A series of 10 textbooks on early modern European History.

From 1400 through 1700, the number of reports of demonic possessions among European women was extraordinarily high. During the same period, a new type of mysticism—popular with women—emerged that greatly affected the risk of possession and, as a result, the practice of exorcism. Many feared that in moments of rapture, women, who had surrendered their souls to divine love, were not experiencing the work of angels, but rather the ravages of demons in disguise. This book asks how practitioners of exorcism were able to distinguish demonic from divine possessions. Drawing on unexplored accounts of mystical schools and spiritual techniques, testimonies of the possessed, and exorcism manuals, it examines how early modern Europeans dealt with this dilemma. It shows that the personal experiences of practitioners trumped theological knowledge. Worried that this could lead to a rejection of Catholic rituals, the church reshaped the meaning and practices of exorcism, transforming this healing rit

Scholars have always found it tough to define what constitutes early modernity due to lack of exacting terms of reference and the awareness of the role of point of view when attempting to characterize the Middle Ages and modernity. An attempt is made to suggest plausible reasons why the term 'early modernity' replaced the traditional terms 'Renaissance and Reformation' and to point out different temporal boundaries between early modernity and the Middle Ages in historiography over the last forty years.

This article examines the relationship between demonic possession and female spirituality in convents during late medieval and early modern Europe. The author argues the misdiagnosis of possession was acutally a result of psychological and spiritual tensions due to contradictory expectations of the nuns.

Marguerite de Valois, queen of France in the late 15th century, is the main character in the melodramatic novel 'La Reine Margot' by Alexandre Dumas. Professional historians have been unable to separate this fictional portrayal from the actual woman, partly because of their inability to admit the influence of sexual desire.

There is no denying the political and secular rather than religious nature of the Parisian Fronde of 1648-52, but religious symbols and vocabulary were nevertheless recruited by the rival camps that confronted each other during the civil war. Between 1649 and 1652, more than fifty Parisian Mazarinades invoked saints, angels, and hermits, imploring these divine protectors to save the city from Mazarin and to reunite the city with its God. Patron saints of Paris and of France were also implored in public processions of penance and in communal invocations. Examining these Mazarinades, as well as some devotional public rituals that took place in the city during these years, the article addresses the mobilization of religious sentiments during the Fronde. It argues that for contemporary Parisians, some Mazarinades were assumed to address issues that were both religious and political. The use of religious lexicon and rituals by the Frondeurs had a nostalgic component; it was an attempt to r

The article discusses the possession and exorcism of sixteen-year-old Nicole Obry (1565-1566). It offers a three-layer interpretation of the case and argues that a combination of psychological, political, and gender issues brought about the woman's possession. I first suggest that possession by either good or evil spirits was a culturally recognized syndrome that allowed laypeople, mostly women, to express religious concern in a society that did not permit laywomen to address spiritual issues in more normative ways. Indeed, in her own perception prior to the clerical intervention, Nicole regarded herself as a visionary and not as a demoniac. The complexity of spirit possession as a psychological and psychopathological behavior also necessitates a personal (sub)conscious motivation, and I suggest that metaphors of penetration and possessions were directly related to Nicole's personal experiences and anxieties as a young woman. The social/cultural and the personal contexts are then conn

This paper is a study of French Calvinism as a language. It was a language which employed the signifiers and the signs of the traditional Christian culture. There was persistent usages of key Catholic words in the theology of early Huguenot believers, regardless of their level of education or commitment to the cause. In an attempt to follow one such word ("miracle": miracula or mirabilia), a large number of texts are examined, including Calvin's own writings, the Histoire ecclésiastique, Simon Goulart's Mémoires de l'estat de France sous Charles Neufiesme, and the personal diary of an anonymous believer in the provincial town of Millau.