Sébastien Michaelis was a French

inquisitor An inquisitor was an official (usually with judicial or investigative functions) in an inquisition – an organization or program intended to eliminate heresy and other things contrary to the doctrine or teachings of the Catholic faith. Literall ...

and prior of the

Dominican order The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of ...

who lived during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. His ''Histoire admirable de la possession et conversion d'une penitente'' (1612) includes a

classification of demons There have been various attempts at the classification of demons within the contexts of classical mythology, demonology, occultism, and Renaissance magic. These classifications may be for purposes of traditional medicine, exorcisms, ceremonial ma ...

which has passed into general use in esoteric literature.

Early career

Michaelis was vice-inquisitor in Avignon during the 1580s and was involved in a number of

witch Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...

trials: a series of cases in 1581 and 1582 led to at least fourteen women being convicted and burnt. In 1587 he published a tract on demons called ''Pneumologie: Discours des esprits''. By 1610 he was prior of the Dominican community at Saint-Maxim near Aix-en-Provence.

Aix-en-Provence Possessions

''See also''

Aix-en-Provence possessions The Aix-en-Provence possessions were a series of alleged cases of demonic possession occurring among the Ursuline nuns of Aix-en-Provence (South of France) in 1611. Father Louis Gaufridi was accused and convicted of causing the possession by a p ...

In 1610 Michaelis became involved in a case of demonic possession at the Ursuline convent at Aix-en-Provence. This began when Sebastian Amir
Jean-Baptiste Romillon
diagnosed one of the nuns, a young girl of noble birth from Marseilles named Madeleine Demandols de la Palud, as possessed. Madeleine made accusations against her confessor, Father Louis Gaufridy, who was priest of the parish of the Acoules in Marseilles. She claimed that Gaufridy had sexually enchanted her (the devil having made his breath aphrodisiac) and inducted her into witchcraft, causing her body to be invaded by demons which would leave only when the priest was converted, dead, or punished. She claimed her principal demonic occupant to be

Beelzebub Beelzebub ( ; he, ''Baʿal-zəḇūḇ'') or Beelzebul is a name derived from a Philistine god, formerly worshipped in Ekron, and later adopted by some Abrahamic religions as a major demon. The name ''Beelzebub'' is associated with the Can ...

. Unable to exorcise her, Romillon referred the case to the papal territory of Avignon and the jurisdiction of Michaelis. Another Dominican, Francois Doncieux (also known by the Latinised name Domptius), served as fellow chief investigator alongside Michaelis. Other nuns soon confessed to similar possessions, the demons in many cases prompting them to sermonize at length. One nun, Louise Capeau Amira claimed to speak with the voice of a demon named Verin (or Verrine) and on 27 December 1610 announced the coming of the Apocalypse.

, speaking through Madeleine Demandols, maintained there to be a total of 6,660 devils involved in the possession. Gaufridy was examined for the "devil's mark" by Jacques Fontaine, professor of medicine at the University of Aix, and when in early 1611 the required marks were found (Gaufridy claimed they had been made on him without his knowledge or consent) the priest was arrested under orders from the '' Parlement'' of Aix. He confessed while in prison, and on 11 April 1611 he was publicly tortured and burnt at Aix-en-Provence.

''Admirable History''

Michaelis and Doncieux co-authored a report on the case, ''Histoire admirable de la possession d'une penitente'', which was dedicated to Queen Regent Marie de' Medici. The book contains a detailed hierarchy of devils named by the nuns; many of these demons (often having French names such as Rosier or Oeillet) do not appear in other demonologies, but the extent and systematic ordering of the list has led to its being widely adopted in esoteric circles. The Gaufridy affair aroused great public interest, and an English translation of Michaelis's work, ''The Admirable History of Possession and Conversion of a Penitent Woman: Seduced by a Magician that Made Her to Become a Witch'', was published in 1613 by

William Aspley William Aspley (died 1640) was a London publisher of the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline eras. He was a member of the publishing syndicates that issued the First Folio and Second Folio collections of Shakespeare's plays, in 1623 and 1632. ...

(the translation, by "W.B.", also includes ''Pneumology, or Discourse of Spirits''). In the same year, Michaelis became vicar-general of the Dominican order and founded its new Paris community.

Later accounts

The nineteenth-century historian Jules Michelet included an account of the Aix case in ''La Sorcière'' (1862), known in English as '' Satanism and Witchcraft''. In that book, Gaufridy is referred to as "Gauffridi," and Doncieux as "Doctor Dompt, from Louvain."Michelet, Jules (1863). La Sorcière: The Witch of the Middle Ages. Simpkin, Marshall and Co.. Michelet's version appears to have served as a source for many subsequent accounts.

References

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