"A Woman under the Influence": A Case of Alleged Possession in Sixteenth-Century France
This article reexamines the case of the French demoniac Marthe Brossier, who in 1598 accused her neighbor Anne Chevreau of causing her demonic possession by witchcraft. The testimony of Anne Chevreau provides an unusual perspective, where the accused defends herself by accounting for the actions and...
| Authors: | ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, Inc.
1991
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| In: |
The sixteenth century journal
Year: 1991, Volume: 22, Issue: 3, Pages: 535-554 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
Non-electronic |
| Summary: | This article reexamines the case of the French demoniac Marthe Brossier, who in 1598 accused her neighbor Anne Chevreau of causing her demonic possession by witchcraft. The testimony of Anne Chevreau provides an unusual perspective, where the accused defends herself by accounting for the actions and motivations of her accuser. She explains why Marthe became a demoniac and why she chose Anne as the target of her accusation. Anne's testimony and other sources allow us to reconstruct Marthe's extraordinary rise and fall and to demonstrate the existence in contemporary popular culture of explanations of demonic possession at variance with those of theologians, physicians, and magistrates. Under Anne's hand, a more sympathetic and plausible picture of a sad and desperate person, who is used by others for their own ends, emerges in this sixteenth-century depiction of one woman by another. |
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| ISSN: | 2326-0726 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The sixteenth century journal
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/2541474 |