152-654: The trials of the Pendle witches in 1612 are among the most famous witch trials in English history, and some of the best recorded of the 17th century. The twelve accused lived in the area surrounding Pendle Hill in Lancashire , and were charged with the murders of ten people by the use of witchcraft . All but two were tried at Lancaster Assizes on 18–19 August 1612, along with the Samlesbury witches and others, in
304-646: A "light-hearted" celebration of "injustice and oppression". Witch-hunt A witch hunt , or a witch purge , is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft . Practicing evil spells or incantations was proscribed and punishable in early human civilizations in the Middle East . In medieval Europe , witch-hunts often arose in connection to charges of heresy from Christianity. An intensive period of witch-hunts occurring in Early Modern Europe and to
456-602: A 1791 pamphlet by Gottfried Christian Voigt . North Berwick witch trials The North Berwick witch trials were the trials in 1590 of a number of people from East Lothian , Scotland , accused of witchcraft in the St Andrew's Auld Kirk in North Berwick on Halloween night. They ran for two years, and implicated over 70 people. These included Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell , on charges of high treason . The "witches" allegedly held their covens on
608-458: A blemish such as a mole or birth mark, this would then be proclaimed to be a witch's mark ) and accused many others of witchcraft. According to the contemporary pamphlet Newes from Scotland , 1591, she named numerous individuals, both women and men: Agnes Sampson the eldest witch of them all, dwelling in Haddington; Agnes Tompson of Edenbrough; Doctor Fian alias John Cuningham, master of
760-445: A case was brought to trial, the prosecutors hunted for accomplices. The use of magic was considered wrong, not because it failed, but because it worked effectively for the wrong reasons. Witchcraft was a normal part of everyday life. Witches were often called for, along with religious ministers, to help the ill or deliver a baby. They held positions of spiritual power in their communities. When something went wrong, no one questioned either
912-476: A child by witchcraft, but had been found not guilty. The most damning evidence given against her was that when she had been taken to see Lister's body, the corpse "bled fresh bloud presently, in the presence of all that were there present" after she touched it. According to a statement made to Nowell by James Device on 27 April, Jennet had attended the Malkin Tower meeting to seek help with Lister's murder. She
1064-451: A clay figure of one of her victims, John Robinson. Elizabeth Device was found guilty. James Device pleaded not guilty to the murders by witchcraft of Anne Townley and John Duckworth. However he, like Chattox, had earlier made a confession to Nowell, which was read out in court. That, and the evidence presented against him by his sister Jennet, who said that she had seen her brother asking a black dog he had conjured up to help him kill Townley,
1216-433: A complaint made to him by the family of John Law, a pedlar , who claimed to have been injured by witchcraft. Many of those who subsequently became implicated as the investigation progressed did indeed consider themselves to be witches, in the sense of being village healers who practised magic, probably in return for payment, but such men and women were common in 16th-century rural England, an accepted part of village life. It
1368-402: A conspicuous part. The Code of Hammurabi (18th century BC short chronology ) prescribes that If a man has put a spell upon another man and it is not yet justified, he upon whom the spell is laid shall go to the holy river ; into the holy river shall he plunge. If the holy river overcomes him and he is drowned, the man who put the spell upon him shall take possession of his house. If
1520-539: A cultural phenomenon. Throughout the early medieval period, notable rulers prohibited both witchcraft and pagan religions, often on pain of death. Under Charlemagne, for example, Christians who practiced witchcraft were enslaved by the Church, while those who worshiped the Devil (Germanic gods) were killed outright. Witch-hunting also appears in period literature. According to Snorri Sturluson , King Olaf Trygvasson furthered
1672-422: A disagreement with Redferne, and that he had frequently blamed her for his illness. Based on the evidence and confessions he had obtained, Nowell committed Demdike, Chattox, Anne Redferne and Alizon Device to Lancaster Gaol, to be tried for maleficium – causing harm by witchcraft – at the next assizes. The committal and subsequent trial of the four women might have been the end of the matter, had it not been for
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#17327940663601824-414: A few days after the incident, she reportedly confessed, and asked for his forgiveness. Alizon Device, her mother Elizabeth, and her brother James were summoned to appear before Nowell on 30 March 1612. Alizon confessed that she had sold her soul to the Devil, and that she had told him to lame John Law after he had called her a thief. Her brother, James, stated that his sister had also confessed to bewitching
