Page:The history of Witchcraft and demonology.djvu/107

 and the tome was so confected with occult arts that he who read it must wear a circlet of iron around his brow as he turned those mystic pages.

Another volume, of which mention is made—one that is often confused with, but should be distinguished from, these two—is what we may term the Devil’s Missal. Probably this had its origin far back in the midst of the centuries among the earliest heretics who passed down their evil traditions to their followers, the Albigenses and the Waldenses or Vaudois. This is referred to by the erudite De Lancre, who in his detailed account of the Black Mass as performed in the region of the Basses-Pyrénées (1609) writes: “Some kind of altar was erected upon the pillars of infernal design, and hereon, without reciting the Confiteor or Alleluya, turning over the leaves of a certain book which he held, he began to mumble certain phrases of Holy Mass.” Silvain Nevillon (Orleans, 1614) confessed that “the Sabbat was held in a house. … He saw there a tall dark man opposite to the one who was in a corner of the ingle, and this man was perusing a book, whose leaves seemed black & crimson, & he kept muttering between his teeth although what he said could not be heard, and presently he elevated a black host and then a chalice of some cracked pewter, all foul and filthy.” Gentien le Clerc, who was also accused, acknowledged that at these infernal assemblies “Mass was said, and the Devil was celebrant. He was vested in a chasuble upon which was a broken cross. He turned his back to the altar when he was about to elevate the Host and the Chalice, which were both black. He read in a mumbling tone from a book, the cover of which was soft and hairy like a wolf’s skin. Some leaves were white and red, others black.” Madeleine Bavent, who was the chief figure in the trials at Louviers (1647), acknowledged: “Mass was read from the book of blasphemies, which contained the canon. This same volume was used in processions. It was full of the most hideous curses against the Holy Trinity, the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, the other Sacraments and ceremonies of the Church. It was written in a language completely unknown to me.” Possibly this blasphemous volume is the same as that which Satanists to-day use when performing their abominable rites.

Tenthly: The witches promise the Devil sacrifices and