Loudun Possessions

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and today's show is about a famous case of mass possession. The story of the Loudain possessions in seventeenth century France has kept theologians, psychology experts, historians and occultists frankly fascinated for four centuries. And that's because it involves a group of nuns who described some very unsettling visitations at their convent, and that developed into a story of possession, political intrigue, and a moment in time that was just rife with social tension. So on September twenty second, sixteen thirty two, three nuns at the Ursuline Convent in Loudon, France, were, according to reports, visited in the night by what appeared to be a spirit asking for help. The spirit appeared to each of them separately, but in each appearance it was a member of the clergy. Those three nuns were Jean des Ange, who was the mother superior, Sister de Colombier persistant, and a junior member of the order called Sister Marte Sanmonique. This was the beginning of the most famous possession and witchcraft case that France and really most of Europe had ever experienced. According to the nuns accounts, there were many other unusual happenings at the convent in the nights that followed. First there were sounds, they heard voices, but then things escalated. Nuns, these three and others began to report being hit by unseen forces. Some of them were stricken with fits of giggling for no reason. It was just this uncontrollable reaction. And then they start seeing a skeleton walking through the convent hallways. Then one night, the Mother Superior was handed some hawthorns by what appeared to be a spirit hand. Hawthorns are tart berries that come from a flowering shrub, like a lot of other plants. This is related to the rose. Hawthorns have historically been used to treat things like indigestion, kidney disease, and skin condition, although there's no solid proof that they help with any of that, and some hawthorn preparations can be toxic. But for these nuns there was another effect, which was convulsions. The behavior of the nuns also became irrational, and they started to see a clear image of a particular person they all knew. I will say for clarity, I never saw a definitive explanation as to whether they consumed those hawthorns or if they sort of were spiritually exposed to hawthorn right. But to talk about what happened next, we actually have to put this unique moment in context and talk about some of the key players in the story. So Luda which was founded in the eleventh century by Benedictine monks since about three hundred kilometers southwest of Paris, and in the early seventeenth century when this story takes place, it had been through a lot. It had just been through a terrifying plague in which three thousand of its residents had died. There was no way to treat the plague, and many of the doctors had left. Sometimes this is described as the doctors abandoning Ludam but they realized they couldn't do anything, and they did not want to die and not be able to help other people. And Huguenot Protestants and Catholics had also been at odds in the region throughout the sixteenth century, in what were known as the French Wars of religion. The Edict of Nant had ended the fighting in fifteen ninety eight, and it had established religious tall on paper, but there was still friction and mistrust between those factions. In the more acute sense. Under King Louis the Third, the French government wanted to tear down the walls that surrounded the city of Loudon as a way to make it less isolated and to bring it into the greater fold of French centralized government. The Catholic population of the town was all for this, but the Huguenot Protestants saw it as a way to ensure that Catholicism, which was the national religion, dominated their day to day lives. Next we introduce Urban Grandier. Grandio was born in Buier, France, in fifteen ninety. According to a biography about him written by Alexandre duma Perire, he was educated by his father, Pierre Grandier and his uncle Claude Grandier. Education was in the sciences. At twelve he entered the Jesuit College at Bordeaux, and he did really well in school. He was a good speaker, he had natural charm, and his teachers really loved him. It was also there that he became strongly encouraged to put his natural gifts to work with the church, and he did so. In sixteen seventeen, Grandier was made priest of the parish at Saint Pierre de Marchas e Laudon, and also was appointed as a canon at the church of Sainte Croix. That meant that he had a degree of power within the ecclesiastical governance of the region. He would, with other canons, preside over ecclesiastical court proceedings. At the age of twenty seven, he was considered young to have such prominent positions, particularly in a place that was not his hometown. Grandier was an outlier among his peers in the Catholic Church. For one, he sided with the Protestant position that Loudan should keep its walls and have a degree of independence from the French crown. He was pretty generally anti royalist, and he was not a fan of the powerful Cardinal Richelieu. He also wrote a treatise that stated that he believed the rule of celibacy for religious figures in the Catholic Church should be abolished, but he had enough friends and high places that for a while, although his views were problematic, he maintained his position and power. To add to his list of problematic attributes, he could also be kind of a jerk. He was very smart and more educated than most of the people in Ludam And it seems like while he was apparently very lovely to people he considered friends or who he admired, he was really condescending to everybody else. Yeah, there's nobody that's like what he was so kind. They're like, oh, yeah, he could one hundred percent be a jerk. He also had a little problem when it came to women. He was very handsome, and he was known to use his charms to gain the favor of women. In short, he was known to engage in a lot of second relationships with the women of lu Dant, and this became a legal issue that was actually a precursor to the possession case. First, a young woman named Philippe, whose father Luis t Manquin was the king's prosecutor in Luda, became pregnant and word quickly spread that Grandier was the father. Then, in sixteen twenty nine, a man named Jacques de Tibeau started telling anybody and everybody that Grandier was lecherous, and that he could not be trusted. Grandier and Tibau got into a physical altercation outside the church after Grandier told Tibau that he had to stop telling everybody he was a bad man. In response to that, Tobou beat the priest with a cane. Grandier pressed charges, and the two men were soon before the Parliament of Paris. Grandier clearly believed he was going to win his case. This was not his first time in court, because he was generally pretty quick to escalate conflicts into legal matters, and he generally won his cases in part because he was so well spoken and so good at making those cases, but he also made a lot of enemies in the process. In this instance, though Tibau showed up with receipts. There are some versions of this story that actually include the idea that this entire situation had been something of a setup, that Tibau had actually wanted Grandier to engage with him so that they would end up in court, because many of the men of Loudon were tired of Grandier's hold on the women of the community and they had resolved to get him out of their town. So when they got to court, Tibau presented a long list of incidents in which Grandier was believed to have acted indecently with women of the town. But more than that, Tibau revealed that well respected men of Loudon had already discussed this entire matter with the bishop that Grandier reported to, and that bishop had issued an arrest order for the priest on charges that he corrupted women and girls, engaged in profanity and blasphemy, and turned the church into a brothel. So at that point the case in civil court against Tibau was dismissed and things shifted over to ecclesiastical court, where Grandier was the defendant and not the plaintiff. Things did not go well for Grandier in his ecclesiastical case. After his civil case was dismissed, he made his way back to Loudon to prepare a defense and was immediately imprisoned for two months. When the trial took place, there was no evidence. None of the women of Loudon came forward to say that he had done any of the things that the men of the town had accused him of, but he was still found guilty of indecency. His punishment was that he had to fast on bread and water every Friday for three months, and he was barred from performing the functions of a priest in the diocese of Poitier for five years, and that was where he served as canon at the Church of Saint Croix. But he was barred from performing public functions of a priest in luda permanently. Grandier did not accept this ruling and he fought it. He appealed in both the ecclesiastical court and the Parliament of Paris, and this was a very different state of affairs. As a new investigation was opened, it became apparent that some of the men who had made statements in the earlier case were inconsistent in their stories when they were questioned again. Others flat out confessed that they had been bribed for their earlier testimony. Some men, when shown their depositions from the earlier proceeding, said that their statements had actually been altered from what they actually said. Because of all of this, Grandier was acquitted and returned to his duties as priest, but there was still a lot of tension regarding him in lou Daume. He had actually been offered the chance to transfer to another diocese, but he turned it down. Coming up we will talk about Jean Desnge, the mother superior at Loudon's ursuline convents, but first we will pause for a sponsor break. Mother Superior, Jean Desnge was like Grandier, given a lot of responsibility at a young age. She was born in sixteen oh five as jean de Belsier. Her father was Louis de Belsier, who was a baron, and her mother was Charlotte de Goumain. When she was sixteen, Jeanne became an ursuline nun in Poitier, but in sixteen twenty seven she transferred to Loudon to join the newly established convent. There. She was only twenty two, but she was made mother superior of this new group. Once the issues with John