English literature -- Middle English, 1100-1500; Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 1066-1485 -- Sources
The Lord of COBHAM said, "CHRIST upon Shere [_or Shrive or Maunday_]
Thursday [_the day before Good Friday_] at night, sitting with his
disciples at the Supper, after that he had supped, he took bread and
giving thanks to the Father, he blessed it and brake it, and gave it to
his disciples saying, _Take, and eat ye of this, all! This is my body
that shall be betrayed for you! Do you this, in the remembrance of me._
This I believe!" said he.
Then the Archbishop asked him, "If it were bread after the consecration,
and the sacramental words said?"
The Lord of COBHAM said, "I believe that the Sacrament of the Altar is
very CHRIST's body in form of bread; the same body that was born of the
Virgin MARY, done on the cross, dead and buried, and the third day rose
from death to life: which body is now glorified in heaven."
Then said one of the Doctors of the Law, "After the sacramental words
said, there remaineth no bread but the body of CHRIST!"
Then the Lord of COBHAM said to one, Master JOHN WHITEHEAD, "You said to
me in the Castle of Cowling [_Lord COBHAM's home_], that the host sacred
was not CHRIST's body: but I said, 'It was CHRIST's body!' though
Seculars and Friars hold each one against other in this opinion."
Then said they, "We say all that it is GOD's body!"
And they asked him, "Whether it were material bread after the
consecration?"
Then said the Lord, "I believe it is CHRIST's body in form of bread.
Sir, believe ye not thus?"
And the Archbishop said, "Yea!"
Then the Doctors asked him, "Whether it were only CHRIST's body after
the consecration, and no bread?"
And he said to them, "It is CHRIST's body and bread. For right as CHRIST
was here in manhood, and the godhead hid in the manhood: so I believe
verily that CHRIST's flesh and his blood is hid there in the form of
bread."
=SMILING THEY SAY, "IT IS AN HERESY!"=
Then they smiled each on other, deeming him taken in heresy; and said,
"It is an heresy!"
The Archbishop asked him, "What bread it was?" and the Clerks also,
"Whether it were material or not?"
Then the Lord said, "The Gospel speaketh not of this term _material_;
and therefore I will not! but say, it is CHRIST's body and bread! For
the Gospel saith, _Ego sum panis vivus qui de coelo descendi_, that is
to say, "I am quick bread that came down from heaven." For as our Lord
JESUS CHRIST is Very GOD and Very Man; so the most blessed Sacrament of
the Altar is CHRIST's body and bread."
Then they said, "It is an heresy, to say that it is bread after the
consecration and the sacramental words said, but only CHRIST's body."
The Lord said, "Saint PAUL the Apostle was as wise as ye be! and he
called it _bread_; where he saith thus _The bread that we break, is it
not the partaking of the body of the LORD?_"
Then they said, "PAUL must be otherwise understanded; for it is an
heresy to say, that it is bread after the consecration, but only
CHRIST's body: for it is against the determination of the Church."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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