Original scientific paper
Malignus Ille Spiritus Valde Ululans. Two Cases of Exorcisms in Zadar (17th – 18th C.)
Zdenko Dundović
orcid.org/0000-0003-1772-1675
; University of Zadar, Department of Theology and Catechism , Zadar, Croatia
Abstract
This study deals with the question of exorcism and its effects on the religious and social life in Zadar during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The analysis is based upon two manuscripts regarding the process against demons Asmodeus and Maliel. These manuscripts were written by arch-presbyter Ivan Milašić and canon Ivan Tanzlingher-Zanotti, and presently they are kept in the State Archives in Zadar. The author investigates two cases of exorcism executed on Benedictine nun from the monastery of St Catharine in Zadar and a woman from Vrgorac. The aforementioned manuscripts reveal cognition of Christian demonology within ecclesiastical structures in Zadar during the analyzed period. Moreover, the author indicates that these two, at first glance similar, cases could in fact reflect deviations of the exorcism processes. In order to reveal a better understanding of these cases, the author settles them within a broader European context, comparing them to similar cases in other European countries during the time of Counter-Reformation. Namely, extant sources from the times of Reformation and Counter-Reformation witness a relatively large number of demonic obsession cases and exorcisms in the Catholic and Protestants lands equally. Such trials very often were related with sorcery and prosecution of witches. Still, two cases from Zadar do not follow this pattern, probably because at that time Zadar was incorporated in the Venetian dominion and subsequently deeply impregnated with Catholicism, without any significant Protestant influence. Moreover, since Venetian Sanctum Officium was quite benevolent towards witchcraft, in the Venetian realm one cannot find such rigid prosecutions of witches like it was a case in Northern Europe. Therefore, in the aforementioned two cases of exorcism one can find traces of personal attitudes of prosecutors concerning the entire process and towards obsessed person, and all these with a notable emphasis regarding their personal perception of the office they were performing, which at the end also affected the local socio-religious situation.
Keywords
Exorcism; Ivan Milašić; Ivan Tanzlingher-Zanotti; 17th century; 18th century; Zadar.
Hrčak ID:
217686
URI
Publication date:
20.6.2018.
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