POSSESSION & EXORCISM: England, France & Italy
See 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 against 1598 Edict of Nantes
(toleration of
Huguenots)
PIERRE 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
Really bad
versions of this episode available in book and
film:
Book by Aldous
Huxley, Devils of Loudon (Huxley was early drug & sex
addict)
Movie based on
the book: The Devils in 1970's style -- sex crazed & creepy
III. ITALY:
EXORCISM AS POPULAR REMEDY FOR
MALEFICIUM
(see O'Neil article on
remedies in xerox packet or link from web page)
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?