1976-427: A form of Satanic influence and its classification as a heresy. As Renaissance occultism gained traction among the educated classes, the belief in witchcraft, which in the medieval period had been part of the folk religion of the uneducated rural population at best, was incorporated into an increasingly comprehensive theology of Satan as the ultimate source of all maleficium . These doctrinal shifts were completed in
2128-525: A human cultural universal. One study finds that witchcraft beliefs are associated with antisocial attitudes: lower levels of trust, charitable giving and group participation. Another study finds that income shocks (caused by extreme rainfall) lead to a large increase in the murder of "witches" in Tanzania. Punishment for malevolent magic is addressed in the earliest law codes which were preserved, in both ancient Egypt and Babylonia , where it played
2280-472: A living as traditional healers , using a mixture of herbal medicine and talismans or charms , which might leave them open to charges of sorcery . Many of the allegations resulted from accusations that members of the Demdike and Chattox families made both against each other, perhaps because they were in competition, trying to make a living from healing, begging, and extortion. The accused witches lived in
2432-597: A living from healing, begging, and extortion. The Demdikes are believed to have lived close to Newchurch in Pendle, and the Chattox family about 2 miles (3.2 km) away, near the village of Fence . The role that both close family ties and toxic relationships played in the trials comes into play again when one considers that the star witness during the trial was Jennet, who testified against almost her whole family. Some historians, such as Winsham, are prepared to give Jennett
2584-451: A local child. Elizabeth was more reticent, admitting only that her mother, Demdike, had a mark on her body, something that many, including Nowell, would have regarded as having been left by the Devil after he had sucked her blood. When questioned about Anne Whittle (Chattox), the matriarch of the other family reputedly involved in witchcraft in and around Pendle, Alizon perhaps saw an opportunity for revenge. There may have been bad blood between
2736-521: A meeting organised by Elizabeth Device at Malkin Tower, the home of the Demdikes, held on Good Friday 10 April 1612. To feed the party, James Device stole a neighbour's sheep. Friends and others sympathetic to the family attended, and when word of it reached Roger Nowell, he decided to investigate. On 27 April 1612, an inquiry was held before Nowell and another magistrate, Nicholas Bannister, to determine
2888-410: A miraculous healing ability and would sneak out of the house during the night. When Seaton confronted her, she could not explain her new ability and strange behaviour and he had her tortured. Whilst she was able to withstand many forms of torture including pilliwinks , she eventually confessed to witchcraft when the method of searching was used (searching is where a suspected witch would be 'searched' for
3040-512: A model of resistance for the disenchanted and disenfranchised". A petition was presented to UK Home Secretary Jack Straw in 1998 asking for the witches to be pardoned, but it was decided that their convictions should stand. Ten years later another petition was organised in an attempt to obtain pardons for Chattox and Demdike. The later petition followed the Swiss government's pardon earlier that year of Anna Göldi , beheaded in 1782, thought to be
3192-495: A moral vacuum. Many of the allegations made in the Pendle witch trials resulted from members of the Demdike and Chattox families making accusations against each other. The situation has been described by one historian as ″ a trial in which one family destroyed the other and then turned suicidally on itself, with children betraying siblings and parents. ″ There may have been bad blood between the Demdike and Chattox families because they were in competition with each other, trying to make
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#17327940663603344-407: A move strongly resisted by the local people, over whose lives the abbey had until then exerted a powerful influence. Despite the abbey's closure, and the execution of its abbot, the people of Pendle remained largely faithful to their Roman Catholic beliefs and were quick to revert to Catholicism on Queen Mary's accession to the throne in 1553. When Mary's Protestant half-sister Elizabeth came to
3496-419: A pact with the devil and using witchcraft. In 1615, she was called a witch by a female neighbor in the duchy of Württemberg following a dispute with her of having given her a bitter drink that had made her ill. She was held captive for over a year and threatened with torture, but was finally acquitted thanks to her son's efforts. Modern scholarly estimates place the total number of executions for witchcraft in
3648-442: A penny she had begged from him. The only evidence against Alice seems to have been that James Device claimed Demdike had told him of the murder, and Jennet Device in her statement said that Alice had been present at the Malkin Tower meeting. Alice may have called in on the meeting at Malkin Tower on her way to a secret (and illegal) Good Friday Catholic service, and refused to speak for fear of incriminating her fellow Catholics. Many of
