Medieval Imprecations

John Bossy notes in an article on the social functions of the medieval mass that the mass dividedthe human race into living and dead, friends and enemies. Various sorts of prayers for enemies were included: “Even the post-Reformation Roman ritual followed its set of collects ‘for our friends’ with another ‘for our enemies’; admittedly it asked God to give them the gift of charity and remission of their sins, but it also invited him ‘powerfully [to] deliver us from their machinations.’ The proper sense of salus and especially of incolumitas entitled the medieval Christian to make the transition: Biel at least, among the commentators, had understood the relation as one of strict logical implication: ‘For a good part of the hope of salvation ( salutis ) is the hope of evading the machinations of one’s enemies.”

Bossy continues: “although it had long been pointed out that mass should be offered for good things, not for evil, pro caritate fraterna and not pro odio , it was strictly impossible to prevent the downfall of enemies from being prayer for in the commemoration of the living, or a string of votive forms de or pro inimicis , contra adversantes and so on, from appearing in the missal alongside those for friends.” The mass pro furtu was formulated “against a theoretically unknown thief,” and included the prayer “May all my enemies be put to shame and covered with confusion; may they be turned back and put to shame as soon as possible.” Another missal included a “mass against defamers.”

Later in the same article: “It was not unusual in medieval Christianity to pray for the damnation of enemies. The prayer might be perfectly legitimate, as in the monastic Clamor , or on the borders of legitimacy, as in the use of Psalm 108 [Psalm 109] as centrepiece of the ritual curse known in Germany, where it seems to have been a good deal in demand, as the Mordbeten .”