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: Devils of Loudon sex crazed & creepy

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?