A rood screen is a partition, usually built of finely carved wood or stone tracery, that separates the nave from the chancel in a Western church, and it takes its name from the large crucifix, the rood, traditionally mounted on a beam at the top of the screen, often flanked by carved figures of the Virgin Mary and Saint John standing at either side of the cross.
Unlike the fully solid Eastern iconostasis, a rood screen typically remains partially open, its lower section a solid carved dado but its upper portion often pierced with open tracery or small windows, letting the congregation retain at least a partial view through to the altar and chancel beyond even while the screen marks a clear architectural and symbolic boundary between the two spaces. A narrow stair, the rood stair, frequently gave access to a walkway or loft along the top of the screen, the rood loft, used historically for readings, for the display of relics or additional imagery, and sometimes for musicians or singers positioned above the congregation during specific parts of the liturgy. Surviving rood screens are especially well documented in English parish churches, where regional woodcarving traditions, particularly in East Anglia and the West Country, produced some of the most elaborately painted and carved examples anywhere in medieval Western Europe.