Description: This book studies later medieval culture (c. 1150-1500) through its central symbol: the eucharist. From the twelfth century onward the eucharist was designed by the Church as the foremost sacrament. The claim that this ritual brought into presence Christ's own body, and offered it to believers, underpinned the sacramental system and the clerical meditation upon which it depended. The book explores the context in which the sacramental world was created and the cultural processes through which it was disseminated, interpreted and used. With attention to the variety of eucharistic meanings and practices, the book moves from the "design" of the eucharist in the twelfth century to its redesign in the sixteenth--a story of the emergence of a symbol, its use and interpretation and final transformation.
Review Quotes: "...the book provides an exceptionally rich body of material and a spirited statement of a point of view important not just for eucharistic but for religious history generally." The Journal of Religion