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RARY ST. MARY'S COLLEG
CORPUS CHHISTI.
345
and although the nature of the disease required
isolation, i the Church met the leper case with special
alleviations. It is probable that most large rnonas
teries had their own leper house. i ____^___
In England, as elsewhere, the institution of Corpus
Christi gave great impetus to a devotion already
/leeply rooted in English hearts. Pope John XXII.
extended this feast, which originated at Liege, in
Belgium, during the thirteenth century, to the Universal
Church in 1316, and it became known in
England between 1320 and 1325. Before and after
Corpus Christi mark epochs in the Church. Before
it the cultus of the Blessed Sacrament was restricted
to Mass and Communion, although the Holy Eucharist
was reserved from the earliest times. The place
selected in England for reservation was at first the
porch or sacristy, sometimes the church itself, later
011 the chancel. In course of time guilds of Corpus
Christi were formed with altars and side chapels,
but these were not used for reservation. The
Blessed Sacrament was enclosed in a hanging pyx,
as in Belgium.2 The use of a tabernacle was desired
by Cardinal Pole, but never carried out in Catholic
times. Benediction is a rite of much later date, and
was absolutely unknown to our forefathers. The
great act of worship introduced by Corpus Christi
was the procession of the Blessed Sacrament.
Henry V. in his chivalrous piety made it a crime of
1 See in Dim.lule the account of that of Reading Abbey, p. 419.
- BrM^ett, History of the Holy Eucharist, ii. p. 85.