corporal

The corporal is an altar linen used in Catholicism for the celebration of the Mass. Originally called corporax, from Latin corpus ("body"), it is a small square of white linen cloth; modern corporals are usually somewhat smaller than the width of the altar on which they are used, so that they can be placed flat on top of it when unfolded. During the Liturgy of the Eucharist, various altar vessels are placed on the corporal, including the chalice, the paten, and the ciborium containing the smaller hosts for the Communion of the laity. Origins Early descriptions of altar linens do not clearly distinguish between the corporal and other altar cloths, and the Catholic Encyclopedia speculates that in early Christianity only one linen cloth may have been used. The writes that Pope Sylvester I "decreed that the Sacrifice should not be celebrated upon a silken or dyed cloth, but only on linen, sprung from the earth, as the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ was buried in a clean linen shroud", but the Catholic Encyclopedia is skeptical of the authenticity of this claim. A little later ( 375), Optatus asks, "What Christian is unaware that in celebrating the Sacred Mysteries the wood [of the altar] is covered with a linen cloth?" Similar references appear in a letter of Isidore of Pelusium, in the liturgical writings of Sophronius of Jerusalem, and the sixth-century "" of Germanus of Paris, References to linen altar cloths continue throughout the Middle Ages. By Carolingian times, a clear distinction appears between the corporal and the other altar cloths. In the tenth century, Regino of Prüm quotes a council of Reims as having decreed "that the corporal [corporale] upon which the Holy Sacrifice was offered must be of the finest and purest linen without admixture of any other fibre, because Our Saviour's Body was wrapped not in silk, but in clean linen".