The Scourge of Demons: Possession, Lust, and Witchcraft in a Seventeenth-Century Italian Convent (review)

In 1636, a group of Poor Clares in the convent of Santa Chiara in Carpi, Italy, became possessed by demons. Their travails lasted until 1639, when the last possessed nun recovered. In his monograph The Scourge of Demons: Possession, Lust, and Witchcraft in a Seventeenth-Century Italian Convent, Jeffrey R. Watt offers a microhistorical analysis of this case. Using the records of the investigation and the uniquely rich archives of the Inquisition of Modena, Watt recounts meticulously every stage in the unfolding of the case, from the first outburst of illness among two laywomen in the service of one of the nuns to the waning of the possessions once the Holy Office reached the conclusion that the alleged possession was nothing but feminine imagination running wild. Along the way he introduces a large cast of characters—elite and servant nuns, the ducal family of Modena, a confessor who very likely solicited sex in the confessional and who might have used spells to bewitch some nuns, obedient and intransigent exorcists, and skeptical Inquisitors. Watt tells a complex story of tensions between rival factions of nuns; plausible cases of clerical misconduct by a former confessor; and a range of accusations of witchcraft, love magic, and widespread social and sexual laxities. His descriptions are lively and bring to life both the mundane routines and the dramatic events that shaped the nuns’ lives during the 1630s.

Watt draws on the large body of existing literature on convent life, witchcraft, love magic, and demonic possession in early-modern Europe. Too large, perhaps, as he uses English cases to assert some of his arguments and repeatedly conflates maleficium with love magic and with diabolic possession without distinguishing sufficiently among these different phenomena. There is no denying that in some cases maleficium caused possession or that the use of love magic at times brought about accusations of witchcraft. But Italian Inquisitors, more often than not, differentiated among these occurrences. In fact, as Watt documents, the Inquisition, even in the Carpi case, was careful not to rush to judgment and not to conflate witchcraft with demonic possession.

While Watt’s book is meticulous in his retelling of the case, it is less convincing when it comes to the “why.” Why did the Clarisses become possessed in 1636 rather than before or after? Why did the Franciscans believe the nuns’ accusations against a fellow nun and against Angelo Bellacappa, the priest who had served as their confessor until November 1636? Why did the Holy Office in Modena and Rome order repeatedly to end the investigation and the exorcism and explicitly accused the exorcists themselves of increasing, rather than decreasing the sisters’ fantasies and misery? “Whys” are important in all historical research, and nowhere are they as crucial as when dealing with stories of witchcraft and demonic possession. Witchcraft accusations created their own spiral dynamics, in which additional suspicions were added to original ones, people’s recollections were construed to fit previous rumors and memories, and, once labeled as a witch, an accuser was very likely to be accused by other members of the community. Similarly, in eruptions of demonic possession in religious communities, sisters imitated behaviors of possessed sisters, anxieties grew, and the stories told by nuns were likely to become more elaborate and scandalous. As Watt takes us through the detailed testimonies, he often forgets to remind us of the unreliability of this huge body of stories. Unlike in a modern trial, each additional testimony does not strengthen the case (for either the defense or the prosecution), but should be viewed as one more variation on the same basic story. Thus, for example, based on the nuns’ tales of sexual temptation and solicitation, Watt finds Bellacappa guilty. “Dismissing all accusations as mere fabrications would require that dozens of nuns fabricated and recounted under...