The Marvelous Tale of Alis de Tesieux: Revenants, Reformation, Reform, and Revolving Meaning in a Sixteenth-Century Ghost Story

This dissertation investigates Adrien de Montalembert's La merveilleuse hystoire de lesperit qui depuis nagueres cest apparu au monastere des religieuses de saint pierre de Lyon (Paris, 1528), arguing that the narrative provides unique insight into the religious culture of France in the 1520s, a period largely ignored in the scholarship of French religious history. In the story, the spirit of Alis de Tesieux, a deceased former nun at Saint-Pierre de Lyon, returns to the convent and haunts Sister Anthoinete de Grollee. Alis de Tesieux seeks prayers and good works, which she hopes will lessen her time in Purgatory. Montalembert suggests several possible meanings of his story, but he is unambiguous that one is transcendent above the others---his story of ghosts, demons, conjurations, and salvation condemns the Lutheran heretics. However, the tale had many different meanings to contemporaries and to later readers of the numerous reprints and reappropriations of the narrative. As the story morphed over time and took on new meanings, Montalembert's intended message was almost entirely lost, but La merveilleuse hystoire continued to resonate with readers. La merveilleuse hystoire is a rare lens into a pivotal moment of change in France, from late medieval to early modern, pre-Reformation to Reformation, and into the many smaller moving pieces within these broader shifts, including the experiences of female religious in an age of convent reform and changes in demonological beliefs.