The Sacrament of the Eucharist

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the commemoration of the eucharist or last supper was also rigorously defined and systematized; at the same time it was raised in importance to become the primary Christian sacrament, the principal symbol of membership in the church.

The question of the meaning of the eucharist began to be hotly debated in the 1050s and 1060s, when Lanfranc, then head of the Abbey of Bec in Normandy, and later Archbishop of Canterbury under William the Conqueror, challenged the interpretation offered by the head of a rival monastic school, Berengar of Tours. Berengar's fame is based chiefly on his persistence in defending his views for some thirty years, not only against Lanfranc but against the whole papal party, including Pope Gregory VII. Berengar argued that the effectiveness of the sacrament, its grace-giving power, does not depend on the transformation of the bread; the bread, he argued, remains bread, but it is also the "figure" and "likeness" of Christ when it is offered and received in the proper manner. Lanfranc, using the Aristotelian categories of substance and accidents, persuaded the First Lateran Council to denounce Berengar's views and to affirm that in the sacrament the substance of the bread is miraculously transformed into the "true" body of Christ at the time it is consecrated. 16Theoretically, no one need participate but the priest. In the next century Lanfranc's theory -- later called "transubstantiation" -- was expressed liturgically by the introduction of the ritual of the elevation of the host: before the bread is lifted up, the ceremonial words, "This is my body," effectuate the transformation. 17

Also in the twelfth century it came to be generally required that the

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sacrament of the eucharist, which previously had been partaken of only occasionally or rarely by laymen, be taken by them at least annually, at the Easter season, and that it be preceded by the sacrament of penance.

The relationship of these changes in liturgical doctrine and ritual to the Papal Revolution and to the new prerogatives of the priesthood is apparent. ¹⁸ In this connection it is helpful, once again, to consider the liturgy of the Eastern Church. In that church today, as in the West prior to the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, not the eucharist but baptism is considered the most important sacrament. 19Baptism is seen as the great Christian mystery in which man, once and for all, dies to himself, renounces the devil, and is reborn as a citizen of the heavenly kingdom. It is baptism above all which saves men from demons and from death. The doctrines of "transubstantiation" and "real presence" were adopted by many Eastern theologians in the eighteenth century and thereafter, but they have never played a central role in Eastern thought. Moreover, the liturgy of the eucharist in the Eastern Church, as in the West prior to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, is linked not to membership in a visible, corporate church but to communal fellowship with the risen Christ. ²⁰

It was also in the eleventh and twelfth centuries that the celebration of the eucharist in the West first became highly ritualized. In addition, the number of sacraments, which hitherto had been unlimited, was reduced to seven, and each was subjected to its own liturgical rules. 21_These developments were also connected with the establishment of the corporate legal structure of the church. The sacraments were not valid unless performed correctly, and their correct performance usually required the expert offices of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. (Marriage was an exception -- until the sixteenth century.) A sacrament was said to be effective ex proprio vigore ("by its own force") if it was correctly performed by an authorized person. Thus in the case of the eucharist, Christ's presence, the source of grace, was considered to be effected by the words and acts of consecration, rather than by invocation of the Holy Spirit, as in the Eastern Church then and today.