A Divine Apparition or Demonic Possession?

Female Agency and Church Authority in Demonic Possession in Sixteenth-Century France Author(s): Moshe Sluhovsky Source: The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Winter, 1996), pp. 1039-1055 Published by: The Sixteenth Century Journal Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2543907 . Accessed: 19/07/2011 19:23
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Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXVII/4(1996)

A Divine Apparition or Demonic Possession? Female Agency and Church Authority in Demonic Possession in Sixteenth-Century France
MosheSluhovsky ofJerusalem Hebrew University of sixteen-year-old Nicole Obry thepossession and exorcism discusses The article of thecaseand argues that a coma three-layer interpretation (1565-1566).It offers issues aboutthewoman's posbination ofpsychological, andgender brought political, was a culturally good or evilspirits I first that possession by either suggest session. conreligious that mostly women, to express laypeople, syndrome allowed recognized in morenorto address issues spiritual cernina society didnotpermit laywomen that in herownperception Nicole intervention, prior to theclerical mative ways. Indeed, ofspirit possescomplexity andnotas a demoniac.The herself as a visionary regarded a personal behavior also necessitates sion as a psychological and psychopathological that of penetration and possesand I suggest metaphors motivation, (sub)conscious as a young sionsweredirectly related to Nicole'spersonal experiences and anxieties to thereliwoman.The andthepersonal contexts arethenconnected social/cultural increased Nicole'sperin early France.These events northern modern gioustensions to address matters. sonalanxieties herinitiative religious andlegitimated
ON NOVEMBER 3, 1565, immediatelyfollowingAll Souls' Day, Nicole Obry

marriedgirl,encountereda spirit.1Nicole recently (Aubrey),a sixteen-year-old, She was the was born in the village ofVervinsin the diocese of Laon in Picardy. and intelligent" of PierreObry,a well-off and his"veryenergetic butcher, daughter wife,KatherineWillot(Vuillot).2Nicole was a pretty, pious,and good-naturedgirl as her teachers but not veryintelligent, at the conventof Montreuil-les-DamestesShe could recitethe seven penitentpsalmsand a few prayers but could not tified.
Le Thresor andexorcism isbasedonJeanBoulaese, summary ofNicole'spossession 'The following obtenue d Laonl'an victoire decorps deDieu surl'esprit maling Beelezebub, etentiere histoire dela triomphante a large number ofdocincludes cens NicolasChesneau, 1578).This collection six(Paris: mil cinq soixante accounts; medicalreports; edicts; eyewitnesses' episcopal, and municipal uments, amongthemroyal, dugrand miracle histoire Boulaese's L'Abbregee printed descriptions oftheevent: andthefollowing earlier & Seigneur a Laon 1566 (Paris: Hostie duSacrement del'Autel,faict lesus-Christ enla saincte parnostre Sauveur maling Beelezebub victoire du Corps deDieu surl'Esprit de l'admirable T. Belot,1573);Boulaese's Le manuel victoire, obtenue a Laon, L'Histoire de la Sacree de Hericourt, DenysduVal,1575);Christophle ... (Paris: & SeigneurJesus-Christ duprecieux de nostre Sauveur (Laon, corps Contre Beelezebub presence parla realle Lyon: Sauvegarde historique, (Cambray, 1566;reprint, de LaonenLaonnoys 1569).Boulaese, Le Miracle and intoLatin, Italian, Spanish, version of themiracle, whichBoulaesetranslated 1955),is a shorter to guarantee maximum publicity for theevent. German 47. 2 v; Boulaese, 2Boulaese, Abbregee, T71resor,

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write or read,not even her Book of Hours, and this despiteher ten yearsat the Nicole was a recentresident convent.3 At the timeof the encounterwith the spirit, of the cityofLaon, to which she had moved threemonthsafter her marriage to the tailorLouis Pierret.4 The couple hadjust settled into their "petit a partetix" mesnage when Nicole complainedforthe first timethatone eveningwhile she prayed in the local churchnear the cemetery where her grandfatherJoachimWillot was buried, the spirit of the recently deceased grandfather appearedto her.In thisvisionand in a numberof visionsduringthe followingdays, told Nicole thathe the grandfather was suffering in purgatory because he had died suddenlybefore he had time to confessand to keep certainvows which he had taken beforehis death. He then asked Nicole to mobilize his family to prayforhis soul and to give charity on his behalf.More specifically, his male relatives were to go on a seriesof pilgrimages to Notre-Dame-de-Liesse(30 km south ofVervins in the direction of Laon, where an image of theVirgin which had been broughtfrom Egyptduringthe Crusadesperformedmiracles), to Arcy-Sainte-Restitute (18 km northof Soissons,where Saint Restituta of Sora was known to heal migraines),and to Saint-Guillain (in Hainaut)-all pilgrimagecentersin Picardyand Flanders-and to Santiago de Compostelain Spain. Nicole's husband,one ofher uncles,and a third relative leftforthe local shrines.5 Nicole, fromher parents' home inVervins, followedtheir journey in detailed visions. She heard their conversationsand "even envisioned what they were servedto eat."She recountedthe detailsto her parents, and upon theirreturn the pilgrims confirmed the accuracyof thesevisions. But Nicole's family could not fulfill the last request, the pilgrimageto Santito suffer frominvoluntary seizures.She threatened thatthe ago, and Nicole started grandfather's spiritwould turn her mute,deaf,and blind unless his requestswere fulfilled.6 She further claimed thather suffering was a directresultof the family's of the grandfather's disregard The family request.7 consultedthe villagepriest, the local teacher,and a Dominican friar. The teacher,who was troubledby Nicole's and temporary suffering was the first to suspectthatthe spirit paralysis, was not the grandfather's ghostbut ratheran angel or a devil. He interrogated it and rejected the spirit's to denythatit was,in fact, attempt inside Nicole's body and not nextto it. He proceeded to observe that"it is not the habit of good Angels to torment other creatures." thatthe spiritwas an evil one and thatit resided By establishing inside Nicole's mouth,the teacher cleared the way to declare thatNicole was, in fact,possessed by the devil.8 Friar Pierre de la Motte, who was well respected aroundthe diocese and was inVervinsto deliver Adventsermons, was theninvited to examine Nicole. Alarmed by the girl'sphysicalgesticulationand suffering, La Motte immediately declared:"A devil possessedthisbody."He confirmed thatthe spiritwas not the grandfather's ghost but a devil and that Nicole's revelations

3Boulaese, Thresor, 46. 4Boulaese,Abbregee, 2v; according to theThresor, 41,Pierret wasa shoemaker. 'Boulaese Manuel, 9-10. Tresor, 49-60. 14-20. 6Boulaese, M'Ianuel, 7Boulaese, 8Boulaese, Manuel, 20-21.

