IT

TWO YORKSHIRE CHARMS OR AMULETS:

EXORCISMS AND ADJURATIONS.

BY THE REV. CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH, M. A.

Here beginneth the Tale of the
Wyf of Bathe.

N th' olde dayes of the King Arthour,

IN

Of which that Britons speeken greet honour,

Al was this land fulfild of fayerye.

The elf-queen with her joly companye,

Daunced ful ofte in many a grene mede;

This was the olde opinion as I rede.
I speke of manye hundred yeres ago;
But now can no man see none elves mo.
For now the grete charitee and prayers
Of limitours1 and othere holy freres,
That serchen every lond and every streem,
As thikke as motes in the sonne-beem,
Blessing halles, chambres, kichenes, boures,
Citees, burghes, castels, hye toures,
Thropes, bernes, shipnes, dayeryes,
This maketh that ther been no fayeryes.
For ther as wont to walken was an elf,
Ther walketh now the limitour himself.
-Chaucer.

T was the common belief of the early Christian Church, surrounded as it was with pagan idolatries, and, in the remembrance of the time then recent, when Palestine itself had been full of persons possessed by devils, at the epoch of our Saviour's coming, that the world around them was full of malevolent and unclean spirits. They trusted truly in the divine promise of the supremacy of Good over Evil, as of Light over Darkness (St. Luke x, 17; St. Mark xvi, 9, 17; Acts v, 16, xvi, 18), and were confident that not an apostle or a prophet only, not merely a bishop or a deacon, but the simplest Christian believer could withstand the Power of Darkness and speak with confidence in their Master's Name, and could cast out devils by the use of prayers and adjurations of a less pretentious and mysterious kind than those which were pronounced by 'the strolling Jews, exorcists' (Acts xix, 13; cf. St. Matthew xii, 27), or were written in the books and Ephesian letters' of the heathen practisers of 'curious arts' (Acts xix, 19).

1

Begging friars.

VOL. XVII.

2 Villages.

3 Stables.

The subject of exorcism in the Early Church has been treated by Bingham in his Antiquities of the Christian Church, book iii, ch. iv, book x, ch. ii, sec. 8; by Dean E. H. Plumptre, Archdeacon Chetham, and Mr. P. Onslow in Dictionary of Christian Antiquities (Demoniac,' 'Exorcism,' and 'Exorcists,' where there are some remarkable woodcut illustrations), as well as by Cardinal Bona, Dom Edm. Martene, and others. It is enough to say here that 'energumens,' or possessed persons, and the 'tempest-tost,' as a class, were recognised in the antient liturgies of the Greek Church,' and were provided with a special place in the building, or its porch, within hearing of the psalmody, and had an order of ministers to care for them and to employ them in simple industries. By the time of St. Augustine the work of exorcism was committed to special ministers, and was directed, not only to the taking care of such afflicted persons, but to the exorcising of candidates for baptism in general, coming from paganism and from the worship of evil powers (1 Corinthians x, 20). The practice of exorcism (mentioned in the Bible and by Irenæus, Justin, and Tertullian as a free charismatic function of all Christians in general, as the Holy Spirit enabled them) had become in the days of Chrysostom and Augustine, and even in the time of Cyprian, an office placed, as we may say, 'in commission,' and devolved upon a certain minor order of exorcists, although of course it resided also in the powers of such higher orders as the christening and confirming priest and bishop in giving their various benedictions. Thus exorcists are mentioned among the Orders, in a letter of Cornelius of Rome to Fabius of Antioch, A.D. 251.

According to the seventh canon of the fourth Council of Carthage (A.D. 400), among the seven orders ranking above the Psalmista or cantor, the exorcist holds the third grade, i.e. above the doorkeeper and reader, and beneath the acolyte (or ceroferarius), sub-deacon, deacon, and priest.

The form of his ordination is thus given in the early tenth century copy of the Pontifical of Egbert, who was Archbishop of York in 732 (page 13). It seems to have been not originally a Roman form, but was adopted from the Gallican rite. See the Bishop of Salisbury's Ministry of Grace, ch. iii, sec. 217. The opening words are taken directly from the canon of Carthage, as follows:

1 Brightman, Eastern Liturgies, pp. 5, 6, 22 (Syrian Rite, from Apostolic Con

stitutions, viii, energoumenoi, cheimazomenoi), pp. 521, 524 (Pontic Exarchate).

