PART IV

As has been seen in the last chapter, the doctrine that the substances of the bread and wine are wholly changed into the substance of the body and blood of Christ at the consecration of the Sacrament had become the ordinary doctrine held in the Western Church by the end of the thirteenth century. Whatever differences there might be as to some details, and however Thomist and Scotist theologians might dwell on different aspects of the Sacrament, there was a very general acceptance of this central point; and it appears to have been the usual view that the Church was committed to it by the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. In the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries instances are found of positions differing to a greater or less extent from this ordinary doctrine.