Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament

William Herbert Freestone, “Alcuin Club Collections,” Volume 21 (The Sacrament Reserved), (London: A.R. Mowbray & Co., 1917), 120-143.

By following the common custom of reckoning the first six centuries together as an age by itself, it has been possible to sum up the evidence of that period, and to come to some tentative conclusions as to the origin and prevalence of official reservation of the Eucharist. This will help to carry us through the two hundred years of transition between the days of Gregory the Great and those of Charlemagne.

The seventh and the eighth centuries form the first half of the period that we have now to consider. This period, the early Middle Ages, is made up of two clearly-marked divisions of approximately equal length: the first is characterized by the ebb in learning and culture that succeeded the high-tide of the Fathers; the second, by the recovery that followed for a while the Carolingian reforms. We will take the evidence of these two divisions separately.

(a) The first division (c. A.D. 6oo–8oo) is, as regards our subject, an age of obscurity. It is still necessary to depend as largely upon supposition here as in the period that has just been discussed, for of direct evidence there is great scarcity. If the considerations proposed at the end of the last chapter have any value, we start with something approaching a conviction that official reservation for clinical communion in the one species of Bread was coming into common use, at any rate in certain localities. It does not seem possible to avoid the conclusion that a method which was so natural a development of the private custom, and had so many points of convenience to recommend it, must have been widely employed. We have found plentiful evidence for the existence of private reservation by the clergy and the religious during this period. Official the supply and ministration of the sacrament are restricted to, and regularized by, the normal ecclesiastical authorities.

Nevertheless, the only direct reference to official reservation appears to be contained in a canon of the Sixteenth Council of Toledo (A.D. 693). This council turned its attention to a number of careless habits that had grown up among the clergy in connection with the bread used in the mass. In the canon dealing with these abuses allusion is made incidentally, but unmistakeably, to the practice of reserving the Eucharist. Whether it was reserved for the use of the sick, or for one of those liturgical ceremonies which have been described in Part I of this work, is open to question. The sense of the relevant passage in the canon is as follows:

No bread shall be prepared for use at the altar other than such as is whole and wheaten, and this shall be made with care. Nor shall it be too large, but of moderate size, according to ecclesiastical custom; so that whatever remains over may be kept for reservation in a small receptacle (ad conservandum modico loculo . . . conserventur) without risk of harm; or else, in case it seem necessary, may be consumed without inconvenience.

For whatever purpose it was intended to be used, it will be noticed that the Bread alone is mentioned as being reserved; and this, so far as it goes, bears out the conclusions reached at the end of the last chapter as to the usage of the preceding period. Some little light is thrown upon the question by the canons of two other councils of this age, which dealt with the ministration of the Eucharist, and issued rulings that touch, though only indirectly, upon the matter of our inquiry. First, an earlier (Eleventh) Council of Toledo (A.D. 67 5) than that to which we have just referred concerned itself with the subject of clinical communion by publishing an explanation of a canon promulgated by the First Council held in the same city nearly three hundred years before (A.D. 4oo). This canon has been noticed in a former place as ordering the expulsion of those who did not immediately consume the sacrament they received at the open communion. Now the later council was at pains to make quite clear the real reason for this regulation—that it was aimed against sacrilege, and was not intended to apply to the case of the sick and others who had difficulty in swallowing the Host. After referring to the physical weakness of persons in extreme sickness, the canon goes on to remark that in many cases “those who earnestly desire the viaticum of Holy Communion reject the Eucharist brought to them by the priest; not because they act in unbelief, but because they cannot swallow the Eucharist that is given them, apart from a draught from the chalice of the Lord.”

