The presence of at least one monumental rood, above either the pulpitum or the rood screen, was a standard feature within the late medieval English cathedral. We also have evidence from a number of cathedrals that record the presence of a monumental rood above the high altar. A late thirteenth-century inventory from York Minster, for example, found on the fly-leaf of the York Gospels, records the presence of two roods, one above the pulpitum and one above the high altar, both said to have been donated and dedicated by Archbishop Roger Pont l’Évêque, who was in office 1154‒1181. They are described as holding relics of apostles and Roman martyrs in the corpus of the crucifix, and it is perhaps the case that these relics were brought from Rome by Roger himself, as he is documented as travelling there at least twice. Later evidence from the fabric rolls of the Minster and wills requesting burial within the interior suggests that roods were kept in these positions into the sixteenth century, and it is possible that they were in fact still Roger's twin donation. The image of the high altar of Westminster Abbey in the c. 1532 Islip Roll gives us an indication of how monumental roods above the high altar could look (Fig. 7.1) and extant monumental roods on the Continent, such as that at the cathedral of St Stephen and St Sixtus in Halberstadt, demonstrate their imposing presence above pulpita (Fig. 7.2; Plate VI).

These examples are helpful in reminding us of the most common locations for monumental roods in the cathedral context, and they also suggest, through their similar monumentality, the idea that such roods might have been intended to function in dialogue with one another. In this discussion I intend to examine the evidence for another rood, in a slightly different location within a cathedral interior, which was likely monumental in size, is recorded only in documentary sources, and was lost in the Dissolution or shortly after. It is the rood known as ‘the Black Rood of Scotland’, located in Durham Cathedral Priory, one of the richest monastic institutions in the late medieval north of England and the site of the body and cult of St Cuthbert, centred on the feretory area behind the high altar, where his body was translated in 1104 (Figs 7.3 and 7.4).