3800-554: A persecution and expulsion of witches among the Goths in a mythical account of the origin of the Huns . The ancient fabled King Filimer is said to have found among his people certain witches, whom he called in his native tongue Haliurunnae . Suspecting these women, he expelled them from the midst of his race and compelled them to wander in solitary exile afar from his army. There the unclean spirits, who beheld them as they wandered through
3952-481: A series of trials that have become known as the Lancashire witch trials. One was tried at York Assizes on 27 July 1612, and another died in prison. Of the eleven who went to trial – nine women and two men – ten were found guilty and executed by hanging; one was found not guilty. The official publication of the proceedings by the clerk to the court , Thomas Potts , in his The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in
4104-668: A smaller extent Colonial America , took place from about 1450 to 1750, spanning the upheavals of the Counter Reformation and the Thirty Years' War , resulting in an estimated 35,000 to 60,000 executions. The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century. In other regions, like Africa and Asia , contemporary witch-hunts have been reported from sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea , and official legislation against witchcraft
4256-460: A soothsayer, or an augur , or a sorcerer , or one that casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord"; and Exodus 22:18 prescribes: "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". Tales like that of 1 Samuel 28, reporting how Saul "hath cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of
4408-547: A supernatural conspiracy, bringing a political element into the ongoing trials. According to Christopher Smout , between 3,000 and 4,000 accused witches may have been killed in Scotland in the years 1560–1707. Scottish witches were linked to storms by the testimony of Gillis Duncan (or Geillis Duncan). She was a servant of David Seaton in Tranent , who forced her to make a confession. Apparently Duncan suddenly began to exhibit
4560-403: A table and stated that she believed her mother had been a witch for three or four years. She also said her mother had a familiar called Ball, who appeared in the shape of a brown dog. Jennet claimed to have witnessed conversations between Ball and her mother, in which Ball had been asked to help with various murders. James Device also gave evidence against his mother, saying he had seen her making
4712-488: A widely circulated pamphlet, "Newes from Scotland," James VI personally presided over the torture and execution of Doctor Fian. Indeed, James published a witch-hunting manual, Daemonologie , which contains the famous dictum: "Experience daily proves how loath they are to confess without torture." Later, the Pendle witch trials of 1612 joined the ranks of the most famous witch trials in English history. In England, witch-hunting would reach its apex in 1644 to 1647 due to
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4864-822: A witch, for it is not possible, nor ought to be believed by Christian minds. This conforms to the teachings of the Canon Episcopi of circa 900 AD (alleged to date from 314 AD), which, stated that witchcraft did not exist and that to teach that it was a reality was, itself, false and heterodox teaching. Other examples include an Irish synod in 800 AD, and a sermon by Agobard of Lyons (810 AD). King Kálmán (Coloman) of Hungary , in Decree 57 of his First Legislative Book (published in 1100), banned witch-hunting because he said, "witches do not exist". The "Decretum" of Burchard, Bishop of Worms (about 1020), and especially its 19th book, often known separately as
5016-524: A witch-hunter, the methods used to extract confessions, and the tests he employed to test the accused: stripping them naked to find the Witches' mark , the "swimming" test , and pricking the skin . The swimming test, which included throwing a witch, who was strapped to a chair, into a bucket of water to see if she floated, was discontinued in 1645 due to a legal challenge. The 1647 book, The Discovery of Witches , soon became an influential legal text. The book
5168-591: A witch. According to Newes from Scotland, (1591), Sampson confessed to attending a Sabbat with 200 witches, including Giellis Duncan. Dr. Fian also suffered severe torture. His fingernails were forcibly extracted, then iron pins were inserted. He was tortured with the pilliwinks , and the boot . Fian was finally taken to the Castlehill in Edinburgh and burned at the stake on 16 December. Fian's testimony implicated Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell in
5320-581: A woman being sentenced to death by hanging for witchcraft. The judges may have been uncertain whether the best way to gain the King's favour was by encouraging convictions, or by "sceptically testing the witnesses to destruction". One of the accused, Demdike, had been regarded in the area as a witch for fifty years, and some of the deaths the witches were accused of had happened many years before Roger Nowell started to take an interest in 1612. The event that seems to have triggered Nowell's investigation, culminating in
