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Exorcism as Empowerment: A New Idiom
Author(s) -
Marshman Michelle
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of religious history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1467-9809
pISSN - 0022-4227
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9809.00088
Subject(s) - exorcism , false accusation , empowerment , collusion , state (computer science) , history , gender studies , sociology , criminology , political science , law , anthropology , algorithm , computer science , economics , microeconomics
During the years 1610 and 1611, two Ursuline novices underwent an exorcism in southern France. In the spring of 1611, their confessor, Father Louis Gaufridy, was condemned of witchcraft and rape by Dominican inquisitors, and burned at the stake by state ofcials. The Dominican inquisitors found Father Gaufridy guilty of causing the Ursulines to be possessed by demons, and luring the young women to caves where they participated in illicit activities. Rather than accepting the role of victim, the Ursulines, working in collusion, accomplished the miraculous: public exoneration, and reintegration into their religious community accompanied not only by a reclaimed stature as women religious, but by an elevated stature. Through an intricate play of accusation and expiation, carefully worked through the demons that possessed them, the Ursuline novices reconstructed themselves as virtuous women religious.