Holy Apostles College & Seminary

Noel Taillepied’s Contribution to the Sixteenth-Century Debate Over Ghostly Apparitions

by Mr. Matthew Chominski

Dr. Daniel Van Slyke STP 850: Research and Design for Thesis Students

18 August 2014

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In sixteenth-century Western Europe, Protestants and Catholics strongly debated

the possibility and nature of apparitions of souls of the deceased, commonly known as

ghosts. Protestants generally denied the existence of such apparitions, while Catholics, in

turn, defended their possibility and reality. Father Noel Taillepied, a French Capuchin-

Franciscan friar, made a significant and comprehensive contribution to this debate in his

work A Treatise of Ghosts. Taillepied’s book, published in 1588, responded to the

Protestant rejection of apparitions of the deceased as found in the widely disseminated

book Of Ghosts and Spirits Walking by Night by Lutheran pastor Ludwig Lavater. In

order to more fully understand both Taillepied and Lavater, this paper first analyzes

general sixteenth-century Western European beliefs regarding ghostly apparitions. After

this initial survey provides a backdrop, this paper considers, in turn, Lavater and

Taillepied. This study provides a sustained consideration of the contribution made by

Taillepied to the sixteenth-century theological debate regarding ghostly apparitions.

Comparing and contrasting the differences between the positions on ghosts of Lavater

and Taillepied reveals both agreement and deep divergence between their respective

confessional communities. This paper demonstrates that Taillepied provided a fitting

response to the Protestant challenge to belief in ghosts as typified by Lavater.

Purgatory and the Sixteenth-century Debate on Ghosts

The sixteenth-century debate over ghosts arose as “an offshoot of larger

controversies in the religious upheaval of the Reformation.”1 Among other issues,

1 May Yardley, “The Catholic Position in the Ghost Controversy of the Sixteenth Century,” in

Of Ghosts and Spirits Walking By Night, ed. J. Dover Wilson (Oxford: University Press, 1929. Reprinted, Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2003), 221.

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Reformers targeted for rejection the doctrine of purgatory.2 As a direct consequence of

this rejection of purgatory, Protestants rejected also the reality and possibility of truly

ghostly apparitions understood as apparitions of souls of deceased human beings.3 The

reason for such a connection between ghosts and purgatory was that Catholics such as

Taillepied explained that truly ghostly apparitions were souls from purgatory returning

with God’s permission for a few purposes, such as requesting Masses and pilgrimages

taken on their behalf so that their purgatorial sufferings would be relieved, or for warning

the living “upon extraordinary occasions.”4 With the map of the afterlife newly redrawn

by Protestant theology so that it no longer included the region of purgatory, Protestants

saw only two possible destinations for the deceased—heaven or hell.5 Having attained to

one of these states, a soul could return no longer communicate with the living.6

Intimately linked to purgatory and ghosts were manifold practices supplying

spiritual aid to souls in a state of post-mortem purgation, including Masses and other

devotions. The Catholic clergy occupied an essential place at the center of these

practices. The triple connection between purgatory, ghosts and the clergy drew Protestant

ire, as Protestant polemicists accused Catholic clergy of unjustly profiting from practices

attached to purgatorial belief.7 As a result of such accusations, in “regions won for

2 Elizabeth C. Tingle, Purgatory and Piety in Brittany 1480-1720 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate,

2012), 1. 3 Lewes Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits Walking By Night, ed. J. Dover Wilson (Oxford:

University Press, 1929. Reprinted, Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2003), 158. 4 Noel Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Montague Summers (London: Fortune, 1930,

Reprinted, Whitefish, MT: Literary Licensing, 2013), 130. 5 Tingle, Purgatory and Piety, 1. 6 Lavater also holds that the souls of the blessed in heaven do not appear to the living. See

Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 155. Lavater does hold, though, that the Devil may “take the shape of a Prophete, an Apostle, Euangeliste, Byshoppe, and Martyr.” Of Ghosts and Spirits, 163.

7 Owen Davies, The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 104.

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Reform, the complex institutions which had grown up to service the needs of souls,

funerals and post-mortem masses, priests and colleges, memorials and chapels, were

swept away.”8 More generally, the Reformers’ attack on purgatory led to an “onslaught

on the spiritual and ecclesiastical system that had made ghosts an integral part of

medieval Christianity.”9 Consequently, “all medieval manifestations of communion

between living and dead were swept away.”10

Medieval Christian beliefs regarding ghosts were not completely uniform, even

among Catholics. Nonetheless, scholars have highlighted some general characteristics of

the functions served by reported ghostly apparitions.11 R. C. Finucane identifies four

functional levels of ghostly apparitions and their recounting.12 First, “they reinforced

belief in a life after death.” Second, ghosts “reinforced teachings about punishment and

reward after death according to Catholic doctrine and dogma.” Third, ghostly encounters

“clarified and nourished the belief in purgatory . . . and the belief that the living, through

the Church, ought to assist the dead.” Fourth, tales of ghostly apparitions emphasized “a

broad spectrum of ethical and social desiderata such as the sanctity of the grave, the

seriousness of vows, the need to obey superiors, to atone for ‘crimes’ and remedy

injustices both private and public.”13

Finucane’s third function of ghostly apparitions demonstrates that the Protestant

rejection of purgatory entailed rejection of an integral component of the purpose of

8 Tingle, Purgatory and Piety, 2. 9 Stuart Clark, “The Reformation of the Eyes: Apparitions and Optics in Sixteenth- and

Seventeenth-Century Europe,” Journal of Religious History 27, no. 2 (2003), 145. 10 R. C. Finucane, Ghosts: Appearances of the Dead & Cultural Transformation (Amherst,

NY: Prometheus Books, 1996), 91. 11 See Jean-Claude Schmitt, Ghosts in the Middle Ages: The Living and the Dead in Medieval

Society, trans. Teresa Lavender Fagan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). 12 Finucane, Ghosts, 85-86. 13 Finucane, Ghosts, 85-86.

