An ornamental vessel of gold, silver, silver-gilt, or gilded or silvered copper, in which the eucharistic host is carried in processions and ceremonies. The decoration often represents usually a sun with rays, in the center of which is a lunule or glass box in which the consecrated wafer is carried and exposed on the altars of churches. The earliest do not date before the 12th century. First used in France and Germany in the 14th century, monstrances were modeled after pyxes or reliquaries, sacred vessels for