Economies of Salvation: Commerce and the Eucharist in The Profanation of the Host and the Croxton Play of the Sacrament
1994; University of California; Volume: 25; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1557-0290
Autores Tópico(s)Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
ResumoECONOMIES O F SALVATION: C O M M E R C E AND T H E EUCHARIST IN THE PROFANA TION OF THE HOST T H E C R O X T O N PLA Y OF THE AND SACRAMENT Alexandra Reid-Schwartz A Eucharist m i r a c l e tale k n o w n as the Miracle de la Sainte Hostie, papal w h i c h was p o p u l a r i n t h i r t e e n t h - c e n t u r y France and received r e c o g n i t i o n i n a B u l l issued i n 1295 b y Pope Boniface V I I I , resurfaced cen t h r o u g h o u t E u r o p e i n various artistic forms i n the late fifteenth tury. I n t h i s paper I w i l l consider w h y this p a r t i c u l a r Eucharist tale appears so p r e v a l e n t l y i n the late M i d d l e Ages, even i n a c o u n t r y l i k e England miracles. which had hitherto shown minimal interest in Eucharist a I w i l l l o o k i n p a r t i c u l a r at The Profanation of the Host, predella w h i c h Paolo U c c e l l o painted f o r the h i g h altar o f the U r b i n o ' A basic outline of the 1290 tale is as follows: A Parisian Jew buys a consecrated Host for ten pounds from his Christian serving girl. H e places the Host on a table, declaring that Christians are fools to believe in it, and joined by other Jews, he attempts to destroy the Host with large knives. T h e Host divides into three parts and bleeds continuously, at which sight many of the Jews convert. T h e remaining Jews place the Host in a cauldron of boiling water to destroy it, but the Host turns into flesh and blood, and the Jews convert. See Margaret Aronberg Lavin, The Altar of the Corpus D o m i n i in U r b i n o : Paolo Uccello, Joos V a n Ghent, Piero delia Franceses, The Art Bulletin 49 (1967): 3. T h e thirteenth- and fourteenth-century versions in France are Chronicles of Saint-Denis (1285-1328) and an anonymous version in 1325; in Italy, in La Cronaca Figurata of Giovanni Villani, compiled before 1348 (Lavin 2-3). T h e k n o w n fifteenth-century versions are, in France, a drama called Le jeu el mystere de la Samel Hostie, and in Italy a drama called Un miracolo del Corpo di Cristo (publ. 1498). I n 1473, a version of the play was pan of a festival held in Rome and in 1500, a Dutch version of the play was published. See Norman Davis, ed. Non-Cycle Plays and Fragments (Early English Text Society, 1984) Ixxiii ff. All references to the Croxton Play of the Sacrament will be from this edition and will appear parenthetically by line number in the text. ^Rosemary Woolf, The English Mystery Plays (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of Cali fornia Press, 1972), 68-70; Miri Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (New Y o r k : Cambridge U n i v . Press, 1991), 287. Comitatus 25 (1994)
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