ABSTRACT
The demon leaves and takes flight, attesting to the strength and power of the saint. Such scenes are frequently invoked in the stories in the Miracles. The departure of the demon is visually eclipsed by the passage of the saint, and as a result the healing of the dementia becomes so banal that it resembles the healing of other maladies. Around the year 1070, the Miracles of St. Aignan again put on display virulent demonic possession, with the intervention of the saint and the appeasement of the man at his command. The silence of demons, and the solitude of the possessed, seem to go hand in hand, explaining at the same time the devaluing of the madman and the deterioration of social bonds. Even though the expulsion of demons otherwise appear to be those kinds of functional and consensual rites appropriate to 'face to face' communities, which Peter Brown is fond of describing up to the twelfth century.
