The Lord’s Supper In The Medieval West And The Modern Roman Catholic Church

Both the texts of the various prayers and directions for eucharistic practice survive from about the seventh century onward. The early Middle Ages was characterized by growing awe surrounding the sacrificial presence of Christ at the eucharistic altar. Controversies over the exact nature of Christ's presence in the elements of bread and wine broke out during the ninth century, with the spiritualized interpretation of Ratramnus of Corbie, being rejected in favor of the insistence on Christ's physical presence by Pascasius Radbertus. As scholastic theology developed in the medieval universities, the theology of transubstantiation emerged. Transubstantiation states that the substance of the bread and wine is changed into Christ's body and blood, but the perceptible accidents of bread and wine remain unchanged. Transubstantiation is often misunderstood. It does not teach a crude physical presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements. Aristotelian philosophy-used by the scholastic theolo…