now really OT Re: SC - list newbie/Seasonal food.

[Jenne Heise]

> FOOD CONTENT:  Most Christian modernly have offerings in the form of
> money.  In medieval European cultures, I would suspect that food items
> from less affluent families would have been more common than money.  For
> those members of Catholic/Orthodox/Episcopal congregations:  think about
> the hand-washing ritual after the collection . . . seem odd?  Methinks
> it carries from the practices of bringing foodstuffs to the church for
> offering.

Can anyone confirm or deny the existence of 'offerings' during church in
medieval times? I'm wondering whether, given the system of tithing,
whether such offerings would have been made in church time at all or
simply transferred in the course of regular business.

The handwashing before the ritual of transubstantiation in the Catholic
church is a ritual purification of the priest before invocation of the
Deity into the physical object(s), bread and wine. Ritual purifications,
however, are inherited from other religions-- the Judaic and the Roman--
where the major part of the ceremony would be the ritual sacrifice and so
a purification would be necessary.

- -- 
Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at tulgey.browser.net
disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
"Are you finished? If you're finished, you have to put down the spoon."