PATEN. - From the Greek πατάνη = plate. It is a round metal plate, used already in ancient times at Mass, as an indispensable complement to the chalice and made of the same metal. On its upper side it is today without ornament, has a diameter of 15-20 cm., and is slightly concave in the middle, according to the width of the rim of the chalice.
At Mass the Host is placed on the p. until the Offertory (the offering is made upon it), and, after the Pater noster, the consecrated Host, broken, is placed back upon it until Communion; meanwhile, at solemn Mass, the p. is kept hidden with a veil by the subdeacon (in ancient times by the acolyte) called patenarius; at low Masses it is instead placed under the corporal.
The p. must be consecrated by the bishop and have its inner side gilded. The consecration is not lost, should the gilding need to be renewed (CIC, can. 1305). Having become through consecration a sacred object, in immediate contact with the Body of Jesus, the p. may be touched only by clerics or by those who have it in their custody (can. 1306). Symbolically the p. is considered as a new stone of the tomb, on which the body of the Lord lay (cf. Rabanus Maurus, De instit. cleric., I, 33: PL 107, 324).
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In antiquity and in the Middle Ages the p. had considerable size and weight, because it had to serve for collecting upon it the bread offered by the faithful for the consecration (p. ministerialis), which was then divided in part for the Communion of the faithful. Popes and emperors vied with one another in having them made, using great quantities of gold and a wealth of gems. Exceptional examples can be seen at Città di Castello, in the damascened silver plates of the Treasure of Canoscio (5th-6th centuries), at the Louvre (in serpentine with sapphires, emeralds and pearls, donated by a Carolingian emperor to the abbey of St-Denis), in the Wiss collection in Washington, in the Stoclet collection in Brussels, in the Treasure of St. Mark's in Venice. In the Gothic period (14th century) the p. were adorned with reliefs or with translucent enamels, such as the p. of the Pinacoteca nazionale of Perugia with enamel enclosed in a border of little arches, representing the scene of the Crucifixion and six other enamel roundels on the rim with events of the Passion alternating with engraved motifs, the work of Cataluzio da Todi, who influenced that of Ciccarello di Francesco with the representation of the Annunciation and the inscription around it (Sulmona, cathedral of S. Panfilo) and the other with enamels representing the Crucifixion, at Ravello (Cathedral). They also had engraved decorations, representing at the center the blessing hand, which is seen added, in the 12th century, in the p. of Ottonian date, in the church of the Collegiata dell'Assunta at Cividale, with an inscription on the rim, compared to that, called of St. Bernard, in the cathedral of Braunschweig and in the p. of the chalice, believed to be of St. Francis, in the basilica of Assisi, the work of Guccio del Mannaia. Also noteworthy is the p. of the Wiltener chalice (Austria), of ca. 1180. In later periods the decorations become ever more rare; the proportions diminish and the relationship between the raised rim and the center becomes stabilized, adapting itself to the proportions of the chalices, whose base loses its polylobed or mixtilinear outline, becoming in the '500 and '600 almost always circular. - See plate LXXII.