ORDINATIO EXORCISTAE.

Exorcista cum ordinatur, accipiat de manu episcopi libellum in quo scripti sunt exorcismi, dicente sibi episcopo,

Accipe et commenda memoriae, et habeto potestatem imponendi manum (-nus) super inerguminum sive baptizatum, sive catæcuminum. Prefatio Exorcista.

DEVM Patrem omnipotentem supplices deprecamur, ut hunc (hos) famulum tuum Ill. bene()dicere dignetur in officium exorcistæ, ut sit spiritalis imperator ad abiciendos demones de corporibus obsessis cum omni nequitia eorum multiformi: adiuuante Domino nostro Jesu Christo, qui cum eo viuit et regnat Deus in unitate Spiritus sancti per omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

Benedictio Exorcistae.

8

DOMINE, Sancte Pater, omnipotens aeterne Deus, bene()dicere

digneris hunc famulum tuum Ill. in officium exorcista, ut per inpositionem manuum et oris officium eum eligere digneris, ut imperium habea(n)t spiritus immundos cohercendi," et probabilis12 si(n)t medicus ecclesiæ tuæ gratia curationum virtute [que] confirmatus. Per Dominum.15

The later pontificals slightly enlarge the form, while retaining the antient prayers, which we have printed above. Thus the Pontifical of Edmund Lacy (Bishop of Exeter in 1420, who had been consecrated for Hereford in 1417) may be summarised as follows :— (page 81) After the ordination of the readers:

Tunc sedeat episcopus et legatur secunda lectio cum graduali, et sequitur tercia oracio; qua dicta, dicat archidiaconus,

1 We do not give all variations of grammatical termination provided for use when there was a plurality of candidates for the order of exorcist. See also, for the simple form, "Exorcista cum ordinatur sibi episcopo, Accipe, et commenda. . . caticuminum." Benedictional of Robert, Archbishop [of Rouen, circa 980], ed. H. A. Wilson, pp. 116-17. The early collection of canons, called the Hibernensis (vi, 2), cites the canon of Carthage, and prefixes to it (vi, 1) an extract, De exordio exorcistarum,' from Isidorus- "Hic gradus ab Hesdra sumpsit initium, qui in templo jussit dispositores esse, quos auctores (legʻactores') templi memorat Hesdras, eosque nunc ecclesia Domini exorcistas nominat. Quomodo enim auctor (actor) prudens et bonus scit, quid sit domini sui census et

Recedant lectores: et accedant qui ordinandi sunt exorciste. [Tunc accedant qui ordinandi sunt exorciste.' (Camb. Univ. MS., Add. Ff. vi, 1.)]

Sedendo dicit episcopus eis,

EXORCISTE competit abijcere demones; et dicere populo qui

non communicet, vt det locum: et aquam in ministerio fundere. Tunc [stans] episcopus tradat illis librum exorcismorum, dicens illis circumeundo, Accipite et commendate [ut supra].

Et rediens sicut prius super eos dicat, Deum Patrem omnipotentem, fratres karissimi, supplices deprecemur (c.).

Oremus.

[Diaconus] Flectamus genua et Leuate.

[Benediccio Exorcistarum.] Domine, sancte Pater (ut supra). Tunc sedeat episcopus, et legatur tercia leccio cum graduali, et sequatur oracio quarta; qua dicta, dicat archidiaconus,

Recedant qui ordinati sunt exorciste: accedant qui ordinandi sunt acoliti.

Mr. W. H. Frere's Pontifical Services, illustrated (Alcuin Club, quarto publications, No. iv), vol. ii, plate ii, fig. 4, gives a photograph, showing the ordination of three exorcists, from a miniature in the Clifford Pontifical (now Parker MS., 79, at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge), written about 1397, and finished about 1421. The Bishop is represented standing. He holds in his gloved left hand his staff, with the crook outwards towards the ordinandi. He wears mitre, alb, and chasuble, but neither dalmatic nor tunicle. With his right hand (gloved) he delivers a large quarto liber exorcismorum, or other representative volume (with its clasp towards himself), to the foremost of the exorcists, who have shaven crowns, and wear albes, girded round the waist, with apparels at the hem.

