Were Christians united about a physical presence in the eucharist before the Reformation?

It's often claimed that every Christian, almost every Christian, or some other widespread consensus believed in a physical presence in the eucharist prior to the Reformation. Sometimes it's even suggested that a physical presence is the simple, literal reading of scripture that the universal church held to before Protestantism came along. I want to discuss some evidence to the contrary.

Before I get to that evidence, though, I should address some preliminary issues.

Different proponents of a physical presence make different claims about church history. I'm not claiming that all of the evidence I'll be addressing below is relevant or equally relevant to every position in question. The degree of relevance will vary from one position to another.

I'm primarily addressing the pre-Reformation existence of views that don't involve a physical presence, like what are commonly referred to today as the symbolic and spiritual presence views. But it's also worth noting that there was widespread disagreement among those who held a view involving a physical presence of some type. That's relevant to issues like how united Christians were on matters pertaining to a eucharistic presence and whether the church always taught a particular view. For example, James Ginther wrote, "The doctrine of transubstantiation was criticized by John of Paris, John Wyclif, the Czech Hussites, and the English Lollards of the fifteenth century. It was unevenly understood by the laity, and its denial was often an indicator of heresy, according to most inquisitors of the later Middle Ages." (The Westminster Handbook To Medieval Theology [Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009], approximate Kindle location 1683) Some of those individuals who opposed transubstantiation believed in some kind of physical presence. Regarding John of Paris, for example, Ginther writes, "In certain ways John's teaching is a precursor to the Reformation idea of consubstantiality." (2733)

And that reference to "consubstantiality" raises another issue. To the extent to which Ginther is referring to Lutheranism when he mentions consubstantiation, it could be noted that many Lutherans reject that term. Then there's the common phrase "real presence", which is somewhat ambiguous. I've seen people use that phrase in such a broad way that it includes views like the spiritual presence position many Calvinists advocate. But I've also seen the phrase "real presence" used in a way that excludes such views. People who claim that there's more than a spiritual presence sometimes reject a phrase like "physical presence" to describe their view, whereas other people who hold that view accept the phrase. I realize that different people prefer different terminology, that there's some ambiguity involved, and so on. If you prefer different terminology than I and my sources are using, but you think you understand what we're getting at, then focus on the latter and use whatever different terminology you prefer.

Something we should keep in mind is that these pre-Reformation disagreements often involved people writing against each other both privately and publicly, conciliar rulings against individuals or groups who held a particular view, demands that people retract their position and no longer teach it, and so on. Such facts are relevant to claims about how unified people supposedly were on subjects like these before the Reformation, claims that the disagreements were only of a minor nature in the eyes of those involved, etc.

I want to provide links to a few threads in which I've addressed the pre-Reformation sources in the past before moving on to material I haven't discussed before. See this thread, including the comments section, and this one regarding the patristic era and this one about the Lollards at the close of the medieval era. Here are some examples involving earlier medieval sources:

The reply by Ratramnus was one that moved away from realism toward symbolism, for Ratramnus held that the bread and wine, because they were sacraments, were merely symbols, and as such only a commemoration of Christ (Ratramnus, De corpore 97: PL 121,169). Christ, according to Ratramnus, becomes present in the Eucharist only by his power (Ratramnus, De corpore 19: PL121,136; De corpore 56: PL121,150), which he refers to as an "invisible substance" (Ratramnus, De corpore 49: PL121,147). What appear are the figures of the spiritual reality within, a reality or power perceptible only by faith (Ratramnus, De corpore 25: PL121,138). It is not Christ's body in truth, that is, the body born of Mary (Ratramnus, De corpore 89: PL 121,165), but rather only his body in figure (Ratramnus, De corpore 92: PL121,167; De corpore 97: PL121,169).

