§ 116. EUCHARISTIC PRACTICE AND SUPERSTITION. 723
Albertus Magnus speaks of women attending mass every day from levity and not in a spirit of devotion who deserved re buke.1 Councils again and again forbade its being celebrated more than once a day by the same priest, except on Christmas and Easter, and in case of burial. Masses had their price and priests there were who knew how to sell them and to frighten people into making provision for them in their wills.2
The elevation and adoration of the host were practised in the Latin Church as early as the twelfth century. Honorius III., 1217, made obligatory the ringing of a bell at the moment the words of institution were uttered that the worshippers might fall on their knees and adore the host. The Lambeth synod of 1281 ordered the church bells to be rung at the moment of consecration so that the laboring man on the field and the woman engaged in her domestic work might bow down and worship. Synods prescribed that the pyx, the receptacle for the host, be made of gold, silver, ivory, or, at least, of polished copper. A light was kept burning before it perpetually. In case a crumb of the bread or a drop of the wine fell upon the cloth or the priest's garments, the part was to be cut out and burnt and the ashes thrown into the sacrary. And if the corporate, the linen cover prescribed for the altar, should be wet in the blood, it was to be washed out three times and the water drunk by a priest. If a drop happened to fall on a stone or a piece of wood or hard earth, the priest or some pious person was to lick it up.
The festival of the eucharist, Corpus Christi, celebrated the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday, had its origin in the vision of Juliana, a nun of Liege, who saw the full moon, representing the church year, with one spot on its surface. This spot indicated the Church's neglect to properly honor the real presence. She made her vision known to the bishop of Liege and the archdeacon, James Pantaleon. A cele bration was appointed for the diocese, and when James became pope, under the name of Urban IV., he prescribed,
1 De euchar. VI. 3.
2 Councils of Wiirzburg, 1287, Paris, 1212, etc. See Hefele, V. 8G6.
724 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
in 1264, the general observance of the festival. John XXII. inaugurated the procession wherein, on Corpus Christ! day, the host was carried about the streets with great solemnities.1 The liturgical service used on Corpus Christ! was prepared by Thomas Aquinas at the appointment of Urban IV. Two important changes occurred in this period in the distribu tion of the elements, — the abandonment of the commun ion of children and the withdrawal of the cup from the laity.
The communion of children practised in the early Church, and attested by Augustine and still practised in the Greek Church, seems to have been general as late as the reign of Pascal II. Writing in 1118, Pascal said it was sufficient to give the wine to children and the very sick, as they are not able to assimilate the bread. In their case the bread was to be dipped into the wine.2 Just how the change took place is un known. Odo, bishop of Paris, 1175, forbade the communion of children. The synod of Treves, 1227, denied to them the bread, and the synod of Bordeaux, 1255, the wine as well as the bread. The greater Schoolmen do not treat the subject. The Supplement of Thomas Aquinas' Theology says that the extreme unction and the eucharist were not administered to children because both sacraments required real devotion in the recipients.3
The denial of the cup to the laity, the present custom of the the Roman Catholic Church, became common in the thirteenth century. It was at first due to the fear of profanation by spilling the consecrated blood of Christ. At the same time the restriction to the bread was regarded as a wholesome way of teaching the people that the whole Christ is present in each of the elements. Among other witnesses in the twelfth cen-
1 See artt. Fronleichnamsfest in Wetzer-Welte, IV. 2061 sqq., and Herzog, VI. 297 sqq. It was one of the first observances to call forth Luther's protest. Kostlin, Leben Luthers, I. 560.
2 Ep., 535, Migne, 163. 442, qui panem absorbere nonpossunt, etc., quoted in Herzog under Kinderkommunion. X. 289.
3 Suppl , XXXII. 4, Migne, IV. 1038. The council of Trent anathematized those who hold the communion of children to be necessary.