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ghosts. This dual rejection of purgatory and ghosts instigated Catholic responses,

resulting in a Protestant-Catholic debate over the possibility and nature of apparition of

the deceased. Far from being ancillary, the debate over apparitions intensified “to the

point where it became fundamental to confessional polemics.”14 This debate and its

effects encompassed both academic theologians and the piety of the faithful. Keith

Thomas emphasizes the importance of the debate about ghosts for the sixteenth century

in the following manner:

For although it may be a relatively frivolous question today to ask whether or not one believes in ghosts, it was in the sixteenth century a shibboleth which distinguished Protestant from Catholic almost as effectively as belief in the Mass or the Papal Supremacy.15

The Protestant rejection of ghosts was tied to the opinion that this popular belief

arose from fraudulent apparitions manufactured by the clergy: “Protestants . . . treated the

belief in ghosts as the product of Popish fraud and deception.”16 Lavater passes along an

example of this sort of accusation when he cites Erasmus telling a story of a priest who

placed candles on the backs of crabs, set the crustaceans loose in the church graveyard at

night, and then explained to his parishioners that the spirits of the dead were making

themselves known so that Masses would be said and alms given for the repose of their

souls, presumably to the financial gain of the pastor. As the story goes, the hoax was

uncovered as a few candle-backed crabs were discovered, thereby frustrating the designs

14 Clark, “Reformation of the Eyes,” 145. 15 Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth

and Seventeenth Century England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 589. 16 Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 589.

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of the priest.17 Owen Davies illustrates the place of the Protestant focus on Catholic

clergy in relationship to ghosts and purgatory in the following way:

Early Protestant reformers saw ghosts not only as a pernicious product of a dangerous dogma, but also as the very foundation of purgatory. Through their deceptions and illusions monks and priests had bolstered popular support for their money-making doctrine by faking apparitions. Without purgatory there were no ghosts and without ghosts there was no purgatory. Ghost belief was therefore synonymous with Catholicism.18 Accusing clerics of fraud made for a rather simple and emotional rejection of

ghosts, so that for the

first generation of reformers, ghosts thus presented no problems. The belief in such spectres, they held, had only arisen in the first place because the Popish clergy had seen it as a means of exploiting popular credulity in order to enhance their own wealth and authority.19

But this framing is in fact too simple. While Protestant apologists had the corrupt clergy

explanation at their disposal, there still remained centuries of stories of ghostly activity

extending all the way through to the ancient Greeks and Romans.20 Surely this lengthy

history of tales of ghostly apparitions could not be explained away as the product of

corrupt Catholic clergy. Indeed, “for most sixteenth-century Protestants, apparitions were

clearly far too widely reported, far too an ingrained a belief, to deny outright.”21 Those

that rejected the possibility of ghostly activity employed two more explanatory constructs

in response to this ingrained belief. First, natural phenomena could be mistaken as

ghostly activity. For example, Lavater relates that someone might mistake an echo in the

17 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 43. See Timothy Chesters, Ghost Stories in Late

Renaissance France: Walking by Night (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 43-45. 18 Davies, The Haunted, 104. 19 Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 589. 20 See D. Felton, Haunted Greece and Rome: Ghost Stories from Classical Antiquity (Austin,

TX: University of Texas Press, 1999). 21 Finucane, Ghosts, 96.

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woods, especially at night, as having been produced by a spirit.22 Second, supposed

apparitions of the deceased might actually be attributed to angelic or demonic activity.

For example, Martin Luther held that ghosts are “not men’s souls, but evidently devils.”23

King James I held that “the devil is the source of all ghostly apparitions.”24 In sum, “for

most sixteenth-century Protestants apparitions could only be demonic, angelic or illusory.

They could not be spirits from purgatory.”25

In the face of the Protestant rejection of purgatory, ghosts, and corrupt clergy,

Catholics issued their response. While for Protestants “apparitions were illusory, demonic

or angelic,” for Catholics, “they were just as likely to be the returned souls of the dead.”26

Catholics responded by defending belief in purgatory, the possibility and reality of

purgatorial souls appearing to the living, and the manifold practices set in place to aid

such souls. Jean Maldonat, a Spanish Jesuit who taught in Paris, responded most

immediately to the rejection of ghosts set forth by Lavater.27 In the years 1571 and 1572,

Maldonat delivered a series of lectures “against Protestants in general and Lavater in

particular,” where he restated “the case for return from the dead.”28 Taillepied’s

contemporary Pierre Le Loyer published his IIII Livres des Spectres in 1586 as “a direct

challenge to Lavater.”29 This work went through a number of revisions, but “the first

version of the treatise has sometimes been considered the definitive Catholic answer to

22 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 50. 23 Martin Luther, Easter Tuesday in The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther, trans.

John Nicholas Lenker (Minneapolis, MN: Lutherans in All Lands, 1906), 313. 24 Finucane, Ghosts, 95. See King James I, Demonology in the Form of a Dialogue, ed. Donald

Tyson (Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 2011). 25 Finucane, Ghosts, 92. 26 Finucane, Ghosts, 93. 27 Timothy Chesters, Ghost Stories in Late Renaissance France: Walking by Night (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2011), 83. 28 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 83. 29 Yardley, “The Catholic Position in the Ghost Controversy of the Sixteenth Century,” 225.

