HERZIG
2016
(7SDB2018)
Tamar Herzig
Church History, vol. 85, nr. 3, September 2016,
pp. 468–501. (pdf.)
Intro
Female monasticism and the
conversion of the Jews were both major concerns for the ecclesiastical
establishment, as well as for Italian ruling elites, after the Council of Trent
(1545–1563). Hence, the monachization of baptized Jewish girls acquired a
unique symbolic significance. Moreover, during this period cases of demonic
possession were on the rise, and so were witchcraft accusations. This article
explores a case from late sixteenth-century Mantua in which Jewish conversion,
female monachization, demonic possession and witch-hunting all came into play
in a violent drama. Drawing on unpublished documents as well as on chronicles
and hagiographies, the article elucidates the mental toll that conversion and
monachization took on the Jewess Luina, who later became known as Sister
Margherita. It delineates her life, which culminated with her diagnosis as a
demoniac, and analyzes the significance that this etiology held for the
energumen—whose affliction was attributed to her ongoing contacts with Jews—and
for Mantua’s Jews. The article argues that the anxiety provoked by suspicions
that a formerly Jewish nun reverted to Judaism was so profound, that it led to
the burning at the stake of Judith Franchetta, the only Jew ever to be executed
as a witch in the Italian peninsula.
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