5472-412: Is clear from his much-quoted sermon of 1427, in which he says: One of them told and confessed, without any pressure, that she had killed thirty children by bleeding them ... [and] she confessed more, saying she had killed her own son ... Answer me: does it really seem to you that someone who has killed twenty or thirty little children in such a way has done so well that when finally they are accused before
5624-538: Is recorded in 1563 in a pamphlet called "True and Horrifying Deeds of 63 Witches". Witchcraft persecution spread to all areas of Europe. Learned European ideas about witchcraft and demonological ideas, strongly influenced the hunt for witches in the North. These witch-hunts were at least partly driven by economic factors since a significant relationship between economic pressure and witch hunting activity can be found for regions such as Bavaria and Scotland. In Denmark,
5776-470: Is still found in Saudi Arabia , Cameroon and South Africa today. In current language, "witch-hunt" metaphorically means an investigation that is usually conducted with much publicity, supposedly to uncover subversive activity, disloyalty, and so on, but with the real purpose of harming opponents. It can also involve elements of moral panic , as well as mass hysteria . The wide distribution of
5928-476: Is unclear, and it is possible that she was eventually burnt to death. The town council bought materials to build a fire for her execution and these were used on 25 June 1591 at the burning of Euphame MacCalzean . The opinion of the 17th-century historian of the Douglas family, David Hume of Godscroft , was that she had been released. In March 2022 Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland, apologized for
6080-492: The 5th century BC laws of the Twelve Tables laid down penalties for uttering harmful incantations and for stealing the fruitfulness of someone else's crops by magic. The only recorded trial involving this law was that of Gaius Furius Cresimus . The Classical Latin word veneficium meant both poisoning and causing harm by magic (such as magic potions), although ancient people would not have distinguished between
6232-531: The Chancellor to have physicians examine her to see if she was pregnant, and if she was not, to have her burnt and publicly disembowelled. James VI wanted an appeal to overturn the first verdict, in order to better prosecute the Earl of Bothwell, and an "assize of error" was planned. James VI spoke the jurors, who faced penalties for their former decision, on 7 June 1591, and they agreed with his views. Her fate
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6384-403: The "Corrector", is another work of great importance. Burchard was writing against the superstitious belief in magical potions , for instance, that may produce impotence or abortion. These were also condemned by several Church Fathers. But he altogether rejected the possibility of many of the alleged powers with which witches were popularly credited. Such, for example, were nocturnal riding through
6536-405: The "preposterous scheme" was invented by the examining magistrates and simply agreed to by James Device in his witness statement. It may therefore be significant that Potts dedicated The Wonderfull Discoverie to Thomas Knyvet and his wife Elizabeth; Knyvet was the man credited with apprehending Guy Fawkes and thus saving the King. It has been estimated that all the English witch trials between
6688-416: The 15th and early 16th centuries, but then the witch scare went into decline, before becoming a major issue again and peaking in the 17th century; particularly during the Thirty Years' War . What had previously been a belief that some people possessed supernatural abilities (which were sometimes used to protect the people), now became a sign of a pact between the people with supernatural abilities and
6840-518: The 300-year period of European witch-hunts in the five digits, mostly at roughly between 35,000 and 60,000 (see table below for details), The majority of those accused were from the lower economic classes in European society, although in rarer cases high-ranking individuals were accused as well. On the basis of this evidence, Scarre and Callow asserted that the "typical witch was the wife or widow of an agricultural labourer or small tenant farmer, and she
6992-647: The 3rd century AD, the Lex Cornelia had begun to be used more broadly against other kinds of magic deemed harmful. The magicians were to be burnt at the stake. Persecution of witches continued in the Roman Empire until the late 4th century AD and abated only after the introduction of Christianity as the Roman state religion in the 390s. The German author Wilhelm Gottlieb Soldan argued in History of
7144-490: The 400-year anniversary of the Pendle witch trials, the notion of the witches as folk heroes caught the popular imagination. With new cultural productions revisiting the witches' story (Mary Sharratt's Daughters of the WItching Hill (2011) or Jeanette Winterson 's The Daylight Gate (2012)), Spooner argues that the Pendle witches have been transformed from "folk devil to folk heroes", and that "their history has become