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Ludwig Lavater.”30 Montague Summers, Taillepied’s translator, has suggested that

Taillepied personally aided Le Loyer with the latter’s work.31 The similarity of argument

found in the respective works of the two men strengthens Summers’ conclusion that

Taillepied helped Le Loyer.32 Two years after Le Loyer’s tome appeared, Taillepied

made his contribution to the French debate over ghosts as a defender of their reality over

and against the protestations of his Protestant interlocutors, most especially Lavater.33

Lavater’s Contribution

With the general contours of the ghost debate now drawn, more direct attention

can be given to Ludwig Lavater and his influential book on ghosts. Born in 1527 in

Kyburg, Lavater can be described as having been “a distinguished Protestant humanist.”34

He eventually settled in Zurich in the late 1540s where he would become a prominent

clergyman, being made chief pastor of the city in 1585.35 He was the author of a number

of works, but his most celebrated authorial contribution, both in the present and his own

lifetime, is his work on ghosts and apparitions.36 This text “has been described as the

‘standard Protestant work on the subject’ serving as a guide to official Protestant doctrine

on the subject of ghosts in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries.”37

The choice of language and means of production of Lavater’s work influence the

30 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 142. 31 Montague Summers, introduction to Noel Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Montague

Summers (London: Fortune, 1930, Reprinted, Whitefish, MT: Literary Licensing, 2013), xii-xiii. 32 Summers, introduction, xiii. 33 Finucane, Ghosts,100. 34 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 66. 35 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 66. 36 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 66. 37 John Geoffrey Newton. “An Examination of Interpretations of Ghosts from the Reformation

to the Close of the Seventeenth Century” (Ph.D. diss., Durham University, 2003), 105. Joanna Bath, Popular Ghost Belief in England 1400-1700 (Unpublished MA dissertation. University of Newcastle, 1997), 16.

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present assessment of Taillepied’s contribution. Published first in German in 1569,

Lavater’s text was translated into French in 1571.38 Lavater desired his work translated

into the vernacular because he sought to “teach, instruct, and confirm the rude and

unlearned people,” a group that would only have understood their native language.39

Further, the mode of publication was “an inexpensive text,” affordable “for a readership

of more modest means” as well as for the “gentleman scholar.”40

Lavater’s treatise is wide-ranging in terms of content, well researched and

thorough. Lavater broke the work up in to three parts. Part one shows that people often

mistakenly believe natural occurrences are apparitions, nonetheless Lavater establishes

that aside from these mistakes in perception and judgment there truly are apparitions of

spirits. Examples of deceptive phenomena include features of nature taken to be spiritual

activity. Misconceptions are also the result of weaknesses in the psychological and

emotional constitution, sight, and hearing of individuals. Lavater also trains his sight on

monks and priests he accuses of perpetrating ghost hoaxes for the purpose of worldly

gain. The second part of Lavater’s work attempts to prove that spiritual apparitions are

not in fact souls of the deceased, rather they are demonic or angelic in nature. In setting

forward his argument, Lavater provides treatments of relevant scriptural passages as well

as the Fathers of the Church. In this section Lavater addresses also Catholic belief

regarding purgatory and ghosts, looking to refute both. In the third section, Lavater

concerns himself with pastoral matters. In doing this Lavater provides rationale for God’s

allowance of apparitional disturbance in the lives of both the faithful and unbelievers. He

38 Chesters, Ghost Stories 66. Newton, “Interpretations of Ghosts,” 106. Editions of the work

also appeared in Latin and English, in 1570 and 1572 respectively. 39 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 87. Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, bi. 40 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 67.

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also advises Christians on how they should conduct themselves should they be faced with

an apparition.

Some of Lavater’s most important threads of thought coalesce in the following

passage: “if there be no Purgatorie (as by holy Scriptures it is playnly gathered there is

not) surely then mennes soules can neyther returne from thence, nor offer themselues to

be seene of men.”41 Lavater clearly rejects purgatory in this passage, and as a

consequence the possibility that souls from this nonexistent state can appear to the living.

Regarding apparitions that actually take place, Lavater argues “that many supposed

ghosts were angelic or, more often, demonic visitations.”42 For instance, by appearing to

the living, the Devil can affirm he is a soul of the deceased and that he would be

delivered from his purgatorial pains by a certain devotional means, thus affirming the

credibility of “things whiche haue no grounde of Scripture.”43 Examples of these

practices would be the “chapels, alters, monastaries . . . anniuersaries, friaries, and such

like,” founded by people attempting to “release their friends out of the torments of

Purgatorie.”44 As a result of such ingrained practices, Lavater says that the Catholic

clergy “increased daily, their parishes, colleges & monasteries with yerely reuenewes,”

thus robbing people of their money and plunging “them into very great myserie.”45

In addition to the attention Lavater pays to Scripture and the Fathers of the

Church, he also extensively treats the history and writings of ancient Greece and Rome.

Taillepied, in turn, addresses himself to all such points of reference and argumentation.

Lavater earned the respect of Taillepied, as seen when the latter listed the former

41 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 158. 42 Davies, The Haunted, 105. 43 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 163. 44 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 111. 45 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 111, 104.

