The devotion to the consecrated host in the Castilian Middle Ages: Textual, material and iconographical sources for its study

Abstract

Deeply inserted in the context of the diverse polemics about the real presence of Christ in the species, the Eucharist found in the ritual of the mass during the Middle Ages the way to present the positions of the Church with respect to the dogma. The interest to demonstrate the miracle of the Transubstantiation occurred in the altar, implied a complicated process of ritualization, not exclusively of the ceremony, but also of the previous moments, as demonstrated by the different sources. These sources can be of documentary, material or iconographical type and, carefully analyzed, demonstrate the increasingimportance acquired by the consecrated host during the Gothic Period. At the same time, the images implied the medieval notion of praesentia and its relation to the liturgy was established during the mass.