7296-517: The 400th anniversary of the trials in 2012 included an exhibition, "A Wonderful Discoverie: Lancashire Witches 1612–2012", at Gawthorpe Hall staged by Lancashire County Council . The Fate of Chattox , a piece by David Lloyd-Mostyn for clarinet and piano, taking its theme from the events leading to Chattox's demise, was performed by Aquilon at the Chorlton Arts Festival . A life-size statue of Alice Nutter, by sculptor David Palmer,
7448-569: The Auld Kirk Green, part of the modern-day North Berwick Harbour area. Confessions were extracted by torture in the Old Tolbooth, Edinburgh . One source for these events is a 1591 pamphlet Newes from Scotland . King James VI wrote a dissertation on witchcraft and necromancy titled Daemonologie in 1597. The North Berwick trials were among the better known of the large number of witch trials in early modern Scotland between
7600-552: The Christian conversion of Norway by luring pagan magicians to his hall under false pretenses, barring the doors and burning them alive. Some who escaped were later captured and drowned. The manuals of the Roman Catholic Inquisition remained highly skeptical of witch accusations, although there was sometimes an overlap between accusations of heresy and of witchcraft, particularly when, in the 13th century,
7752-495: The Countie of Lancaster , and the number of witches hanged together – nine at Lancaster and one at York – make the trials unusual for England at that time. It has been estimated that all the English witch trials between the early 15th and early 18th centuries resulted in fewer than 500 executions; this series of trials accounts for more than two per cent of that total. Six of the Pendle witches came from one of two families, each at
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#17327940663607904-427: The Demdike's home. Alice Nutter was unusual among the accused in being comparatively wealthy, the widow of a tenant yeoman farmer. She made no statement either before or during her trial, except to enter her plea of not guilty to the charge of murdering Henry Mitton by witchcraft. The prosecution alleged that she, together with Demdike and Elizabeth Device, had caused Mitton's death after he had refused to give Demdike
8056-418: The Devil 20 years previously, and Chattox that she had given her soul to "a Thing like a Christian man", on his promise that "she would not lack anything and would get any revenge she desired". Although Anne Redferne made no confession, Demdike said that she had seen her making clay figures. Margaret Crooke, another witness seen by Nowell that day, claimed that her brother had fallen sick and died after having had
8208-400: The English throne, a law was enacted imposing the death penalty in cases where it was proven that harm had been caused through the use of magic, or corpses had been exhumed for magical purposes. James was, however, sceptical of the evidence presented in witch trials, even to the extent of personally exposing discrepancies in the testimonies presented against some accused witches. In early 1612,
8360-621: The Inquisition to prosecute sorcerers in 1320, inquisitorial courts rarely dealt with witchcraft save incidentally when investigating heterodoxy. In the case of the Madonna Oriente , the Inquisition of Milan was not sure what to do with two women who, in 1384, confessed to have participated in the society around Signora Oriente or Diana . Through their confessions, both of them conveyed the traditional folk beliefs of white magic. The women were accused again in 1390, and condemned by
8512-488: The Midlands Circuit in 1616. Potts was given the keepership of Skalme Park by James in 1615, to breed and train the king's hounds. In 1618, he was given responsibility for "collecting the forfeitures on the laws concerning sewers, for twenty-one years". Having played her part in the deaths of her mother, brother, and sister, Jennet Device may eventually have found herself accused of witchcraft. A woman with that name
8664-587: The North Berwick Witch Trials and the trials are used to shape some of the plot points and events that occur in the book. Additionally, the two main characters, Diana and Matthew travel to the past, to Elizabethan England on Halloween night 1590 at the beginning of the book. The Burnings , a 2023 debut novel by Naomi Kelsey, describes the North Berwick witch trials from the perspectives of Geillis Duncan and of Margaret Vinstarr , who
8816-500: The Nutter family were Catholics, and two had been executed as Jesuit priests, John Nutter in 1584 and his brother Robert in 1600. Alice Nutter was found guilty. Katherine Hewitt (a.k.a. Mould-Heeles) was charged and found guilty of the murder of Anne Foulds. She was the wife of a clothier from Colne , and had attended the meeting at Malkin Tower with Alice Grey. According to the evidence given by James Device, both Hewitt and Grey told
8968-446: The Pendle witch trials, occurred on 21 March 1612. On her way to Trawden Forest , Demdike's granddaughter, Alizon Device, encountered John Law, a pedlar from Halifax , and asked him for some pins. Seventeenth-century metal pins were handmade and relatively expensive, but they were frequently needed for magical purposes, such as in healing – particularly for treating warts – divination, and for love magic , which may have been why Alizon