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in his list of “a few philomaths of proufoundest erudition, the very Flower of Scholarship

and Arbiters of literary elegance. . . . whose writings I have diligently perused, often with

profit enow, and sometimes to refute and correct.”46 Taillepied certainly numbered

Lavater among those he sought to “refute and correct,” yet the appreciation he held for

Lavater must certainly be noted. Further, Taillepied’s appreciation for Lavater illustrates

the more general point that “Catholic as well as Protestant theologians appreciated

Lavater’s work.”47 Taillepied, in fact, relied very heavily upon Lavater’s text.48 Yet

Taillepied insisted that in quoting Lavater’s “pages I will carefully purge them of the

poison that infects them, since he is set to prove that the Spirits of the dead never

return.”49

Taillepied’s Contribution

One key aspect of Taillepied’s contribution to the conversation regarding ghostly

apparitions of the deceased is that he wrote in the French vernacular. By doing this, and

not publishing in Latin, Taillepied reclaimed territory invaded by Protestant polemic,

namely, the vernacular and popular forum of French discourse on the topic of ghosts. As

Lavater’s book had been translated into French, Taillepied’s writing in French gave him

the ability to address the same sort of readership as Lavater. Further, Taillepied’s

treatment was “designed to popularize Church teaching in the vernacular.”50

A more pragmatic feature of Taillepied’s contribution was the manner of its

production and distribution. Pierre Le Loyer’s 1586 response to Lavater was over one

46 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Montague Summers, xvii. 47 Davies, The Haunted, 105. The word “work” refers to Lavater’s book on ghosts, not

necessarily his entire literary output. 48 See Chesters, Ghost Stories, 97-99. 49 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 80. 50 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 85.

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thousand pages in length, making it an expensive luxury “marked out for the gentleman’s

library.”51 In contrast, Taillepied’s shorter book was relatively inexpensive to produce,

giving reason to conclude that his work “was meant for distribution on the largest scale

possible,” much like Lavater’s.52 These two features then, the language and means of

printing, coincided with the same facets of Lavater’s book.

In responding to Lavater, Taillepied reclaims the use of the Fathers of the Church

vis-à-vis ghosts, the discernment of spirits, the doctrine of purgatory, the place of the

Catholic clergy in relation to ghostly visitations, and pastoral concerns posed by

apparitions. Taillepied also demonstrates two major areas of agreement with Lavater: that

spirits do in fact appear and that a discernment of vision and spirits is necessary in order

to accurately assess potential apparitions, their nature and origin. The possibility that

ghostly activity could often be explained by natural causes and that “the Devil imitated

the spirits of the dead for his nefarious purposes,” made such discernment necessary53 By

expounding on these topics Taillepied did not simply respond to the Protestant challenge,

rather he also proved to be positively illustrative of sixteenth-century Catholic thought on

ghostly apparitions.

At this point, note should be made of the structure and overall content of

Taillepied’s book.54 Taillepied starts chapter one by taking on those that deny the

51 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 145. 52 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 86. 53 Davies, The Haunted, 105. 54 Taillepied’s work is heavily dependent upon Lavater’s in both structure and content.

Chesters estimates that only about 20 per cent of Taillepied’s book is the work of him and him alone. Taillepied borrows extensively from Lavater, but with a distinct purpose. Again according to Chesters, Taillepied’s “plagiarism might be mobilized as a form of aggressive appropriation, with Taillepied taking up the words of his Protestant opponent only, and all the more forcefully, to turn them against him.” An example would be Lavater holding that spirits most often appear on Fridays, Saturdays, and days of fasting in order to “confirm the superstitious in their beliefs.”

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existence of spirits. Chapter two addresses the various sorts of spirits in existence, these

including the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, angels, evil spirits, and ghosts. Chapters

three through seven provide a treatment of perceived phenomena that are mistakenly

understood as apparitions of spirits. Taillepied then puts forward proofs of spirits

appearing. In doing this, chapter eight is focused on Scripture, chapters nine through

twelve are dedicated to various historical works and genres, and chapter thirteen looks to

everyday experience. This can be called the first portion of the book.

The second portion is devoted to what can be characterized as the behavior and

nature of ghosts combined with considerations of the discernment of spirits and how a

person ought to behave should he be confronted with an apparition. Chapter fifteen

considers the behavior of ghosts, when they appear, where, and to whom. Chapter sixteen

considers the question of whether or not ghosts possess any sort of body. Taillepied holds

that ghosts, like the angels, take on aerial bodies, not to abide in permanently but only for

the purpose of being manifested to the living should it be the will of God.55 Chapter

seventeen addresses why ghosts appear. In this chapter Taillepied identifies three reasons:

to impart important information to the living, to comfort the living, or to warn the living.

In other places Taillepied will affirm that spirits of the deceased will appear in order to

seek prayerful support for the relief of their purgatorial sufferings, and, later, to thank

those that have aided them.56 Taillepied devotes chapter eighteen to the discernment of

spirits, how one ought to discern between good and bad spirits. Chapter nineteen tackles

Surely this would be interpreted as demonic spiritual activity. Taillepied, on the other hand, in an almost word-for-word quote, holds that spirits appear on Fridays, Saturday, and days of fast, “since on these days we are not given to worldly things, but retire to give prayers.” Chesters, Ghost Stories, 97-99.

55 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 115. 56 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 112.

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Protestant objections to ghostly activity. In this section, Taillepied also positively affirms

that the dead do appear, but not “very often.”57 Chapter twenty deals again with the

activity and nature of ghosts, within this the topic of purgatory is treated. Taillepied

makes clear in this section that ghosts do not wander about aimlessly, but, if it is pleasing

to God, the souls of the deceased are permitted and endowed with the power to appear to

the living. The beliefs of Jews and Muslims concerning disembodied souls provide the

focus of chapter twenty-one. Chapter twenty-two addresses the afterlife, including

purgatory. Chapter twenty-three attends to the scriptural accounts of Samuel’s post-

mortem appearance to King Saul and the Transfiguration, with Taillepied arguing that

Samuel, Moses, and Elijah all truly appeared to living. Chapters twenty-four and twenty-

five deal again with the discernment of spirits and how one ought to react should he be

confronted with an apparition, good or evil. The final chapter, twenty-six, deals with

signs and wonders that can be “discerned before the death of any great person or on the

eve of sudden changes and commotions in the state.”58

Taillepied’s popular treatment actually proceeds from a place of agreement with

Lavater. In the face of a growing uncertainty regarding the validity and reliability of

apparitional visions, both Protestants and Catholics agreed that an honest assessment

must be made of the visual sense of the human person and its capacity to be deceived.