France 1041 Sluhovsky/ Demonic Possession in Sixteenth-Centtury La Motte then conversedwith resulted frompossessionand not fromapparitions. in Latin and forcedit to confessthat, the spirit indeed,it was the devil himself.9 and the of the grandfather as a masked devil,the friar After the identification bishop of Laon began exorcising the evil spirit from Nicole's body. The first Advent exorcism took place on November 27, 1565, two days afterthe first but the numberof visitors took place inVervins, forced sermon.The ceremonyfirst it to move to the cathedralof Laon, where 10,000 (or, according to the Mantlel, 150,000) people watched the proceedings.10 According to church manuals, exorcismshould not take place in public,ttand the bishop tried to move it to a not to more privatespace,but the devil himself opposed it.The devil threatened exit Nicole's body unless the exorcism was public and God's benevolence was forall to watch.Thiswell suitedthe exorcist's manifested plan to turnthe exorcism twice a into a major spectacleof the Catholic doctrine.For the next two months, day,Nicole's convulsions,seizures,and paralysis stopped only when she was fed with the Eucharist.Throughout thistime she was carriedtwice a day in religious processions, first to thelocal churchinVervins and after the transfer ofthe exorcism to Laon, to the cathedral of thiscity. (Beforetoo long,Laonnais Protestants got the governorof the provinceto put an end to thispart of the ceremony.)Nicole was thenput on a stagewhich was erectedespecially forthe occasion next to the main altar.From her bed/altar, she respondedto questionsaddressedto her in Flemish, German,French,and Latin. She answeredalwaysin French or Flemish,her voice gruff and frightening. She also revealedpeople's secrets and sinsand broughtthem to confess.12 Nicole's exorcistchose to use the most powerfulmagical instrument in his the Eucharist, as the means of exorcism. and saints' possession, Holy water, crosses, relicswere more commonlyused by exorcists and were recommendedin professional manuals.3 La Motte himself also triedto use them, but theywere provennot on the Eucharist, powerfulenough to cast out Nicole's demon. Clearly, by relying the exorcistand the Catholic Church manifested to eyewitnesses thattheirtheolwas rightand thatCatholic priestswere investedwith a ogy of transubstantiation The people who gathered in Laon witnessed unique power to use thisinstrument. the devil in Nicole's body trying to resist the Holy Sacrament.Thedevil even confessedpubliclythathe fearedthe Sacramentbecause it was the "Real Presence"of God, as Catholicismmaintained, and not just a sign of it,as Huguenots had it.14 He further admittedthathis name was Beelzebub and that he was a Huguenot leader.He promisedthatwith the Huguenots,whom he called his "bonsaris," he "will do Christmore evil thantheJewsdid.'t5 For the nextfewweeks,Nicole was
9Boulaese, Manuel, 24; Boulaese,Abbregee, 4-5. t0Boulaese, Manuel, letter to HenriIII, no pagenumber. 11Rituale Romanum PauliQuinti maximisjussu editum [1614](Mechelen, 1851),418. Pontificis 12Boulaese, Thresor, 105-106,138-166,252-258;Boulaese, LeMiracle deLaonen Laonnoys, 5; Florimond de Raemond, Histoire dela naissance, progrez etdecadence del'heresie decesiecle (Paris, 1605),140v. 13Valerio Polidoro, Practica ad daemones exorcistarum etmaleficia de ChristJfidelibus expellendum (Padua, 1585),inThesaurus Exorcismorum (Cologne, 1626),167-169. 14Boulaese, Manuel, 131,153-154,188-189. Thresor, 174-179;Manuel, 43. 15Boulaese,

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fed with a growingquantityof consecratedHosts, theirnumberincreasing as the exorcismmet with fierceresistance by the devil.The latter also bolstered his force. He called forhelp,and Nicole's body became possessedby more thanthirty additionalevil spirits.16 Some of Nicole's possessing spirits were castout duringa wellpublicized and well-attended pilgrimageto Notre-Dame-de-Liesse.17 These spirits leftNicole's body but not before they announced that they were returningto Geneva, theirheadquarters. The remainingdemons leftduringa finalexorcismat the cathedral on February 8, 1566. Impressedwith this drama,nonbelieversconfessedto theirsins,and Protestantsconvertedback to Catholicism."And many familiesfromour pious Picardy owe theirreturnto the true religion to this prodigy," exclaimed the local royal notary, Guillaume Gorret. King Charles IX himselfwas impressedby Nicole's purityand honesty. He stopped in Laon to witnessthe miracleand then invited Nicole to visithim at his chateau de Marchais,where he stayed duringpilgrimages to Notre-Dame-de-Liesse.Therehe gave her ten ecus d'or as a signofhis gratitude forher role as "a livingwitnessof the Catholic faith."18 JeanBodin, who was a royalprosecutor in the subalternate courtat Laon at the time,Agrippa d'Aubigne, Guillaume Postel, and Florimond de Raemond, who convertedto Catholicism following the event,all wrote about the "Miracle of Laon," as the case became known.19 This case, in turn,set the tone fornumerous other cases of spiritpossession in early modern France. Four separate cases of possessions in Soissons in 1582 were modeled on it, and the same devil who possessed Nicole Obry later possessed Laurent Boissonnet of Soissons and MargueriteObry ofBeauvais (note the identicalsurname)20 When a devil entered MartheBrossierof Romorantinin 1598, in the most famouscase of itskind in the century, eyewitnesses testified thatshe had read accounts of the Miracle of Laon. Her devil even admitted thathe was the same Beelzebub who had attacked Nicole

512-530;Boulaese, Manuel, 185-191.Interestingly 16Boulaese, enough, later sources indiThresor, catedthat Nicole wasbornon Maundy Thursday, "the dayof theinstitution of theHoly sacrament"; Roger, Histoire deNicole deVervins 1863),454. (Paris, L'Abbe'Joseph "Pierre de la Motteand Guillaume Lourdet, "Actedu miracle faict en l'Eglisede Nostre Dame de Liesse"(Vervins, 1566),citedin Boulaese, TVresor, 118-130.Cf.Boulaese, Manuel, 74. 18Boulaese, Thresor, 152,192-194;Boulaese, Manuel, 266; Boulaese, Le Miracle de Laonen Laonnoys, deNicole deVervins, 7; Roger, Histoire 455-456. 19Jean Bodin,De la demonomanie dessorciers, bk. 3 (Paris, 1588),172;Agrippa d'Aubigne, "Confession in Oeuvres Catholiquedu Sieurde Sancy," bk. 1 (Paris: completes, Pleiade,1969),599, where Guillaume Postel's arealso mentioned. See also"Lettres doubts aboutthis exorcism touchant quelques de diverses poincts Sciences," letter 835. In this (letter 3) to Roch le Baillif, Sieurde la Riviere, who wasa physician to HenriIV,d'Aubigne hisideasaboutspirit further developed Florimond possession; de Raemond, L'anti-christ (Lyon:J. Pillehotle, 1597),414-418. 20Charles Blendec, Cinqhistoires admirables ... advenu & Dioenceste presente annee, 1582.enla ville cese de Soissons (Paris: Guillaume de Tournay Chaudiere, 1582),fols. 18,23, 80v-81v; Gervais [GervasiusTornacensis], DivinaQuatuor visetveritas energumenorum liberatio ... in qua sacrosanctae Eucharistiae elucet The Franciscan plane Anthoine (Paris, 1583),70 (on Marguerite Obry). who had previFlobert, in Nicole'sexorcisms, ously participated in theexorcisms in Soissons. also tookpart

