ns at the west end have
unfortunately been destroyed, but from plans made by Browne Willis
(_vide supra_, where Mr Waller's drawing of Browne Willis' plan,
made in 1727, is given) and Carter, while some remains of them
existed, the arrangement can be approximately recovered. I have
advisedly used the plural word 'screens' because they were two in
number. The first consisted of two stone walls--the one at the west
end of the quire, against which the stalls were returned; the other
west of it between the first pair of pillars. There was a central
door, which was called the quire door. The western wall was broader
than the other, and had in the thickness of its southern half an
ascending stair to a loft or gallery above, which extended over the
whole area between the two walls. This loft was called in Latin the
_pulpitum_, and it must not, as it often has been, be confounded
with the pulpit to preach from. It sometimes contained an altar, as
apparently here at Gloucester, and on it stood a pair of organs.
From it also on the principal feasts the Epistle was read and the
Gospel solemnly sung at a great eagle desk. On either side of the
_pulpitum_ door was probably an altar.

"The double screen I have just described was built by Abbot
Wigmore, who is recorded to have been buried in 1337, 'before the
Salutation of the Blessed Mary in the entry of the quire on the
south side,' which he himself constructed with the _pulpitum_ on
the same place _ut nunc cernitur_ says the 'Chronicle,' and parts
of it are worked up in the present screen. The north side of the
quire entry, or perhaps the north quire door, was ornamented with
images with tabernacles by Abbot Horton."

"The second screen, all traces of which have long disappeared, stood
between the second pair of piers--_i.e._ a bay west of the _pulpitum_.
It was a lofty stone wall, against which stood the altar of the holy
cross, or rood-altar, as it was more commonly called, and upon it was a
gallery called the rood-loft, from its containing the great rood and its
attendant images. The rood usually stood on the parapet or front rail of
the loft, but sometimes on a rood-beam crossing the church at some
height above the loft. Such an arrangement seems to have existed at
Gloucester, for in the sixth course from the top a new stone has been
inserted in bot