Popular piety, exorcisms and inquisitorial censorship. San Cipriano’s Prayer printed about 1631

Abstract

The publication and controversial content of the sheet book are studied with the “Devoted prayer of Saint Cipriano” taken from the Liber exorcismorum cum adversus tempestates et daemones, printed in Pamplona in 1631, the author of which is Cristóbal Lasterra, Navarre cleric and commissioner of the Inquisition. The publication in the format of a chapbook promoted the widespread distribution, at an affordable price for the loyal public, of a prayer linked to a saint, such as Saint Cipriano, related to magic and spells. The content of the prayer, riddled with affirmations lacking in foundation and invocations of dubious orthodoxy, provoked the intervention of the Inquisition which, having analysed its incongruencies, ordered the withdrawal of the copy in 1634. The repeated occasions on which prayers to Saint Cipriano were forbidden by the ecclesiastic authorities displays how popular devotion to this Saint took root, linked to heterodoxy and the poor effect these repressive measures had.