Dominicans and Demons: Possession, Tcmptation, and Reform in the Cult of Vincent Ferrer

In his 1455-56 life of the newly canonized Dominican saint Vincent Ferrer, Pietro Ranzano told the following story: A noble and beautiful woman in Valencia, at the devil's suggestion, became so inflamed with love for the handsome young friar that she could find no peace in mind or body. This elaborate tale of seduction, temptation, possession, and exorcism illustrates an important theme running through the early hagiography devoted to Vincent Ferrer: a predilection for stories of demonic temptation and exorcism. In the Vincentian materials, the holy friar undergoes a spate of trials at the hands of demons, while tales of the saint commanding demons appear in numbers disproportionate to the general downward trend in exorcism miracles in late medieval canonization processes. This focus on demons in the life and miracles of the fourth Dominican saint, I will argue, represented a deliberate choice, and one that responded to some of the most pressing concerns of the order in the middle decades of the 15th century.