Nos Vicarius generalis Maurianne subsignatus antequam ad diffinitivam procedamus dicimus et ordinamus in primis et ante omnia esse inquirendum super statu loci oblati p....
quem locum....
visitandum....
mensem ut f....
et nobis rem....
fuerit provid....
Mermetus vis....
generalis....
in civitate S....
die decima....
anno domini....
octuagesimo sep....
Petremandi Bertr....
dictorum Scind....
et egregii....
dictorum Animal.
ordinationem....
acceptandum....
facit die et....
(pro visitatione III flor)
locus sigilli.
Solverunt Scindici Sancti Julliani incluso processu Animalium sigillo ordinationum et pro copia que competat in processu dictorum Animalium omnibus inclusis XVI flor.
Item pro sportulis domini Vicarii III flor—20 decembre 1587.
Published by Léon Ménebréa in the appendix to his treatise: De l’Origine, de la forme et de l’esprit des jugements rendus au Moyen-âge contre les Animaux, Chambery, 1846. Cf. Mémoires de la Société Royale Académique de Savoie, Tome xii. pp. 524-57, where it first appeared.
According to M. J. Desnoyers (Recherches sur la coutume d’exorciser et d’excommunier les insectes et autres animaux nuisibles à l’agriculture, p. 15), it is still the custom, in Provence, Languedoc, le Bordelais, and other provinces of France, for the peasants to ask the country curates for prayers, sprinklings with holy water, consecrated boughs, and extraordinary processions, for the purpose of expelling noxious insects from the vineyards and warding off disease from the grapes and the silkworms. These ceremonies are accompanied with adjurations and maledictions. In Protestant lands official days of fasting and prayer are supposed to produce the same results.
The form of exorcism given by an Antwerp canon, Maximilian d’Eynatten, in his Manuale Exorcismorum, is as follows:—“Exorcizo et adjuro vos, pestiferi vermes, per Deum patrem omnipotentem ✠, et per Jesum Christum ✠ filium ejus Dominum nostrum, et Spiritum Sanctum ✠ ab utroque procedentem, ut confestim recedatis ab his campis, pratis, hortis, vineis, aquis, si Dei providentia adhùc vitam vobis indulgeat, nec amplius in eis habitetis, sed ad illa ac talia loca transeatis, ubi nullis Dei servis nocere poteritis. Vobis, si per maleficium diabolicum hic estis, pro parte divinae majestatis, totius curiae coelestis, necnon ecclesiae hic adhùc militantis, impero, ut deficiatis in vobisipsis, ac decrescatis, quatenus reliquiae de vobis nullae reperiantur, nisi ad gloriam Dei et ad usum et salutem humanum conducibiles. Quod praestare dignetur qui venturus est judicare viros et mortuos et saeculum per ignem, Resp.—Amen.” Thesaurus Exorcismorum, Coloniae, 1626, p. 1204.