Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/851

 LAMPETIANS

769

LAMPRECHT

writers (see e. g. Corl)let, "Hist, du sacrcment de rEucharistie", II, 4o3 sq., and Thalhofor, " Liturgik", I, 670) to represent tliis as a tratlitioii of very early date. But the testimonies upon which this opinion is based are, many of them, quite illusive (see "The Month", .\pril, 1907, pp. 380 seq.). St. Paulinus of Nola, indeed, seems to speak of a silver lamp con- tinually burning in the church: —

Paulo Crucis ante decus de limine eodem Continuum scyphus est argenteus aptus ad usum. But there is no indication that this bore any refer- ence to the Blessed Sacrament. It woukl seem rather to be suggested by the context that it was of the nature of a watchlight and a protection against thieves. No really conclusive evidence has yet been produced which warrants us in declaring that the practice of honouring tlie Blessed Sacrament by burning a hght continually before it is older than the latter part of the twelfth century. Still, it was undoubtedly the cus- tom for some hundreds of years before this to burn lights before relics and shrines as a mark of honour — the candles burnt b)- Iving .\Ifred the Great before his relics, and used by him to measure the hours, are a famous example — and it may be that this custom generally extended to the place where the Blessed Sacrament was reserved. The constant association of lights with the Holy Grail in the Grail romances is sug- gestive of this. But the great movement for pro- viding a perpetual lamp before the altar must un- doubtedly be traced to the preaching in France and England of a certain Eustace, Abbot of Fleay, about A. D. 1200. " Eustace also laid it down", says Walter of Coventry, speaking of liis visit to England, " that in London and in many other places, there should be in every church where it was practicable, a burning lamp or some other perpetual light before the Lord's Body." Shortly after this we begin to find the practice en- joined by synodal decrees (e. g. at Worcester, in 1240, at Saumur, in 1276, etc.), but as a rule these earlier in- junctions recognize that, owing to the cost of oil and wax, such requirements could hartUy be complied with in the poorer churches. It was not until the sixteenth century that the maintenance of a light, wherever the Blessed Sacrament was reserved, was recognized as a matter of strict obligation. At present the official " Rituale Romanum" (Tit. IV, cap. 1) prescribes that " both by day and night two or more lamps or at least one [lampades plures vel saltern una] must burn con- tinually before the Blessed Sacrament", and the re- sponsibility of seeing that this is carried out rests with the priest in charge of the parish. It is further di- rected that the oil used should be vegetable oil, by preference that of the oUve on account of its symbol- ism; but exceptionally, in consequence of poverty or some other reason, a mineral oil, like petroleum, may be employed with the bishop's permission. The lan- guage of the " Caeremoniale Episcoporum" (I, xii, 17) might easily suggest that at least in the larger churches more lamps than one should be lit, but always an odd number, that is to say, three at least before the high altar, and five before the altar of the Blessed Sacra- ment. It seems, however, that this direction of the "Caeremoniale" is to be understood as applying only to greater festivals.

During all the Middle Ages the burning of lamps, or sometimes candles, before relics, shrines, statues, and other objects of devotion was a form of piety which greatly appealed to the alms of the faithful, .\lmost every collection of early English wills bears witness to it, and even in the smaller churches the number of such lights founded by private beneficence was often sur- prisingly great. It not infrequently happened that every guild and association maintained a special light of its own, and, besides these, we hear constantly of such objects of devotion as the "Jesus light", the "Hok-light" (which seems to have to do with a popular festival kept on the second Monday or Tues- VIII.— 19

day after Easter Sunday), the " Rootl light", the "egg light" (probably maintained by contributions of eggs), the "bachelor's light", the "maiden's light", the "Soul's light", etc. Many of these bequests will be found conveniently illustrated and classified in Dun- can and Hussey's "Testamcnta Cantiana'', Lond. 1906.

Lampadarii were slaves who carried torches before consuls, emperors, and other officials of high dignity both during the later Roman Republic and under the Empire. There seems no special reason to attribute to the lampadarii any ecclesiastical character, though their functions were imitated by the acolytes and other clerics who preceded the bishop or celebrant, carrying torches in their hands, in the solemn pro- cession to the altar and in other jirocessiuns.

Thalhofer, Litunjik, I (Freilmr^-. iss:!!. «IW-SI: Schrod in Kirchenlex.. VII, 1970-72: llOBAl l.r l.K Fi.t;rliY. La Messe, VI (Paris, ISSS), l-;53; Leclercq. Mnnud d\irch.oUiaie. II (Paris. 1907), 557-70: Gabrucci, Storia delV Arte Cristiana, VI (Rome, 1K81), plates 472-76; Hotham s.v. in Diet. Christ. Anlig. (1880); De Waal, in Kbaus, Realcncyclopadie, II (1886), 267- 78. .See also Chev.\lier. Topobibl.

A full account of all that is known of the lampadarii may be found in Daremberg and Saglio Dictionnaire des Anliquitcs, III (Paris. 1904). 909, whers fuller references are given. Most other accounts are not reliable.

Herbert Thurston.

Lampetians. See Mess.\^li.ois.

Lamprecht, surnamed Der Pf.^ffe (The Priest), German poet of the twelfth century, of whom practi^ cally nothing personal is known but his name and the fact that he was a cleric. He is the author of the " Alexanderlied", the first German secular epic com- posed on a French model. According to the poet's own statement this model was a poem on Alexander the Great by Alb^ric de Besan^'on, of which only a portion of the beginning, 105 verses in all, is pre- served (discovered and published by Paul Heyse, Berlin, 1856). The poem contained a fabulous ac- count of the life and deeds of the great Macedonian conqueror as it was current in Greek and Latin ver- sions of the early Middle Ages, such as the Greek ro- mance of pseudo-Callisthenes, dating from the third century .\. D., the Latin translation of Julius \'alerius, the epitome thereof, and especially the free Latin ver- sion made by the Neapolitan archpresbyter Leo in the tenth century, known as the " Historia de preliis". A comparison of Lamprecht's opening lines with the fragment preserved of the French original shows that he followed his source with tolerable fidelity, adding, however, occasional moralizing comments or remarks of a learned nature. .Altogether there are 7302 verses in short rhymed couplets, the rhyme being very im- perfect. Besides Alberic's poem, which, as far as we know it, is based on Valerius, Lamprecht used also the "Historia de preliis" and an "Iter ad paradisum", especially in the narration of the marvels seen by .Alexander in the Far East, and in the accoimt of the hero's journey to Paradise. There admittance is re- fused him, and he is made to realize the emptiness of earthly glory. Thus the close of the poem is dis- tinctly moralizing in tone: the career of tlie great con- queror is but an illustration of the dictum concerning the vanity of earthly things. The poem seems to have been written in Middle Rhenish territory about 1130, at a time, therefore, when the cru.sades had brought the East nearer to the Western world, and when stories of its marvels were sure to find an eager audi- ence.

We possess three manuscripts of Lamprecht's poem, one from Vorau which is not quite complete, one from Strasburg dating from 1187, which is aliout five times as extensive as the preceding, and lastly a version interpolated in the manuscript of a Basle chronicle. The relationship of the manuscripts to one another is in doubt. The Vorau manuscript is generally re- garded as the oldest and most authentic; that of Strasburg as an amplified recension. The Basle man-