To n. 344. - Appendix VIII. Historical Matters Concerning Altars

In the first centuries there was no prescription concerning the material of the altar, so that wooden, stone, and metallic altars existed. Nor was the form defined, so that even a three-footed table was used. By canon 26 of the Council of Epaone (517, Harduin, II, 1050), stone altars are prescribed. But even afterward, for quite a long time, indeed even in the eleventh century, wooden altars are still found.

The consecration of an altar distinct from the consecration of the church is already prescribed in canon 14 of the Council of Agde (506, Harduin, II, 999).

The use of celebrating over the sepulcher of the martyrs in cemeteries gave occasion to placing the relics of saints in altars, so that thus altars had three principal parts: the table, the support, the sepulcher (Wernz, III, 463). Nevertheless, still in the rigor of law, Ferraris denied the necessity of relics (Prompta Bibliotheca, Altare, n. 14-17) in the middle of the eighteenth century; today, from c. 1200, §2, 2°, it cannot be doubted.

If you consider the ancient use of the pagans, the name altar, as of a larger structure, is more aptly fitted to fixed altars, while the sacred stone should rather be called a portable ara than a portable altar (cf. Leclercq, Dict. d'archeologie, v. Autel; Matthaeus a Coronata, n. 100).