Rose window
sorrowful mysteries, such as the agony in the garden and
the CRUCIFIXION. Suggested also was contemplation of
the five glorious mysteries, including the Resurrection.
Each set of five formed decades or sets of repeated
prayers. It became the usual practice to recite five
decades and their surrounding prayers while contemplat-
ing a mystery of the faith. Fifteen decades comprised all
of the 15 mysteries.
Further reading:Franz Michel Willam, The Rosary:
Its History and Meaning,trans. Edwin Kaiser (New York:
Benziger, 1953); John Desmond Miller, Beads and Prayers:
The Rosary in History and Devotion (Tunbridge Wells:
Burns and Oates, 2002); Catherine Vincent, “Rosary.”
EMA2.1,261; Anne Winston-Allen, Stories of the Rose:
The Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages(University
Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997).
rose window A medieval rose window was a circular
window shaped with ribs to resemble a rose. It was
designed to draw light into the interior. It could be in the
façade, the transepts, or the choirs. This usually exquisite
form was developed in ROMANESQUE and especially
GOTHIC architecture. It had a technical and symbolic
aspect all set within other STAINED GLASSin a church. It
developed a clear wheel-with-spokes shape, eventually
with delicate tracery added.
Further reading:Painton Cowen, Rose Windows(San
Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1979).
rota The term rotadenoted a specialized judicial body
formed by the papacy in the Middle Ages. It had its ori-
gins in the pontificate of the prominent jurist Pope
ALEXANDER III, when the number of cases brought to
papal arbitration increased. This increase caused reorgani-
zation within the judicial procedures of the Roman Curia
or court. Its areas of jurisdiction and competence were
originally almost unlimited, since it was soon intended to
be the court of last appeal and could involve the pope
himself. Only criminal cases were outside its purview.
The term rotawas first used for this court about 1360
and probably designated a desk mounted on wheels in
the deliberation room at the Papal Palace at AVIGNON,on
which the registers of cases were laid out. Equally likely,
however, was that the term referred to a porphyry table in
the Vatican Palace around which popes, cardinals, and
their advisers assembled to judge major cases. From the
early 13th century, papal chaplains began to replace car-
dinals in this system of administration of justice. This
centralization of the administration was part of the
attempt of the Holy See to control more closely the affairs
of the church. The secular powers, bishops, and local
churches opposed its jurisdictional interference.
Further reading:Guillaume Mollat, The Popes at Avi-
gnon, 1305–1378,trans. Janet Love (1949; reprint, New
York: T. Nelsons 1963); Walter Ullman, The Growth of
Papal Government in the Middle Ages: A Study in the Ideo-
logical Relation of Clerical to Lay Power,3d ed. (1955;
reprint, London: Methuen, 1970).Rouen Medieval Rouen was positioned on an alluvial
bank of a loop in the Seine River in FRANCE. The first
town wall of this originally Gallo-Roman town was hastily
built in the late third or early fourth century. There was a
mint from the ninth century, an era dominated by the
Scandinavian invasions. In 841 a VIKINGfleet attacked and
burned the town. With the concession to ROLLOin 911 of
the districts of the lower Seine, the town became the main
center of his county and then of the duchy of NORMANDY.
A ducal tower was built in the 10th century in the south-
east of the town. The Norman Conquest of ENGLANDin
1066 linked Rouen with England.
In the next century King HENRYII gave the town a
communal CHARTER. After capturing it in 1204, King
PHILIPII AUGUSTUSbuilt a new fortress within the city.
During the 13th century, a new city wall was built. The
insecurity of the HUNDREDYEARS’WARled in the mid-
14th century to an eastward expansion and repair of the
town’s walls. Through the 13th and 14th centuries, there
were internal conflicts and uprisings against power being
monopolized by a few families and the imposition of
heavy financial burdens arising from war. In 1419 King
HENRYV took the town. It remained in English hands for
the next 30 years, despite several attempts by the French
to retake it. JOAN OFARCwas executed there. After 1449
it was returned to the control of the French kingdom.
See alsoHENRYI; JOHNLACKLAND; WILLIAMI THE
CONQUEROR.
Further reading:David C. Douglas, William the Con-
queror: The Norman Impact on England(Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1964); Jonathan Sumption, TheA rose window from the transept of the cathedral of Notre-
Dame in Paris, with its original glass (Courtesy Edward English)