This meant that, “despite their dramatic theological differences, Protestants and Catholics

adopted a common epistemology of the visual sense and its deceptions.”59 This general

point regarding Protestants and Catholics certainly applies to the particular case of

Lavater and Taillepied.

57 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 130. 58 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 174. 59 Clark, “Reformation of the Eyes,” 147.

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Both Lavater and Taillepied consider it possible to be deceived in two ways, by

natural phenomena misconstrued as an apparition and by demonic activity. Both

Taillepied and Lavater supply extensive listings and explanations of the various ways a

person might be deceived by natural phenomena so that they believed they saw or heard a

spirit of the deceased.60 Among these natural explanations are certain types of people,

including those that are melancholy, sick, naturally fearful, of poor hearing or sight,

drunk, or those taken in by jokes and hoaxes, some of which, Lavater contends, were due

to the activity of monks and priests.61 Lavater even mentions how students, who “night

and daye turne ouer their bookes,” can be “muche deceiued in their sight, that they are

many times ashamed to vtter what they haue thought they haue seene.”62 Both writers

also discuss how natural sounds and sights might be misconstrued, so that “very often if

one hears unusual and unaccountable sounds at night one is ready to believe it must be

some good or evil spirit or ghost.”63 Taillepied and Lavater note the possibility of human

sight being mistaken or duped by “extraordinary optical delusions such as artificial

mirrors.”64 Overall, since “man’s senses are fallible,” certain phenomenon might “have a

perfectly natural if unusual cause.” 65

The second way one might be deceived regarding a potentially ghostly

appearence is through demonic activity. Taillepied’s concern for the possibility of

demonic deception leads to a central practical component of his contribution: instructions

60 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 12-35. Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 9-

44. 61 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 12-35. Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 9-

44. 62 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 17. 63 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 37. Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 49-53. 64 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 39. Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 52. 65 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 40.

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for how a person should conduct himself should a spirit appear. In pastoral fashion,

Taillepied offers tactics and methods to test potential apparitions in a way faithful to

Christ and the Catholic Church. It is fitting that Taillepied’s text equips the Catholic

faithful with measures to adequately discern seemingly supernatural occurrences, not

only out of pastoral concern, but because Lavater had first devoted himself to the same

concern.66

Taillepied concerns himself in this section with the possibility of mistaking

demonic activity for that of ghosts. He exhorts the perceiver of an apparition to “try the

spirits” in order to discern whether one is being encountered by a good spirit—that is, an

angel or the deceased—or a bad, demonic spirit. Taillepied explains four methods to

discern what sort of spirit one has encountered.

The first method focuses on the interior response of the perceiver: “if it is a Good

Spirit who appears there is a certain awe and reverential fear.”67 Taillepied cites the

examples of the Blessed Mother and the women at Christ’s empty tomb, who exhibited a

healthy fear when approached by an angel, “yet the Angels never depart without

reassuring and comforting them.”68 On the contrary, evil spirits at first “flatter and cajole;

then they lead to bad thoughts and wicked deeds and desires.”69 Finally, “they exhibit

their true colours, alarming and terrifying those who have seen them as they depart

furiously.”70

66 Davies, The Haunted, 105. 67 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers 162. 68 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 163. 69 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 163. 70 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 163.

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The second method of testing apparitions entails taking note of the sound of their

voice and “their form.”71 Being able to make accurate distinctions in this way “very often

(but not always)” will lead to an accurate diagnosis.72 Good spirits, Taillepied holds,

often appear “as a dove, a man of gracious aspect, a lamb, or aureoled with dazzling light,

all in white,” and have voices that may be “soft, agreeable, musical, sweetly-sounding,

consolatory and soothing.”73 Evil spirits, alternatively, may appear as “a lion, a bear, a

black dog, a paddock or hop-toad, a serpent, a great grimalkin,” with voices that may be

“rough, harsh and loud.”74

The third method of discernment considers the “words, gestures and look of the

apparition.”75 The receiver of an apparition ought to note whether “the vision speaks

humbly, acknowledging sins . . . with tears and sad groans,” or if the vision curses,

blasphemes, and “vomits pride.”76

The fourth method of discernment calls the receiver of a vision to “consider

whether the apparition says or suggests anything contrary to the Word of God, to the

Apostolic traditions, to the Catholic Faith; anything in fine contrary to faith and

morals.”77 This component of discernment is not as simple and straightforward as it first

appears. Taillepied warns that “Satan transformeth himself into an angel of light the

better to deceive.”78 This warning is akin to Lavater, who issues the very same warning,

71 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 163. 72 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 163. 73 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 163. 74 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 163. 75 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 163. 76 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 163. 77 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 163. 78 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 163-4. 2 Corinthians 11:14.

