It must not, however, be imagined that England has been alone in losing these objects of art and of devotion. Rood-screens, once as commonly found in France as amongst ourselves, are now as commonly absent from the ordinary parish churches, although in many instances suspended crucifixes have to some extent filled their place. The lust for destroying, which was such a passion of the Revolutionary era in that country, is largely answerable for this. The great Abbey of S. Ouen, at Rouen, once possessed a splendid rood-loft, ascended by twin circular stairs; it was pierced by brass gates of elaborate design, and surmounted by a crucifix whose top stood sixty feet from the pavement. It was defaced in 1562 by the French Protestants, or Calvinists, and destroyed by the revolutionary faction in 1791. The Cathedral of Alby still has a fine loft similar to the one which existed at Rouen, and Louvain has one also of great dignity.
In recent years an extraordinary revival of rood-screens, adorned with all their proper and ancient images, and even provided with lofts, has taken place in England. Amongst well-known London churches, S. Peter's, Eaton Square, has recently been adorned with a fine metal screen surmounted by a cross and the figures of six angels, and S. Paul's, Knightsbridge, with a complete rood-screen; but instances of this are now indeed common. As an illustration of the revival of the loft, together with the other details of the ancient screen, amongst village churches in the single county of York, Womersley, Cantley, and Sledmere have all in recent years been thus enriched. Certainly few architectural features add more solemnity and dignity to a sacred building than a well-proportioned and well-designed screen, crowned by the representation of the Great Sacrifice.
The marking with a cross by engraving, embroidery, or otherwise of almost all articles used in the sacred offices, calls for little comment, being largely a matter of taste merely. It has long been usual to enrich the stole and maniple with three crosses, one in the centre and one at each end; most of the linen used at the altar is also similarly marked. The old English chasubles usually had a cross on the back in the form of a =Y=, the Continental ones have a Roman Cross. The "Imitatio Christi" refers to these chasubles, and explains their form thus: the priest "has before him and behind him the sign of the cross of his Lord, that he may continually bear in mind Christ's Passion. Before him he bears the cross on his chasuble, that he may diligently look at the footsteps of Christ, and fervently endeavour to tread in them. Behind him on his back he is signed with the cross, that he may meekly endure for Christ's sake any trials which others may bring upon him." This passage has a literary interest in that it has been imported into the controversy concerning the disputed authorship of that famous book of devotion. The work has been ascribed to Gerson, Chancellor of Paris, as well as to Thomas à Kempis; but Cardinal Garganelli argued that neither the Frenchman or the German could have written it, but that the honour belongs to Gerson, Abbot of Vercelli; one of his arguments being that the Italian vestments only had the cross both on front and back, those used elsewhere bearing it behind only.