From Sacred Mystery to Divine Deception: Robert Holkot, John Wyclif and the Transformation of Fourteenth-Century Eucharistic Discourse

In his extremely popular preaching handbook the Summa praedicantium , in a chapter devoted to the Eucharist, the fourteenth-century Dominican John Bromyard relates an exemplum about a certain holy man. This man's "faith towards the sacrament was so great," Bromyard writes, that it was often said that were Christ himself to enter "the church during the elevation of the host, the man would not go to look at him, and in so doing lose sight of the host." ¹ While it lacks the spectacular firepower that characterizes so many Eucharistic miracle stories, that characterize so many of Bromyard's own stories — like the one about the bees who construct a honeycomb tabernacle and buzz chants to honour a hive-hidden host — in many ways it does more than most to move us to the very centre of the medieval Eucharistic experience. ² It is, when all is said and done, a story about belief and about the miracle of the Eucharist. This unnamed holy man does not need to get up, does not need to hurry over to greet Christ at the door. He does not need to do any of these things because he already sees Christ right there in the upraised hands of the priest, in the consecrated host.