Ratramnus came to his conclusions from the perspective that he adopted toward the nature of reality. For Ratramnus no change takes place because no change is perceived in the external reality present to the senses (Ratramnus, De corpore 56: PL121,150). It is not the inner reality of the sacrament that he focuses on, therefore, but rather what appears to the senses after the consecration. Like Gottschalk he also makes a distinction. Christ is present, he says, not corporaliter but spiritualiter (Ratramnus, De corpore 60: PL121,152). What happens is spiritual not physical, because of the contrast between truth and figure. Only what appears to the senses is true; a figure on the other hand, points to a more remote reality. Speaking in terms of what seems like a metaphor, Ratramnus employs a primitive form of empiricism in relation to the sacrament. For him there are no distinctions between species and inner reality; the former only points to the latter, which exists on the level of the spiritual, or non-physical….

So Fulbert at the dawn of the eleventh century presents a clear reprise of the realism of Paschasius in the ninth. This realism will see not only criticism, but in fact derision and scorn from one of Fulbert's students - Berengarius of Tours. Berengarius was born in Tours in the year 1000, was educated at Chartres and became the director of the cathedral school at Tours around the year 1031. Sometime around 1040 he began to disseminate his own eucharistic doctrine, which held for a spiritual presence of Christ in opposition to the realism of Paschasius. Highly influenced by the innovations in dialectics of his day, the overly rationalistic views of Berengarius proposed a serious challenge to the orthodox teaching of the church….

The teachings of John Scotus Eriugena (or in reality Ratramnus - it is well established that it was not any known work of John the Scott, a contemporary of Ratramnus. Most believe that it was actually the work of Ratramnus himself that Berengarius used. See Montclos 1971: 49; also PL122, xx-xxii.), on the other hand, offered a theology of the sacrament, that although it was pure symbolism (O'Connor 2005: 99), was in his view the authentic tradition of the church. And it was this promotion of a purely symbolic interpretation of the sacrament that brought condemnations upon him, first at Rome, then at Vercelli, in councils held in the year 1050, at the instigation of his one-time friend turned nemesis, Lanfranc of Canterbury.

(Mark Vaillancourt, in Hans Boersma and Matthew Levering, edd., The Oxford Handbook Of Sacramental Theology [New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015], approximate Kindle locations 5052, 5152, 5170)

Vaillancourt is a Roman Catholic scholar. For another example of a Catholic source acknowledging some of the relevant points, see this Catholic Encyclopedia article on Berengarius.

From a Protestant perspective, Philip Schaff wrote:

The doctrine of the Lord’s Supper became the subject of two controversies in the Western church, especially in France. The first took place in the middle of the ninth century between Paschasius Radbertus and Ratramnus, the other in the middle of the eleventh century between Berengar and Lanfranc. In the second, Pope Hildebrand was implicated, as mediator between Berengar and the orthodox party….

It is humiliating to reflect that the commemorative feast of Christ’s dying love, which should be the closest bond of union between believers, innocently gave rise to the most violent controversies. But the same was the case with the still more important doctrine of Christ’s Person. Fortunately, the spiritual benefit of the sacrament does not depend upon any particular human theory of the mode of Christ’s presence, who is ever ready to bless all who love him….

The book of Radbert [arguing for transubstantiation or something like it] created a great sensation in the West, which was not yet prepared to accept the doctrine of transubstantiation without a vigorous struggle. Radbert himself admits that some of his contemporaries believed only in a spiritual communion of the soul with Christ, and substituted the mere virtue of his body and blood for the real body and blood, i.e., as he thinks, the figure for the verity, the shadow for the substance….

John Scotus Erigena is also reported to have written a book against Radbert at the request of Charles the Bald. Hincmar of Rheims mentions among his errors this, that in the sacrament of the altar the true body and blood of Christ were not present, but only a memorial of them. The report may have arisen from a confusion, since the tract of Ratramnus was at a later period ascribed to Scotus Erigena. But he expresses his view incidentally in other writings from which it appears that he agreed with Ratramnus and regarded the eucharist only as a typical representation of a spiritual communion with Christ. In his book De Divisione Naturae, he teaches a mystic ubiquity of Christ’s glorified humanity or its elevation above the limitations of space. Neander infers from this that he held the eucharistic bread and wine to be simply symbols of the deified, omnipresent humanity of Christ which communicates itself, in a real manner, to believing soul….

Among the divines of the Carolingian age who held the Augustinian view and rejected that of Radbert, as an error, were Rabanus Maurus, Walafrid Strabo, Christian Druthmar, and Florus Magister. They recognized only a dynamic and spiritual, not a visible and corporeal presence, of the body of Christ, in the sacrament.

On the other hand, the theory of Radbert was accepted by Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims, Bishop Haimo of Halberstadt, and other leading ecclesiastics. It became more and more popular during the dark post-Carolingian period. Bishop Ratherius of Verona (about 950), who, however, repelled all curious questions about the mode of the change, and even the learned and liberal-minded Gerbert (afterwards Pope Sylvester II., from 999 to 1003), defended the miraculous transformation of the eucharistic elements by the priestly consecration. It is characteristic of the grossly sensuous character of the theology of the tenth century that the chief point of dispute was the revolting and indecent question whether the consecrated elements pass from the communicant in the ordinary way of nature. The opponents of transubstantiation affirmed this, the advocates indignantly denied it, and fastened upon the former the new heretical name of "Stercorianists." Gerbert called stercorianism a diabolical blasphemy, and invented the theory that the eucharistic body and blood of Christ do not pass in noxios et superfluos humores, but are preserved in the flesh for the final resurrection….

By continued biblical and patristic studies Berengar came between the years 1040 and 1045 to the conclusion that the eucharistic doctrine of Paschasius Radbertus was a vulgar superstition contrary to the Scriptures, to the fathers, and to reason. He divulged his view among his many pupils in France and Germany, and created a great sensation. Eusebius Bruno, bishop of Angers, to whose diocese he belonged, and Frollant, bishop of Senlis, took his part, but the majority was against him….

Guitmund (a pupil of Lanfranc, and archbishop of Aversa in Apulia) reports that the Berengarians differed, some holding only a symbolical presence, others (with Berengar) a real, but latent presence, or a sort of impanation, but all denied a change of substance.

(sections 125-28, 130 here)

In a book on the Waldensians, Gabriel Audisio wrote:

When the bishop [in 1320] asked him what virtue he attributed to the bread, wine and fish once they had been duly blessed, Raymond [of Costa] replied: 'No special virtue results from this blessing; it is done only in remembrance of the Lord's Last Supper.' In this era, however, Bernard Gui [a Roman Catholic source] reports that they [the Waldensians] did believe in transubstantiation: 'They are firm believers and maintain that the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are present. If anything is left of the sacrament, they keep it until Easter and then finish it entirely. During the year, they give only consecrated bread and wine to the sick.'

It is quite likely that divergences grew up between the Poor of Lyons [the Waldensians] concerning the symbolical or real value of the Last Supper. Certain differences were expressed at the meeting in Bergamo in 1218 and can be heard again in the letters from 1368. Statements from defendants during the trials were vague, or, when precise, contradictory. Without further details, it is sometimes maintained that Christ is not present in the eucharist, sometimes the contrary. When Christ's presence is affirmed, it is in various ways, now in body, now in spirit. Jacques Ristolassio, condemned by the inquisitor on 8 March 1395, declared that 'the host which has been consecrated and placed in the receptacle does not contain the real Christ since he could not live there'. This practical-mindedness amounted to denying the real presence. On 5 June 1373, Lorenzina attributed the following opinion to another suspect: 'The body of Christ is not found in the host which the priest has consecrated.' In a different region, following Jean Perruza from the Vallouise valley (Hautes-Alpes, France), the Waldensians from Barge believed that 'Whosoever belonged to their sect could consecrate the body of Christ.' Things thus become clearer: once again, as in the case of confession, the donatist trend accounts for these divergences.

(The Waldensian Dissent [New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007], approximate Kindle location 829)

It seems that some Waldensians thought that Christ became present in some manner if the consecration was done by the right type of person, but that not all of them believed in a physical presence or any presence.