Sluhovsky/ Demonic Possession in Sixteenth-Century France 1043 thirty yearsearlier.21 In thisarticleI want to use Nicole Obry'spossession(withreferences to three additionalcasesfrom northern a new interpretation France) to suggest of spirit possessionin sixteenth-century France.Together, these fourcases represent a specific stage in the developmentof the phenomena of spiritpossession and exorcismin thisperiod.Unlike the famousoutbursts of demonic possessionin Frenchconvents in the seventeenth century (Aix-en-Provence,1609-1611; Loudun, 1632-1640; Louviers, 1643-1647),22 the protagonistsin these cases were lay individuals. Unlike latercases,thesepossessionsdid not containaccusationsof maleficium, and the exorcismsdid not evolve into witchcraft trials. This last distinction between possessionwith or without maleficiumis significant. Possessionis an involuntary interaction between a human being and a possessingentity, and its termination is on the other hand, dependent upon a successfulritual of exorcism. Witchcraft, involveda voluntary pact with the devil,usuallysignednot by the possessedperson but by a third A resolutionof the case was achieved when the diabolic participant. of the culprit.Only thenwas pact ended,usuallythroughthe physicalelimination the possessed healed and reintegrated into his or her society. These two distinct phenomena,however, have sometimesbeen conflated since the late sixteenth cenon the topic.23 This conflation erasesthe turyand in much of the recentliterature richnessand complexityof spiritpossessionand its unique character as both subversive and reaffirming constructed behaviorand religiousidiom,as both culturally "madness."By focusing our attentionon early French cases of spiritpossession withoutmaleficium, we can betterunderstand the theologicaldistinction between the two phenomena.These cases also unveil the psychologicaldynamicsthatled a topic thatis rarelyaddressedin the people to become possessed by evil spirits, current literature on the topic. In the followinginterpretation, the possessedindividualbecomes an initiator of the drama,a participantin the processesof diagnosisand of definition of the behavioras possession,of prognosis, of recovery. Possessionwas a comand,finally, plex and recognized syndrome.Possessed people had to exhibit a set of welldefined manifestations of "abnormal" behavior in order to be determined These included the abilityto understand possessed. foreign languages,to manifest
deMarthe 21[M.Marescot], Discours veritable surlefaict Brossier, de Romorantin, pretendu Demoniaque (Paris, 1599),39: "Le perede Marthe... a veu que sa fille, laquellecommemesmesesautres enfants, lisoittoujours des livres de diableries, et prinicipalement celuydu diablede Laon."On thiscase see Anita M.Walker andEdmundH. Dickerman, "'A Woman under theInfluence': A Case ofAlleged Possession in Sixteenth-Century 22 (1991):535-554. France," Sixteenth CenturyJournal 22There is vast literature on these cases. See primary sources in RobertMandrou, et ed.,Possession sorcellerie au XVIIesiecle (Paris: deLoudun Fayard, 1979);andMichelde Certeau, La Possession (Paris:Julhard, 1970);and analysis in RobertMandrou, Magistrats etsorciers enFrance au XVIIe siecle: Uneanalyse depsychologie historique (Paris: Seuil,1968); Genevieve Reynes, Couvents desfemmes: La viedesreligieuses la France clottrees dans desXVIIe etXVIIIesiecles (Paris: Fayard, 1987),159-177. 23The ItaliantheologianGirolamoMenghi devotedmuch timeto defining the difference between and witchcraft, possession See his Comnpendio dell'arte essorcista (Bologna, 1578) and Flagellum (Bologna,1586),and a recent Daemonum discussion in Giovanni Romeo, Inquisitori, esorcisti e streghe nell'Italia della (Florence: contrortforma Sansoni, 1990).

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unnaturalphysicalstrength, to react with horrorto sacred objects, and to suffer seizures, vomiting, fits, faintings, and paralfrominvoluntary gestures, convulsions, ysis.24 It was not easy, to fake possession;neitherwas it easy to cure it, therefore, in numerouscases.Most of the existand contemporaries debated alleged fakeries ing historical explanations of spiritpossessionin earlymodern Europe ignore this circumstances that complexity and emphasizeinsteadthe politicaland ecclesiastical in the finalstageof the the exact natureof the authorities' intervention determined thatritualsof public exordrama,the exorcism.It has been argued convincingly cisms were orchestrated by the Catholic Church in France (and in otherpartsof Europe) to exhibitthe Real Presence of God in the Holy Sacramentand to demonstrate the unique power of Catholic prieststo combat Satan and to administer curesto theircoreligionistsA25 As such,exorcismswere used as efficient visual protheseexplanafollowingthe Reformation.While paganda in the religiousconflicts pages is on an earlierstagein tionsare undoubtedly true,the focusin the following the process, the possessionitself, and on the possessedwoman.My use of the term "woman" to describethe possessedperson'sgenderis not accidental.I have so far in sixteenthfound eighteencases of demonic possessionof individuallaypersons centuryFrance.All but two of the cases I examined (and most of the reported and the gender European cases of possession) occurred to women or young girls, of the possessed was, as we shall see, an integral and important part of the syndrome.26 the possessedwoman becomes the agentrather In the following than reading, the prey of her possession; she is an active participantand not merelya passive
24Sacradotale (Venice, Romanurn, 417-418. Romanum 1579),329; Rituale see MarcVenard, "Le 25On spirit possession as religious propaganda in theearly modern period, Actes du ler Colloque JeanBoisset Demon controversiste," in La controverse religieuse (XVIe-XIXsiecles): Unclean Spirits: Possession andExor(Montpellier: Universit& PaulValery, [1980]),2:45-60; D. P.Walker, cism in France andEngland inthe LateSixteenth andEarly Seventeenth Centuries (Philadelphia: U Pennsylin vaniaP, 1981);idem, "Demonic Possession Used as Propaganda in theLaterSixteenth Century," livelli Scienze, credenze occulte, di cultura (Florence:Leo S. Olschki,1982), 237-248; HenriWeber, in Nouvelle etspectacle baroque," "L'exorcisme a la findu XVIe si&cle. instrument de la contre reforme duseizie'me "Demonsand Politics in France, siele (1983):79-101;Jonathan 1560-1630," revue L. Pearl, "'A School forRebel Soul': Politics and Demonic Historical 12,no.2 (1985):241-251;idem, reflections in France," Hanlon and Geoffrey Possession Historical 16:2/3 (1989): 286-306; Gregory Reflections Revue dela Bibliotheque Nationale Snow, "Exorcisme etcosmologie tridentine:Trois cas agenais en 1619," 1988);Ottavia Niccoli, "Await28 (1988): 12-27;MichelCarmona, Le diable de Loudun (Paris: Fayard, in herProphecy in Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991); inga New Octavian," andPeople Italy IVondrous inHis Saints: in Bavaria (Berkeley and Los PhilipM. Soergel, Counter-Reformation Propaganda Angeles: U California P,1993),99-158. to getpossessed than 26While most historians womenweremorelikely men, H.C. Erik agreethat and that in theGerman hasargued that these historians arewrongto reachthis conclusion Midelfort menwere justas likely to getpossessed. Keith Thomasreached thesameconclusion caseshe examined In France, in allbuttwoofthesixteenth-century casesI haveexamined, concerning England. however, own examples discuss thepossessed werewomenand notmen,Interestingly all ofMidelfort's enough, of women. See H.C. ErikMidelfort, "The Devil and theGerman on People:Reflections possessions ofDemon Possession in Sixteenth-Century in Steven thePopularity Germany," Ozment, ed.,Religion in the Renaissance Sixteenth andStudies, andCulture andReformation, vol.11 (Kirksville, Essays Century and the Mo.: Sixteenth Journal Century Publishers, 1989), 99-119. And cf.Keith Thomas,Religion Decline ofMagic (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,1971),572.

