The Church and the Empire: Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304Medley, D. J. (Dudley Julius)
Religion
The Church and the Empire: Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304
Medley, D. J. (Dudley Julius)
Church history -- Middle Ages, 600-1500
While there was a growing elaboration of the sacramental rite, the
laity in many parts of Europe came from slackness less frequently to
receive communion. As early as Bede, in England, though not in Rome,
communions were very infrequent. English and French Synods tried to
insist on communion three times a year, but could not enforce the
rule. Innocent III, in the fourth Lateran Council, with a view to
compel confession, prescribes once a year. "Every one of the
faithful," runs the canon of the Council, "of either sex, after he has
come to years of discretion, is to confess faithfully by himself all
his sins at least once a year to his own priest, and is to be careful
to fulfil according to his power the penance enjoined on him,
receiving with reverence the sacrament of the Eucharist at least at
Easter."
Finally, the discussion of this theory of transubstantiation led to
the development of a special view of the doctrine of the Eucharistic
Sacrifice. Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas call the sacrament a
representation of the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross. But to
Albertus Magnus it is not merely a Representation, but a True
Sacrifice, that is, "an Oblation of the thing offered by the hands of
the priests," and St. Thomas elsewhere declares that the perfection of
the sacrament consists not in its use by the faithful, but in the
consecration of the element, that is to say, that the main point was
the act of the priest. The prevalence of this view appears to have
encouraged the idea in the laity that a mere attendance at the service
was in itself so meritorious as almost to dispense with the need of
communion, except once a year and on the death-bed. Similarly, private
Masses for the dead were instituted, chantry chapels were founded for
the celebration of them, and priests were appointed for the sole
purpose of serving the altar of the chapel.
[Sidenote: Confession.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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