a large stone rood or
crucifix sculptured in relief, with a hand above emerging from a
cloud[169-*]: this is apparently of the twelfth century. Small sculptured
representations of the rood, with the figures of St. Mary and St. John,
still exist on one of the buttresses near the west door of Sherborne
Church, Dorsetshire; over a south doorway of Burford Church, Oxfordshire;
and in the wall of the tower of the church of St. Lawrence, Evesham.

[Illustration: Sanctus Bell, Long Compton Church, Warwickshire.]

Outside the roof of some churches, on the apex of the eastern gable of the
nave, is a small open arch or turret, in which formerly a single bell was
suspended: this was the _sanctus_ or _sacringe_ bell, thus placed that,
being near the altar, it might be the more readily rung, when, in
concluding the ordinary of the mass, the priest pronounced the
_Ter-sanctus_, to draw attention to that more solemn office, the canon of
the mass, which he was now about to commence; it was also rung at a
subsequent part of the service, on the elevation and adoration of the host
and chalice, after consecration[171-*]; but though the arch remains on
the gable of the nave of many churches, the bell thus suspended is
retained in few; amongst which may be mentioned those of Long Compton,
Whichford, and Brailes, in Warwickshire, where this bell is still
preserved hung in an arch at the apex of the nave, with the rope hanging
down between the chancel and nave[171-+]. Mention of this bell is thus
made in the Survey of the Priory of Sandwell, in the county of Stafford,
taken at the time of the Reformation: "Itm the belframe standyng betw: the
chauncell and the church, w^t. a litle _sanct_^m bell in the same."
Generally, however, a small hand-bell was carried and rung at the proper
times in the service, by the acolyte; and in inventories of ancient church
furniture we find it often noticed as "_a sacringe bell_;" but in an
inventory of goods belonging to the chapel of Thorp, Northamptonshire, it
is described as "a litle _sanctus bell_." A small sacringe bell, of
bell-metal, with the exception of the clapper, which was of iron, was in
1819 discovered on the removal of some rubbish from the ruins of St.
Margaret's Priory, Barnstable; and within the last few years a small
sanctus bell was found on the site of a religious house at Warwick[172-*].

[Illustration: Ancient Sanctus Bell, found at Warwick.]

Passing under the rood-loft, we enter the ch