Portable Altars

(viatica, gestatoria, itineraria). During the Crusades the bishops and ecclesiastics who took part in them carried an "itinerant altar." The portable altar-stone or table was used on unconsecrated altars in private chapels. Bede mentions a consecrated table in lieu of an altar. The monks of St. Denis carried a table of wood, covered with a linen cloth. in Charlemagne's campaign against the Saxons. There were examples also of stone, metal, and terra cotta. The reposoir is used in the street to rest the Sacrament on in the procession of the Fete Dieu in France. One is preserved at Santa Maria, in the portico d' Campitelli; and another, of carved porphyry, at Conques, cir. 1106. SEE ALTAR.