France 1045 Possession in Sixteenth-Century Sluhovsky/ Demonic This last argument, victimof the authorities' manipulations. however,should not be pushed too far. The stateof being possessedwas not desiredby the demoniacs, warrior as Michelet romanticizedit; neitherwas the possessedwoman a feminist of the society, as some recentinterpretations fighting forher rights in a patriarchal European witchcraze portrayed her.27Possessedpeople operatedwithinveryconstrainedboundaries,which were definedby the Church.They had to convince exorcists, doctors,and lay viewersthattheywere,indeed,posclerics,inquisitors, sessed and not witches,melancholic, epileptic,or simplymad. Theologians and and unsuccessfully to delineate doctorsin the sixteenth century triedcontinuously of supernatural intervenmanifestations clear distinctions among these different ifher the demoniac'sfate; tions.28 rulesof conduct determined Adherenceto strict she was possession, behaviorsdeviatedfrom what was accepted and definedas spirit in dangerof being uncoveredas a witch or being silenced as insane.The few possessed women who managed to remain within these very narrow restrictions and tenacquired a voice which allows us to hear some of theirconcerns,anxieties, to hearjust such a sions.The Miracle of Laon, as we shallsee,is a rareopportunity is the assumption thatthe religiousand political voice. Implicitin thislastargument authorities did not maintaina monopoly over the rightto define or to diagnose. a woman (in our case The healingagency, the Church,enteredthe scene only after which attracted attention Nicole) had exhibitedand acted out specificsymptoms and whichbrought about the suspicionthather deviantbehaviorcould derivefrom possessedwoman and the Church thenhad to collabpossessionby evil spirits.The orate to achieve their joint goal: the demoniac'srecovery. Admittedly, most of our sourcesforcases of spiritpossessionare not the probut insteadsummariesof it,compilationsthatwere ceedingsof the exorcismitself writtenby the exorcistsor other eyewitnesses, and broadsidesand brochuresthat circulatedfollowingthe terminationof the exorcism to informbelieversof the heretics to the truereligion.Thesedocumentswere all writmiracleand to convert ten by men and were meantto reaffirm male ecclesiastical authority Furthermore, in which the exchange among the demoniac,the coherentnarratives, theypresent demon, and the exorcistis translatedfromLatin and vernacular languages into ratherthan the first and to in the third, French;in which the possessedis referred second person; and in which the demoniac's nonnormativediscourse,including her cries, curses,and shrieks of pain, are incorporated into a linear narrative. between of making"a distinction Michel de Certeau warned about the difficulty
Feminism 1862);MaryDaly,Gyn/Ecology: TheMetaethics ofRadical 27J. Michelet, La Sorciere (Paris, Witchcraft in Colonial New (Boston: Beacon,1978); Carol Karlsen, Tie Devilin theShapeofa Woman: 154-156. La possession deLoudun, England (NewYork: Norton, 1987);and de Certeau, in early possession modern magisterial workon spirit 28This is thetopicofRobertMandrou's theGreeks tothe Beginnings TheFalling Sickness:A History ofEpilepsyfrom France. See alsoOwseiTemkin, andWitchcraft: The "Melancholia Johns Hopkins UP, 1971);S. Anglo, ofModern Neurology (Baltimore: Colloque international tenu in FolieetDeraison 2 la Renaissance: DebateBetween Wier, Bodin,and Scot," etsocietes pour le'tude dela Renaisdela Fderation internationale desinstituts ennovembre 1973sous lesauspices e esorcisti sance (Bruxelles: Universit6 libredu Bruxelles, Romeo, Inquisitori, 1976),209-222; Giovanni streghe.

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what the possessedor demoniac woman is stating and what is statedby demonological treatises or exorcists who witnessdemonology."29 Similarly, as Erik Midelforthas pointed out,a distinction should be made between the possessedwomen's own anxieties and troublesand the theological and polemical interpretation to which theywere immediately subjected.30 As I hope to show,echoes of the possessedwoman's originalvoices can nevertheless be rescuedfromtheseliterary and stereotyped products. of Nicole Obry's possession.I first What followsis a three-layer analysis argue that religious fermentmotivatedNicole's original message and that during the as possessed by demonic early stagesof her possessionshe did not regardherself powers.This religious context is then supplementedby plausible psychological motivations for her encounters with the spirit.Together, these two readings emphasize the personal dynamicsthatled to the outbreakof Nicole's symptoms. But spiritpossessioncannot be explained merelyas a personal behavior.It was a cultural idiom and mustalso be explainedas such,in a broaderculturalsetting.The I suggest thirdlayerof analysissuggests two contextsto Nicole's possession.First, of femaleecstaticspirituviewing Nicole's behaviorwithinthe European tradition a political-religious contextconnectsNicole's possessionand exorcism ality. Finally, to specificreligiousand politicaldevelopments in Picardyand northernFrance in the second halfof the sixteenth century. The use of Nicole Obry's possessionforCatholic anti-Protestant propaganda is all too obvious. Exorcism,in fact, was as old as the Church itself and servedas a forreligiousmessagesfromthe daysof the earlyChurch until proofof authenticity the nineteenthcentury. Throughoutthe Middle Ages, routinizedexorcismswere performedby priests during the baptism service and by professionalexorcists whose job was to do just that:expel demons fromhuman beings,fromanimals, and fromthe fields.31Picard Protestants were also aware of the Catholic Church's to publicize and to prolongNicole Obry's exorcism, attempt and theytriedto stop it.They ridiculedthe eventin combativepoems againstthe Catholics and against who believedin the miracles, whom theycomparedto asses.32 coreligionists They also petitionedtheirpatronand protector, Louis de Bourbon, the governorof the to put an end to the public ceremonies, the and the lattereven arrested province, girl fora fortnight.33 Catholics,too, were conscious of the propagandistic victory.
in hisTheWriting 29Michel de Certeau, "Discourse Disturbed," ofHistory (NewYork:Columbia UP, 1988),247. "The Devil andtheGerman 30Midelfort, 105. people," and 31A.F Duquesne,"Reflexionssur satanen marque de la tradition judeo-chr6tienne," M. F M. Catherinet, "Les demoniaques dans1'6vangile," bothin Satan. Etudes ed. G. Bazin carmelitaines, "The Use of Miraclesin the (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1948),207-267,315-327; M.E. Glaswell, in Miracles, ed. MarkanGospel,"and G.W. H. Lamps, "Miraclesand EarlyChristian Apologetic," F D. Moule (London:A.R. ritual is an inteCharles Mowbray, 1965),149-162,201-218.Theexorcism gralpartof theCatholicritual. See Rituale Romanum, 408-445. On agricultural exorcism of animals, see Esther PastandPresent 110 (1986):6-37. Cohen, "Law, Folklore, andAnimal Lore," 32Bibliotheque National(hereafter BNF) MS fr. 22560,"CollectionRasse des Noeux,"21, 87, 175,185. 33Boulaese, 104,242-244. Manuel,