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though both are simply channeling St. Paul.79 Ambiguous messages from a vision seem

to form the crux of Taillepied’s method of discernment. If the message straightforwardly

coheres with God’s will, a person ought to “obey and accept.”80 In cases where the

doctrinal element of the vision is not overtly contrary to the Catholic faith, yet there still

remains doubt as to the goodness of the apparition, Taillepied recommends the receiver

of the vision to “seek the advice and ruling of some wise and discreet head, one who is

acquainted with and has studied the supernatural.”81 Timothy Chesters sees in this advice

an attempt by Taillepied “to reinstate the priest, exiled as he was by Lavater . . . as an

authoritative presence within the lay ghostly encounter.”82

According to Taillepied, if one hears a strange noise in the house, or is confronted

by some “figure or appearance,” he should not quickly conclude that it is the

manifestation of a “disembodied Spirit,” as inquiry must be made into its cause and

nature.84 As a model Taillepied again upholds the Blessed Mother, who “did not easily

believe the Archangel, but modestly inquired, and surely proved that he was indeed of

God.”85

Taillepied further recommends certain prayerful actions to the reciever of an

apparition. In general, the person “hearing any strange noise or crack in a house” should

“recommend” himself to God, pray the Our Father every morning and night, and if one is

troubled by an apparition he should “have recourse to the general and public prayers of

79 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 131. 80 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 164. 81 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 164. 82 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 92. 84 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 168. 85 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 167.

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the Church.”86 Taillepied’s subtle, matter-of-fact recommendation of the Church’s public

prayer can be seen as a small but important addition needed to counteract the Protestant

rejection of those ecclesial recourses Christians had employed when troubled by such

phenomena. Taillepied does not, however, leave such ecclesial action by itself, for the

receiver of an apparition is counseled “privately and individually to pray without

ceasing.”87 In addition to this, this person ought to lead a “holy life,” and when presented

with an apparition sign himself “with the health-giving Sign of the Cross.”88 Such a

person should also have recourse to the name of Jesus. In calling upon Jesus one should

pray for courage to listen to a good spirit or protection from those that are evil.89

Taillepied also recommends turning to the sacraments, Confession and Eucharist in

particular, for protection from the abuse of evil spirits. The horrors such spirits feel “at a

good confession are redoubled by a good communion,” which is a sure defense against

demonic activity.90 Taillepied’s efforts to reinstitute sacramental, ecclesial, and priestly

presences within the ghostly encounter and discernment are on display here. The

reinsertion of the priest into this process is of particular importance in the face of

Lavater’s negative assessment of Catholic clergy.

Even though Taillepied recognized that a ghostly apparition would cause fear in

its recipient, he provided the ecclesial and devotional resources to deliver the recipient

from this fear. For Lavater, no priest, no rite, no sacramental could aid the person; for

“while we might lock the doors against clerical fraud, and chase priests out of the house,

86 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 169. 87 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 169. 88 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 169. 89 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 171. 90 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 172.

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ghosts are left to fill our homes.”91 Taillepied “sought to rescue his readers in his

polemical reply to Lavater” from the fear caused by this aloneness 92

Scriptural interpretation played a key role in the debate over ghosts. The instance

of the soul of the deceased prophet Samuel appearing to King Saul at the bidding of the

witch of Endor proved to be a major source of dispute between Catholics and

Protestants.93 As Taillepied puts it, Protestant opponents of the possibility of ghosts,

“assert that it was not actually Samuel who appeared.”94 Lavater extensively treats this

event, marshaling various passages from Scripture and asserting that “the auncient

Fathers write, that the true Samuel was not seene.”95 Lavater raises a number of concerns

regarding this scene between Saul and Samuel. Included among these are that, according

to Lavater, God would not have honored Saul’s request to learn from the dead Samuel as

this basically amounts to the prohibited action of necromancy.96 Further, on the part of

Samuel, Lavater holds that the true Samuel would not have responded to the dark

biddings of the witch, nor would he have allowed himself to be worshiped by Saul.97 The

true Samuel, says Lavater, would also have conveyed a message of repentance and not

despair to Saul, but as he does not do this Lavater concludes that he was “a mere

counterfeit Samuel.”98

91 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 83. 92 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 83. 93 1 Samuel 28: 3-25. “Witch” is the term used by both Lavater and Taillepied. 94 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 152. 95 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 131. 96 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 127-28. 97 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 128-29. 98 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 130-31.

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As regards the Fathers, Lavater especially draws from Augustine.99 Taillepied

also cites Augustine, though for the purpose of proving that Samuel did in fact appeared.

Much of the dynamic of the debate over ghosts can be seen in the ways both Taillepied

and Lavater use the same source, in this case Augustine, for opposing purposes. Lavater

provides a more detailed treatment than Taillepied. Lavater acknowledges that Augustine

“is not always of one iudgment” regarding the encounter between Saul and Samuel.

According to Lavater, Augustine reasons that the appearance of Saul may have been an

illusion put forward by demonic action.100 Augustine also considers it possible that it

might be God’s will for a deceased holy person like Samuel to appear to someone living

like Saul for the purpose of communication.101 Further, Lavater relates that Augustine in

his work De cura pro mortuis gerenda says that the dead may be sent to the living, in so

doing he calls to mind the scene of Samuel appearing to Saul.102 Lavater also makes sure

to mention that according to Augustine certain “faythful men” hold that the apparition

was not truly Samuel.103 While Lavater holds onto the lack of uniform conviction he

finds in Augustine, Taillepied clings to Augustine’s statements in favor of the possibility

of the dead appearing to the living, with the Saul and Samuel episode being an example

of just such an occurrence. Taillepied does acknowledge Augustine’s lack of uniform

surety regarding the appearance of Samuel to Saul.104 Taillepied explains this as

Augustine protecting himself from accusations of impertinence, though Taillepied affirms

99 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 127-140. 100 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 131. 101 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 131. 102 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 132. 103 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 132. 104 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 138, 155.

