Altarist

An altarist (also a mass priest ) is a Roman Catholic priest who only celebrates Holy Mass , but who is not charged with any other pastoral services.

In the Middle Ages, this meant a member of the clergy who performed the services associated with an altar endowment , in particular the celebration of Holy Mass for the salvation of the soul of the founder and possibly his family and the prayer of the hours . The altarist was paid from the benefices , that is, the proceeds associated with the altar foundation. Altarists could also take on the celebration of a pastor or in a pen of a canon if they were unable to do so themselves, and were rewarded for doing so.

In the cities of the late Middle Ages there were numerous altarists; At the Strasbourg cathedral there were 120 measurement pillars in 1521. The liturgical scholar Josef Andreas Jungmann speaks of a "spiritual proletariat" of unemployed clergy and an "unnatural accumulation of masses" because of the "miracle addiction" of the faithful who wanted to secure their own salvation and that of their relatives through pious foundations. Since the number of craftsmen and traders in the guilds was limited, altar foundations also had the function of providing citizens' sons with care as members of the clergy .

With the Reformation and the associated abolition of the altar foundations, the importance of the altarist decreased.

See also

• Early Knife / Primissarius
• Subsidiar
• Private fair

literature

• Karl-Heinz Selge: mass priest . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 7 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1998, Sp. 184 f .
• Johann Christoph Adelung: Grammatical-critical dictionary of the High German dialect . Last edition, Leipzig 1793–1801, p. 236 ( online ).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Josef Andreas Jungmann SJ: Missarum Sollemnia. A genetic explanation of the Roman mass. Volume 1, Herder Verlag, Vienna, Freiburg, Basel, 5th edition 1962, p. 172, there in particular note 20 with reference to Wilhelm Neuss : The problem of the Middle Ages. Kolmar n.d. (1943), p. 26f.