France 1047 in Sixteenth-Century Sluhovsky/ Demonic Possession intervenedand The governorof Ile-de-France,the Marechal de Montmorency, the shaky orderedthe authorities to put an end to the"spectacle"which threatened Peace of Amboise. But Boulaese, among others,rushed to recordthe miraculous Le Miracle de Laon, eventsthattook place in Laon. He publisheda shortpamphlet, a first in a seriesof publications.34 Insteadof dwellingon the religiousand political dimensionof the case,let us intervention first focusour attentionon Nicole's behavior beforethe authorities' and beforethe definition of thesebehaviorsas demonic possession.Weshould disto which Nicole's possession tinguish the theologicaland polemical interpretation of the events.Prior to the ecclesiastical was subjectedfromher own understanding to the Eucharistor to the contemintervention, Nicole nevermade any reference became the centerof the exorissues that two porarydebate on the Real Presence, exorcismsothersacramentals-holywater, cismceremony. Even duringthe earliest the sign of the holy cross,and invocations of saints-were used to cast out the in in a series of possessionsand exorcisms demon fromNicole's body.35Similarly, symbol and as the as an anti-Huguenot Soissons in 1580 to 1582, the Sacrament in a laterstageof the promeansof exorcismwas only introducedby the exorcists addressed other religious concerns (see themselves ceedings.The possessed Nicole's to confessthatit was Before the Dominican friar forced spirit below).36 it "a of God, insisted and sworn that was messenger the the had spirit actually devil, recNicole herself Nicole's grandfather. the spirit and the soul ofJoachimWillot," with the circumstances him as her which was familiar such, and family, ognized of the the grandfather's death,never doubted Nicole's identification surrounding the to as a reappear grandfather spiritor her explanationof the eventswhich led there was no mention in the earlystagesof the examination, ghost.Furthermore, of the spirit'senteringinto Nicole's body. In fact,Nicole's encounter with her As grandfather could and should be viewed as an apparitionand not a possession. we recall,Nicole was in the local church atVervins when the deceased's spirit religiousvows so thatit could be moved appeared to her and asked her to fulfiRl frompurgatory to heaven. Similarrequestscharacterizedwhat was unique about French theologian Nodl Taillepied explained: The sixteenth-century apparitions. thatappearto us command us to perform "When the spirits good deeds,it is probFrom Nicole's able thatthese are wanderingsouls or good and saintlyspirits."37 was a masked therewas no apparentreason to suspectthatthis entity perspective confirmedher devil.Nicole had a series of additional apparitionswhich further
significance thetheological books, wherehe discusses 34Seetheintroductions to all ofBoulaese's etfestes depuis l'octave surlesdimanches Vigor, Sermons catholiques See also Simon ofthis Catholic victory. Sunday after of theseventh 1597),1:376 (sermon a l'advent (Paris: Nicolasde Foss6, dePasquesjusques F L. Devisme, inJacques of February angry letter theTrinity). Montmorency's 1, 1566,is reproduced deLaon(Laon,1822),2:80-81. Histoire dela ville Manuel, 25-32. 35Boulaese, fols. 18r-18v, 42r,59v,101r. Cinqhistoires admirables, 36Blendec, ou Traite desesprits (Paris, 1588),289,quotedinJean de l'Apparition 37NoEl Psichologie Taillepied, classique (Paris: de la Renaissance a l'dge Comportements despaysde Cocagne: collectifs Delumeau, La mort inLateMediA. ChristianJr.,Apparitions 1976),167-168.See alsoWilliam Publications de la Sorbonne, UP, 1981),esp.6-7. Spain(Princeton: Princeton eval andRenaissance

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status as a divinemessenger or a seer,not as a possessedwoman.Beforethe Dominintenican intervention, Nicole, her family, and the spirit all agreedthatthe latter's tions were devout and that Nicole was serving as a vessel of communication between the dead ancestorand the living relatives. A special mass was even celeof Nicole's relatives from and bratedinVervins to markthe return theirpilgrimages the confirmation of Nicole's visions.Thereby, thelocal ecclesiastical authority confirmedNicole's apparitions. Her pains,involuntary seizures,and But Nicole's body told a different story. of her stateas catatonicrelapses increaseddailyeven beforethe official recognition possession.She exhibited the physicalsigns of possession,and her "apparitions" could also be regardedas the clairvoyancecapabilitiesof possessed people.38 In other words, while Nicole's words claimed visionary powers, she was clearly about thesepowers,and her body expresseda rejectionof thisresponambivalent Nicole respondedto questionsaddressedto her sibility. During the exorcismitself, in Flemish,German, French,and Latin. The abilityto understandforeignlanguages was definedin the churchmanualsas the sine qua non of spiritpossession. Unlike witchesor people who get possessedvoluntarily, "those who are possessed ... speak diverseforeignlanguages,"explained sixteenth-century French barbersurgeonAmbroise Pare.39Admittedly, Nicole startedto understandforeignlanher behaviorwas definedas possessionand while she was already guages only after being exorcized in public ceremonies.At this stage of the exorcism,she had an in collaboratingwith the exorcists. obvious interest Only her cure by means of into her societyand,more importantly, put exorcismwould enable her integration an end to her suffering. The original characterizations of her power as visionary was replaced with a definition of possession. By speaking in tongues, Nicole affirmed the new diagnosisof her behavior as possessionby eitherthe Holy Spirit or evil spirits. It was leftto the authorities to determine the natureof the possessing and to decide how to treatit. spirit unfulfilled Nicole's original apparition revealed her grandfather's religious vows. In the following weeks, Nicole (and the devils who spoke throughher) from the family's recentpast. recalledothersinful incidents her childhood and from in anger,had Years before, Nicole had lost her sister's rosaryand Nicole's mother, cursed her:"Let the Great Devil carryyou away."It was also revealed duringthe her grandfather exorcisms thatthroughout her childhood Nicole stolemoneyfrom as as linens and a and mother's well candelabra, towels, sheets, dishes, meat, coffers,

417. 38Rituale Romanuni, 39 Ceuxquisont Pare, Oeuvres completes possedes ... parlent divers langages inconnus";Ambroise (Paris, treatises 1841),3:27,55. It is notclearfrom boththeological and medical on spirit possession whether (theability to understand foreign theability to speakin tongues refers to glossolalia or to xenoglossia offoreign languages, many poslanguages).While most writings on thetopicemphasize theknowledge in foreign languages andonlyhad sessed people(including Nicole Obry)wereincapable ofconversing a passive in their Compare Henry Charles Lea,Materials knowledge oflanguages spoken surroundings. D. Goodman, How forthe History ofthe Inquisition inthe Middle Ages(London, 1888),3:1040,to Felicitas Indiana about Demons? Possession andExorcism inthe Modern World (Bloomington: UP, 1988),6-8.

Possession in Sixteenth-Century France 1049 Sluhovsky/ Demonic cheese,and tallow.40 Nicole now blamed the devil forseducingher wood, butter, and thosecommitted to committhesepettythefts. It is clear thather transgressions the Nicole fornumerousyears. Similarly, by her motherand grandfather disturbed young boy Laurent Boissonnet became possessed in Soissons in 1580 to 1582 because of a sin he had witnessedyearsbefore,when he saw his uncle stealinga mouton fromone Pierrede Roy. His devil further revealedthatthe boy's aunt did not pay formassesforher deceased husband'ssoul.41When the young Nicole le Roy became possessedin the villageof Nampcet (diocese of Soissons)in 1582, her deviljustifiedhis possessionof her body by alludingto an unnamedsin"which she had failed to confess."42 MargueriteObry's demon remindedher thatwhen she was six, she had stolen some raisins and that when her fatherchased her, she in 1598,attributed scratched him.43Finally, the famousdemoniac Marthe Brossier, her father's sin of not her behaviorto a religioustransgression by a family member, their attending mass.44Like Nicole Obry,all of these possessedpeople identified who reappearedfromthe dead to demand stricter possessingagentas a messenger obedience by familymembers to religious precepts.In all of these cases,young (whether women (and in one case,a youngboy) used theirencounterswith spirits as we definethem as apparitions, as theyseemed originallyto be, or possessions, sinsand to the authorities determined) to confesstheiror theirimmediaterelatives' to improvetheirChristianconduct. mobilize theirfamilies Nicole Obry,Nicole le Roy, MargueriteObry,and Marthe Brossierwere,of most of the course,not the only young and pious girlswho got possessed.In fact, demoniacs in earlymodern Europe were young women.45All of these possessed call "alteredstates of women exhibitedwhat ethnopsychiatrists and anthropologists a culturally specificsyndromeof deviantbehaviorswhich are both consciousness," idiosyncratic and structured.Altered statesof consciousnessservesocietiesto estabevents. lish contactwith the "beyond,"to predictthe future, and to interpret They of his or her positionin the can occur to anymemberof the community regardless society (as was the case with the demoniacs in early modern France) or be mediums,oracles,etc. Most societies restricted to professionals: shamans, prophets, recognizeand definealteredstatesof consciousnessas legitimate(normal, permitCecileErnst,Teufelaustreibungen: analysis ofthis possession 43-44.In a detailed 40Boulaese, Manuel, (Bern:Huber,1972),32-51, arguesthat Kirche im 16. und 17.Jahrhundert Die Praxis der katholischen led to thepossession. Whilethelinthat as a childwas thecauseofguilt Nicole's "criminal" behavior that herunique Nicole,I believe clearly that guilt troubled petty crimes testifies gering memory ofthese in theimmediate past. necessitated a trigger namely, herpossession, response to these feelings, admirables, fols. 5r,7r. 41Blendec, Cinqhistoires admirables, fol.60v. 42Blendec, Cinqhistoires admirables, 67v. 43Blendec, Cinqhistoires 18453, fol.90 r. 44BNFMS fr. 45Walker, Fontaine ofLouviers, French caseinvolved Unclean 16.An additional Spirits, Franqoise BNF MS fr. merchant; 24122;a printed bya wealthy whogotpossessed in 1591whileshewascourted (Paris, esprit a Louviers unefille parle malin Benet, Proces verbal pourdelivrer possedee edition byArmand Witch Hunts (Bloomington: ofSatan:The Ageofthe casesseeJoseph Klaits, Servants 1883).For German in her Oedipus and theTheologyoftheBody," Roper, "Exorcism Indiana UP, 1985),113-119;Lyndal 1994),171Modern Europe (London: Sexuality, andReligion inEarly andthe Devil: Witchcraft, Routledge, 198.

