THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
century the pulpit began to be placed behind the altar, and elevated above it, and then the organ and choir were placed above the pulpit. The result was to dwarf and degrade the altar, and the tasteless pictures and other decorations of the time do not diminish the displeasing effect. The nineteenth century brought a return to the early Christian and Gothic forms. The altars of the latest time are marked by eclecticism and by a striving after novelty which often mixes discrepant elements.
(NlKOLAUS MtJLLER.)
In the Church of England, after the Reformation much stress was laid by many Reformers on bringing the altar down into the body of the church and designating it as the "Holy Table," the name which it nearly always bears in the 2. The Prayer-book. By the eighteenth cen- Church of tury it had usually assumed the shape England, of a small table, frequently concealed from sight by the immense structure of pulpit and reading-desk in front of it; but with the Tractarian and Ritualist movements of the nineteenth century and the increasing frequency and reverence of the celebration of the Eucharist, it gradually resumed its former shape and dignity. In the American Episcopal Church this change was productive of bitter controversy, and about 1850 the retention of a table with legs was considered a sign of unimpeachable Protestant orthodoxy. Bibliography: On primitive altars, besides the works mentioned in the text, consult: C. Maurer, De aris Grcecorum pluribus deis in commune positis, Darmstadt, 1885; E» B. Tylor, Early Hist, of Mankind, London, 1878; idem, Hist, of Civilization, ib. 1891; J. G. Frazer, Golden Bough, 3 vols., ib. 1900. On Jewish altars: P. Scholtz, Gbtzendienst und Zauberwesen, Regensburg, 1865; C. Piepenbring, Histoire des lieux de culte et du sacerdoce en Israel, in RHR, xxiv. (1891) 1-60, 133-186; Benzinger, Archaologie, § 52; Nowack, Archaologie, ii., §§73 sqq.; A. van Hoonacker, Le lieu du culte dans la legislation rituelle des Hebreux, 1894; A. F. von Gall, Altisraelitische Kultstatte, in ZATW, iii. (1898). On Christian altars: J. Poeklington, Altare Christianum, London, 1637; Sven Bring, Dissertatio historica de fundatione et dotatione altarium, ib. 1751; J. Blackburne, A Brief Historical Inquiry into the Introduction of Stone Altars into the Christian Church, Cambridge, 1844; On the Hist, of Christian Altars, published by the Cambridge Camden Society, 1845; M. Meurer, Altarschmuck, Leipsic, 1867; A. Schmid, Der christliche Altar und sein Schmuck, Ratisbon, 1871; Charles Rohault de Fleury, La Messe, etudes archeologiques sur ses monuments, 8 vols., Paris, 1883-89 (the most comprehensive collection of the material, with illustrations, to the close of the Romanesque period); E. U. A. Munzenberger and S. Beisel, Zur Kenntniss und Wurdigung der mittelalterlichen Altare Deutschlands, 2 vols., Frankfort, 1885-1901; V. Statz, Gothische Altare, Berlin, 1886; A. Hartel, Altare und Kanzler des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, Berlin, 1892; N. Muller Ueber das deutsch-evangelische Kirchengebaude im Jahrhundert der Reformation, Leipsic, 1895; H. D. M. Spence, White Robe of Churches, pp. 210-243, New York, 1900; E Bishop, History of the Christian Altar, London, 1906! Consult also works on Christian archeology and Christian art, especially Christian architecture.
ALTAR-BREAD : The bread used in the Roman Catholic and Greek churches in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. It is made from pure wheaten flour, m xed with water, and baked, all conditions being regu.ated by str'ct law. The Council of Florence, to meet the contention of Michael Cserularius that the Latins did not possess the Eucharist because of their use of unfermented bread, defined that either kind may be validly employed. Never-
theless, it is unlawful to-day for a Latin priest to use fermented, or for a Greek priest, except in the Armenian and Maronite rites, to use unfermented bread. The practise of the Greeks has always been the same, but in the Western Church both fermented and unfermented bread were employed down to the ninth century. The altar-bread is also called a host, because of the victim whom the sacramental species are destined to conceal. In the Latin Church the host is circular in form, bearing an image of the crucifixion or the letters I. H. S., and is of two sizes; the larger is consumed by the celebrant or preserved for solemn exposition, and the smaller given to the people in communion. The name " particles " given to the smaller hosts recalls the fact that down to the eleventh century communion was distributed to the faithful by breaking off portions of a large bread consecrated by the celebrant. The large host of the Greeks is rectangular in shape, and the small host triangular. Great care is taken in the preparation of altar-breads, many synodal enactments providing that it shall be committed only to clerics or to women in religious communities.
John T. Creagh.
ALTAR-CARDS: Three cards, containing certain prayers of the mass, placed on the altar in Roman Catholic churches, the central card being larger than those placed at either end. Their introduction dates from the sixteenth century, when the middle card began to be employed as an aid to the memory of the celebrant and to relieve him from the necessity of continually referring to the missal. When the reading of the beginning of St. John's Gospel was prescribed, the card on the Gospel side was added, and later, to make the arrangement appear symmetrical, the third card came into use. In masses celebrated by a bishop, the practise anterior to the sixteenth century is maintained by the substitution of a book called the canon, from which are read the prayers usually printed on altar-cards. Since most of these prayers are to be said secretly or inaudibly, altar-cards are sometimes called secret-cards. John T. Creagh.
ALTAR-CLOTHS. See Altar, III., 1, a, § 2.
ALTENBURG, COLLOQUY OF. See Philip-
PIST
ALTENSTEIN, al"ten-stain', KARL FREIHERR VON STEIN ZUM: German statesman, first minister of public worship in Prussia (1817-10); b. at Ansbach (20 m. w.s.w. of Nuremberg), Bavaria, Oct. 1, 1770; d. in Berlin May 14, 1S40. He lost his father at the age of nine, and to the fact that his character was formed under the influence of his mother has been attributed his incapacity in after-life for making thoroughgoing and clearcut decisions. He was educated in his birthplace and at the universities of Erlangen and Gottingen, where he studied law primarily, but found plenty of time for researches in philosophy, especially the philosophy of religion, and the natural sciences. In 1793 he received a minor legal appointment at Ansbach, which in the mean time had become Prussian. Here he was under Hardenberg, who recognized his ability and had him transferred to