The history of witchcraft and demonologySummers, Montague
History
The history of witchcraft and demonology
Summers, Montague
Demonology; Demonology -- History; Witchcraft; Witchcraft -- History
Gilles de Sillé, a priest of the diocese of S. Malo, and the Florentine
Antonio Francesco Prelati, formerly of the diocese of Arezzo, were wont
to officiate at the black masses of Tiffauges and Machecoul, the castles
of Gilles de Rais, who was executed in 1440.
A priest named Benedictus in the sixteenth century caused great scandal
by the discovery of his assistance at secret and unhallowed rites.
Charles IX employed an apostate monk to celebrate the eucharist of
hell before himself and his intimates, and during the reign of his
brother the Bishop of Paris burned in the Place de Grève a friar named
Séchelle who had been found guilty of participating in similar profane
mysteries. In 1597 the Parliament of Paris sentenced Jean Belon, curé of
S. Pierre-des-Lampes in the Bourges diocese, to be hanged and his body
burned for desecration of the Sacrament and the repeated celebration
of abominable ceremonies.[114] The Parliament of Bordeaux in 1598
condemned to the stake Pierre Aupetit, curé of Pageas, near Chalus
Limousin. He confessed that for more than twenty years he had frequented
Sabbats, especially those held at Mathe-goutte and Puy-de-Dôme, where he
worshipped the Devil and performed impious masses in his honour.[115]
August 14, 1606, a friar named Denobilibus was put to death at Grenoble
upon a similar conviction. In 1609 the Parliament of Bordeaux sent Pierre
De Lancre and d’Espagnet to Labourd in the Bayonne district to stamp
out the sorcerers who infested that region. No less than seven priests
were arrested on charges of celebrating Satan’s mass at the Sabbat. Two,
Migalena, an old man of seventy, and Pierre Bocal, aged twenty-seven,
were executed, but the Bishop of Bayonne interfered, claimed the five
for his own tribunal and contrived that they should escape from prison.
Three other priests who were under restraint were immediately set free,
and wisely quitted the country. A twelvemonth later Aix and the whole
countryside rang with the confessions of Madeleine de la Palud who “Dit
aussi que ce malheureux Loys magicien ... a controuvé le premier de dire
la messe au sabatt et consacrer Véritablement et présenter le sacrifice à
Lucifer.”[116] It was, of course, mere ignorance on her part to suppose
that “that accursed Magician Lewes did first inuent the saying of Masse
at the Sabbaths,” although Gaufridi may have told her this to impress
her with a sense of his importance and power among the hierarchies of
evil. Certainly in her evidence the details of the Sabbat worship are
exceptionally detailed and complete.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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