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ted,"nondeviant") conditionsand institutionalize them,which is to say incorpostudies behaviors.46Cross-cultural as legitimate system rate them into the cultural indicatedthatyoung women are recognizedin manysocietiesas espehave clearly visionaries, agentsforthisrole.They can be definedas prophetesses, ciallyefficient etc. By entering into a trance,these voodoo performers, magic practitioners, women bringmessagesto theirsocieties.By arguingthatsomeone else is speaking sociwithinthem,thesewomen expand the narrowspace theyhave in traditional in theirsociety'stheologand to participate eties to speak out on religiousmatters ical dialogue and spiritualquest. By being in trance or possessed, they disclaim it to a higher(and usuattributing forthe contentof theirmessages, responsibility ally masculine) power. By disclaiming their voice, they gain a hearing. Nicole also needed to expressa possessedwomen, I suggest, Obry and her contemporary they religiousmessagethat,due to psychologicaldynamicsor societal limitations, allowed them to verbalize encounterswith spirits could not addressexplicitly.The of these encountersas demonic possessionsenabled theirmessages.The definition forthe contentof theirspoken words. them to disclaimauthorialresponsibility So farwe have arguedthatspiritpossessionin the case of Nicole Obry and in similar cases in early modern France was the means whereby young women is This explanation,however, acquired a voice to expresstheirreligiousconcerns. incomplete.Many more women, we may assume,experienced and witnessedreliand most of themneverbecame possessed.Most women used gious transgressions, A and gossip, to expresssimilarworries. more common means,such as confessions fordemonic possessionshould also supplya more immediate explanation satisfying cause forthe outburstof this unique behavior.This personal psychopathological While I argue,had to do with the possessedwomen's sexual anxieties.47 dynamic,
ofAltered ofConscious46Erika "A Framework fortheComparative States Bourguignon, Study andSocialChange ness," introduction to hercollection Religion, Altered States ofConsciousness, (Colum"The Self, theBehavioral and theTheory bus:Ohio StateUP, 1973),3-35. Cf. eadem, Environment, in Context andMeaning ed. Melford E. Spiro(NewYork: of Spirit in Cultural Anthropology, Possession," and Sharp, FreePress, Possession Chandler 1965),39-60;eadem, (San Francisco: 1976);and Psychological and "Status Anthropology (New York:Holt,RinehartandWinston, 1979); Peter Wilson, Ambiguity M. andPossession States Spirit Man 2 (1967):366-378;R. Prince, ed.,Trance (Montreal:R. Possession," Bucke Memorial andVivianGarroson, eds.,Case Studies 1968);Vincent ofSpirit Society, Crapanzano "Demonic Possession, Possession (NewYork: 1977); Nicolas P. SpanosandJackGottlieb, Wiley, John onTheirHistorical Mesmerism, andHysteria: A SocialPsychological Perspective Interrelations,"Journal States and of Abnormal Psychology 88,no. 5 (1979): 527-546; ColleenWard, ed.,Altered ofConsciousness casestudies Health:A Mental Cross-Cultural Perspective (Newbury Park,Calif.: Sage,1989).Twoexcellent A Celebration andthe Aesthetics from non-European cultures areBruceKapferer, ofDemons: Exorcism of andAlienSpirits: Healingin Sri Lanka(Bloomington: IndianaUP, 1983); andJaniceBoddy, Wombs Women, Men, andthe Zar CultinNorthern Sudan(Madison: U Wisconsin P,1989). 47Forthepredilection of womenforspirit see Ioan M. Lewis,Ecstatic Religion: An possession, Anthropological Study ofSpirit Possession and Shamanism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971), 30-35; B. Beit-Halahmi,"TheTurn oftheScrewandtheExorcist-Demoniacal Possession andChildhood Purity," American Imago 33 (1976):296-303.My explanation differs who explains theoverreprefrom Lewis's, of womenin casesof possession sentation in terms of"socialdeprivation." See Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession andShamanism andhis"Spirit Possessions andDeprivation Cults," Man 1 (1966):307-329;and cf.K. Thomas, Religion andthe Decline ofMagic, 573-574.My explanation also goes beyondthe overused (and often misogynistic) terms "hysteria" or "auto-hysteria" I that, believe, areusedin sucha widerange ofoccurrences that they do notexplain much.

Sluhovsky/ Demonic Possession in SixteenthCentury France 1051 lack of specificdata concerning the demoniacs' psychosexualdevelopmentpreventsus fromoverpsychoanalyzing them,it is apparentfromthe sourcesthatspirit possessionwas genderedas analogous to heterosexualintercourse and thatsexual metaphors playeda major role in the construction of the idiom. Most of thepossessedlaywomenin earlymodern Francewere at about the age when theymenstruated forthe first time,got married,and/orlost theirvirginity. Nicole Obry herself first encounteredthe spiritat age fifteen or sixteen, the age of to a menarchein earlymodern Europe.48 Furthermore, Nicole's mothertestified teamof doctorsand Catholic and Huguenot theologiansthather daughter became she menstruated forthe first possesseda month after time.Immediately following her encounterwith the spirit, when Nicole first showed signsof sickness, her parents assumed that she was pregnant,and the devil himself explained that he witha child."49 "enteredherwomb thathe caused to swell,as ifshe were pregnant The devil further associated Nicole with sexual images by callingher a "whore" and a "prostitute" (poutin and ribaulde).Eyewitnesses thather gesticulations testified resembled "uneplaisamment et rusee Nicole le Roy first affectee p[outin].",50 got possessedsevenmonthsafter her own marriageand duringher first In the pregnancy. her rightbreastswelledand became monthsand while she was lactating, following hardas a stone.It continuedto swell untilit reached her neck. She, too, used such "propos lasc~fs" duringher exorcismthatthe exorcistwho publishedher case felthe had to omit them fromhis narrativeto defend his readers' modesty.5' Sexual and metaphors, and fantasies also expressions explicitsexual gestures, accusations, in French conventsin the characterizedthe numerous cases of multipossessions seventeenth century.52 Often,I argue,possessedwomen projectedtheirunvoiced sexual anxietiesand equated theirpersonalnotionsof sexual impurity withparallel and/orcommunaldangers. familial Menstruation and pregnancy were two charged
48Peter Laslett, "Age at Menarche in EuropesincetheEighteenth Century," in Marriage andFertility: Studies in Interdisciplinary ed. RobertR. Rotbergand TheodoreK. Rabb (Princeton: History, Princeton UP,1980),285-300. 49"Qu'ilfaisoit enfler, comme si elleeust este grosse 268;Boulaese, Manuel, d'ejant";Boulaese, Thresor, in May 1577,whenshearrived 8,45.Nicole Obryresurfaced in historical records on a pilgrimage to Amiens to invoke SaintJohn theBaptist, whoseheadwasa relic in thepossession ofthelocalcathedral. According to an appendix to Boulaese's Nicole had losthersight a fewweeksearlier and was Thresor, advised byherdoctors to pray to thesaint for a cure.With thetwenty-six-year-old Nicolewasheronly son, Pierre Pierret, who wastenat thetimeofhismother's pilgrimage. Thismeans that Pierre wasborn sometime in 1566 or 1577,shortly after Nicole'spossession. Wasshe already pregnant withhimat the time? 50Boulaese, Thresor, 96,112;Boulaese, Manuel, 72. 51Blendec, Cinqhistoires admirables, fols. 45v,51v,53 r,54v. ofthesexual see de Certeau, La possession deLoudun. 52For gooddiscussions context ofthese cases, hadpenetrated InJewish early modern casesofspirit possession, thepossessing spirits admitted that they thewomenthrough See GedaliahIbn-Yahia, Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah their vaginas. (The chainof the Kabbala)(Venice, 1546; reprint, Jerusalem: DorothRishonim, 1962), 103-104;MenasheBen-Israel, I havenotfound similar Nishmat Ha'im(The spirit oflife)(Amsterdam, 1652),111v (bothin Hebrew). oricasesin Christian and exitthebodythrough other Europe, wheretheevilspirits tended to enter du Grand bk. 1,chap. butsee Francois La Vietres dePantagruel, fices, Rabelais, Gargantua pere horrificque ofbodily hismother's left corn6,on theinterchangeability orifices: Gargantua is bornfrom ear;Oeuvres pletes (Paris: Garnier, 1962),1:31.

