During the later Middle Ages, the monstrance was the more common way of displaying the Eucharist to the faithful. Its shape was at first a box with a clear circular window that stood on a pedestal. By the sixteenth century it became extremely elaborate, often looking like a great sunburst, or a tower. The monstrance could more easily be carried to great effect in processions, such as those of Corpus Christi that Margery Kempe mentions: "solemn procession with many candles and great solemnity (that) went through the town" (Ch. 45). See late 15th century monstrance with elaborate Gothic spires.

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