Yay interest in altars! Some fun facts about medieval altars:

1. The Council of Epaone (517 CE) required that all altars be made of stone and forbade the use of wooden altars. https://twitter.com/shrillharpy/status/1279173778790969344

2. In 857, Hincmar of Reims forbade the celebration of Mass without a consecrated altar..

3. Until 900-1000 CE, the only items allowed on the altar were one liturgical book, a chalice, and a paten. After the millennium, reliquaries, candlesticks, saints’ statues were okay too.

4. Altar retables are vertical, often elaborate depictions of the Passion and other Biblical events, that sat on the back or right behind an altar. Retables came into use around 1200 and took off in popularity in the 1400s. (c.1420-30, Catalonia, Met Museum 06.1211.1–.9)

5. Altar retables are sometimes labeled portable altars, but they’re not! An altar is a flat surface for the chalice and paten; a retable is a vertical decoration.

Left: retable in Norwich Cathedral
Right: portable altar in Hildesheim