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the Chrisperiodsin the livesof earlymodernEuropean women.They highlighted Both tian mistrust of the body in general and of the female body in particular. eventsalso associatedthe femalebody with maledictionand uncleanness.53 In constructing theirdeviantbehaviorin accordance with a recognizedsyndrome,the demoniacs invited the religious authoritiesto define theiroracular intervention as possession.Thisallowed the possessedwomen to expresstheiranxstage of their and to hint at the cure. In the first ieties,to disclaimresponsibility, and religiousconpossession, theygained a voice to expresstheirsexual,familial, fromthe concerns.In the second stage,the exorcism, theydistancedthemselves asked forhelp,and were reintegrated into theirsociety.This tentof theirmessages, does not claim thattherewas a conscious manipulation on behalfof the argument forthe contentof theirmessagesor possessedwomen to disclaimanyresponsibility of genderrole by voicingreligiousconcerns, but neither was fortheirtransgression it totallyunconscious. In a famous letterwrittensometime between 1152 and Elizabeth herfollower and student 1157, the mystic HildegardofBingen instructed to authenof Schdnau not to speak"of her own accord but fromthe serenelight," or a trumpet "a mirror" which only renders ticateher visions by makingherself the sound and does not produce it unlessanotherbreathes into it in orderto bring the sound."54Hildegardexpressedthe need of femalevisionariesor seersto forth unvoice theirmessagesin orderto gain a hearing, theirneed to speak as somebody were otherthan themselves. Similarconcerns and even similarmusicalmetaphors Lucrecia de Leon and Juana used in the sixteenthcentury by the Spanish mystics doubted the source of de la Cruz.55 In the twelfth centurysome contemporaries Hildegard and Elizabeth's vision, and suspected thatthey were possessed by evil as was the case with the Cordovan nun Magdalena de la Cruz in 1546. spirits,

530n menstruation, in Seventeenth-Century Crawford, "Attitudes to Menstruation see Patricia Analysis ofConcepts of Purity andDanger:An England," PastandPresent 91 (1981):47-73; MaryDouglas, Niccoli, "Il corpofemmiPenguin, 1970),145,167-169;Ottavia Pollution andTaboo (Harmondsworth: in Ii corpo Nobili (Ancona: delle donne, ed. GiselaBock and Giuliana nilenei trattati del Cinquecento," and Menstrual Quasi Monstruum': Monstrous Births 1988),23-43; eadem, "'Menstruum Transeuropa, Quaderni Storici, Historical Perspectives: Selectionsfrom Taboo in theSixteenth Century," in Sex andGender: see Muirand Guido Ruggiero(Baltimore:Johns ed.Edward Hopkins UP,1990),1-25. On pregnancy TheSociological Review Pregnancy as Spirit Possession," Hilary Graham, "The SocialImageofPregnancy: for thespirit posthemedieval andearly modern Hebrew term 24,no.2 (1976):291-308.Interestingly, Fortheprevalence oftheconnection and distress session is 'ibbur between psychological (impregnation). Madness, Anxiety, see also MichaelMacdonald, Mystical Bedlam: gynecological or obstetrical problems, andHealing in Seventeenth-Century (Cambridge: Cambridge UP,1981),38. England andthe Visionary in Kathryn KerbFulton andDyanElliott, "Self-Image 54Theletter is included ofElizabeth and Hildegard ofBingen," Vox Role inTwo Letters from theCorrespondence ofSchdnau andValidation," Newman, "Hildegard ofBingen:Visions Benedictina 2 (1985):221-222.See alsoBarbara ofWisdom: Saint Theology ofthe Church 54 (1985): 163-175;eadem, chap.1 of Sister Hildegard' History A ofSchdnau: and Los Angeles: U California Feminine (Berkeley P, 1987);Anne L. Clark,Elizabeth U Pennsylvania Visionary (Philadelphia: Tfvelfth-Century P,1992),20-24. 5Richard L. Kagan,Lucrecia' Dreams: Politics andProphecy Spain(Berkeley in Sixteenth-Century and and Los Angeles: The Guitar ofGod: Gender, Power, U California P,1990), 138; Ronald E. Surtz, P,1990), 63-85. MotherJuana dela Cruz(Philadelphia: U Pennsylvania Authority inthe Visionary Worlds of

in Sixteenth-Century France 1053 Sluhovsky/ Demonic Possession Teresa ofAvila and some of her followersin the second halfof the centurywere equallysuspected.56 Nicole Obry and the other possessedlaypeople in earlymodern Admittedly, most of themreligious Francehad littlein common with these femalevisionaries, to protect in theircommunities and withpowerful patrons women ofhighstanding them.Unlike the femalemystics and seers,the demoniacs whose cases concern us Their goal was much more limited here did not tryto acquire religiousauthority. and immediate:to voice a spiritualconcern thathad directimpact on theirlives. France Nevertheless, duringtheirpossessionsthe possessedwomen fromnorthern the much more emiwhich resembled attainedsome degree of religiousauthority, of femaleecstatic nent public role femalevisionariesgained throughthe tradition piety. Our explanationof Nicole Obry'spossessionhas so faraccountedforthe reliher possesdynamics thatinitiated gious transgressions and the psychopathological was equated sion. I have suggested thata personalor familial religioustransgression In a final in the possessedwomen's (un)conscious with theirown sexual impurity. I suggestthatthe religio-political contextin Picardycontributed layerof analysis, and penetration to thewomen's religiousanxietyand to the metaphorsofimpurity of the body social by unclean agents. and ecstatic, was widespreadin early both institutionalized Religious ferment, The regionwas influenced more thanotherpartsof Franceby the modernPicardy. This could have createda of the fifteenth century.57 Beguine pietyand mysticism In the early oflaypietythatlegitimized Nicole Obry's originalapparitions. tradition the provincebecame a fertile ground forFrenchhumanismand sixteenth century, and suffice it to mentionthatLefevred'Etaples,the translator of the first biblicism, Frencheditionof theBible; Fran~oisVatable; Olivetan;Louis de Berquin,one of the In the 1550s and first Protestant and of courseJohnCalvin were all Picards. martyrs; 1560s,reformed ideas spreadfastin the province.Educated women of aristocratic of their families.58 stockplayeda dominantrolein directing the religioussentiments But Catholic believers and was the geographalso mobilized,and Picardywitnessed In the earlyseventeenth ical centerof a penitential movement.59 century, Picardy was known forits mystical movementof Illumines, and contemporaries fearedthat in Picardyand northern Francein the thousandIllumines theywere as manyas sixty