The interest of this passage is apparent. First, because the common use of the sole species of Bread is implied; and, secondly, because it is recognized that there are cases in which a draught from the chalice must, for physical reasons, accompany the delivery of the Host. But exactly what is meant by the dominici calicis haustum is not obvious. The Eucharist brought to them by the priest must, from the context, be taken to signify the Host alone; for it is this that the dying person cannot consume by itself. To suppose that the phrase eucharistiam collatam sibi a sacerdote includes the consecrated Wine would be to give to the term eucharistia two different meanings in two consecutive sentences. Moreover, against such an interpretation of the passage we have to consider not only the inconvenience and risk attached to carrying forth the chalice and its contents to any great distance from the church, but also the fact that whatever precise information can up to this point be adduced is practically all on the side of reservation in the one kind. How, then, is the reference to the chalice to be explained There are two alternatives from which a choice may be made. We may suppose that when the council issued this canon it had in mind the substitution of communion at a private celebration, in or adjoining the sick-room, for the regular method of administering viaticum. Such celebrations, though unusual, were, as we have seen, by no means unknown; and they may have been allowed when, for the reasons stated in the canon, the use of the chalice was necessary. But this interpretation hardly suits the phrase, “the Eucharist brought by the priest’’; and if the substitution of a private celebration for the use of the reserved sacrament was intended, it is less clearly expressed than might have been expected.

It is possible, on the other hand, to understand that the draught accompanying the delivery of the Host (in this case reserved) was of unconsecrated liquid; and if this were the sense of the passage, it seems necessary to explain the use of the expression calix dominicus by the theory that contact or admixture of the eucharistic Bread with unconsecrated wine hallowed the contents of the vessel employed. For the existence of this theory at so early a date we have no certain evidence, though it had a very general vogue for a time after the eighth century.

While it must be admitted that no really satisfactory sense of the passage can be determined, it is none the less fairly evident that the use of the reserved species of Bread is regarded as normal in the administration of clinical Communion.

It is reasonable to suppose, however, that there was some diversity of practice. All manner of strange usages in connection with the Eucharist were to be found within the limits of Spain alone. The Third Council of Braga, sitting in the same year (A.D. 675) as the Eleventh Council of Toledo, published a canon concerning certain abuses of this sort, and included among them the use of intincted Hosts for communicating the people. The prohibition of intinction was based upon the fact that according to the Gospel account of the institution of the Eucharist the disciples received the Bread and the Wine separately, and to the traitor alone was given a sop, intinctum panem (St. John xiii. 26, Vulg.).

In the absence of any special statement to the contrary, this prohibition would doubtless be held to apply to clinical communions as well as to communion at the mass; yet, if it be rightly assigned to the First Council of Lestines (A.D. 743), a canon put forth in Belgium in the following century possibly prescribes the use of some sort of intinction where the invalid is unconscious.

The liturgical sources of this age do not greatly help in our inquiry. The Leonine Sacramentary provides no form for the communion of the sick. In the Gelasian Sacra mentary, edited by Wilson, and assigned by him to the seventh century or the early part of the eighth, there is contained a series of prayers which accompany the celebration of mass in a private house,” but there is no mention of sickness made in them, nor is any formula of administration provided. Sickly infants are to be communicated immediately after baptism, apparently with the eucharistic Bread, but the language of the rubric is ambiguous. As to the Gallican rites, the Bobbio Sacramentary gives a similar missa in domo cuiuslibet; the texts of the others are imperfect. No doubt the very simplicity of the rite of administration of the reserved Eucharist may account for the fact that no special directions on this point are to be found in the early sacramentaries. It would only be necessary to use, with whatever modification was necessary, the formulae employed at the delivery of the elements at the public service; and these were assumed to be so familiar that documents of the period do not insert them even in the text of the Liturgy.

Of some importance too is the frequent occurrence at this time of forms for hallowing the chrismal. As this vessel is named among the ornaments of a church, it seems fair to maintain that a receptacle for use in official reservation is intended. From a comparison of the benediction of a chrismal in the Missale Francorum, and the benediction of a turris in the Missale Vesontiomense, it appears that the two receptacles are equivalent, and that both were used in official reservation for some purpose or other, that may include the necessities of the sick.

From the numerous biographical notices of the period we derive again but little aid toward solving the problems which we have set ourselves to consider. The evidence at our disposal gives no warrant for any very definite assertions concerning the manner and form in which the sacrament was administered.

