Reredos

(written also lardos, from Fr. I'arrieredos), the wall or screen at the back of an altar, seat, etc. It was usually ornamented with panelling, etc., especially behind an altar, and sometimes was enriched with a profusion of niches, buttresses, pinnacles, statues, and other decorations, which were often painted with brilliant colors. Reredoses of this kind not unfrequiently extended across the whole breadth of the church, and were sometimes carried up nearly to the ceiling, as at St. Alban's Abbey, Durham Cathedral, Gloucester Cathedral, St. Saviour's Church, Southwark; Christ Church, Hampshire, etc. In village churches they were generally simple, and appear very frequently to have had no ornaments formed in the wall, though sometimes corbels or niches — were provided to carry images, and sometimes that part of the wall immediately over the altar was panelled. Remains of these, more or less injured, are to be found in many churches, particularly at the east ends of aisles, as at St. Michael's, Oxford; Hanwell and Enstone, Oxfordshire; Solihull, Warwickshire, etc.; and against the east wall of the transept, as in St. Cuthbert's, Wells. It was not unusual to decorate the wall at the back of an altar with panellings, etc., in wood, or with embroidered hangings of tapestry-work, to which the name of reredos was given: it was also applied to the screen between the nave and choir of a church. The open fire-hearth, frequently used in ancient domestic halls, was likewise called a reredos. SEE ALTAR.