PEACE, INSTRUMENT OF. - A liturgical instrument, mentioned by the Missale romanum (Ritus servandus in celebr. Missa, tit. X, n. 3, n. 8); by the Caerimonia episcoporum (I, 24, 2, 6, 7); and by the Pontificale Romanum (part 1, De bened. et consacr. regis) for carrying the "pax," that is, for the kiss before Communion, to the choir and to certain persons assisting at Mass. St. Charles Borromeo prescribed for every cathedral, parish, or collegiate church at least duae tabellae pacis offerendae (Acta eccl. Mediolanen., Milan 1599, pp. 609, 610, 611).
The instrument of peace generally consists of a kind of oblong, oval, or round tablet, with a sacred image (Crucifix, Madonna, saints), sometimes also containing a sacred relic. It has a handle on the back for holding it, and often also a foot, and somewhat takes on the appearance of an ostensorium. The types are very varied, from simple pieces of marble or other stone, with a cross or other sacred object engraved on them, to wooden tablets, artistically carved and painted, to metal tablets, in the most varied forms and decorations, according to the various periods (Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque); instruments of peace that are very simple, almost crude, and others, for the most part, of even very considerable artistic merit. Among the latter are remembered: the pax of Duke Orso in the Museum of Cividale (11th-10th century; see reproduction in BARBARICA ARTE); the paxes in the form of a small aedicule with or without a door at St. Petronius in Bologna (15th century), at the Poldi-Pezzoli and in the Treasury of St. Ambrose in Milan (15th century); those marvelous ones for richness and elegance in the Louvre (15th century) and in the church of the Assunta at Cividale (Grimani pax); the famous "Pax of Siena" donated by Pius II to the Sienese in 1464 and by them, in 1799, to the Aretines, who keep it in the Cathedral of their city; the paxes of the Treasury of St. Mark in Venice, by M. Finiguerra at the Bargello in Florence and at the Vatican, and the one attributed to Sansovino in the Treasury of the Cathedral of Palermo, all of the 16th century.
The use was never prescriptive; its origin is English and goes back only to the late 13th century, and it was introduced as a replacement for the kiss of peace, the embrace of peace, and the subsequent kiss of the paten or of the Missal, in order to avoid the easy inconveniences or discomforts that arose from them. For England, the statutes of Archbishop Walter Gray of York speak of it, ca. 1250, in the paragraph dedicated to the furnishing of churches, where he also lists the osculatorium (Mansi, XXIII, 792); a Synod held at Exeter in 1287, in can. 12, where, giving the list of the sacred furnishings indispensable for every church, it also names the Lasser ad pecem (Mansi, XXIV, 800). At the beginning of the 14th century the use of the instrument of peace had already crossed the Channel and appeared in France. The Council of Bayeux of 1300 in can. 10, treating of the furnishing of churches, also speaks of the marmo ad osculandum (Mansi, XXV, 63); the provincial Synod of Melun, celebrated by the Archbishop of Sens, Stephen Becard (1300), speaks in various places of the tabula pacis, of the osculare or osculatorium necessary for every church (Mansi, XXV, 6). Countless other sources could be cited: synodal acts, church inventories, statutes and rules of religious families and the like, which demonstrate the extraordinary diffusion, between the 15th and 18th centuries, of this instrument, which is called by the most varied names, such as, for example, lapis pacis, pacificale, or pax, in French la paix, in the Germanic countries often Paxbrettil (cf. J. Braun, Das christl. Altargerät [Munich 1932], pp. 557-72, plates 116-20).
A first rapid diffusion of the instrument of peace took place through the great Orders — Franciscan, Dominican, Carmelite, Carthusian, Camaldolese, later Capuchin and others — and it is especially in these Orders that the use persists even today, while in parish churches it has almost disappeared.
Bibliography6 works
Giuseppe Löw