb|Rood and beam of 1275, but no screen, at [[Öja Church]] on the island of [[Gotland]] in Sweden, where many exceptional roods have survived.]]
[[File:Rood Screen 4.JPG|alt=Rood screen with painted saints|thumb|Rood screen in [[Ranworth rood screen|St. Helen's church, Ranworth]], Norfolk]]