The tabernacle and its history. An article by the President of the Pontifical Commission for Cultural Property
by Mauro Piacenza
Ab assuetis non fit passio, an ancient proverb says: “No attention is
paid to habitual things”; and it is a well-established si
Eucharistic dove, 12th-13th century, Abbey of Frassinoro (Monza)
Ab assuetis non fit passio, an ancient proverb says: “No attention
is paid to habitual things”; and it is a well-established sight for us to see
the tabernacle set in the middle of the altar. That wasn’t always its place and
again today, after Vatican Council II, one sometimes sees the tabernacle back
in a chapel away from the main body of the church or, in any case, off the high
altar. It seems to me worthwhile to go back over
liturgical history to examine the stages in an evolution always correlated to the
history of the altar. That there was one altar in churches is
documented from the 4th century, later they increased in number, but
absolute respect remained for the mensa dominica that excluded anything extraneous to the celebration
of the Holy Sacrifice. Toward the end of the 9th century a new,
highly expressive element began to appear on the altar table in a lasting way:
the relics of the saints. Very soon other elements were added, so many that at
the beginnings of the 10th century an important document, of
Gallican origin, known by the name of Admonitio Synodalis, that became general law for all the
Churches of West, prescribed that the altar must hold only «the urns of the
saints (capsae), the
missal and the pyx with the Body of the Lord for the sick; every other thing
should be kept in a fitting place». It wasn’t till the 16th century
that the tabernacle came to be fixed on the high altar and, later still, for it
to be set in the center of the table, the last phase in the historical
development of the altar. In dutiful homage to the recent encyclical and to the
consequent instruction on the Eucharist, I propose to describe – even if in
rapid summary - the history of the casing of the Eucharist, both in terms of
the location, and in terms of the sacred vessel used to contain the Eucharist. Period of the catacombs We know with certainty, from the unanimous
testimony of the Fathers of the early centuries, that during the persecutions
the Christians kept the Eucharist in their homes with worshipful love. When the
Eucharistic celebration finished the consecrated bread was distributed and
safeguarded in small jars or boxes by the faithful, to be taken when they felt
the need of it. The archaeologist G. B. de Rossi, basing himself on a text of
Saint Cyprian and on the Acts of the martyrs of Nicomedia, under Diocletian, calls these small jars
arca or arcula. Cardinal Bona, in his Rerum
liturgicarum, at n. 17,
cites the text of the dispositions imparted by a bishop of Corinth, that inform
us of the rite of a domestic communion. «If your house is endowed with an
oratory, you will set the vase containing the Eucharist on the altar, if there
is no oratory, on a decent table. You will spread a small cloth on the table
and you will there deposit the sacred fragments; you will burn some grains of
incense and you will sing the trisagion [our Sanctus, ed.] and the symbol; then, after having made three genuflexions, in sign
of adoration, you will take the Body of Jesus Christ religiously». Saint
Eusebius informs us that priests kept the Eucharist in their homes so as to
take communion to the sick. From ancient documents we also know that
the Eucharist was worn hanging from the neck, both inside the wrappings that
Saint Ambrose calls oraria, and in containers of gold, silver, ivory, wood, and even clay,
commonly called encolpia.