In the story of Caedmon’s end the use of the Host alone is plainly implied, and we gather that it was customary to reserve the Eucharist in the hospital where he died. He conversed with the inmates of the hospital in a pleasant manner for some time, “until it was past midnight, and then he asked whether they had the Eucharist in the house. ‘What need is there of the Eucharist?’ they answered, “for you are not likely to die: you talk as merrily as if you were in the best of health.” “However, he replied, ‘bring me the Eucharist.’ So he received it into his hand, and asked if they were all in charity with him. . . . ‘Then, fortifying himself with the heavenly viaticum, he prepared to enter upon another life.’”

It is rarely, however, that so detailed a picture is drawn as that which Bede has given us in his account of Caedmon’s death. Most descriptions of clinical communion seem to presuppose the use of the reserved sacrament, but positive information as to the mode of administering it is exceedingly scanty. Mention of the two species is, indeed, frequent; but we possess no means of ascertaining the real value of such phrases—that is to say, how far expressions of this sort correspond with actual practice. Moreover, where there is reason to believe that both the Bread and the Wine were actually employed, we are still left to surmise in what form they were administered, whether conjointly or separately. A few instances will suffice to illustrate these remarks.

We meet, of course, with the term viaticum (with or without further specification) scattered through the literature of the time; as, for example, in the story of St. Hild, who according to Bede received after midnight, “the viaticum of the most holy communion.”

Bede often uses the expression, “the Body and Blood of the Lord.’’ He tells of St. Cuthbert that he was asked to send a priest with the corporis et sanguinis domimici sacramenta to the dying wife of an official at the court of King Egfrid; and, when the saint’s own end was upon him, he also received the Body and Blood.

In language similar to this the same author describes the last communion of St. Chad and of Benedict Biscop. The use of the two species seems to be implied again in the Life of St. Eloy of Noyon (+ A.D. 659), which was compiled by his contemporary, St. Ouen; and in the biographies of St. Ansbert of Rouen (+ A.D. 695), of St. Vaast of Arras (+ A. D. 540), and in the eighth-century Life of St. Vincentian, and elsewhere besides.

How was the invalid actually communicated in these cases Doubtless, as most of these people died in monasteries, we may believe that, in some instances at least, they were houselled directly from the altar, either during or immediately after one of the regular masses, or from one that was celebrated for the express purpose of providing viaticum. Such expedients, as we have already noticed, were not unusual in religious houses.

Bede’s story of the child who died in the monastery at Selsey is a case in point. It has already been mentioned in another place; but here we may remark, first, that there was no use of the reserved sacrament on this occasion, and secondly, that whereas the child is bidden in his vision to ask for “viaticum of the Lord’s Body and Blood,” the abbot is represented as sending to him from the mass in the monastic church a “fragment (particulam) of the Lord’s oblation.”? It is hazardous to use these two phrases, as some have done, in argument for the prevalence at this period of conjoint administration of the two species. “viaticum dominici corporis et sanguinis” and similar expressions are probably only common phrases of the time, meaning merely the last communion, without reference to the form in which it was given.

If we turn to the pages of Jonas of Bobbio, who wrote the Lives of St. Columban and the early abbots of Bobbio, we find that he constantly uses language which implies the use of the Host alone as viaticum. A typical passage is to be found, e.g. in his story of the death of another Columban, a companion of the saint who bore the name, where he relates that the dying man received as viaticum the Body of Christ. And once more, in reference to the last communion of a monk named Agibodus, he makes mention only of the one element. Other examples from this writer, showing his frequent use of similar phrases, are subjoined below. The impression left by the perusal of these passages is that Jonas was probably familiar with the form of clinical communion in which the Bread only was employed; and we might adduce in support of this conclusion that passage in the additions to the rule drawn up by its founder for the monastery at Bobbio, wherein participation in the chalice at any time seems to be forbidden to uninstructed novices.