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that Augustine was “for his part . . . clearly of opinion that it was” truly Samuel that

appeared.105

After attending to the concerns raised by Lavater’s reading of the encounter

between King Saul and the deceased Samuel, all done in order to prove it was not truly

Samuel that appeared, Taillepied concludes:

Samuel then appeared in accordance with God’s will and of the divine permission, not evoked by any warlock incantation, but rather to frustrate and let the foul ends of sorcery, and to manifest how heinous a sin is Necromancy. S. Justin the Philosopher; S. Augustin; Origen; . . . and other eminent writers all most emphatically aver and attest that it was no evil spirit who appeared, but Samuel himself.107

Taillepied illustrates his concern for the legacy of the Church Fathers in his

treatment of Tertullian in this regard, particularly as Lavater made use of the latter when

discoursing on the Samuel event. Lavater states that, “Tertullian in his booke De anima

sayth, that the Deuill dyd there represent Samuels soule.”108 While in general Taillepied

would agree that the Devil can “take the shape of someone who is dead,” even a holy

person, he points out that in general Tertullian is an unreliable source as he “perplexes

several other points which both the teaching of the Church and experience show us to be

true.”109 Further, for Lavater to “bring forward the opinion of Tertullian alone against the

consensus of the Fathers is sleeveless indeed.”110 For, according to Taillepied, Augustine

105 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 138. 107 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 156. 108 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 131. 109 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 160, 154. 110 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 154. “Tertulien en a douté cóme il a fait

de plufieurs chofes defquelles nous fommes bien affleurez par l’experience que nous en auoseue auec la fucceffion du temps: de’alleguer vn autheur contretous les autres, ce n’eft point prouuer qu’vne opinion feulement.” (Taillepied, Psichologie Ov Traité De L’Apparition Des Esprits, 273.)

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and “many other Doctors arguing from this passage” hold that Samuel did in fact

appear.111

Setting aside Tertullian, Taillepied cites Scripture, which being “divinely inspired

with all the evidences of infallible certitude . . . in its plain sense leaves no doubt that

Samuel appeared, and all the Fathers hold that this of itself sufficiently proves that it was

God’s will the Prophet should appear.”112 In citing the Fathers and Scripture together,

Taillepied responds to Lavater’s challenge that “a man should credite none of the fathers

except he proued his saying out of holy scriptures.”113

Taillepied similarly cites several other scriptural passages in support of his

position on ghosts, including the Transfiguration (Matthew 17), the parable of the Rich

Man and Lazarus (Luke 16), the apostles presuming that their seeing of Christ in the

Upper Room on Easter Sunday (Luke 24), and their sight of Him walking on the sea were

visions of ghosts (Matthew 14).114 Taillepied illustrates how these positions could be

reconciled with belief in ghostly apparitions, especially over and against Lavater’s

interpretive rendering.

As has been stated, of the concerns woven together in the ghost controversy,

purgatory was of the absolute highest importance. In the face of the Protestant rejection

of purgatory, for Catholics “Purgatory and its edifices had to be justified anew and

rebuilt.”115 Part of this process certainly included the efforts of Taillepied, whose effort to

explain belief in purgatory was “one of the most interesting” of a “flurry of pamphlets on

111 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 153. 112 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 154, 156. 113 Lavater, Of Ghosts and Spirits, 140. 114 For examples see Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 40-43. 115 Tingle, Purgatory and Piety, 2.

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Purgatory and the afterlife” that were issued in the 1580s.116 Catholics in France,

including Taillepied, successfully sustained belief in an afterlife consisting of heaven,

hell, and purgatory in the face of the sixteenth-century Protestant challenge, with this

“tripartite eschatology emerging strongly once more in the seventeenth century.”117

In order to substantiate this belief in purgatory, Taillepied reconstructs the

Protestant objection to purgatory in the following two passages:

But somebody may say: Is not Our Lord’s Atonement perfect and complete? Has He not redeemed us all? Why then did He not relieve us of those pains and penalties and restore us to the sinless state of Adam before the Fall?118 There is . . . something brand new, which pretends that when souls are parted from the bodies they go straight to Heaven or to hell, and there is no intermediate state, no Purgatory. Those who pretend this are audacious enough to appeal to the Bible and to the Fathers.119

In addressing the Protestant case against purgatory, Taillepied firmly confesses,

“it is a blessed truth that Our Redeemer has made a full, perfect and sufficient satisfaction

for our sins,” and established baptism so that “so that our sins may be washed away.”120

After this baptismal washing, Taillepied holds that forgiveness of sins requires

“contrition, tears, weeping and groaning, fasting, prayer, alms, good works,” basically

penance and mortification, much like the bodily penance to which St. Paul subjected

himself.121 Just as there is opportunity for the atonement of sins in earthly life, “if then a

good Catholic has not atoned for his sins in this world, God has ordained that his sins

116 Tingle, Purgatory and Piety, 67. 117 Tingle, Purgatory and Piety, 2. 118 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 150. 119 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 134. 120 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 135. 1 Corinthians 9:27. 121 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 135.

