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I have researched this, thank you. Transubstantiation was arguably in question for 900 years when the writings of two monks Radbertus and Ratranmus argued the issue. The Lateran Council in 1215 finally settled the matter by vote. Catholics will argue that it was ALWAYS believed to be true and poor Ratranmus was teaching heretical doctrine foreign to the Church. In actually he was not as there are other church fathers that sided with him. As quoted in the above article, "The Doctor of the Church, Duns Scotus, admits that transubstantiation was not an article of faith before that the thirteenth century."

Please note the section that refers to how quotes of the early church fathers are often taken out of context.

Transubstantiation was arguably in question for 900 years when the writings of two monks Radbertus and Ratranmus argued the issue.

I'm afraid, as you know, HarleyD, that I think this statement is NOT untrue but IS misleading.

There are several way in which it would be right to say that "Transubstantiation was in question ...". Two come to my feeble mind.

There is the question of whether the Church, more or less univocally, believed and taught that Christ was "really" or "Truly" or some such vague adverb present in the bread and wine once they were prayed over. Against that could be some ideas like "memorial only" or "present in the believer who partakes" or "bestowing certain gifts of grace somehow or another". I would suggest that the Church generally said He was present. And to that extent I would say the questionable character of the dogma is not all that important.

I think the more accurate assessment of the statement is that the Church could more or less agree that Jesus was "really" (or the rest of the adverbs) present, but she could still debate HOW one ought to talk about that presence, bearing in mind that, as a rule, the body looks and tastes like bread and the blood look and tastes like wine. And in that sense there was, and in some respects, especially with us and our Eastern bros, still is discussion. Transubstantiation as an explanation of the putatively undisputed "real" (or the rest) presence was debated, while the presence of Christ and the "fact" of some change in the gifts was generally agreed upon.

It's sorta kinda a little bit like Christology. There is little if any debate about saying "Jesus is Kyrios" but lots of debate — Nicea-Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon — about how we can talk about that, about what it means in detail.

So I would say that we can make SOMETHING, but not too much of the delayed decision on Transubstantiation.

It just ain't that easy to say how much authority Aristotelian Realism has in Church Theology, but I think it's easier to construe, say, Justin as saying that He's present in the whatever-it-is that was indisputably bread and wine before the service started.