Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/587

 10 s. VIL JUNE 22, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the gospel, neither of them can have been the proverbial " corpulent priest."

At South Tawton the stone newel-steps are about 18 in. wide (one is but 14 in.) and though I have climbed them myself, they must have been rather inconvenient for a large-built man. The loft or gallery here, however, must have been fairly wide, for the upper doorway is well within the chancel boundary, that is to say, to east- ward of the pair of pillars that divide the choir from the nave, and in line with which the screen presumably ran. (I learn from builders' " specifications " that " the remains of the rood-screen " were only removed in 1881.)

Such screens generally carried on the top a " loft " or " alerV' whose width pro- jected either to east or to west, or was medially divided, being supported by massive " liernes," or by groined brackets on one or both sides of the screen. For a great variety of examples see the illustra- tions to the papers on ' Devon Rood-Screens,' by F. Bligh Bond, F.R.I.B.A., in Trans. Dev. Assoc., vols. xxxv., xxxvi. Several instances are adduced where (as at Trent, West Somerset) the loft overhung the west side only of the screen, being supported at its outer edge by a beam putlogged into the north and south walls, or bearing on wooden posts.

At South Tawton, as I have pointed out, the position of the doorway shows that the loft must have overhung the east side of the screen, or both, if we assume the screen to have been in line with the pillars.

The same remark applies to Sampford Courtenay, where, by the way, there is a patchwork of odd stones just above the capitals of the chancel arch, which must surely have been ordained to be concealed by the front parclose of the loft.

In this church, as in those of Bovey Tracy and Chagford, the springers of the arches that radiate from the columns are so low that it must have been difficult to pass by these obstructions to the gangway, even by stooping very much, unless the loft were very wide, or unless the screen stood well to eastward of the piers. Where, as at South Tawton, Bovey Tracy, Chagford, and Sampford Courtenay (inter alia), the loft spanned the entire width of the church, thus dividing the nave aisles from the chancel aisles, and where, as in these cases, the latter were apparently used as private chapels, one wonders how the right of access by the priests or choristers to the rood-loft,

by means of stairs situated within these chapels, was reconcilable with the proprietary rights (foundative or prescriptive) of the occupants of the chapels.

Mr. Murray remarks that in many churches in the Western counties the screen stood, not across the chancel arch, but at one-third the distance from that to the west end of the nave, and that a papal decision assigned the chancel to the regular clergy, and one-third of the nave to the secular clergy, the rest to the laity. But in the case of a small parish church where there were no regulars, and certainly not a sufficient number of seculars to fill the chancel, but only a vicar, a chantry priest, and a parish clerk, how are we to account for the triple division of the interior ? At South Tawton and some neighbouring churches the chancel, occupying the first bay, was of the whole width of the church (nave and aisles), but the sacrarium or presbytery, which jutted eastward, was only the same width as the nave.

Should it be answered that the chancel was occupied by the choir, two objections might be raised : first, that, according to Micklethwaite and others, musical accom- paniments to services were of very rare occurrence in small or rural parishes ; and r second, that if, as we are told, the rood-loft was for the " prick-song singers," that space would, presumably, have sufficed.

It is said that " the organs " sometimes stood on the rood-loft ; but surely the typical fifteenth-century wooden screens (such as we find at Bovey Tracy, at Ex- bourne, at Lew Trenchard, &c.), whose covings supported a gallery apparently not more than 4 ft. or 5 ft. wide, would not have been adapted to such a superstructure.

I shall be grateful if readers of ' N. & Q.' will communicate with me direct, and as early as possible.

(Miss) ETHEL LEGA-WEEKES.

Sunny Nook, Rugby Mansions, West Kensington.

SHAKESPEARTANA. ' TROILUS AND CRESSIDA,' III. in. 196-200:

The providence that's in a watchful state Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold, Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps. Keeps place with thought, and almost like the gods Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. There seems to be a pretty general consensus of opinion that the last line, as we at present have it, is not exactly as Shakespeare left it ; that " cradles," which leaves the metre in- complete, is in all probability a mistake of a printer or copyist ; that the original was