and her sisters at the convent escalated to the point where it seemed like a demonic possession was happening, the local clergy came to the conclusion that they had to consider exorcism. There was a list of criteria used to determine if someone was possessed. If the subject was speaking in foreign languages, exhibited clairvoyance, displayed an unnatural degree of physical strength, and performed levitation. Then to the clergy. It was just an open and shutcase. I read one interesting paper about this case that mentioned that, of course, those are also the same list of qualifiers to determine if you had some sort of divine interaction, and it was really a matter of interpretation as to whether it was a good one or a bad one. The first attempt at an exorcism at Loudon was on October fifth, so it was just two weeks after the strange events began. But there were many exorcisms performed in the following months, and they shifted from private situations that were carried out in the convent to public theatrical events. They were sometimes staged in chapels and even in people's homes, and at other times the nuns were brought onto a scaffold in the town square that had chairs arranged on it. The nuns were tied to the chairs so the assembled spectators could watch as the priests yelled their various prayers and incantations, and the nuns writhed and occasionally exclaimed. Sometimes they spoke in some sort of demon tongue. Canon Jean Mignon and Father Pierre Bards carried out the earliest exorcisms, but There were soon something of a rotating cast of priests and other church officials who participated in all of this. It's been described in ways that make it sound almost like an ecclesiastical tourist destination, but it also became an actual tourist attraction. As words spread throughout Europe about what was going on, people traveled from around France and even from other countries to witness these public exorcism rights. It was determined that Jee had seven different demons inhabiting her body. Diagrams were created showing where each of them was most tightly lodged, and Jean became the star of the show. She was exercised repeatedly. She and a lot of the other nuns said very plainly that the cause of their possession was Raban Grandier. During one event, Jean Dezean clearly stated that Grandier had used witchcraft to lead the sisters of the order into debaucherous behavior. She and the other nuns even produced a copy of a contract that he was said to have signed in his own blood in a deal with the devil. The original document, of course, was filed in Hell. Good to know Satan has a well organized bureaucracy the nuns claimed that this contract was what had started their possession. Things in Laudon became more tense almost instantly, as people debated the veracity of these possession claims and whether or not the legal actions against Grandier were valid. But that discussion was very quickly shut down. The church was able to get a court order that stated that anyone publicly criticizing the nuns claims or the way the Church was handling the sorcery investigation could be put to death. This was exhibited in the case of a man named Mark Duncan, a Calvinist doctor and mathematician from Scotland who lived in Samour, about thirty kilometers away from Ludump. Duncan believed that the explanation for the possessions described by the nuns was way more mundane than supernatural. He thought things like fasting and solitude had led the nuns to a point where they could not discern the difference between their imaginations and reality. He had to go into hiding to avoid arrest for his opinion. Yeah, this, of course also becomes one of those things that is tied very keenly to the ongoing tensions between Protestants and Catholics, and it seemed like he was trash talking Catholics, at least according to the people who thought this court order was worthwhile. Cardinal Richelieu sent a commission to examine the evidence of the Loudan possessions and Grandier's part in them. Meanwhile, Grandier's allies actually tried to intercede on his behalf, but that court order, making it impossible to contradict the nuns of the church essentially amounted to a gag order, and it left them unable to advocate with any real impact. On August eighteenth, sixteen thirty four, Urban Grandier was found guilty of sorcery. He was burned at the stake, but this did not end things in Loudon. In some ways, it seems that once the frenzy of the accusations and execution were all done, some of the clergy were left trying to make sense of it all. Thirty four, one of the priests who participated in the exorcisms, Father Tranquille, wrote an account of the events that were taking place at Loudam. In his version of events, he was careful to explain the reasoning of the priests who were involved in the exorcism and to justify their actions. He also chastised people who did not believe the nuns, and despite Grandier no longer being able to bewitch her, Jeann Desange continued to exhibit strange behavior. At one point she told one of the town leaders, who had been instrumental in prosecuting Grandier, that she actually feared she had offended God with her testimony. She also attempted suicide at