In a little work by Costanzi, entitled _Le Istituzioni di Pieta che si
esercitano in Roma_, &c., and published A.D. 1825, in Rome, where the
schools under the management of that brotherhood are in great favour,
"C.F.S." will find much to interest him on the subject, though not
exactly in the order in which he has put his queries (No. 14. p. 214.),
nor to their full extent.
Mr. Thoms, to whom English mediæval literature is so much beholden, asks
very earnestly for some information about "the white Paternoster" and
"seynte Petres soster," (No. 15. p. 229.). Perhaps the following guesses
may not be without use. First, then, about the "white Paternoster:"
Henry Parker, a Carmelite friar of Doncaster, who wrote his admirable
_Compendiouse Treatyse, or Dialogue of Dives and Pauper_, during the
reign of Edward IV., speaking against superstitions, and especially
"craftes and conjurations with holy prayers," says:
"They that use holy wordes of the gospel, Pater noster, Ave, or
Crede, or holy prayers in theyr wytchecraftes, for charmes or
conjurations--they make a full hye sacrifice to the fende. It
hath oft ben knowen, that wytches, with sayenge of their Pater
noster and droppynge of the holy candell in a man's steppes that
they hated, hath done his fete rotton of. Dr. What should the
Pater noster, and the holy candell do therto? Pau. Ryght nought.
But for the wytche worshyppeth the fende so highly with the holy
prayers, and with the holy candell, and used suche holy thinges
in despyte of God therefore is the fende redy to do the wytche's
wylle and to fulfyll thinges that they done it for. 'The Fyrst
Command,' cap. XXXV. Fol. 52. Imprynted by T. Berthelet, 1536.
12mo."
That the Pater noster used sometimes to be said with the wicked design
of working ill to individuals, and by those who were deemed witches, is
clear form the above extract: may not, then, this "wytche's" Pater
noster be the "white" Pater noster, against which the night-spell in
Chaucer was employed? "Wyche" may easily be imagined to have glided into
"white."
"Seynte Petres soster," I suspect has a reference to St. Petronilla's
legend. St. Petronilla, among our forefathers, was called St. Pernell,
and _The Golden Lengend_ imprinted 1527, by Wynkyn de Word, tells us,
fol. cxxxi. b., that she "was doughter of saynt peter thappostle, whiche
was ryght fayre and bewteous, and by the wyll of her fader she was vexed
with fevers and akes." For a long while she lay bed-ridden. From the
name of this saint, who went through so many years of her life in
sickness, perhaps was borrowed the word "pernell," to mean a person in a
sickly weak state of health, in which sense, Sir Thomas More (_Works_,
London, 1557, p. 893) employs it, while bantering Tindal. St. Peter's
daughter (St. Pernell) came to be looked upon, in this country, as the
symbol of bad health under all its forms. Now, if we suppose that the
poet mistook, and wrote "soster" instead of "doughter," we immediately
understand the drift of the latter part of the spell, which was, not
only to drive away witchcraft, but guard all the folks in that house
from sickness of every kind.
Daniel Rock.
Buckland, Faringdon.
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