The encolpium was a
small box containing relics and also the book of the Gospels that believers
wore round their necks out of devotion. We know some examples found in the
tombs of the Vatican cemetery, cubed-shaped, with hanger and decorated on the
front with the monogram of Christ between the alpha and the omega. Period of the basilicas When after the peace of Constantine
Christians could celebrate in all liberty the sacred rites and build places of
worship, the Fathers tell us that very soon the practice was established of
safeguarding the Eucharist in the churches themselves even if, according to
Baronius, the custom of keeping the Eucharist in private homes stopped
definitely at the beginning of the 4th century. Saint John
Chrysostom informs us that sometimes the Eucharist was kept under the two
species and we know from Saint Ambrose that, in Milan, the precious Blood was
kept in a gold, barrel-shaped container called dolium. Sacredness and the preciousness are a
constant. And it is the logic of faith and love. The container of the Eucharist took two
forms in the early basilicas: the tower and the dove. Scholars are divided on which form came first but,
in all probability, the tower served as case for the dove which contained the
Eucharistic bread. Evidence for the hypothesis is the material used in
manufacture: in fact the towers were of silver and the doves of gold. The
librarian Anastasius wrote in his De vita Pontificum that Constantine gave the basilica of
Saint Peter a tower and a dove of pure gold, embellished with two hundred and
fifty white pearls; Innocent I had a tower of silver and a dove of gold made
for the church of Saints Gervasius and Protasius and Pope Hilary gave the
Lateran basilica a tower of silver and a dove of gold. There is also debate
about the location of the towers and the doves. Citing a passage in the Apostolic
Constitutions, dating
from the 4th century, there are those who claim they were kept in
the pastophorium, that
is in the more secluded and inaccessible place in the church: «After everyone
has communicated, the deacons take leftovers to the pastophorium». There is
some who identify the sacrarium as the place of safekeeping. A passage in Saint Jerome makes clear that
they are two names for the same place: «Quare “sacrariu”, in quo iacet
Christi corpus, qui verus est Ecclesiae et animarum nostrarum sponsus, proprie
thalamus seu “pastophorium” appellatur». It is a matter of a place nobly reserved, away from
the central body of the church. The Eucharistic species was inserted in
the dove through a small opening in the back and carefully closed with a lid
with a clasp. The towers and the doves were suspended on fine chains over the
center of the ciborium
that covered the altar. It should be pointed out here that ciborium (later tegurium and tiburium) indicated the foursquare canopy that,
from the time of Constantine, rose above the altar, rising from the four sides,
to endow it with elegance and sumptuousness. Sometimes under the ciborium there
was another canopy, smaller in size, that took the name of peristerium (dovecot) as it safeguarded the
Eucharistic dove. The four curtains shaping the ciborium, called for that
reason tetravela,
remained in use up to the last years of the 9th century. The
ciborium has its own particular history in Christian art that cannot be dealt
with here. One cannot, however, fail to mention as the triumph of Baroque art
the ciborium by Lorenzo Bernini that soars majestically to twenty-nine meters
high in the air of Michelangelo’s dome. The Eucharistic faith becomes art and
the art illustrates the Eucharistic faith. How much we have to learn! But this
lesson is not learned only in the course of the indispensable lessons of
architecture and of the varied arts that follow on from it. Essential is the
cathedra of great theology and that of the prayer stool, of prayer, of the life
of grace, of pietas,
of the impassioned immersion in the paschal vitality of the liturgical year, in
the great sense of the perennial traditio Ecclesiae. One needs to be habituated to the
horizon of eternity against which everything that is transitory is measured. Romanesque period In the Romanesque period, the two forms
already in use – tower and dove – were increased in number by the pyx. The name
generically designates the sacred vessel, of any shape or size, that contains
the Eucharist. The Greek noun, however, has the precise meaning of box, so removing any ambiguity from the
generic term of “case”, decidedly differentiating this vessel from the tower
and the dove. The Romanesque doves, as compared to the ancient exemplars, are
furnished with a pedestal that sometimes has the edge turned up lightly. It
should be said of the use of the dove as container of the Eucharistic reserve
that if it was common in France in the Middle Ages, it was not so in Italy
where, from the 11th to the 16th century, the preference
was for cabinets set in the wall or for the secretarium, a fitting sacristy. It is not said that the use of the pyx
displaced that of the tower and of the dove – for that matter the pyx is no
more than a tower of medium size. It usually consists of a round box, sometimes
square, closed by a lid mostly conical but also flat. Precisely because of
these features it was very practical in use and also inexpensive. The pyx was
sometimes attached to the beak of the dove as an evident sign of the presence
of the Eucharistic species inside. There are also examples of pyxes supported
by a pedestal, especially from the 12th century, hence the term pyx
pediculata. The Eucharistic cases – towers, doves and
pyxes – were hung over the altar in the Romanesque period but, the ancient
ciborium having disappeared, the method of suspension was also altered.