560n Hildegard ofBingen," 171-174.On Magdalena "Hildegard andElizabeth, see B. Newman, in Culture in andControl "Saint Teresa, Demonologist," ofAvila, seeAlison Weber, de la Cruz andTeresa (Minneapolis: U Minnesota Perry Spain, ed.AnneJ.Cruz and MaryElizabeth Counter-Reformation P, 1991),173-187. 1958);Alphonse d la viemystique (Bruges: Desclee de Brouwer, 57Pierre De la viedevote Serouet, de Publications universitaires 1600-1660 (Louvain: en France au XVIIe siecle, Vermeylen, Sainte Therese Presses du Nord (Paris: avec lesmystiques Orcibal, La rencontre du Carmel theresienne Louvain, 1958);Jean de France, universitaires 1959),18-23. France (Ithaca: 58Kristen Interpreting NobleCulture inSixteenth-Century Words ofHonor: B. Neuschel, Cornell UP,1989),30-37. etsociete blanches, 1583-1584 Histoire, economie, "Recherches surlesprocessions 59Denis Crouzet, 4 (1982):511-563.

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1620s: men and women who claimed to have divinevisionsand inspiration.60 During the Wars of Religion and the League period, Picardy was divided between a Catholic majority and a powerfulProtestant minority led and protected by Louis de Bourbon,the prince of Conde. Conde servedin the early1560s as the governor of Picardy and lived in his chateau de La Fere, near Laon.61 Nicole Obry's possessionin 1565 followed an epidemic in 1556 and the battleof Saintof Savoy, Quentin in 1557,when King Philippe II's army, led by Emanuel Philibert defeatedthe Frencharmy.Theremainsof the defeatedarmyescaped to Laon, only to be further devastated by the mass desertionof the unpaid German mercenaries. During the 1560s many Protestant refugeesfromthe Low Countries arrivedin Picardy, people who escaped Spanish religiouspersecutions and enjoyed the protectionof Louis de Bourbon. In September 1565,just two monthsbeforeNicole's in Laon was broken encounterwith the devil,the church of Saint-Pierre-le-Viel into,and a ciborium containingHosts was stolen.Protestants were immediately and expiationceremoniesfollowedsoon. Nicole probblamed forthe profanation, The devil who possessedher certainly ablyknew about thisevent. did,and,speaking through her mouth, named the Protestants who were culpable of the sacrilege.62 Similarly, the fourpossessionsin Soissons in 1582 followedsoon after therecovery of the cityby the Catholics following the Calvinists' seizureof the city the previous year.63 A similarcorrelationbetween the timingof possessionsand of the body social by Protestantism were also typical "infections" or "penetrations" of other cases of spiritpossession:Aix-en-Provence,Agen, and Loudun, where were all cities multiplepossessionstook place in 1611, 1619, and 1638, respectively, with religiously As LyndalRoper has recently dividedpopulations.64 arguedabout religiouslydivided sixteenth-century in all of these cities "the disturAugsburg, In all of these bance in the religiousrealm ... was thus expressedsomatically."65 cases,I believe,possessionwas an expressionby pious Catholic women of religious ferment. These women witnessed communal and religious transgressions. They members'religious equated them with theirown fearsover theirand theirfamily
60Henri dusentiment Bremond, Histoire litteraire deReligion religieux enFrance depuis desGuerres lafin jusqu'd nos de Paris, "Le Pare jours(Paris:Bloud & Gay,1916-1933), vols.6, 9, 11; R.P. Godefroy Archange Ripautetles Capucins des Illumines 44 (1934):541danslaffaire franyais," Etudesfranciscaines 548; 47 (1935):346-356,601-615.The number of Illumines wasclearly muchlower, buttheimageof Picard as a center ofunorthodox spirituality mayhavehelpedtheexaggerated estimation. on Picardy, On theWarsofReligionand the devastation see now David Potter, they brought War and Government in theFrench Provinces: 1470-1560 (Cambridge: Picardy, Cambridge UP, 1993), 200-232.BothLaon andLa Farewereadministratively inValois, outside theboundaries oftheprovince of Picardy. However, as bothPotter and Neuschel, Words ofHonor, 26-29,havepointedout,Picardy's boundaries wereflexible and changed moreoften thanboundaries ofmoreconsolidated provinces of France. Contemporary sources unanimously referred toVervins andLaon as part ofPicardy. 62Boulaese,Thresor, 351 (report of theroyal notary Gorret). Forhistory ofLaon during theWars of Religion, see Devisme, Histoire de la ville de Laon,1: 335-348,2:3-4; G. Boissonnet, Unepaged'histoire dela Picardie etdu Cambresis en 1552 (Cambrai, 1877). 63Blendec, Cinqhistoires admirables, passim. 64Harilon andSnow, "Exorcisme et cosmologie," La Possession deLoudun, 4019-20;De Certeau, 45. RobertMandrou, Magistrats etsorciers, 241-245, also pointed out therivalry amongthereligious orders themselves, especially Capuchins, Dominicans, andJesuits. 65Roper,"Exorcism andthe oftheBody," Theology 176.

Sluhovsky/ Demonic Possession in Sixteenth-Century France 1055 conduct.Theyfurther projectedpersonalsexual anxietyonto the communalthreat. Nicole Obry,Nicole le Roy,MargueriteObry,and otherpossessedwomen either in witnessingapparitionsor by becoming possessed,acquired a voice for themselves' to addresstheseissuesand to draw theirsociety'sattention to the transgressions. But by using the culturalidiom of spiritpossession,theyalso directed the religious authoritiesto relieve them of the tension and the responsibility that awarenessof thesereligioustransgressions entailed.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS NEH SUMMER SEMINARFOR COLLEGE TEACHERS

'The English and&Art 4'jterature, History, Rkjformation: June 9 - August 1, 1997

This interdisciplinary willconsiderdifferent program phasesin a majorhistorical watershedthatcontributed of the literary to the transformation and artistic productionof earlymodernEnglandbetweenthe timeofTyndale's Bible translations and publicationof Milton'sbiblical epics. The seminarwill bringtogether literary, historical, and artistic concerns thatconventional disciplinary boundaries stilltendto separate. Textsunderconsideration willincludeselections from Foxe's BookofMartyrs, Spenser's TheFaerie Queene,and Milton'sParadiseLost.Applicationsare welcomefrom who specialize and independent scholars collegeteachers in theliterature and cultural ofthe EnglishRenaissanceand Reformation, history ofreligion, and to historians politics, art,and music.The deadlineforapplications is March 1. Direct inquires to: Professor JohnN. King NEH SummerSeminar, Departmentof English The Ohio StateUniversity 164 West 17thAve. Columbus OH 43210-1370 telephone(office): 614-292-6065 or (home) 614-875-1761 ask forKevin Lindberg e-mail:lindberg.2@su.edu