9120-469: The Signoria you should go to their aid and beg mercy for them? Perhaps the most notorious witch trial in history was the trial of Joan of Arc . Although the trial was politically motivated, and the verdict later overturned, the position of Joan as a woman and an accused witch became significant factors in her execution. Joan's punishment of being burned alive (victims were usually strangled before burning)
9272-581: The Witchcraft Trials that the philosopher and mathematician Hypatia , murdered by a mob in 415 AD for threatening the influence of Cyril of Alexandria , may have been, in effect, the first famous "witch" to be punished by Christian authorities. Cyril's alleged role in her murder, however, was already controversial among contemporary sources, and the surviving primary account by Socrates Scholasticus makes no mention of religious motivations. The 6th century AD Getica of Jordanes records
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#17327940663609424-475: The Würzburg trials of 1629, children made up 60% of those accused, although this had declined to 17% by the end of the year. Rapley (1998) claims that "75 to 80 percent" of a total of "40,000 to 50,000" victims were women. The claim that "millions of witches" (often: " nine million witches ") were killed in Europe is spurious, even though it is occasionally found in popular literature, and it is ultimately due to
9576-447: The accused witches were held before their trial. The X43 bus route run by Burnley Bus Company has been branded The Witch Way , with some of the vehicles operating on it named after the witches in the trial. Pendle Hill, which dominates the landscape of the area, continues to be associated with witchcraft, and hosts a hilltop gathering every Halloween . Scholar Catherine Spooner argues in an article for Hellebore magazine that with
9728-457: The accused – Alizon Device, Elizabeth Device, James Device, Anne Whittle, Anne Redferne, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, John Bulcock and Jane Bulcock – were found guilty during the two-day trial and hanged at Gallows Hill in Lancaster on 20 August 1612; Elizabeth Southerns died while awaiting trial. Only one of the accused, Alice Grey, was found not guilty. 18 August Anne Whittle (Chattox)
9880-444: The accused, which was important for the success of the witch trials. In practice, appeals were made to other witnesses to the crimes, so that the first informer was followed by others. In the event of a conviction, the informer sometimes received a third of the accused's assets, but at least 2 guilders . A well-known and well-documented example is the case of Katharina Kepler , the mother of the astronomer Johannes Kepler , for being in
10032-442: The accused. Nine-year-old Jennet Device was a key witness for the prosecution, something that would not have been permitted in many other 17th-century criminal trials. However, King James had made a case for suspending the normal rules of evidence for witchcraft trials in his Daemonologie . As well as identifying those who had attended the Malkin Tower meeting, Jennet also gave evidence against her mother, brother, and sister. Nine of
10184-734: The air, the changing of a person's disposition from love to hate, the control of thunder, rain, and sunshine, the transformation of a man into an animal, the intercourse of incubi and succubi with human beings, and other such superstitions. Not only the attempt to practice such things, but the very belief in their possibility, is treated by Burchard as false and superstitious. Pope Gregory VII , in 1080, wrote to King Harald III of Denmark forbidding witches to be put to death upon being suspected of having caused storms or failure of crops or pestilence. There were many such efforts to prevent unjust treatment of innocent people. On many occasions, ecclesiastics who spoke with authority did their best to disabuse
10336-401: The area around Pendle Hill in Lancashire , a county which, at the end of the 16th century, was regarded by the authorities as a wild and lawless region: an area "fabled for its theft, violence and sexual laxity, where the church was honoured without much understanding of its doctrines by the common people". The nearby Cistercian abbey at Whalley had been dissolved by Henry VIII in 1537,
10488-460: The belief that humans could enter pacts with demons, which became the basis of future witch hunts. Ironically, many clerics of the Middle Ages openly or covertly practiced goetia , believing that as Christ granted his disciples power to command demons, to summon and control demons was not, therefore, a sin. Whatever the position of individual clerics, witch-hunting seems to have persisted as
10640-399: The benefit of doubt, pointing that she was clearly being coached by Nowell during the trial. Others such as Lumby point out that Jennet seemed to relish her role as chief witness and the revenge she was unleashing on her own kin: ″ the sweet child seems to have delighted in damming all her family. ″ Historian John Swain has said that the outbreaks of witchcraft in and around Pendle demonstrate
