==== Middle Age Roman Catholic Parodies and Additions to the Mass====
* In the Middle Ages, Roman Catholic practitioners were allowed (or allowed themselves to) at times elaborate on the Roman Catholic Mass, and create parodies of it for certain festivities. Thus, there was a mass parody called "The [[Feast of Asses]]", in which Balaam's Ass (from the Old Testament) would begin talking and saying parts of the mass. A similar parody was the [[Feast of Fools]]. There were also other parodies, such as "drinker's masses" and "gamblers masses", which lamented the situation of drunk, gambling monks, and instead of calling to "Deus" (God), called to "Bacchus" (the God of Wine). Some of these Latin parody works are found in the medieval Latin collection of poetry, [[Carmina Burana]].
* Additionally, the Rite of the Mass was not completely fixed, and there were places where the priests could insert private prayers for various personal needs. As these types of personal masses spread, the institution of the [[Low Mass]] became quite common, where priests would hire their services out to perform various masses for the needs of their clients - such as blessing crops or cattle, obtaining love, or cursing enemies (one way this latter was done was by inserting the enemy's name in a [[Mass for the dead]], accompanied by burying an image of the enemy).
* A further source of Middle Age involvement with parodies and alterations of the Mass, was the writings of the European [[witch-hunt]], which saw in witches agents of the Devil, who were described as inverting the Christian Mass and employing the stolen Host for diabolical ends. The witch-hunter's manual [[Malleus Maleficarum]] gives details relating to these supposed practices.▼
▲* A further source of Middle Age involvement with parodies and alterations of the Mass, was the writings of the European [[witch-hunt]], which saw in witches agents of the Devil, who were described as inverting the Christian Mass and employing the stolen Host for diabolical ends. The witch-hunter's manual [[Malleus Maleficarum]] gives details relating to these supposed practices.