least once, and possibly twice. It's a little unclear, but she seemed very much out of sorts mentally, and instead of anyone being concerned that she needed some sort of help in that regard, it was perceived as proof that she was still possessed. And then Father Jeane Joseph Currant arrived in Loudon. Surant was considered something of a wunderkind in the Catholic Church at the time. He was born in sixteen hundred and at the age of eight is said to have promised his life to the church and taken a vow of celibacy. His entire life had been dedicated to his spirituality, and he was the man chosen to help Loudon finally get rid of all the demons. Still wreaking havoc on the convent. Soulan took an express interest in June's situation, and he created a plan to get her spiritually healthy again. This included things like prescribing specific prayers and schedules in which to say them, and urging her to ignore her bodily desires. All of this was a very different approach to the situation. These were not big public shows. They were more intimate consultations. To be clear, there were still exorcisms being performed. In fact, the exorcisms continued for another three to four year years, but even Juhn later wrote that these were less violent and more quiet than the exorcisms that had been part of the early Loudin events. A lot of the interactions between June and Sorrent actually sounds almost like modern talk therapy, with Jehne learning to find her own strength, which in turn was said to be weakening her demons. This was all very unconventional for the time, and it often put Surrent in the ill favor of higher ups within the church. They just wanted him to get rid of the demons in Ludin, do it quick and be done with it eventually, and with the Church, putting pressure on him for results. Saren was apparently able to cast out Jean's demons one at a time over the course of those several years that the exorcisms continued. The case made Jean Dezege famous when the exorcisms pushed out her seven bad demons. According to her later memoir, those spaces had filled with positive holy spirits. She had also, as this transformation took place, had four names emblazoned on her left arm, Jesus, Maria, Joseph, and Francis Dessaile. Francis Dessaule was an influential bishop who had died in sixteen twenty two. John traveled all around France showing people her scarred limb, and in sixteen forty four Jean Desenge published her account of the possessions, and in it she also describes her sexual desire for Urban Grandier, writing quote, when I did not see him, I burned with love for him, and when he presented himself to me, I lacked the faith to combat the impure thoughts and movements that I felt. She blamed this on him bewitching her, But there have been a lot of interpretations that Jeanne's claims of possession may have been a way to actually punish Grandier for not reciprocating her interest. While as Jean Dezenge remained Mother Superior at Moudon for the rest of her life. As a result of her involvement in the possession and exorcism, she was often met with skepticism. In addition to her role at the convent, she came to be seen as a local mystic. In the years following the witchcraft trial and the execution of Grandier, she claimed she had direct interaction with a guardian angel who guided her in spiritual matters. This sometimes caused her to run into issues when her guardian angel gave her information that was counter to church figures, but it also put her in a position of power in these interactions, like how could her detractors, who claimed to be men of God argue with an angel. Meanwhile, Father Surren's time after Jun's demons were exercised was less positive. As he worked with the Mother Superior. He had prayed for her demons to leave her and inhabit him, and both she and he believed that had happened. His health declined as these alleged spirits took hold of his body. He wrote about having difficulty initially with things like headaches or just finding himself unable to catch his breath. Then his physical problems progressed to a point where he experienced uncontrollable trembling. He started having hallucinations. He described having severe abdominal pain as a final manifestation of this prolonged possession. In a letter to a friend, Suran stated plainly, quote, during my ministry, the devil passed from the body of the possessed person and entered into mine. Whether his illness had a rational medical explanation or not, Father Soran believed that he carried a demon. His physical and psychological pain progressed to the point where he attempted to die by suicide, Although that effort failed. He is usually characterized as having gone insane in his final years. Both Jean Desnge and Father Sorrant died in sc exteen sixty five. Coming up, we'll talk about some of the accounts that finally surfaced that ran counter to the one the church had put forth. But before we do, we will hear from the sponsors that keep stuffy Miess in history class going. It wasn't until sixteen ninety three that the world got an account of the possessions that was counter to the Catholic narrative that was written by Nicola Aubin, a Protestant pastor who lived in Loudon at the time