Carolyn Wright's post reminds me that we have at least one person on the
list with in-depth knowledge of English churches, and the relation between
liturgy and church architecture. Thus, I am emboldened to pose the
following query...
Last week, as a part of the Medieval Sermon Studies Symposium at Oxford
(hello Gloria, Christoph, Phyllis, Beverly, Jessalynn, et al.), we had a
bus tour of some medieval Cotswald churches. Several of us commented to
each other on a feature most of these churches had in common. On the north
(?) side of the church, there was a staircase built into the wall, that
clearly led to nowhere. It seemed that originally it would have ended up
halfway up the wall of the church, facing inward. Is it true that this
served as access to the top of the rood screen? If so, why would such an
important structure be necessary; after all, wouldn't a nice medieval
ladder have served for the occasional times the screen needed dusting :-)?
Thanks for your suggestions. -- George
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