Lives of Margaret of Jesus and Ursula of All Saints by their Ghostly Father Edmund Bedingfield, Canon of St Gummarus in Lier[re]: his account of their exorcism

This chapter contains Edmund Bedingfield’s account of the exorcism of Sister Margaret and Sister Ursula in 1651. His text appears at the outset to be a conventional spiritual biography: it opens with an account of their early secular lives, providing rich information about the domestic routine and education of young women of their class in this period, then it describes the sisters’ eventful journey to the Low Countries and their early career as nuns at Antwerp and Lierre. However, it soon becomes clear that Bedingfield’s main interest is the women’s exorcism, and this is the main focus of his subsequent narrative.