of the possession and trial, but who, like others, was essentially gagged by the illegality of questioning the statements and stance of the Catholic Church. In his account, written sixty years after Alba had left Loudon, he states plainly that Urban Crandier was killed not for witchcraft, but as part of a sinister political machination. Additionally indicated in his account that the nuns had been coached to perform during the exorcisms in ways that would incriminate Urban Grandier. Not only did this entire theatricality get rid of a priest who was considered to be a problematic libertine according to Auban, it also put the Catholic Church in a position where it had publicly demonstrated its ability to conquer evil and more specifically, demons and the devil through exorcisms. Similarly, an account written by a Monsieur Danielle, which was translated into English as the History of the Devils of Ludain, the alleged possession of the Ursuline Nuns, and the trial and execution of Urban Clandier told by an eye witness. All one title states that the sorcery accusations against Grandier were absurd, and they were motivated by things that had nothing to do with demonic possession. In this writing, Danielle traces the believed origins of magic, but it also notes the way that the early Christian Church molded the concept to suit its own needs. Quote the Christian Church at the outset of its history forbade the practice of pagan magic, but taught what may be described as magic of its own. Both Origan and Tretulia held that mania and epilepsy were produced by the action of demons or evil spirits confined within the bodies of the sufferers, and that these were to be exercised by certain forms of words. The Church formally recognized the efficacy of exorcism in three sixty seven, when the Council of Laudusia ordained that only those should practice it who were duly authorized by the bishops. Connected with magic and magical rights were the supposed curative properties of the relics of saints, and the divine origin popularly ascribed to visions and ecstatic trances. It also notes that the idea of magic is easy to assign to so many normal, everyday things, even to words, noting quote in every word there is a magical influence, and that each word is in itself the breath of the internal and moving spirit. A word of love, of comfort, of promise is able to strengthen the timid, the weak, or the physically ill, but words of hatred, censure, and enmity or menace lower our confidence and self reliance. In sociological readings of this entire situation, the outsider Grandier is in a way a sacrifice on the part of the community. In purging Ludain of Grandier, the frightened people of the town were also able to cope with and set aside their fears of demons, but also the fears that they had been living with during that wave of the plague, and the anxiety that was tied to ongoing tensions between religious factions. A number of papers have examined this as an example of an often repeated cycle throughout history to restore order to a community when it is on edge to the people of Loudon in the sixteen thirties, he was a villain, but when viewed through the modern sociological lens, Grandier was really the victim. In fifteen ninety two, Aldous Huxley wrote a non fiction deep dive into the Loudon possessions titled The Devils of Loudon. It has garnered critical acclaim and is considered by many people to be one of his masterpieces. In the modern era, many many psychological studies of the Loudon possessions have been written. One of the most famous was written by French Jesuit priest and scholar Michelle Deserteaux in nineteen seventy. His work points to mental disorders as the catalyst for mass possessions, but that the context also really mattered, because these events often happened as large social and political events and transitions were taking place, particularly in instances where societies governed by theological entities were moving toward a more political or rational governing ideology. Possession, according to Deserteaux, enabled women who would generally not have a voice in such times to verbalize through a possessing entity thoughts about what was happening around them. Everyone from psychology students to well established psychiatrist has had an opinion about exactly what happened at Loudon in the sixteen thirties. A lot of these examinations of the facts as we know them land at the idea that this was a case of mass hysteria. Some analyzes come to the conclusion that in the cases of Jean Desange and Father Surin, there may have been a personal hysteria or mental illness as well. But perhaps the most interesting thing about the Loudon possession case is that it is not unique at all. In a two thousand and two paper published by the American Historical Review titled The Devil in the Convent, historian Moshes Sluzovsky lays out a compelling argument about the nature of such events, noting quote the mass possession in Loudame was only one among numerous similar group possessions in religious female congregations, and that most cases had nothing to do with witchcraft and with witchcraft accusations. Slohovski states that out of more than forty five such cases in Europe that have been documented, there were only five that catalyzed witchcraft accusations, and that the lopsided coverage of these more sensational cases has actually done a disservice to historical research. Slahovski traces the instances in the historical record of mass possessions in convents, the first of which appeared in the fourteenth century, and looks at their differences and their commonalities. All of the famous cases are clustered together in the early seventeenth century. He notes that feminist criticism has really changed the way these events of been perceived, and that the gendered language of hysteria has often been used to dismiss behaviors of women that men have historically not really understood. He makes the case that these instances of mass possession are a form of quote, female monastic spirituality. This is an expression of spirituality that was acutely painful, but did not have anything to do with demons. Slahovsky admits that there is an inherent lack of information in this writing quote, it is impossible to generalize about the social profile of possessed nuns. Our information is incomplete. He admits that any speculation or assessment of this is tentative. His argument is that the behaviors that a lot of historians and contemporaries to these possessions have labeled as sexual or demonic, were actually way more complex expressions of the very many tensions at play in fairly isolated communities. These were groups of women who were grappling with their relationships with the outside world, their efforts to fulfill their promises to live a life within the order, a state of alertness to avoid temptations, concerns about finances for themselves and their immediate community, and the larger issues in conflicts that were facing the towns, villages, countries and religious denominations that they were also a part of. I really really like his look at the whole thing because it does acknowledge one, obviously, how complicated it is, but two that we don't We can all talk about it as much as we want, but we will never have all of the information because there was probably some obfuscation of what really went on. So that is the Ludon Possessions. It's been on my list for one hundred years. I have a bit of listener mail about sleep Ugh. This is written by our listener Kieren, who writes, Hello, ladies. I just wanted to send a note because Holly's discussion on a recent behind the scenes about her lifelong sleep troubles made me feel so seen and also comforted. I've likewise struggled with terrible insomnia for as long as I can remember, as does the rest of my family, and agree that while I try to practice quote good sleep hygiene, it is far from solving the issue. Unlike Holly, though, I get very cranky being so tired and restless during the night, so I loved her being so chill about it and approach I'm aspiring to. One thing that has weirdly helped was reading Charles Dickens a Christmas carol and it mentioning Scrooge getting up in the night, leading me down a whole rabbit hole learning about the historical trend of having first sleep and second sleep. According to some sources in Eras, before artificial lighting was common, it was a practice to sleep from about nine or ten to midnight, and then get up and perhaps do some late reading, writing, prayer, or even chores for an hour or two, then go back to bed to sleep until dawn. I love this being an accepted thing and is certainly preferable to frustratedly tossing and turning all night. There are and have been so many diverse human sleep patterns across cultures in time, and like Holly described, it's important to acknowledge that everyone has different rhythms. What works for one person may not work for another. Here's to some nice midnight reading going forward hopefully. As always, thank you so much both of you for all you are and do you are light in the dark and I always squeal and get so excited when a new episode uploads. Also Holly, I too was so excited about the sewing Patterns two parter. Thanks again, Kieran. Apologies no pet tax is. I do not currently have a fur baby, but I do have another scrap quilt in the works. All the best. This scrap quilts looks absolutely gorgeous. It is in shades of ivory and like deep autumnal tones, and it's absolutely beautiful work. Amazing, amazing work. Thank you so much for writing this listen. It always helps to feel seen. As for the two sleep thing, that's always fascinating to me as well. I'm pretty sure I've talked about polyphasic sleeping on the show before, which I would love to try, but doesn't seem to really work in reality for anybody that has an inconsistent schedule. But I'm glad when people figure out a thing that works for them. I too, sometimes like to just get up in the night. Usually I'm not that productive. I just kind of goof around on my phone. If you would like to write to us about your sleep troubles, your demonic possessions, your concerns about sociologically analyzing historical events, whatever you got going on, you can do that at a history podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe to the show if you haven't yet. You can do that on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.