medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I didn't mean that the "fercula" were at this point in time still platters, only that "platter", because of its association with food, was a more likely underlying sense of the term here. You are describing a full-blown, highly institutionalized practice that probably had humbler beginnings. The name of the offering (if not its number) could easily be traditional, with "ferculum" describing the object used at an earlier time. By the twelfth century, the term could have been transferred to some larger object. But the term could also have become metaphorical and now denote the offering itself (or a unit of such an offering) rather than an object in actual use for this purpose. If there were now such an object at all: I wasn't able to access your URL for the 15th-cent. illumination, but it occurs that these large gifts, however brought to a statio, might simply have been piled up on the latter without a bier having been left there as well.
Someone who knows more about the terminology of gifts in kind to cathedral chapters in earlier centuries might be able to shed light on this particular nomenclature.
Best again,
John Dillon
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