The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #122382 Message #3460445
Posted By: Phil Edwards
02-Jan-13 - 01:10 PM
Thread Name: Folklore: White Pater Noster
Subject: RE: Folklore: White Pater Noster
Ah, wait a minute - the Enchiridion Leonis Papae means "Handbook of Pope Leo", not "...of the lion of the Pope". Or, if you prefer, "Grimoire of Pope Leo". It's a real book of spells; the apocryphal part is that it appears to have surfaced in 1740, and whether it genuinely did go back to the sixteenth century is doubtful. In any case, it can't reasonably be where Chaucer got the idea from.
I think it was just folk religion, of the kind that's likely to flourish when the official religion uses a language most people don't understand.