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tis daemonum) appear in the 17" century Benedictine MS of Pannonhalma. The protagonists of two great exorcism scandals of the 18" century, a parish priest of a Transylvanian (Sekler) village in the 1720’s and a Franciscan monk of Zombor from Southern Hungary in the 1760’s, probably also used the manual of Mengus. Throughout a series of anti-demon soul battles which lasted several weeks and which may be reconstructed from witness statements and their correspondences, the two priests enlisted practically the total textual, tangible and ritual arsenal of unofficial exorcist practice. As regards the structure of the ritual order (ordo) of benedictions and exorcism, we can partly speak about the most important elements (persons involved, intentions, auxiliary objects used, texts sung and spoken such as introductory and transitional prayers, blessings and curses, Biblical texts, clerical songs, ritual acts); and partly about the various types of ordos. In the context of the three basic elements of benedictions, blessing, curse and prayer, the author has made an attempt to characterise the texts according to the magical/religious system of relations in which they are embedded. This examination has confirmed that negative exorcisms show the heaviest magical character. It is no accident that both in terms of form and content, they also mean the primary analogy to peasant charms of the 19" and 20" centuries. In the field of textual connections between clerical benedictions and peasant charms it is a fundamental question when and through what channels the models formulated in Latin prayers found their way to vernacular texts. Folklorists engaged in the study of religious ethnography and charms have long recognised that in the case of archaic forms clerical practice itself probably goes back to preChristian, ‘pagan’ roots. However, almost half of the early-modern Hungarian peasant charms clearly show connection with clerical texts. Thus it is more than probable that this pronounced parallel developed in the frame of a transmission and trickle-down process through several centuries. It probably began in the centuries of the late Middle Ages but was at its most intense in the early modern period when, as part of the ‘subterranean practice’, certain source data appeared which clearly show that the boundary between clerical and lay blessings/curses was vague and permeable. The image of the early modern Hungarian ’arsenal of benedictions’ as it is reflected in the present volume was drawn on the basis of sources which date back to the times before the trend of clerical enlightenment became predominant bringing significant changes in the history of mentalities. The change in perspective which unfolded within the church after the middle third of the 18" century gradually yielded its fruits, in a top down process, as regards the pastoral attitude of priests toward sacramentals. Certain types of blessings (e. g. the blessing of new houses) were marginalised as a consequence of rulings of the lay power. 445
