Possessed, mystic, obssessed: the case of diabolic possession of Jeanne Féry, Soeur noir from the Mons convent at the end of the XVITH century

Abstract

The diabolical possession was a complex cultural experience very common in the early modern society. This study is oriented to exhibit a first approximation to the case of diabolic possession (mixed with characteristic elements of mysticism and obsession) that the soeur noir Jeanne Fey suffered during the years 1584 and 1585 in Mons, border of the Spanish Netherlands, corresponding this evil spiritual invasion with the violent confessional problems that Catholics and Calvinists maintained in sixteenth-century Europe.