An Exorcism in Elizabethan London | History Today
Jessie Childs recounts the chilling story of an exorcism performed in an Elizabethan household in Hackney
Fascinating and chilling article.
“The priests saw and heard what they fervently wanted to see and hear: a terrified girl, susceptible to maladies and mood swings, inhabited by the devil and in desperate need of the miraculous cure that only the Catholic Church could provide. Harsnett, Bancroft and their faction were equally bent on concluding that Sara was a victim of ‘egregious Popish imposture’. If both camps were guilty of exploitation and sensational writing, it might charitably be attributed to artistic licence: reality might have been heightened, but it was still reality, still the truth, in the eyes of its beholders.”