Generally a cross-shaped pendant was fixed to the altarpiece and the case was
hung from its scroll. There is no lack of examples of other solutions, even of
a certain artistic value, but it would take too long to describe. In the Romanesque period gold and silver
were the usual materials for the manufacture of Eucharistic containers,
whatever their form. Precious stones were also used to embellish pyxes. Gilded
and enamelled brass was also used, ivory, and even wood.
Tabernacle on the high altar of Siena cathedral, 15th century
Gothic period Durung this period the way of conserving
the Blessed Sacrament offered various solutions. The case – tower, dove or pyx
– was suspended above the altar wrapped in a veil. Sometimes the case was
placed under the altar, as appears from the Synodal Statutes of Liege of 1287: «Corpus
Domini in honesto loco, sub altari vel in armariolo sub clave custodiant». Normally, however, the case was kept in
a cabinet or aedicule, dug out of the wall, to the right or left of the altar. Care was taken, especially in churches of
a certain importance, to embellish the door of the cabinet with elegant tracery
and also with painted images, all framed by a pointed arch supported by small
pillars topped again by arches and surmounted by pinnacles. At all events care
went into painting both the interior and the door of the cabinet. A circular
opening or one in the shape of a three- or four-leaved clover, closed by a
grille, made in the wall in alignment with the interior of the closet, allowed
the faithful to worship the Blessed Sacrament at any time from outside. A lamp
lit in front of the opening indicated from a distance the place where the
transubstantiated bread was kept. With the coming of the 16th
century people were no longer satisfied with this decorated, significant but
always modest closet, even if of a certain artistic interest. The first aedicules
of the Sacrament began to
appear. At first – a section of the 14th century – they were a
characteristic almost exclusive to the churches of northern Europe. The origin of these aedicules shows us how
the Holy Spirit guides the faithful and they are owed to the widespread popular
piety that in the Middle Ages led to the desire to contemplate the consecrated
Host both during holy mass, at the moment of the elevation, and outside of the
celebration. The cult of the Eucharist centered on the so-called monstrances that multiplied the display of the
Eucharist, almost through a multiplication of a faith as heartfelt and simple
as it was deep and precious. The monstrance was nothing other than the public worship
of the Body of the Lord with the Host exposed to adoration inside an ostensory.
The practice of the monstrances was so ingrained in the people that certain
restrictive measures formulated by some Synods were unable to limit them. One
can, however, point to the first feast of Corpus Christi as celebrated by the
canons of Liege in 1247. Pope Urban IV, in 1264, extended it to the whole
Church, but only in 1316 was it definitely and providentially approved by Pope
John XXII. The Eucharistic aedicules were the intersection of popular devotion
and synodal dispositions, in that they achieved a kind of permanent exposition
of the Blessed Sacrament in front of the faithful. They are monumental
constructions, in the form of a tower the height of which sometimes almost
reaches the ceiling, mainly in ogival style, inside which the consecrated Host
was kept in a transparent case behind a wide metallic grille, in such a way as
to enable the faithful to contemplate the Sacrament, even if in a somewhat hazy
fashion. The tabernacle on the altar table The latest historical phase in the
evolution of the tabernacle, as Eucharistic container, that was to have its
place on the altar table, began in the early 16th century. The
pioneer of this solution in Italy was the pious bishop of Verona, Monsignor Matteo
Giberti, who decided on it for the churches of his diocese. To be historically
precise this arrangement is already mentioned in the Ordinationes of the Hermits of Saint Augustine,
compiled under Alexander IV (1254-1261): «We want that in all our churches the
Body of Christ be kept in a ciborium set above the high altar, inside pyxes of
ivory or other precious material, in moderate quantity, covered by the cleanest
of veils». The disposition of Monsignor Giberti was
particularly welcomed in northern Italy and soon spread to other dioceses,
first Milan through the work of Saint Charles Borromeo who decided on the
transfer of the location of the Blessed Sacrament from the sacristy to an altar
in the cathedral. In Rome this initiative was warmly backed by Pope Paul IV. In
1614 the Ritual of
Paul V imposed it on the churches of his diocese, recommending its adoption in
others. Outside Italy various Councils left free choice in the placing of the
container of the Blessed Sacrament; in general, wall tabernacles were preferred
and, where they existed, Eucharistic aedicules. As we know, those were the years of the
application of the norms of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) that, in this
case, reacted to the Protestant doctrine denying the permanence of the real presence
of Christ in the Eucharistic species. The need to affirm Catholic doctrine led
to the spread of the placing of the tabernacle so that it was highly visible on
the high altar. The more usual form was that of small house, embedded in the
shelf of the altar, flanked by steps (normally arranged in three orders) on
which candlesticks were set to take lighted candles, sometimes many, especially
when there was solemn exposition of the Eucharist. In this way the table
became, visually, almost a minor part of the altar that was ever more
monumental and on which large artistic development was given to crosses,
candlesticks, reliquary-busts or statues of saints and angels, large
altarpieces, etc. In the eighteenth century the most highly considered pieces
were the doors of the tabernacles, in precious metals and stones. Toward the mid 18th century the
placing of the tabernacle on the altar was by common practice in almost all
churches, so that Benedict XIV could declare it a “rule in force” in his Accepimus constitution (16 July 1746). It was
universally accepted after the decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites of 16
August 1863 that forbade any other form of container.
