ABSTRACT
The sensible provisions for late-medieval liturgical life came alive during religious practices. It was not enough that they be present in the church; they were meant to be used to display the sacred to churchgoers as lively theophany, to affect them sensibly towards godliness. Processions varied in their splendour and length by feast day or occasion. Of the nonsacramental practices of the pre-reformation church they were the most visible with their colourful presentation of the communal host on the move a peripatetic echoing of the heavenly host. Liturgy's boon was its synaesthetic dramatic dynamism that in lively fashion depicted humanity, divinity and their encounter time and time again. The liturgy was divided into two great sections: the office with readings, psalmody and responses, and the canon, which contained the Eucharist proper. Non-sacramental liturgies consisted of praise and prayer, thanksgiving, and the teaching, expounding and promotion of the faith.
