Abstract

Men and women “possessed by unclean spirits” throng the pages of the Acta sanctorum, just as they had for centuries thronged the shrines of miracle-working saints. Around the turn of the thirteenth century, however, the literature of edification shows a sudden upsurge of interest in demoniacs. They begin to proliferate not only in saints' lives but also in the new genre of the exemplum, associated with the friars and the rise of vernacular preaching. At the same time that these sources are directing heightened attention toward the possessed, the symptoms of possession itself conspicuously alter. Unlike the violent and self-destructive persons who had always qualified for saintly exorcism, the energumens of the new exemplum literature are lucid and articulate, inspiring responses more of curiosity and respect than of pity or horror. Speaking in persona diaboli, they were viewed as sources of supernatural authority, treated with circumspect awe by priests, and sometimes even allowed to preach. In their diabolically inspired, charismatic role, such demoniacs bear a startling, if superficial, resemblance to prophetic female saints, who gained their religious authority by speaking in persona Dei