6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



But, long before this form of "possession" had begun to disap- 

 pear, there had arisen new manifestations, apparently more inex- 

 plicable. As the first great epidemics of dancing and jumping 

 had their main origin in a religious ceremony, so various new 

 forms had their principal source in what were supposed to be cen- 

 ters of religious life — in the convents, and more especially in those 

 for women. 



Out of many examples we may take a few as typical. 



In the fifteenth century the chroniclers assure us that an in- 

 mate of a German nunnery having been seized with a passion for 

 biting her companions, her mania spread until most, if not all, 

 her fellow-nuns began to bite each other ; and that this passion 

 for biting passed from convent to convent into other parts of 

 Germany, into Holland, and even across the Alps into Italy. 



So, too, in a French convent, when a nun began to mew like a 

 cat, others began mewing, and the desire spread and was only 

 checked by severe measures.* 



In the sixteenth century the Protestant Reformation gave new 

 force to witchcraft persecutions in Germany. The new Church 

 endeavored to show that in zeal and power she exceeded the old. 

 But in France influential opinion seemed not so favorable to these 

 forms of diabolical influence, especially after the publication of 

 Montaigne's " Essays," in 1580, had spread a skeptical atmosphere 

 over many leading minds. 



In 1588 occurred in France a case which indicates the growth 

 of this skeptical tendency even in the higher regions of the French 

 Church. In that year Martha Brossier, a country girl, was, it was 

 claimed, possessed of the devil. The young woman was to all ap- 

 pearance under direct satanic influence. She roamed about, beg- 

 ging that the demon might be cast out of her, and her impreca- 

 tions and blasphemies brought consternation wherever she went. 

 Myth-making began on a large scale; stories grew and spread. 

 The capuchin monks thundered from the pulpits throughout 

 France regarding these proofs of the power of Satan. The alarm 

 spread, until at last even jovial, skeptical King Henry IV was 

 disquieted, and the reigning pope was asked to take measures to 

 ward off the evil. 



Fortunately, there then sat in the episcopal chair of Angers a 

 prelate who had apparently imbibed something of Montaigne's 

 skepticism — Miron ; and, when the case was brought before him, 

 he submitted it to the most time-honored of sacred tests. He first 

 brought into the girl's presence two bowls, one containing holy 

 water, the other ordinary spring-water, but allowed her to draw a 



servations in Carpenter's "Mental Physiology," London, 1888, pp. 312-315; also Mauds- 

 ley, " Pathology of Mind," p. 73 and following. 



* See citation from Zimmermann's " Solitude," in Carpenter, pp. 34, 314. 



