period, and in many instances even during it, the crucifix or rood and its attendant images appear to have been affixed to a transverse beam extending horizontally across the chancel arch; this was sometimes richly carved, and a beam of this description still exists in the chancel of Little Malvern Church, Worcestershire. An earlier date than the eleventh century can hardly be assigned for the introduction of the rood, with the figures of St. Mary and St. John, into our churches, though in illuminated manuscripts somewhat before that period we find such figures pourtrayed with the crucifix[167-*]. In the abbey church, Bury St. Edmund’s, the rood and the figures of St. Mary and St. John, which were placed over the high altar, were (as we are informed by Joceline, who wrote his Chronicle in the twelfth century) the gift of Archbishop Stigand[167-†]. Gervase, in describing the work of Lanfranc in Canterbury Cathedral, as it appeared before the fire, A. D. 1174, notices the rood-beam, which sustained a large crucifix and the images of St. Mary and St. John, as extended across the church between the nave and central tower[168-*]. [Illustration: Rood, Sherborne Church, Dorsetshire.] All the carved wooden roods appear to have been destroyed at the Reformation in compliance with the injunctions issued for that purpose. We occasionally meet, however, with bas relief sculptures of our Saviour extended on the cross, with a figure on each side representing the Virgin and St. John, but in a mutilated condition. On the outside of the west wall of the south transept of Romsey Church, Hants, and close to the entrance from the cloisters into the church, is 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.]