Eucharist in the Middle Ages

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The Eucharist stands at the heart of western European Christianity in the high middle ages. The insistence of church officials on regular reception of the Eucharist; the numerous scholastic treatments of the theoretical issues associated with the Eucharist; the recourse by spiritual authors, especially women, to the Eucharist to express their most profound religious and devotional insights; the pointed reference to the Christ Eucharistically-present to establish Christian identity and to distinguish the members of Christ from others, both within and outside of western Europe; the development of new rituals focussed on aspects of the Eucharist; the burgeoning of artistic representations of Eucharistic themes—all testify to the centrality of the Eucharist in medieval theological and religious consciousness. Through the close reading of representative texts by a wide variety of 13th-century authors, and the study of the different kinds of 'Eucharistic' art, this course examines the uses made of the Eucharist by a broad spectrum of high medieval Christians. A special concern of the course is the relation between Eucharistic doctrine and religious practice—to what extent have teachings about transubstantiation and real presence shaped religious expression? How has religious experience itself occasioned the refinement of these doctrines?