Devil’s Missal

   Book said to be used in the performance of a BLACK MASS or infernal SABBAT rites. The Devil’s Missal is the unholy replacement for the Bible and is full of CURSEs and blasphemies.

   Descriptions of the Devil’s Missal were given by accused witches and Devil worshippers during the peak of witch hunts, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries. One account recorded by Pierre de Lancre from a trial in Orléans, France, in 1614 said that the Sabbat was held in a house. . . . He [the accused] 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. Another man accused in the same trial said: 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, one of the chief afflicted nuns in the LOUVIERS POSSESSIONS of 1647, gave this description of the missal:

   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.

   FURTHER READING:

   - Summers, Montague. The History of Witchcraft and Demonology. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1926.