§ 35.
The Sunday procession, after making stations
at each of the eastern chapels in turn, came down the
aisle into the transept next the cloister, and, having
visited the altars there, passed into the cloister through
the eastern processional doorway in the nave. It
returned through the western processional doorway.
If, as at Durham, there was a chapel at the west end
of the church, the procession would enter it by the
doorway at the end of one aisle, and leave it by the
other. The western chapel at Durham, as at Glastonbury,
was the Lady chapel. It was known at Durham
as the Galilee because the celebrant, entering it in
front of the convent at the end of the procession on
Sunday, the feast of the Resurrection, symbolised our
Lord going before His disciples into Galilee. The
name Galilee was also applied, as at Ely, or in the
Cistercian churches of Byland and Fountains, to
porches in front of the western doorway of a church.
The final station of the procession was in the middle
of the nave before the rood-screen. Here the convent
stood in two long rows, the position of each member
being regulated by stones inserted in the floor of the
nave at equal intervals: such stones still remain beneath
the grass at Fountains, and are known to have
existed elsewhere. Meanwhile, the celebrant sprinkled
the chief nave altar, which stood against the middle
of the screen, and was at Durham enclosed at the sides
and in front by wooden screens, which formed a chapel
or 'porch.' On either side of the altar was a doorway
through the screen, above which was the great
rood or crucifix, with a figure of St Mary on one side
and St John on the other: at Durham there were
also figures of archangels. The rood-screen was
flanked by screens across the aisles, so that the
western part of the nave was entirely shut off from
the quire and from the eastern processional doorway.
The eastern part of the south aisle at Durham was
screened off as a chantry chapel, and there were also
two enclosed chapels further west, beneath opposite
arches of the nave, one of which was visited on the
way to the Galilee, and the other in returning.
There was frequently, as at St Albans, a row of
chapels beneath the arches, while in some cases,
as at Ely and Peterborough, where the nave projected
some distance west of the cloister, more
altars were provided in a transept at the west
end. After the station at the rood altar and its
neighbouring chapels had been concluded, the convent
passed through the two doorways in the rood-screen,
and, reuniting in the bay beyond, entered the quire
through the doorway in the middle of the
pulpitum.
In many churches, as at Norwich, the
pulpitum was
formed by two parallel stone screens carrying the
loft and occupying a bay of the nave. At Malmesbury
it enclosed the bay west of the crossing, and its
eastern screen is the reredos of the present parish
altar. At Durham and Canterbury, where the quire
was east of the crossing, the
pulpitum was between
the eastern piers, the rood-screen between the western.
At Canterbury the eastern processional doorway was
in the west wall of the transept next the cloister.
At Durham it is in the usual position, but covered
by a vestibule formed by placing the screen at the
end of the south aisle one bay west of the rood-screen.
The rood-screens at Croyland and at Tynemouth
priory still remain among the ruins. At St Albans
the
pulpitum is gone, but the stone rood-screen
remains; while at Blyth priory the place of the
rood-screen was taken by a wall the whole height
of the nave.