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shall be purged in the next before he can enter Heaven.”122 Taillepied states that it is the

case that “our prayers and fervent supplications avail for those who in the next world are

suffering the temporal penalties of Purgatory.”123

Taillepied also turns to the Fathers of the Church to support the doctrine of

purgatory. The list of Fathers he employs includes Augustine, prominently; Origen;

Jerome; Ambrose; Clement; Tertullian; Cyprian; Gregory of Nyssa; John Damascene;

John Chrysostom; and Gregory Nazianzen.124 Taillepied uses the witness of these writers

in two ways. First, he cites their testimony on behalf of purgatorial belief as being

supported by Scripture. For instance, Taillepied writes: “If we are asked to prove the

existence of Purgatory from Holy Writ we will turn to S. Augustine, who in the City of

God . . . proves it by reference to Malachias iii, and Isaias iv.”125 Second, Taillepied

draws from the Fathers to illustrate that “the fact of Purgatory logically presupposes and

enjoins prayers for the dead,” an activity the Fathers considered an essential duty of the

faithful. As the Fathers enjoined the faithful to pray for the dead, “it follows that

Purgatory is some other place than Heaven or Hell,” for to pray for those in hell is vain

and to pray for those in heaven is unnecessary.126 It only remains then that prayers for the

dead are to the benefit of “those who whilst in this world did not make full satisfaction

for their sins,” that is, souls in purgatory.127

An essential part of Taillepied’s defense of purgatory is his concern for the

communion of the living and the dead, which is part of “the Holy Catholic Faith taught

122 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 135. 123 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 151-2. 124 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 148-9. 125 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 148. 126 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 149. 127 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 149.

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by the Apostles; the Communion of Saints.” 129 In the background of Taillepied’s entire

work is the effort to reestablish or make clear the ever-present communion between the

living and the dead. As Yardley points out, “the comforting belief of the Catholic Church

in the return of souls from Purgatory seeking help and consolation from the living had for

centuries given a Christian colouring to beliefs in the nearness of the spirits of the

dead.”130 As it was, the medieval disposition toward the dead, including its belief in

purgatory and the ability to aid its inhabitants, provided that “community and

commemoration defined the relationship of the living and the dead.”131

In respect to this communion of the living and the dead, Taillepied holds that not

all efforts to commune with the dead are equivalent to necromancy, which “is of a truth

expressly and absolutely forbidden by the Law.”132 Of course, to enlist the “aid of

sorcerers, who work by and through the devil,” is a mortal sin, as is asking God to make a

spirit appear “out of curiosity or idle prying.”133 There is, however, room left for a person

to “humbly and devoutly” ask God to “suffer a Spirit to appear, in order that he may

inquire concerning the estate of his friends, intimates, his parents or benefactors, or

relations, who have passed away, in order that if such be their need he may help them by

masses,” in this “there is no sin at all.”134 Instead of viewing the ghostly concourse as

being a one-way thoroughfare, Taillepied depicts the communion between the living and

129 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 152. 130 Yardley, “The Catholic Position in the Ghost Controversy of the Sixteenth Century,” 221. 131 Tingle, Purgatory and Piety, 1. 132 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 129. 133 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 129. 134 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 129.

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the dead as being more reciprocal, “for if souls themselves appear and seek our aid, why

should we not, if such be God’s will, require the same from them on our part?”135

Mutual aid between those living and those in purgatory proves to be of serious

concern for Taillepied. Timothy Chesters holds that Taillepied was concerned about “the

Reformers’ contempt for the remembrance of dead spirits” because of their unwillingness

“to credit belief in Purgatory,” as a result this contempt left the souls of departed

Protestants “forgotten and uncared for.”136 In Chesters’ translation he renders Taillepied’s

judgment in the following terms: those who deny apparitions of the deceased do so “for

no other end than to sever them from the intercession of the living.”137 Further, a

language of severance underlines “the totality and cruelty of the Protestant break with the

community of the dead.”138

Conclusion

Taillepied’s book A Treatise of Ghosts made its appearance in the midst of the

sixteenth-century debate about the possibility and nature of ghostly apparitions, with

ghosts being understood as the appearance of souls of the deceased to the living. As has

been recounted, this debate was spurned on by the Protestant Reformation and its

rejection of purgatory. As Catholics explained ghostly apparitions as the appearance of

souls from purgatory for the purposes of passing along information, comforting and

warning the living, and asking for prayerful supplication for the relief of their purgatorial

sufferings, the Protestant rejection of purgatory entailed a rejection of ghostly activity.

The most well known articulation of this rejection of purgatory and ghosts was found in

135 Taillepied, A Treatise of Ghosts, trans. Summers, 129. 136 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 90. 137 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 90. 138 Chesters, Ghost Stories, 90.

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the work of Ludwig Lavater, titled Of Ghosts and Spirits Walking By Night. Lavater’s

work originally appeared in 1569 and was translated into French in 1571. Taillepied’s

book on ghosts, published in 1588, was predominantly a response to the Protestant

challenge in general, and Lavater in particular. While Lavater used Scripture, the Fathers

of the Church, contemporary accounts, and historical sources to show that belief in ghosts

is unfounded, and in fact often a product of demonic influence, Taillepied used the same

sorts of sources to show the exact opposite, namely, that by God’s allowance, on

occasion, the dead truly appear to the living. In spite of their deep disagreement, Lavater

and Taillepied agreed that apparitions do in fact occur, but that in order to accurately

distinguish between natural phenomena mistaken as spiritual activity and actual

apparitions, a sustained discernment of vision and senses was needed. Further, the

discernment of spirits is necessary as there is the threat of potential demonic deception.

Throughout the course of his book, Taillepied provided a fitting response to the

Protestant rejection of ghostly apparitions, embodied as it was in the work of Lavater.

Taillepied’s defense of purgatory, pastoral explanation of the discernment of spirits, and

interpretive engagement with Scripture, all justified a robust Catholic disposition toward

ghostly apparitions that enabled both prudent discernment and room for truly ghostly

activity. By making room for this ghostly action, Taillepied also strengthened the

commerce between the living and the dead, to wit, that the dead could be cared for and

the living could be informed of what awaited them in the life hereafter.

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