10792-425: The breath" meant slashing across a woman's forehead in order to remove the power of her magic. This was seen as a kind of emergency procedure which could be performed in absence of judicial authorities. Another important element of the persecution of witches were denunciations . "In England, most of the accusers and those making written complaints against witches were women." Informers did not have to be revealed to
10944-403: The burning of witches increased following the reformation of 1536. Christian IV of Denmark , in particular, encouraged this practice, and hundreds of people were convicted of witchcraft and burnt. In the district of Finnmark, northern Norway, severe witchcraft trials took place during the period 1600–1692. A memorial of international format, Steilneset Memorial , has been built to commemorate
11096-536: The case to the king, Charles I . Under cross-examination in London, Robinson admitted that he had fabricated his evidence, but even though four of the accused were eventually pardoned, they all remained incarcerated in Lancaster Gaol, where it is likely that they died. An official record dated 22 August 1636 lists Jennet Device as one of those still held in the prison. These later Lancashire witchcraft trials were
11248-419: The charges against whom included child murder , cannibalism ; Margaret Pearson, the so-called Padiham witch , who was facing her third trial for witchcraft, this time for killing a horse; and Isobel Robey from Windle , accused of using witchcraft to cause sickness. Some of the accused Pendle witches, such as Alizon Device, seem to have genuinely believed in their guilt, but others protested their innocence to
11400-513: The death penalty. This law banned the trading and possession of harmful drugs and poisons, possession of magical books and other occult paraphernalia. Emperor Augustus strengthened laws to curb these practices, for instance in 31 BC, by burning over 2,000 magical books in Rome, except for certain portions of the hallowed Sibylline Books . While Tiberius Claudius was emperor, 85 women and 45 men accused of sorcery were executed. By
11552-485: The devil. To justify the killings, some Christians of the time and their proxy secular institutions deemed witchcraft as being associated to wild Satanic ritual parties in which there was naked dancing and cannibalistic infanticide . It was also seen as heresy for going against the first of the Ten Commandments ("You shall have no other gods before me") or as violating majesty , in this case referring to
11704-464: The divine majesty, not the worldly. Further scripture was also frequently cited, especially the Exodus decree that "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Exodus 22:18), which many supported. Witch-hunts were seen across early modern Europe, but the most significant area of witch-hunting in modern Europe is often considered to be central and southern Germany. Germany was a late starter in terms of
11856-576: The early 15th and early 18th centuries resulted in fewer than 500 executions, so this one series of trials in July and August 1612 accounts for more than two per cent of that total. Court records show that Lancashire was unusual in the north of England for the frequency of its witch trials. Neighbouring Cheshire , for instance, also suffered from economic problems and religious activists, but there only 47 people were indicted for causing harm by witchcraft between 1589 and 1675, of whom 11 were found guilty. Pendle
12008-520: The early sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century. This was the first major witchcraft persecution in Scotland, and began with a sensational case involving the royal houses of Denmark-Norway and Scotland. King James VI sailed to Copenhagen to marry Anne of Denmark , sister of Christian IV of Denmark . During their return to Scotland they experienced terrible storms and had to shelter in Norway for several weeks before continuing. At this point,
12160-491: The efforts of Puritan Matthew Hopkins . Although operating without an official Parliament commission, Hopkins (calling himself Witchfinder General) and his accomplices charged hefty fees to towns during the English Civil War . Hopkins' witch-hunting spree was brief but significant: 300 convictions and deaths are attributed to his work. Hopkins wrote a book on his methods, describing his fortuitous beginnings as
12312-549: The end. Jennet Preston was the first to be tried, at York Assizes. Jennet Preston lived in Gisburn , which was then in Yorkshire , so she was sent to York Assizes for trial. Her judges were Sir James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley. Jennet was charged with the murder by witchcraft of a local landowner, Thomas Lister of Westby Hall, to which she pleaded not guilty. She had already appeared before Bromley in 1611, accused of murdering
12464-484: The extent to which people could make a living either by posing as a witch, or by accusing or threatening to accuse others of being a witch. Although it is implicit in much of the literature on witchcraft that the accused were victims, often mentally or physically abnormal, for some at least, it may have been a trade like any other, albeit one with significant risks. Altham continued with his judicial career until his death in 1617, and Bromley achieved his desired promotion to
