A Saint or an impostor? : the case of Francesca Protopsalti during the plague of 1676

Abstract

Following the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church attempted to limit widespread beliefs on sainthood. Yet, even though by the late seventeenth century ecclesiastical control proved to be largely successful, in a society where the local clergy actively participated and shared traditional beliefs, the reforms ushered in by the Tridentine Council were slow to penetrate. Access to sacred power over natural misfortunes and calamities which saints provided through prayer, pilgrimage and relics were unceasing. This often led local populations into conflict with the central authorities of the Church as they continually proposed new holy people and miraculous events to meet the demand. It was the duty of the Inquisition Tribunal to examine people suspected of questionable sanctity while they were still alive and decide whether it was a true or simulated saintliness. Some of them were accepted as genuine by the Catholic Church, but others were rejected as false. Yet all of these manifestations in some way expressed the meaning and role of sanctity in early modern society. Here we shall attempt to discuss the models of sanctity in early modern Malta with a special emphasis on a local saint as well as the personalisation of the sacred and the function of relics.