The information is provided in a clearer way in the first edition of the Liber, where it is written simply that presbyters should not consecrate without the "consecrated [element]" from the bishop of the place (the Felician abbreviation: "Constituit ut sine consecrato episcopi loci cuiuslibet presbiter non licerit consacrari"; the Cononian abbreviation: "Constituit ut sine consecratum episcopi loco cuiuslibet presbitero non liceret consecrare"; Duchesne 1886:86). The practice of fermentum was meant to stress the unity between the bishop, as the principal minister of the Eucharist in his diocese, and the presbyters.