Discerning spirits : divine and demonic possession in the Middle Ages /

Caciola (history, UC San Diego) explains the process of determining who should be revered as saints "infused with the spirit of God" and who must be rejected as being possessed by demonic spirits. This testing of spirits was intensely focused on women, notably northern European Beguines and Mediterranean tertiaries. Since lay religious women were only loosely under masculine control, they were often seen as sources of malign influence; the most likely explanation for extreme or unusual behavior was demonic possession. Case studies of three women mystics show how politics and the community informed the process of discernment and how broader epistemological issues led to women being seen as more vulnerable than men to possession by spirits. Caciola closes by examining late medieval treatises on the discernment of spirits, which singled out the laity and especially women as unlikely candidates for divine intervention and possession. She elegantly demonstrates that by the 15th century possession by foreign spirits was seen as being exclusively demonic as opposed to divine, laying the foundation for the witch hunts of early modern Europe. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. J. M. B. Porter Butler University

Caciola (history, Univ. of California, San Diego) brings to light lesser-known but textually documented visionaries of the Middle Ages, along with the big names, in her study of the fine line between "delusional" and "devotional" behaviors. In discussing these medieval women's behavior and writings, she highlights the fact that gender was often the factor that determined whether one was considered demonically or divinely possessed. Medieval mystic and abbess Hildegard of Bingen herself defined her age as the "effeminate age," in which foolish clerics fell prey to what she viewed, somewhat hypocritically, as self-dramatizing, deluded female visionaries. Using medieval hagiographies as well as hostile depictions, Caciola challenges scholarly notions of saints and demonics, finding this divide neither self-evident nor "natural," since saints can also be heretics, pseudo-prophets, and the possessed as well. She focuses on visionaries such as Catherine of Siena, Brigit of Sweden, and Hildegard of Bingen, though one might wonder at the silence on Joan of Arc, a visionary who clearly transgresses gender expectations for her age (which ultimately solidifies her martyrdom) in political as well as religious ways. Still, Caciola provides a perceptive piece of historical scholarship on a topic of great interest to religious studies and women's studies collections. Recommended for academic libraries.-Sandra Collins, Duquesne Univ. Lib., Pittsburgh (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.