sione servat, Utque malis mala defert. A morte cita
liberat, Portio, quamvis parva sit, Et Cacodaemones fugat, Ut magna
tamen proficit."

See these verses cited in full faith, so late as 1743, in Father Vincent
of Berg's Enchiridium, pp. 23, 24, where is an ample statement of the
virtues of the Agnus Dei, and istructions for its use. A full account
of the rites used in consecrating this fetich, with the prayers and
benedictions which gave colour to this theory of the powers of the Agnus
Dei, may be found in the ritual of the Church. I have used the edition
entitled Sacrarum ceremoniarum sive rituum Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae
libri tres, Rome, 1560, in folio. The form of the papal prayer is as
follows: "Deus... te supplicater deprecamur, ut... has cereas formas,
innocentissimi agni imagine figuritas, benedicere... digneris, ut per
ejus tactum et visum fideles invitentur as laudes, fragor grandinum,
procella turbinum, impetus tempestatum, ventorum rabies, infesta
tonitrua temperentur, fugiant atque tremiscant maligni spiritus ante
Sanctae Crucis vexillum, quod in illis exculptum est...."(Sacr. Cer.
Rom. Eccl., as above). If any are curious as to the extent to which this
consecrated wax was a specific for all spiritual and most temporal ills
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, let them consult the
Jesuit Litterae annuae, passim.

Another favourite means with the clergy of the older Church for bringing
to naught the "power of the air," was found in great processions bearing
statues, relics, and holy emblems through the streets. Yet even these
were not always immediately effective. One at Liege, in the thirteenth
century, thrice proved unsuccessful in bringing rain, when at last
it was found that the image of the Virgin had been forgotten! A new
procession was at once formed, the Salve Regina sung, and the rain came
down in such torrents as to drive the devotees to shelter.(233)

(233) John of Winterthur describes many such processions in Switzerland
in the thirteenth century, and all the monkish chronicles speak of them.
See also Rydberg, Magic of the Middle Ages, p. 74.

In Catholic lands this custom remains to this day, and very important
features in these processions are the statues and the reliquaries of
patron saints. Some of these excel in bringing sunshine, others in
bringing rain. The Cathedral of Chartres is so fortunate as to possess
sundry relics of St. Taurin, especially potent against d