We may therefore sum up the two centuries, c. A.D. 600–8oo, by saying that the sacrament was officially reserved for the needs of sick and dying: that, in some places, at least, the ancient method of extra-liturgical communion in the one species of Bread persisted, although it is likely that wherever intinction was favorably regarded by diocesan or other authority this practice might affect the mode in which the Eucharist was reserved and administered.

(b) The second division of our present period opens with the story of Charlemagne’s reforms in Church and State. Of all the ecclesiastical reforms made at this period none were more important than the revision of the Church’s service-books which led to the adoption of the so-called Gregorian Sacramentary in preference to any of the rites, Roman or Gallican, previously in use.

Between the years A.D. 784 and A.D. 791 Pope Hadrian sent to Charlemagne the famous document that has had so permanent an influence upon all subsequent liturgical developments in the West.

But those who were charged with the revision and reform of the service-books were not content to accept this new sacramentary in its original condition. Where it seemed to lack, they supplied the deficiency from material contained in the local rites. Thus it came about that there was almost immediately associated with copies of the “Gregorian” sacramentary a varying amount of material from Gallican and from other Roman sources.

Among the things which Adrian’s original lacked appears to have been an office for clinical communion.

The Carolingian ritualists, therefore, inserted services for the sick and dying from rites with which they were already familiar; possibly from the revised Gelasian books which preceded the use of the “Gregorian” sacramentaries.

One of the earliest examples of these mixed sacra mentaries was that of St. Remi of Reims, if (as was claimed) it was written in the last few years of the eighth century. It is unfortunately no longer in existence, for it perished by fire when the Abbey Library was burnt out in 1774. Ménard, however, before this date had examined it, and printed in his edition of the Gregorianum the ordo ad visitandum infirmum provided in the manuscript.

It contains many points of interest. In the first place it presents a very early example of a set of rubrical directions which hereafter occur with great frequency in early mediaeval orders for the communion of the sick.

After instructions for unction and reconciliation there follows: “Let him (i.e. the officiant) communicate the sick person, saying: ‘The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thee to life eternal. The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ redeem thee to life eternal. The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the communion of the saints be with thee and with us to eternal life. Amen.’”3 Then, comes a prayer, and subjoined to it is this rubric: “And for seven days, or if need be for longer, the patient shall be anointed and houselled; as the Apostle, or rather the Holy Ghost speaking through him, directs: si in peccatis fuerit, dimittentur ei. Moreover the ministers of holy Church are to take care that the daily offices be said in his presence—that is to say, Mattins, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. And if the bishop be present, he shall give a blessing; if not, the priests present shall say one of the following prayers apiece.” Here the words of delivery suggest the separate administration of both species.

But if the sick man is very weak and near to death, the whole rite of unction, of reconciliation, and of communion, is reduced to a minimum, and another formula of administration is provided. “The Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve (custodial) thy soul to eternal life.” It is noteworthy that, in contrast with the words of administration prescribed in the former office, the two words corpus and sanguis are here joined together, and grammatically form the subject of a singular verb (custodial). It would be too much to assert that this must necessarily mean that the Bread and Wine are given conjointly, but in view of the circumstances for which this rubric provides that seems to be a reasonable conclusion. For the difficulty in swallowing so often experienced by the dying would be obviated by the use of a Host dipped into the contents of the chalice immediately before delivery. If the use of intinction is intended, the language of the rubric itself gives us no information as to which variety of the practice shall be used. The use of a reserved Host previously intincted, and used for hallowing an unconse crated draught, would suit the conditions indicated and be in keeping with the custom of the time. This form of words of delivery, with unimportant variations, is characteristic of a great number of the “Gregorian” sacramentaries.

The constant supply of the reserved Eucharist appears to be definitely ordered for the first time in the Capitula Ecclesiastica issued by a council that met at Aix-la-Chapelle somewhere between A.D. 8 Io–813, wherein it was enacted, “That the priest shall always keep the sacrament in readiness, so that if anyone be overtaken by sickness or a child should be ill, he may give them communion immediately, and none may die unhouselled.”

