Middle Age Roman Catholic parodies and additions to the Mass
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
In the Middle Ages, beginning with the Latin writings of the Goliards, the Roman Catholic Mass was drawn from or elaborated upon to create parodies of it for certain Church festivities. Thus, there was a Mass parody called "The Feast of Asses", in which Balaam's Ass (from the Old Testament) would begin talking and saying parts of the Mass. A similar parody was the Feast of Fools. Other Middle Age parodies of the Mass, also written in ecclesiastical Latin, were "drinkers' masses" and "gamblers' Masses," which lamented the situation of drunk, gambling monks, and instead of calling to "Deus" (God), called to "Bacchus" (the God of Wine). Some of these Latin parody works are found in the medieval Latin collection of poetry, Carmina Burana, written around 1230. The Catholic Church, however, eventually reacted by condemning them as sacrilegious and blasphemous.
A further source of late Medieval and Early Modern involvement with parodies and alterations of the Mass, were the writings of the European witch-hunt, which saw witches as being agents of the Devil, who were described as inverting the Christian Mass and employing the stolen Host for diabolical ends. The witch-hunter's manuals such as the Malleus Maleficarum and the Compendium Maleficarum give details relating to these supposed practices.
See also