Tabernacle attributed to Arnolfo da Cambio, 14th century, Basilica of San Clemente, Rome
The current rule The present rule on the place where the
Holy Eucharist must be kept is the outcome of the liturgical renewal conducted
by the Vatican II Ecumenical Council. In the majority of our churches, for known
historical reasons, the central element - dominant over the altar itself - has,
for about four centuries, been the Eucharistic tabernacle. The liturgical
adaptation of existing churches, aimed at highlighting the primacy of the
Eucharistic celebration and hence the centrality of the altar, must also take
account of the specific function of the Eucharistic reserve. It is necessary,
therefore, that in eventual cases of adaptation peculiar concern be devoted to
the “place” and to the features of the Eucharistic reserve. In this case, the
setting aside of a place for the conservation of the Eucharist must be done in
such a way as to give greater stress to the mystery of the permanence of the
real presence and to create the conditions for its adoration. Also the placing and eventual construction
of a new noble Eucharistic container should facilitate its identification, and
the direct access to it in secluded surroundings favorable to individual
adoration. Should the Eucharistic chapel not be immediately visible on entry,
opportune indications, clear and in good taste, should be devised that lead one
to it. In the chapel, as in the space for the celebration, benches with
kneelers must not be lacking so that the possibility of worshipping while
kneeling remains customary. This needs to be said and done in so far as there
exist insidious practices aimed as making it extremely difficult to pray
kneeling. The visible means are also eliminated. Under it all there is an
attack on belief in the real presence. How can one fail to notice? One must remember in any case that in
every church the tabernacle for the reserve and for Eucharistic adoration must
be one and the same. The Blessed Sacrament must be kept in
really important architectural surroundings, normally distinct from the nave of
the church, suitable for adoration and prayer - above all individual -
graciously decorated and adequately lit. Apart from being the only one, the
tabernacle must also be unmoveable, solid and inviolable, not transparent. One
should not neglect to set close to it the lamp with the eternal flame, in
homage to the Lord. The gauze veil and floral ornament also help make people
aware of the life that pulsates within that container. As an alternative to the Eucharistic
chapel, which is the recommended solution, a solution that sets apart a space
within the body of the church (for example, a capacious side chapel), to be
adapted with dignity, decorum and aptness for prayer and adoration, and to be
properly marked out, can also be considered suitable (cf. General ordinance
of the Roman Missal, Rome
20043, nn. 314-317). It is perhaps not out of place here to
mention the sacred vessels destined to hold the body and the blood of the Lord
during mass (chalice, paten) and during Eucharistic adoration (monstrance).
Recently the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the
Sacraments issued an instruction «on some things that must be observed and
avoided concerning the Holy Eucharist» which also deals with the sacred
vessels, reminding us that they must be forged from materials that are
considered noble, according to local judgment, and vessels in everyday use or
without any artistic value (citing baskets, vessels of glass, clay, or other
fragile material) must be avoided, so that «their use may render honor to the
Lord and entirely avoid the risk of belittling in the eyes of believers the
doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharistic species» (Redemptionis
sacramentum, 24 April
2004, n. 117).
