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the priest recited this prayer in a hushed voice, audible only to those, like
the deacon, who knelt next to him at the altar. So essential was this prayer
to the Mass that an aging or distracted priest, who could not remember
whether he had recited it, was to stop the Mass and repeat it again.^112 The
people in the nave joined their own prayers to the celebrant’s by reciting the
Pater Noster slowly and quietly several times or, if they were literate, by
reciting a psalm.^113 In the early communal period, the people knew that the
Consecration had been completed only when the priest raised his voice to
chant the closing doxology of the Canon.^114 Around 1200 , growing demands
by the laity to view the newly consecrated Body of Christ led priests to raise
the Host over their heads for the faithful’s adoration. What was originally a
private and local practice first became obligatory in Paris in 1208.^115 Within
a year or two, this elevation, along with the ringing of a bell to alert the laity
to it, had already appeared in Italian synodal statutes.^116 The focus on show-
ing brought with it new synodal legislation on the whiteness of the Commu-
nion bread, not only because of the symbolic purity, but to increase
visibility.^117 Elevation torches, multiwick candles held by acolytes, to illumi-
nate the sacred bread also became popular at this time.^118 Somewhat later,
an elevation of the chalice balanced that of the Host.^119 By midcentury,
unless poverty prevented it, deacons incensed the Host and the chalice con-
tinually during the elevations, giving honor to Christ’s presence and symbol-
izing the people’s prayers of praise.^120
After the doxology and its amen, the priest chanted (alone) the Pater
Noster and prayed for peace in the world. He then turned to greet the people
with the words ‘‘Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum’’ (The Peace of the Lord
be always with you). Then followed one of the most distinctive rites of the
medieval Mass. After first kissing the chalice containing the precious blood
and a small fragment of the Host, the celebrant then kissed a small instru-
ment, the Pax, usually an object of glass, wood, or metal decorated with an
image of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, or the Crucifixion. The subdeacon
took this instrument, which symbolized the Peace of Christ flowing from his
- See J. Pohle, ‘‘Eucharist,’’The Catholic Encyclopedia 5 ( 1909 ): 585 ; cf. Trexler,Christian at Prayer, 33
and 124 n. 23. - Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale,msMagl.xxxvi. 81 bis, fol. 36 v.
- This is the only ‘‘elevation’’ known to Sicardo,Mitrale, 3. 6 , cols. 128 – 29 , andOrdo Senensis, 2. 64 ,
p. 467 , both of which predate 1210. - Hans Caspary, ‘‘Kult und Aufbewahrung der Eucharistie in Italien vor dem Tridentinum,’’
Archiv fu ̈r Liturgiewissenschaft 9 ( 1965 ): 102 , and Lett,Enfant, 85 ; cf. a later date in V. L. Kennedy, ‘‘The
Date of the Parisian Decree on the Elevation of the Host,’’Medieval Studies 8 ( 1946 ): 87 – 96. - For a 1210 example at Novara, see Michele Maccarrone, ‘‘ ‘Cura animarum’ e ‘parochialis
sacerdos’ nelle costituzioni delivConcilio Lateranense ( 1215 ): Applicazioni in Italia nel sec.xiii,’’Pievi e
parrocchie,ed. Erba et al., 1 : 88 n. 20. - See Salimbene,Cronica( 1250 ), 496 , Baird trans., 342.
- See, e.g., Recupero of Arezzo,Summarium Virtutum, 12. 125 ,p. 225.
- It appears in Guillelmus Durandus,Rationale Divinorum Officiorum,ed. A. Davril and T. M. Thibo-
deau (Turnout: Brepols, 1995 ), 5. 41. 47 – 52 , 1 : 264 – 65 , which is after 1250. - For an early statute on this, see Lucca Synod ( 1253 ), 8 ,p. 55.