POSSESSION & EXORCISM: ENGLAND, FRANCE, ITALY
[D.P. Walker, Unclean Spirits:
Possession and Exorcism in France & England]
I.
REFORMATION ENGLAND:
possession cases continue, despite Anglican Church's
rejection of Catholic ritual of exorcism
PURITAN EXORCISM:
New Testament model -- "by prayer & fasting"
1586-1597: career of John Darrell, Puritan exorcist
1598:
tried as impostor by Anglican High Commission
1604:
Anglican Church prohibits all forms of exorcism
reply to Puritans: "age of miracles is past"
CATHOLIC CAMPAIGN TO CONVERT ENGLAND
(approx 500 converts)
1586
Jesuits launch exorcist campaign in England
II.
FRANCE
1562-1589: French Wars of Religion (religious/civil war)
Catholics vs Huguenots
(= French Calvinists)
1598 Edict of Nantes: toleration of Huguenots
ANTI-HUGUENOT PUBLIC EXORCISMS
l) 1566: NICOLE OBRY: the "miracle of Laon"
Beelzebub expelled after two month exorcism
Catholic Eucharist
doctrine (real presence)
2) 1599: MARTHE BROSSIER, PARIS
reaction to 1598 Edict of Nantes:
toleration of Huguenots
BERULLE,
Treatise on Energumens
(= possessed persons)
MERGER OF POSSESSION & WITCHCRAFT CASES
1611 Ursuline nuns: Aix en Provence
Sister Madeleine
and Father Gaufridi
1620
University of Paris rejects testimony of demons
speaking through possessed
person
1634
LOUDON:
during exorcism, possessed nuns accuse their confessor
Father
Urban Grandier, who is then burned as witch
III.
ITALY:
EXORCISM AS POPULAR REMEDY FOR MALEFICIUM
(see O'Neil article
on remedies in xerox packet, Wk 7)
GIROLAMO MENGHI, Franciscan exorcist and theorist
1598: Flagellum Daemonum (Whip of Demons)
describes exorcism as "ecclesiastical medicine"
useful against demons and maleficium
Inquisition trials for superstitious exorcism:
popular recourse to
exorcists against maleficium
Implications for Keith Thomas' argument on remedies:
did prevalence of "ecclesiastical remedies" in
16th-17th C, Italy help prevent Italian witch panic?