Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/551

 HOST

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HOST

Cambrai in 1631 ordains that "in each city there shall be a person chargetl with making the altar-breads from the best and purest wheat and after the manner indicated to him. He must previously take an oath to discharge faithfully the duties of his office. He shall not be permitterl to buy from others the bread to be used in the Holy Sacrifice. " As early as the four- teenth century the making of hosts had become a business. The confraternity of the ohlayers (host^ makers) had a special ecclesiastical authorization to carry on that work. The liturgist Claude de Vert mentions a sign used by them in the eighteenth cen- tury in the city of Puy: "Ceans se font de belles hosties avec la permission dc M. lY'veque du Puy." Before the French Revolution, in many dioceses, each cure made the hosts used in his own church. At present many parishes apply to religious communities which make a specialty of altar-breads. This offers a guarantee against the falsifications always to be feared when recourse is had to the trade; unscrupulous makers have been guilty of adulterating the wheaten flour with alum, sulphates of zinc and copper, carbo- nates of ammonia, potassium, or magnesia, or else of substituting bean flour or the flour of rice or potatoes for wheaten flour.

In the Middle Ages, as stated, the baking of hosts took place at three or four principal feasts of the year. This practice was abandoned later on account of the possible chemical change in the substance of the bread when kept for so long a time. St. Charles Borromeo ordered all the priests of his diocese to use for the Holy Sacrifice only hosts made less than twenty days pre- viously. The Congregation of Rites condemned the abuse of consecrating hosts which, in winter, had been made three months and in summer six months ahead of time.

Some prescriptions of the Oriental Churches are worthy of notice; moreover, .some of them are still in use. The Constitutions ascribed to St. Cyril of Alex- andria prescribe that the Eucharistic bread be baked in the church oven (Renaudot, "Liturg. orient, coll.", I, 189); among the Copts, Syrians, Jacobites, Melchites, Nestorians, and Armenians the altar- breads must be baked on the very day of their conse- cration. In the "Canonical Collection" of Bar-Salibi there are prescriptions concerning the choice of wheat which differ but slightly from those of the West. In Ethiopia each church must have a special oven for the making of hosts. In Greece and Russia the altar- breads are prepared by priests, widows, the wives or daughters of priests, or by the so-called calogerae, i. e. nuns, whereas, in Abyssinia, women are excluded. The Nestorians of Malabar, after kneading the flour with leaven, are accustomed to work in some of the leaven left from the preceding baking. They believe that this practice dates from the earliest Christian times and that it preserves the leaven brought to Syria by Saints Thomas and Thaddeus, for, according to another Nestorian tradition, the Apostles, prior to their separation celebrated the Liturgy in common and each carried away a portion of the bread then consecrated.

Moulds for Hosts. — The moulds used for hosts are iron instruments similar to waffle-irons, composed of two palettes which come together with the aid of two bent handles acting as a lever. Abb^ Corblet says that their existence is established as early as the ninth century, although no specimen older than the twelfth century was known to exist in recent times. The discovery some time ago, however, of one of these moulds at Carthage carries us back probably to the sixth or seventh century, before the destruction of that city by the Arabs. On this mould around the monogram of Christ is the inscription: Hic est flos CAMPi ET LiLinM (Delattre, " Un piMerinage aux mines de Carthage", 31, 46). Unfortunately this precious relic of Christian antiquity is incomplete.

The lower plate of a mould for hosts is engraved with two, four, or si.x figures of hosts which, by means of pressure, are reproduced on the paste and fixed there by baking. From the ninth to the eleventh century the irons moukled very thick hosts about as large as the palm of the hand. Towards the end of the eleventh century the dimensions were considera- bly reduced so that, with the same instrument, four hosts, two large and two small, coultl be moulded. With a thirteenth-century iron preserved at Sainte- Croix de Poitiers, two large hosts and three small ones can be made simultaneously, and an iron at Naintr^ (Vienne) moulds five hosts at once, all varying in size. A certain number of host-irons bear the date of mak- ing, the initial of the engraver's name, and the donor's coat-of-arms. A fourteenth-century mould at Saint- Barban (Haute-Vienne) makes hosts of different types for Lent and Easter time. The larger ones meas- ure 2J inches in diameter and the .smaller ones 1} inches; at the same period some large hosts had a diameter of 2} inches. A fifteenth-century iron at B^thine (Vienne) makes hosts bearing the figure of the triumphant Lamb, of the Holy Face surrounded with fleurs-de-lis, also of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. In the sixteenth century at Lamenay (Nievre) hosts were made representing Jesus Christ seated on His throne and imparting His blessing, the background being studded with stars; at Montjean (Maine-et^Loire) they were stamped with the image of Christ Crucified and Christ Risen, delicately framed in lihes and roses and heraldic in aspect. At Rouez (Sarthe) is an iron that moulds two hosts; the one represents Christ carrying His cross and bears the inscription; Qui. veult. venire, post. me. tollat. CRUCEM. 8UAM. ET. sEQU.\TUR. ME.; the Other repre- sents the Crucifi.xion and is thus inscribed: Foderunt.

MANUS. MEAS. ET. PEDES. MEGS. DINUMER.WERUNT. OMNIA. 08SA. MEA.

Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century host-irons have been preserved in large numbers, and are quite similar to those now in use, being stamped with the Lamb lying on the book, Christ upon the Cross, or the letters I H S emitting rays and encircled with grapes and thorns. Among the remarkable host-irons that have escaped destruction we may mention those of Beddes, Azy, Chassy, and Vailly (Cher), all four be- longing to the thirteenth century; those of Palluau (Indre) and of Crouzilles and Savigny (Indre-et- Loire), etc. Notable among the collections of the imprints of host-irons are those of M. Dumontet at Bourges, of M. Barbier de Montault at Limoges, of the Cluny museum, and of the Eucharistic museum of Paray-le-Monial. The Eastern Churches generally use a wooden mould. To make the hosts baked in the mould quite round they are cut with scissors, a punch, or a compass, one of the legs of which termi- nates in a knife.

Form and Dimensions. — The first mention of the form of hosts is found in St. Epiphanius in the fourth century when he says: ' ' hoc est enim rotimdse f ormse ", but the fact had already been placed on record by catacomb paintings and by very ancient bas-reliefs. Unity of form and size was only slowly established, and different customs prevailed in different provinces. At an early date the councils attempted to introduce uniformity on this point; one held at Aries in 554 ordered all the bishops of that province to use hosts of the same form as those used in the church of Aries. According to Mabillon, as early as the sixth century hosts were as small and thin as now, and it is stated that from the eighth century it was customary to bless small hosts intended for the faithful, an advanta- geous measure which dispensed with breaking the host and consequently prevented the crumbling that ensued.

As late as the eleventh century we find some oppo- sition to the custom, then growing general, of reserv-