At 03:04 PM 11/5/96 GMT, Bill East wrote:
>>
>> It became permissable [sp] to deposit a portion of the host in place of a
relic,
>
>Are you sure of this? What is the evidence? I would have thought it
highly sacriligious.
>Oriens.
>
G.R. Jones has already given the reference to the Concil of Celchyth, and it
may be supplemented with liturgical evidence dating back to approximately
the same time (late 8th/early 9th cent.). In the Roman church dedication
"ordo" edited as "Ordo Romanus XLII" by Michel Andrieu, the celebrant is
instructed:
Deinde ponit tres portiones corporis domini intus in confessione et tres de
incenso et recluduntur reliquiae intus in confessione.
This instruction can be found in liturgical manuals throghout Europe into
the 15th century. For more information, see Michel Andrieu, ed., _Les
"Ordines Romani" du haut moyen age (Louvain: 1931-1956), vol. 4, pp. 389-92
and Nicole Herrmann-Mascard, _Les reliques des saints_ (Paris: 1975),
pp.159-61. There are evens some cases where the Eucharist appears to be
treated not only as a relic in its own right, but as a contact relic from
the consecrator. In two or three of the dedication records in the MGH (for
which, alas, I canno now find the references), Eucharistic relics are
recorded as "the Body of Christ consecrated by Pope John [or whoever]."
This leads to the interesting question of whether or not there was some idea
that the Eucharist could be more or less holy depending on who consecrated it.
>Do you think changing attitudes could have made this a dead letter?
>
>Graham Jones
This is a complicated question. In mid-thirteenth century, the canonist
Hostiensis asked the pope whether the Eucharist should be used as a relic in
the dedication of a church. In his _Summa_ to X 3.40 (Lyon 1537, fol.
184ra), Hostiensis writes:
Dicunt etiam aliqui doctores sufficere corpus Christi loco reliquiarum, et
hoc innuit Liber Pontificalis. Dominus tamen papa me consultus, habito
consilio patriarcho Constantinopolis . . . mihi respondit contrarium.
On the other hand, near the end of the thirteenth century, Bishop William
Durandus of Mende, himself a canonist, included a rubric allowing the use of
the Eucharist in the consecration of the church in his _Pontifical_. There
is definitely research to be done on this question.
Stephen A. Allen
The Medieval Institute
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
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