Catholic scholar and priest, Nathan Mitchell, in an informative study on the worship of the Eucharist and its historical development, wrote the following about the Medieval-era debates about when consecration happens during the Mass:
When Does the Consecration Happen?
Berengarius died about 1088, and LanFranc about 1089; but for better or worse, eucharistic controversy did not die when they did. By the mid-twelfth century, most western theologians could agree that bread and wine are really changed into Christ’s body and blood, and that the change happens in virtue of the words of Christ spoken by the priest in the eucharistic prayer. But a new question then arose: what is the exact moment of consecration? Do all the words, for both bread and cup, need to be said before any change happens? Or is the bread already consecrated as soon as the priest has said “This is my body”?
To scholars of our own day, such questions seem poorly posed—and to Christians living outside academia they may sound absurd. But in the twelfth century such issues were taken very seriously. There appears to be, moreover, a direct connection between the debates about the moment of consecration and the liturgical custom of elevating the host at Mass. What were the theological issues involved in this controversy, and how did they contribute to the further development of eucharistic cult and devotion?
Three Schools of Thought
As V.L. Kennedy has assessed the evidence, three schools of thought about the moment of consecration emerged between the years 1160 and 1208.
The “safe” school: As Berengarius had discovered in the 1050s, theology can be hazardous to one’s health and reputation. In every age there seem to be theologians who prefer to hedge their bets, pursuing a safe course through theological thickets that are potentially dangerous. Such a theologian was Peter of Troyes, a scholar who taught at Paris during the 1160s and received the astonishing surname Comester (Peter the Eater). Peter developed a formula that circulated widely in Europe, possibly because it was sufficiently ambiguous to be considered safe, and sufficiently exact to be considered acceptable. The formula ran: quando totum dictum est, totus factum est—When everything has been said, everything has been done. This clever theological jingle left the door open just enough: it clearly affirmed that the consecration is accomplished by the words of Christ, but it left each person free to decide whether it happens all at once or separately (for the bread, then for the cup).
The “separate consecration” school: Peter’s formula left many theologians unsatisfied. Stephen Langton, who taught at Paris as early as 1180 and was later nominated as Archbishop of Canterbury (1206), preferred the view that each species is consecrated separately. In one of this Quaestiones, Stephen wondered why the church had not literally imitated the actions of Jesus: first consecration and distributing the bread, then the wine. But as a devout ecclesiastic, Stephen accepted the church’s actual practice (consecration of the species first; distribution later) and even tried defending it by suggesting that Jesus himself may actually have done the same thing. Other theologians, like Simon of Tournai, argued that each consecration (for bread, then for cup) is de facto independently effective, but that in actual practice (de debito) one cannot take place without the other.
The “single consecration” school: The champion of the third school was Peter, surnamed Cantor (the Singer). Peter the Singer was as clear as Peter the Eater had been ambiguous. If a priest were to stop after the words “This is my body,” Peter Cantor argued that no consecration would have taken place. His logic was straightforward:
A true body cannot exist without blood.
But there is no blood in this sacrament until the wine is consecrated;
Therefore, the bread is not truly consecrated until the entire formula for both species has been said by the priest.
In short, Peter was arguing that the two clauses of the consecratory formula are to interdependent that one is not effective without the other . . . If Christians kneel and adore the host before the wine has been consecrated, are they guilty of idolatry? Peter the Singer said yes, because at that point in the Mass, given his theory, bread is still only bread. (Nathan Mitchell, Cult and Controversy: The Worship of the Eucharist Outside Mass [Studies in the Reformed Rites of the Catholic Church, Volume IV; New York: Pueblo Publishing Company, 1982], 151-53)
Elsewhere (Ibid., 157-59), Mitchell discussed the development of “concomitance,” something that would later be elevated to a dogma in 1415:
Debates over Concomitance and Initiation
Concomitance and Conversion
The Berengarian controversy had forced theologians to seek ways of expressing the church’s traditional faith that Christ is truly present in the eucharist in more abstract and precise theological language. This search for an acceptable theological language touched especially upon questions of change and presence in the sacrament. Earlier, we saw how Lanfranc tried to hammer out a language for eucharistic doctrine based on distinctions between appearances and truth, flesh and body, partial and total reality. We saw, too, the difficulties Berengarius had in dealing with the language of change in the sacramental elements.
During the period between 1160 and 1210, theologians began working with a technical distinction between concomitance and conversion. These words were aimed at clarifying how Christ is “whole and entire, body and blood, soul and divinity” present in each of the sacramental species. The question was closely related to the discussion about the exact moment of consecration, for it will be remembered that Peter the Singer’s objection to the “separate consecration” theory was that “a body cannot exist without blood,” and that no blood exists in the eucharist until the chalice has also been consecrated. As a way of overcoming Peter’s objection, theologians came up with the following distinction:
Concomitance: When the bread is consecrated into Christ’s body, it follows as a necessary consequence that the blood is also present, since it is true that a body cannot exist without blood. Christ’s blood is thus concomitantly or consequently present as soon as the bread is consecrated.
Conversion: When the cup is consecrated, however, there is a direct and immediate transformation or conversion of the wine into Christ’s blood.
This somewhat awkward distinction amounted to a partial concession to Peter’s objection: a body without blood is nothing more than a cadaver. At the same time, however, it allows adherents of the “separate consecration” school to maintain their viewpoint. For the distinction permitted a theologian to say that:
Christ’s blood is present under the species of bread through the mode of concomitance; hence it is perfectly acceptable for Christians to reverence and adore the host of the words “This is my body,” for the host contains the whole Christ, body and blood, soul and divinity.
Christ’s blood is present under the species of wine through the mode of immediate, direct conversion; hence the mode by which Christ’s blood is present in the consecrated wine differs from the mode by which it is present in the bread.
These distinctions seem very remote from the actual experience of most Christians in the eucharistic liturgy. But for better or worse, the theory of concomitance and conversion had a decisive impact on the shape of worship.
The eucharistic cup: In Chapter Three we saw the beginning of the gradual denial of the eucharistic cup to the laity during the Carolingian epoch. Now, in the late twelfth century, this custom was provided with a theological rationale. Since Christ’s blood is concomitantly present in the consecrated bread, the cup is unnecessary: lay persons receive the whole Christ, body and blood, when they receive in the species of bread alone. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the thirteenth century giving the cup to the laity declined even further.
For the purported biblical evidence for Concomitance, see: