Ebook A Study in the History of the Eucharist

Public education was fostered that the people might be able to understand the mass The first public so 00 ea6h6rs of the Middle Ages were the parish priests who taught the peasant children the creed and the responses. In philosophy the conceptions of a miraculous universe were strengthened as theology was codified in harmony with popular belief.2 In literature the one theme of romance outside of war and love was the search for the grail. In art the illumination Of missals and the decoration of altars3 is a small thing compared with the fact that the very structure of the churches, the archi tecture itself, was determined by the early manner of cele bration of the Lord's Supper.4 The table about which the little circle sat at first was restricted for the few as the membership increased, and then became an altar for the one. The simple Roman dwelling transformed its atrium, ales and tablinum into the nave, transept and choir of the medimval cathedral. The gorgeous spectacle af the mass succeeded to the simple communion of the earliest days, and the few pos sessions for the primitive ceremony grew into the splendid equipment of the richest altars in Europe.