Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages

by Nancy Mandeville Caciola

Book Overview

Trance states, prophesying, convulsions, fasting, and other physical manifestations were often regarded as signs that a person was seized by spirits. In a book that sets out the prehistory of the early modern European witch craze, Nancy Caciola shows how medieval people decided whom to venerate as a saint infused with the spirit of God and whom to avoid as a demoniac possessed of an unclean spirit. This process of discrimination, known as the discernment...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080144084X
• ISBN13: 9780801440847
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.7"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher