Demonic Possession and Lived Religion in Later Medieval Europe

222 Pages·2020·1.282 MB·English

by  Sari Katajala-Peltomaa

OXFORD STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL
EUROPEAN HISTORY
General Editors
JOHN H. ARNOLD
PATRICK J. GEARY
and
JOHN WATTS

Demonic Possession
and Lived Religion in
Later Medieval Europe
SARI KATAJALA-PELTOMAA
1
1
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Preface
The seeds for this project were sown years ago when I was a doctoral student and
first came across miracles involving demonic possession. They caught my atten-
tion as intriguing and even amusing anecdotes. My first impression was that the
details, such as the shameful songs and stones thrown, were expressions of quite
straightforward frustration, even infuriation. Soon enough I learned that at stake
were much more than fits of anger; some of these people were likely to have been
severely ill as they had died soon afterward. Into the same category were placed
various kinds of afflictions, some of which seemed mild enough. Furthermore,
the exact same symptoms could have been labelled differently in different collec-
tions. Nothing was straightforward, I found out.
The only constant feature that remained was the happy ending all these cases
had; in the end, the saints’ miraculous powers drove away the malign forces and
restored peace and harmony. The inevitable positive outcome (a sine qua non) of
a miracle narration is something I have learned to value after long discussions
with colleagues working with other kinds of judicial material. When it comes to
miracles, whether they were recorded in a canonization process or in a miracle
collection, things may get a bit rough along the way, but in the end all will be fine;
nobody gets burned or otherwise lastingly punished, and even sinners are given
an opportunity to repent. As the reading of the chosen source material essentially
guides the historian’s perceptions of the past, as a form of self-evaluation I ponder
if and how this positive outcome has, at least subconsciously, affected my analysis
of the phenomenon. On occasion, my argumentation differs from other scholars
of the field. I tend to see collaboration where some other scholars see subjugation,
and joint efforts for cure where others argue for joint methods of punishment.
I have always been more interested in the fractures and divergences within
dominant discussions than in arguing for fixed categories or the uniform and
uncomplicated evolution of a phenomenon. This resonates with and is encour-
aged by the chosen sources, since another invaluable feature of miracle narrations
is their richness. They offer an opportunity to study phenomena and people’s lives
which are rarely found in other kinds of texts and their capacity to provide infor-
mation will not be easily exhausted. Needless to say, care and skill are needed
when tackling this treasure trove in order to understand what they are really
about, as miracle narrations are so much more than entertaining anecdotes.
I view the increasing popularity of this material with both pleasure and caution.
Due diligence is needed when miracles are used as source material. Therefore,
vi Preface
I found it important to also include explicit comments on the sources and meth-
odology within the text.
Yet another thing I have learned as this process matured was the multifaceted
nature of the phenomenon of demonic possession; it was connected to so many
things in the culture and society of the Middle Ages that practically anything
could be studied from the perspective of demonic presence. Daily life, gender,
sexuality, identity, disability, spirituality, and politics, for example, stand out in
the narrations. They were all major components in the construction of medieval
culture and are major themes in current historiography. Indeed, I had a hard time
choosing the major themes and structuring the argumentation of this book. The
most important of all options for my approach, however, was religion as lived
practice. It provided the link between the various themes of this book. For the
current volume ‘lived religion’ is both a thematic approach and a methodology.
I thank the external readers for their thoughtful comments and competent guid-
ance on these matters. Thanks to their comments, the richness of the cases and
detailed narrations is hopefully more accessible to readers.
As the process of writing this book has been a long one, the debt of gratitude is
likewise enormous. The History Department in the Faculty of Social Sciences at
Tampere University and especially Trivium (Tampere Centre for Classical,
Medieval, and Early Modern Studies), always with friendly and helpful colleagues,
has been a fruitful place to conduct this research. I want to thank especially Raisa
Maria Toivo, Jenni Kuuliala, and Ville Vuolanto for being my rehearsal audience,
letting me ventilate my thoughts about the project, and commenting on my texts.
I would also like to thank Gábor Klaniczay, Christian Krötzl, Marko Lamberg,
Didier Lett, Marianna Muravyeva, Katariina Mustakallio, Susanna Niiranen,
Letizia Pellegrini, and Laura Ackerman Smoller for collaboration in various sub-
projects related to this book.
The Academy of Finland has been most generous in funding the research for
the volume in hand. The work for this book started with my Academy of Finland
post-doctoral project Gender and Demonic Possession in Late Medieval Europe
(2011–14); it was continued in affiliation with the Academy of Finland Centre of
Excellence History of Society: Re-Thinking Finland 1400–2000 (2012–17), and fin-
ished during the current Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence History of
Experiences (2018–). Both of the centres have been headed by Pertti Haapala.
I thank him for the research time and opportunities these centres have offered me.
I am very grateful to Oxford University Press for accepting my book to be pub-
lished in the Oxford Studies in Medieval European History series. The experi-
enced and kind staff at Oxford University Press have been most helpful. I am
especially indebted to the series editor-in-chief John Arnold for comments and
encouragement during this process.
It is not easy as a non-native English speaker to write engaging academic prose.
The language of this book has been checked by Bentley Mathias and I am most
Preface vii
grateful for his competence and endurance. It may well have been that malign
forces exerted their baleful influence on the text I had formulated (as he sus-
pected); nevertheless, and despite his help and that of all the others mentioned
above, all remaining mistakes are my own.
Finally, I want to give my thanks to my nearest and dearest. In a family of two
working parents and two teenagers, proper order has sometimes been lost, behav-
iour inappropriate, and emotions excessive. Communal negotiations have indeed
been needed to sort out the situation and various methods to exculpate oneself
have been tried. Miracle or not, peace and harmony have always been restored in
our home. I wish to express my love and thanks to Ari, Otto, and Sanni.
A technical note—saints and other otherwise well-known persons are referred
to by the generally used English version of their name throughout the text. For
the witnesses, on the other hand, the version of the name that is found in the
sources (usually in Latin) is used. All transcripts of manuscripts and translations
are mine unless otherwise indicated. The King James version is used for Biblical
quotations.

Contents
1. Introduction: Demons in Daily Life—Lived Religion and
Devotional Strategies 1
2. Reasons for Possession: Perilous People, Hazardous Places 28
3. Vulnerable Persons: Corporeality and the Female Life Course 46
4. Community Responses to Demonic Presence 69
5. Constructing the Sacred: Demons, Priests, and Pilgrims 101
6. The Interwoven Fabric of the Sacred and the Political 129
7. The Need for Control: Demonic Sex and the Feminine 150
8. Conclusions: Demonic Devices: Lived Religion as a Methodology 178
Bibliography 185
Index 207