Since in those days bishops exercised the right of appointing feasts in their own dioceses, it was of the utmost importance that Robert de Thorete, Bishop of Liège since 1240, was in favour of the introduction of this festival. He gave a sympathetic hearing to the proposals of those in favour of the feast, called a diocesan synod in 1246, which decided in favour of its introduction,[274] and proscribed for his clergy the recitation of an office composed by Canon John, but died on the 16th October 1246, without having formally instituted the festival. It was kept, however, as agreed upon, by the canons of St Martin’s in the following year, and later on it was approved by the Papal Legates, Cardinals Hugo and Peter Capocci.
When James Pantaleon ascended the papal throne in 1261 as Urban IV., he received from the Bishop of Liège a letter concerning the festival, written at the request of the recluse Eve, who took an active part in the introduction of the new feast. To this he wrote a favourable reply.
The general adoption of the feast of Corpus Christi seemed now assured. Urban’s personal predilections in its favour were further increased by the incident of the Bohemian priest at Bolsena in 1262, and, shortly before his death, on the 8th September 1264, he addressed a bull[275] to all bishops and prelates in which he directed a festival in honour of the Blessed Sacrament should be held throughout Christendom, on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, and granted indulgences to all who observed it. He commissioned moreover St Thomas Aquinas to compose a special office, which speedily replaced the former one.[276] Owing to the death of Urban, which followed closely on the promulgation of this bull, the affair proceeded no further, and the spread of the festival came to a standstill. The transference of the papal residence to Avignon caused a further delay. Still in Liège the matter was not dropped, and the diocesan synod of 1287 is the first which definitely ordered that this festival should be observed.[277]
At length, after a long silence, Pope Clement V., Bertrand de Got, took up the matter once more, and by his influence the Œcumenical Council, which he had assembled at Vienne in 1311, authorised the festival and enjoined its observance throughout Christendom. For this end, he renewed the constitution of Urban IV. in his own bull Si Dominum. Neither in this document, nor in the constitution of Urban, is there any mention of a procession of the Blessed Sacrament, but only of a Mass and the office. The procession was a later addition which, like the festival itself, gradually spread throughout different dioceses and countries. It was not, however, altogether a novelty, for already in the eleventh century, the Benedictines in England carried the Blessed Sacrament on Palm Sunday in procession outside the church.[278]
The Corpus Christi procession, more recent than the introduction of the feast itself, was at first a much simpler affair than it is at present. As early as the twelfth century, it was by no means unusual to carry the Blessed Sacrament hidden from sight in a chalice or pyx round the church, and a procession of this kind is specially provided for in the ritual for Holy Week.[279] The Ordinarium of the Church of Rouen contains directions for the performance of such a procession, but unfortunately the date of this document is uncertain.[280] According to this, the Blessed Sacrament was carried round the church by two priests in white chasubles, accompanied by four choristers carrying censers. Two other clerics carried torches, and the remainder, vested in copes, sung various versicles and responses. The shrine in which the Blessed Sacrament was carried was placed in the middle of the choir, and the Sacrament was censed by a priest accompanied by a deacon, while the singers remained kneeling. They sang, Ave, verum corpus natum, etc., which the choir repeated still kneeling, and then added other hymns. When this was concluded, the archbishop was to give the blessing and commence the Mass.
The date at which the Corpus Christi procession was introduced varies very much in different dioceses and countries. In Cologne, it was held, for the first time, even earlier than 1279, in the monastery of St Gereon, when red vestments were worn.[281] In 1308, it was ordered for the parish churches of the archdiocese. The direction of John XXII. was certainly in most cases the reason of the feast becoming general throughout the universal Church. The procession took place for the first time in Worms in 1315, in Aix-la-Chapelle in 1319. In Strassburg, Bishop John I., on 22nd July 1318, ordered the adoption of the festival, and the recitation of the office. The first official appearance of the festival and procession in Treves was at the synod held under Archbishop Baldwin in 1338; in Utrecht in 1347, in Prague in 1355. On the other hand, it was introduced at Würtzburg as early as 1298, before the Council of Vienne, as appears from the statutes of the synod for that year. At Augsburg, already in 1305, a lady of rank, Katharina Ibsung, left all her property to the cathedral for the due performance of the Corpus Christi procession, and it would appear that the procession had taken place at Augsburg as a usual thing before this.[282] In the fifteenth century the Popes Martin V. and Eugenius IV.[283] encouraged the spread of the procession by granting indulgences to those who took part—the latter especially in his bull Excellentissimus, of the 26th May 1433. In the fourteenth century, the four stations were added at which the opening passages of the four Gospels were sung, and in the sixteenth century these were finally authorised.[284] The Liber Ordinarius of the Monastery of Essen, belonging to the second half of the fourteenth century, affords us some information concerning this change in particular. It speaks of two processions—one composed of the canons and without stations, which passed out of the church and then returned; the second of the congregation, which had four stations, at each of which the beginning of St John’s Gospel was read and benediction given.[285]
The Forty Hours’ Prayer, with exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, owes its introduction to the Capuchin Joseph Plantanida of Fermo. In 1556-57 he urged the senate of Milan to take steps for observing this devotion in all churches of Milan in turn, on account of the war with France which was then threatening, and also with reference to the plague which twelve years earlier had devastated the city. The custom of spending forty hours in prayer for some special intention had arisen earlier than this, for a priest of Grenoble, called Antony, for example, had established a confraternity in Milan in 1527, the members of which met four times a year for forty hours’ adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, which, however, was not exposed.[286]
At the conclusion of the octave of Corpus Christi comes the comparatively modern festival of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. As it is thus in point of time closely connected with Corpus Christi, so also it resembles it in many points. In the first place, it is essentially appointed for the glorification of the Incarnation and the Person of the Incarnate, and, secondly, its origin has many points in common with that of Corpus Christi. Its introduction is connected with the visions of the Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-90), which she saw in the Convent of the Visitation at Paray-le-Monial, during the years 1673-75. The cultus of the Sacred Heart seems to have existed earlier as a form of private devotion. In support of it certain passages are appealed to in the writings of saints of earlier times, which contain its fundamental principles. Among others, St Gertrude, and the Carthusian James of Landsberg, are quoted. The Blessed Margaret Mary had much to suffer in her attempts to establish the cultus, but finally it was introduced for the first time in 1686 at Paray-le-Monial, or, according to others, in the Convent of the Visitation at Moulins in 1674. The public cultus was introduced by Charles François de Loménie, Bishop of Coutances, who, in consequence of Margaret Mary’s revelations, consecrated a chapel in honour of the Sacred Heart in his seminary in 1688, and erected a confraternity under the same title. He was followed by Peter de Grammont, Bishop of Besançon, who, in 1692, ordered a special Mass with the title Cordis Jesu, to be printed in the missal for his diocese, for the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi. The Bishop of Langres adopted this Mass in his diocese, and finally the Archbishop of Lyons, Primate of Gaul, at the end of 1718 ordered the feast to be kept by the churches under his jurisdiction. The authoritative recognition of the feast was given by Clement XIII. in 1765.[287]