This injunction reappeared in language almost or quite identical in such documents as the diocesan capitularies of several prelates of this age; for example, in those of Rudolph of Bourges (+ A.D. 866) and of Walter of Orleans (+ A.D. 891); and it was included by Ansegisus, abbot of Fontanelle (+ A.D. 833), and by Regino, abbot of Prüm (+ A.D. 915), in their collections of canons. In the absence of evidence to the contrary we should be compelled to believe that reservation of the single species was intended.

It is during the ninth century, too, that we begin to meet with inquiries, made on episcopal or archidiaconal visitations, as to whether the parish priest provides the reserved sacrament for the communion of the sick, and whether he keeps it in a suitable vessel. Bishop Hincmar of Reims (+ A.D. 858) used to ask on these occasions “Whether he (the priest) has a pyx wherein the sacred oblation may be decently reserved for the viaticum of the sick.” A similar inquiry leaves it doubtful whether the pyx was constantly kept above the altar or to be suspended over it.

The regular renewal of the reserved Eucharist is often dealt with. Ecclesiastical authorities appoint a definite term, sometimes of three, more often of seven, occasionally of fourteen days, at the conclusion of which the Host in the pyx was to be consumed and a newly-consecrated one to be put in its place. Penances of varying degrees of severity are allotted in the penitentials for failure to observe these requirements.

But by far the most interesting injunction of the period is a canon of uncertain date and origin preserved by Regino of Prüm.

Let every priest have a pyx or other vessel worthy of so great a sacrament, in which the Body of the Lord may be carefully stored for the viaticum of those who leave this world. And this sacred oblation ought to be intincted in the Blood of Christ, in order that the priest may be able to say with truth, ‘The Body and Blood of the Lord avail thee.’ And let it always be kept locked up on (or above) the altar, on account of mice or wicked men; and let it be changed every third day; that is to say, the reserved Host shall be consumed by the priest, and another, consecrated on the same day, shall be substituted for it, lest by being kept too long it become mouldy, which God forbid.

This is the one definite statement that we have as to the use at this period of an intincted Host for reservation; and it seems to explain much that would otherwise be ambiguous, including the often incomplete and abrupt directions in many orders for the visitation of the sick.

The prohibition of intinction by the Council of Braga was evidently transitory and local in its effect, and probably had no immediate influence upon the practice of the Church in Gaul and elsewhere. By the tenth century intinction had come to be a common way in which communion was given to the people at the mass. The injunction quoted above shows that the sacrament was also in a conjoint form of reservation, and in this form was spoken of as the corpus dominicum as well as in terms that express the presence of both elements.

It is thus that we may explain the rubric contained in the order for communion of the sick in the Leofric Missal. The order is part of the original tenth-century sacramentary that forms the bulk of the missal, and the rubric contains elements of the usual “Gregorian”, sort, ordering the recitation of the daily offices on behalf of the sick person. But the minister of viaticum is bidden to dip the Host in wine or water, and to say as he does so, or as he communicates the invalid with the saturated sacrament: “May the commixture and consecration of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ be to us and to all who receive for the remission of all sins and for eternal life.” We may suppose that the Host which is intended for use has been previously prepared in the way prescribed by Regino’s canon, and that the immersion in wine or water is to facilitate the swallowing of the sacrament. Still another method of preparing and storing intincted Hosts for viaticum is suggested elsewhere. Instead of a pyx, a chalice seems to have been used sometimes for the purpose of reserving the conjoint species. We are told, in the ninth-century Life of the Alsatian Abbess Odilia (+ A.D. 720) that her companions feared that she had died unhouselled, and that she was restored to life in answer to their prayers. Then she asked for the chalice wherein the sacrament—”the Body and Blood of the Lord”—was kept, and so made her communion.” There is no hint in the narrative that she sent at mass time for the Eucharist, and the natural sense of the passage is that the sacrament was reserved conjointly in both kinds in a chalice.

