Seminar: “Shaping Real Presence: Iconography of the Host in the Late Middle Ages”
Julie Glodt (Mellon Fellow, PIMS)
In the late Middle Ages, the host was “the most effective sacred object upon which church, community and individual could draw” (Charles Zika). From the 19th century to the present day, numerous studies have dealt with the Eucharist from theological, historical, devotional and even cultural perspectives, as Miri Rubin did in her Corpus Christi. Very few studies, however, have focused on the appearance of the communion wafers actually handled during the eucharistic ritual in the Middle Ages.
By examining a previously unpublished corpus of about 80 French medieval host presses still preserved today or known from casts, photographs or descriptions, this paper aims to provide the first iconographical study of late medieval hosts. In the course of the 13th century, the appearance of hosts underwent profound changes. Whereas in the High Middle Ages the wafers featured a circle and letters, the late medieval hosts exhibited real images depicting Christ’s historical body in a range of representations.
The doctrine of transubstantiation asserted that Christ’s Real Presence in the consecrated species was by no means visible to man’s bodily eyes but only to his spiritual eyes. Paradoxically, the images imprinted on the hosts gave Christ’s presence a visually recognizable form. How can we understand the superimposition of the depiction of Christ’s historical body on the sacramental body? What was the relation between Real Presence and pictorial representation?