LECTORIUM. - A dividing wall between choir and nave in medieval churches. In French it is called jubé, in English rood screen or roodloft, that is, "tribune of the Crucifix," in Flemish doxale, in German Lettner, trascoro in Spanish.
The l. appears from the second half of the 12th century, first in France, then in Italy, Germany, the Low Countries, England, where it had its greatest development and widest diffusion. Its origin is debated: it could derive from a raising of the head wall of Romanesque crypts or from a further development of the union between the pergula and the ambo or pulpit. The l. is found above all in churches with choral service: cathedrals, abbey churches, collegiate churches, rarely in parish churches, never in the churches of the Friars Minor or the Preachers. It properly consists of a tribune raised above a very thick wall between choir and nave (or naves). The wall is richly decorated with sculptures and also paintings and is almost always connected to the architectural structure of the church; the tribune or corridor above is accessible through one or more staircases. Generally two projecting pulpits are incorporated into the l., and not infrequently the organ was placed there, whence the name doxale and odeum, thus a true cantoria (v.), which was later placed against other walls of the church. Often, however, the l. consisted only of a dividing wall without gallery and pulpits. Always, however, an altar is found leaning against the l., generally dedicated to the Holy Cross which surmounts the l. itself or hangs from the vaults. The principal purpose of the l. was to maintain a separation between the presbytery, reserved for the religious who celebrate the divine service, and the naves, reserved for the people. When, in the era of the Catholic Reformation and especially in the Baroque age, a new liturgical mentality placed the sacrifice of the Mass at the center of piety, the use of the l. declined, very many of which were demolished and, often, replaced by grand gates which, while maintaining the prescribed separation between clergy and laity, gave the latter full freedom to follow the solemn functions. A curious reminiscence of the l. has been preserved in the Pontificale Romanum, De ordinatione lectorum, where the bishop, in his admonition, says to the ordinand: "Ideoque, dum legitis, in alto stetis, ut ab omnibus audiamini et videamini," a phrase that is already found in the Pontificale of William Durand (cf. M. Andrieu, Le Pontifical Romain au moyen âge, III, Le Pontifical de G. Durand [Studi e testi, 88], Vatican City 1940, p. 342), and certainly reflects the usage of that time.
(from C. Enlart, Manuel d'arch. française, II, Paris 1929, fig. (21))
The example of an older l. in Italy is found in the abbey church of Vezzolano (Asti), dated to 1189; that of Modena, older, has disappeared; in France one can note the l. in the cathedrals of Chartres, Bourges, Reims, Paris, in the abbey church of Chaise-Dieu, those existing at Albi, at Troyes (St. Magdalene) and others; in Germany at Naumburg, Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Wechselsburg (existing), Mainz, Meissen and many others, destroyed; in Belgium at Tournai, Louvain, Dixmuiden (existing) and others; in England at Canterbury, York, Gloucester; in Spain at Toledo, Burgos, León, Avila and others. - See plate LXV.