Here brief note may be taken of the Celtic Orders, collected by Warren, since it seems safe to place them all within the limits of the period. According to Duchesne they are essentially Roman in origin, that is to say “Gregorian” with varying admixture of Gallican details. The orm prescribed in the “Stowe Missal” closely resembles those that are found in the early group of mixed sacramen taries represented by that of Noyon. The fragment preserved in the Book of Deer has a vernacular rubric, “Hisund dubar sacorſaice dau,” i.e. “Here give him the sacrifice.” In these and in the fragments written in the Books of Moling and of Dimma mention is made of the two species, either in the words of delivery or in prayers associated with the act of communion. The order in the Book of Moling uses the formula, “The Body with the Blood of our Lord,” etc., and all seem to assume the use of the sacrament conjointly administered. It seems highly probable too that it was reserved in an intincted state.

Hitherto we have followed in this section the evidence provided mainly by ecclesiastical legislation and liturgical documents. For the purpose of illustrating these injunctions and directions we may select from the abundant historical and biographical sources of the period a few instances in which allusion is made to viaticum. The fidelity with which the rubrics found in sacramentaries of the St. Remi type were carried out in practice is seen in the story of how St. Rembert of Hamburg (+ A.D. 888) was prepared for his end. A contemporary but unknown hand has preserved his history. “On the seventh day preceding his death they began to administer to him the unction with holy oil, and also the communion of the Body and Blood of the Lord; until the day of his soul’s departure from the body he daily received this salutary remedy.”

More often the narratives are less detailed, but mention of two species is frequent. For example, St. Peter Urseolus (+ c. A.D. 997), who had once been Duke of Venice and Dalmatia, but spent his later years in the monastery of St. Michael, at Coxano in Catalania, made his last commu nion thus: “Knowing beforehand the time of his departure, he called the brethren with the father (i.e. the abbot) of the monastery, and said good-bye to them, and gave them the kiss of peace. Then he received the Body and Blood of the Lord, and blessing and absolution (absolutio piatica), and was laid in ashes and sackcloth” to await the end. This one instance must serve as a specimen of many similar passages. Again, reference is made to both species in a canon issued by the ninth-century Synod of Pavia (Regia Ticina), which laid down that penitents under public discipline were not to receive unction unless they had been granted reconciliation, and so were fit to receive the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ.

In many biographies, such as that of Charlemagne, the accounts of the passing are very meagre; it is merely stated that the dying were accorded unction and viaticum.” More interesting, perhaps, are some scattered passages which seem to imply the use of the one species of bread.

The capitular of Isaac, bishop of Langres (+ A.D. 880), contains a reference to the “sacrosanctum corpus,” without any mention of the other species. “If anyone be over taken by sickness, let him not end his life without commu nion, nor let him lack unction with the sacred oil : rather, when he sees death approach, his soul shall be commended to God by the priest, with prayers and the most holy Body.”

So again the ninth-century author of the Life of St. Walfrid (+ A.D. 765) says that the saint kissed the brethren one by one and blessed them; and then bade the Body of the Lord be brought, and so made his communion. Such expressions may refer to the use of intincted Hosts, for in the canon quoted by Regino, “corpus dominicum” is used for the sacrament in conjoint form. But the same canon suggests (by insisting upon the correspondence of actual practice with the formula employed) that the words, “The Body and Plood of our Lord avail thee,” were sometimes used to accompany the delivery of a non-intincted Host. This is important. For unless the allusion is to mere disregard of existing practice on the part of individual priests, the canon seems to be aimed against the perpetuation of the usage that was in vogue before the introduction of intinction, where the Bread alone was held to suffice in clinical communions.

The conclusions to which this review of the first ten centuries lead are briefly these. The definite directions as to constant reservation that first appear in the era of Carolingian reform do not introduce a new or unfamiliar practice. They merely insist upon due observance being maintained of existing custom, and appear to have given sanction in certain areas to modifications of the primitive type of official reservation. The most important of these modifications was the substitution of an intincted for a simple Host.