MAGICAL EMASCULATION, POPULAR ANTICLERICALISM, AND THE LIMITS OF THE REFORMATION IN WESTERN FRANCE CIRCA 1590

Few scholars have studied the varieties of anticlericalism manifest am ong townspeople and peasants in early modem France. Analysis of anticl erical opinions held by urban and rural populations in western France shows a common belief, across all ranks of society and rooted in local folk magic, that clerics employed sorcery to render new grooms impote nt and new households subject to discord and dishonor. Enduring public belief in prelates' black magic and capacity to inflict magical emasc ulation diminished the influence of Catholic clergy in the region. Suc h beliefs also resurfaced after the local Reformation, making orthodox Calvinist confessionalization of the west country impossible by Prote stant pastors whose congregants also suspected them as warlocks. One o utraged local minister, using typically Catholic lines of argument aga inst these beliefs, sermonized in a futile effort to exculpate a male Protestant pastorate from public charges of magical turpitude. In the process, he amplified Catholic propaganda extolling the beneficial mag ical powers of priests and denigrated the white magics by which local women and female healers tried to protect kin and neighbors against ma levolent supernatural attacks.