Berengar of Tours denies transubstantiation

1051

The French scholar of Tours argued publicly that the bread of the Eucharist remained bread and was only a sign of Christ's body. His challenge provoked decades of controversy and the first formal theological definition of transubstantiation, an arch to scholasticism in reaction to his logic and provocations. The debate forced the Church to articulate with unprecedented precision exactly what it believed happened during the Mass.