Mr. Frere gives in the same volume (plate xv, fig. 43) a similar scene from a West German Pontifical (British Museum MS. Add. 14,805, fo. 9). Here, however, the Bishop sits in his folding chair, and wears no gloves. The foremost exorcistisandus receives the book, held horizontally; and he and his companions kneel, vested in long, full-sleeved surplices. The altar has a green frontal, a low, painted reredos, and above it a blue dossal, on which is 'I.H.S.'

1 Et tradat eis episcopus stans librum in quo scripti sunt exorcismi. Camb. Univ. MS., Ff. vi, 1, sec. xiii, commonly known by the name of its subsequent owner, Chr. Bainbridge, Archbishop of York.

2 The Pontifical authorised by Leo X allows a pontifical to be handed to the exorcist, in place of a book of exorcisms. The Pontifical of Urban VIII says a missal or pontifical. Martene, De Ant. Eccl. Ritibus, lib. i, cap. viii, art. 8, sec. 13.

2

Before leaving Mr. Frere's book, we may refer to plate x, fig. 32, the Reconciliation of an Apostate (from the Lansdowne MS., 451, fo. 96), where the apostate, clothed in a dull red robe, with white spots, stands before the Bishop, and holds a brass cross in his left hand. The Bishop stands, with his clergy behind him, at the door of the church, in white and gold mitre, cope of carmine and gold over an alb of a blue colour spotted with white: he breathes (three times) in the face of the returning apostate, and says, Exorcizo te, immunde spiritus, per Deum Patrem, &c.1 The form itself may be seen in the Pontifical of Edmund Lacy, Bishop of Exeter, edited by Ra. Barnes, 1847, pp. 285-8. It is entitled 'Ordo ad reconciliandum apostatam a Judaismo, heresi, vel gentilitate reuersum, vel nimis diu in sentencia excommunicacionis obstinatum.' After blessing holy water, the Bishop, with trine insufflation, says the Exorcism, sprinkles the man, and leads him into the church, saying, 'Ingredere templum Dei viui, &c. 'Tu autem, omnipotens et misericors Deus, hanc ouem tuam de fauce lupi subtractam, &c., and Psalm 1. (Miserere), Psalm lxxxiv. (Benedixisti), and Psalm cxxix. (De profundis), with the lesser Litany, Pater noster, and versicles, over the man prostrate upon the floor, and adds the collects, Deus, qui hominem ad tuam ymaginem conditum,' 'Da nobis, Domine, ut sicut publicani precibus,' 'Domine, Deus omnipotens Pater D. J. Christi, qui dignatus es hunc famulum tuum ab errore deuiate prauitatis. Raising him from the ground, he puts four questions of Renunciation, enjoins him a penance, and administers communion. Forms for special use, in cases of renouncing heresy, or sacrilege, are added, with the special Episcopal Benediction, 'Deus qui Raphaelis ministerio. Et qui mira vi sanas sauciatum reum, a nobis procul propellas Hasmodeum, ut iecur. Quod ipse. Cuius. Et benediccio.

In the case where a criminous clerk or bishop was solemnly degraded, before being handed over to the secular arm for punishment, his orders were removed one by one, in the inverse order of their conferring, beginning from the highest. This process may be found in 'the degrading of Bishop Hooper,' 4 February, 1555, in the elder Dr. Chr. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography, ii, 389. 'The bishop beginneth to plucke off first the uttermost vesture, and so by degree and order comming doune to the lowest vesture, which they had onely in taking Bennet and Collet': i.e. the surplice (door-key)

an

1 Archbishop Benson mentions African Bishop in the third century who went so far as to say that heretics needed exorcism as much as heathen did. Cyprian, p. 258.

2 See also Maskell, Mon. Rit., ii, 341–4.

3

are

cf. Tobit, iii, 8, 17; vi, 4-7; viii, 2. In Cockayne's Leechdoms there references to Raphael, i, 387; Tobit, iii, 60; Angels, i, 387, 390; iii, 64, 78. Also to the spirits Dormiel, Sandrohel, and Laniel, i, 387.