8329.
Linen Cloth or Corporal, with an edge on all its four sides; 2¼ inches broad, embroidered in blue, white, and yellow silks. German, late 15th century. 22 inches by 21 inches.
To the student of ecclesiastical antiquities this liturgical appliance will be a great curiosity, from its being so much larger than the corporals now in use; but its size may be easily accounted for. From being put over the altar-cloth, on the middle of the table of the altar, so that the priest, at mass, might place the host and chalice immediately upon it before and after the consecration of the Eucharist, it got, and still keeps the name of “corporale,” about which the reader may consult “Hierurgia,” p. 74, 2nd edition.
The embroidery, seemingly of a vine, is somewhat remarkable from being, like Indian needlework, the same on both sides, and was so done for a purpose to be noticed below. Its greater size may be easily explained. During the middle ages, as in England, so in Germany, the usage was to cover the chalice on the altar, not with a little square piece of linen called a “palla,” two specimens of which are mentioned, [No. 8327], but with the corporal itself, as shown in those illuminations copied and given as a frontispiece to the fourth volume of the “Church of our Fathers.” To draw up for this purpose the inner edge of the corporal, it was made, as needed, larger than the one now in use. Moreover, as the under side of the embroidery would thus be turned upwards and conspicuously shown, even on the consecrated chalice, to a great extent; and as anything frayed and ragged—and this single embroidery always is on the under side—would, at such a time, in such a place, have been most unseemly; to hinder this disrespect the embroidery was made double, that is, as perfect on the one side as on the other, giving the design clear and accurate on both, so that whichever part happened to be turned upwards it looked becoming.