12616-558: The first Danish victims was Anna Koldings , who, when tortured, divulged the names of five other women; one of whom was Malin, the wife of the burgomaster of Helsingor. They all confessed that they had been guilty of sorcery in raising storms that menaced Queen Anne's voyage, and that on Halloween night they had sent devils to climb up the keel of her ship. In September, two women were burnt as witches at Kronborg . James heard news from Denmark regarding this and decided to set up his own tribunal. The main alleged witches directly involved in
12768-482: The first accused. Two significant accused persons were Agnes Sampson , a respected and elderly woman from Humbie , and Dr John Fian , a schoolmaster and scholar in Prestonpans . Both initially refused to confess and were put to severe torture. Sampson was brought before King James and a council of nobles. She denied all the charges, but after torture, she confessed. By special commandment, her head and body hair
12920-459: The harmful effects of pharmaka – an ambiguous term that might mean "poison", "medicine", or "magical drug" – do survive, especially those where the drug caused injury or death. Antiphon 's speech " Against the Stepmother for Poisoning " tells of the case of a woman accused of plotting to murder her husband with a pharmakon ; a slave had previously been executed for the crime, but the son of
13072-400: The holy river declares him innocent and he remains unharmed the man who laid the spell shall be put to death. He that plunged into the river shall take possession of the house of him who laid the spell upon him. The Hebrew Bible condemns sorcery. Deuteronomy 18:10–12 states: "No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, who practices divination, or is
13224-401: The homage in a 2016 tweet. The novel The Familiars (2019) by Stacey Halls includes historical figures as characters in a story that is based at the time of the Pendle witch trials. The story focusses on Fleetwood Shuttleworth, a noblewoman who becomes pregnant at the age of seventeen, and becomes involved in the trial of her midwife Alice Gray who is accused of witchcraft. Events to mark
13376-427: The inquisitor. They were eventually executed by the secular arm. In a notorious case in 1425, Hermann II, Count of Celje accused his daughter-in-law Veronika of Desenice of witchcraft – and, though she was acquitted by the court, he had her murdered by drowning. The accusations of witchcraft are, in this case, considered to have been a pretext for Hermann to get rid of an "unsuitable match," Veronika being born into
13528-686: The interest in witch trials were revived in Denmark because of ongoing Trier witch trials in Germany, which were described and discussed in Denmark. The admiral of the Danish fleet, Peder Munk argued with the treasurer Christoffer Valkendorff about the state of the ships used to transport Anne of Denmark. The storms were blamed on the wife of an official in Copenhagen whom he had insulted. The Copenhagen witch trials were held in July 1590. One of
13680-427: The judges to be merciful to her daughter, Anne Redferne. Elizabeth Device was charged with the murders of James Robinson, John Robinson and, together with Alice Nutter and Demdike, the murder of Henry Mitton. Elizabeth Device vehemently maintained her innocence. Potts records that "this odious witch" suffered from a facial deformity resulting in her left eye being set lower than her right. The main witness against Device
13832-581: The king 120 shillings, and pay the wer to his kindred, and enter into borh for him, that he evermore desist from the like. In some prosecutions for witchcraft, torture (permitted by the Roman civil law ) apparently took place. However, Pope Nicholas I (866 AD), prohibited the use of torture altogether, and a similar decree may be found in the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals . Condemnations of witchcraft are nevertheless found in
13984-627: The land", suggest that in practice sorcery could at least lead to exile. In the Judaean Second Temple period , Rabbi Simeon ben Shetach in the 1st century BC is reported to have sentenced to death eighty women who had been charged with witchcraft on a single day in Ascalon . Later the women's relatives took revenge by bringing false witnesses against Simeon's son and causing him to be executed in turn. No laws concerning magic survive from Classical Athens. However, cases concerning
14136-705: The largest and most notable of these trials were the Trier witch trials (1581–1593), the Fulda witch trials (1603–1606), the Würzburg witch trial (1626–1631) and the Bamberg witch trials (1626–1631). In addition to known witch trials, witch hunts were often conducted by vigilantes, who may or may not have executed their victims. In Scotland, for example, cattle murrains were blamed on witches, usually peasant women, who were duly punished. A popular method called "scoring above
14288-444: The last person in Europe to be executed as a witch. Victorian novelist William Harrison Ainsworth wrote a romanticised account of the Pendle witches: The Lancashire Witches , first published in 1849, is the only one of his 40 novels never to have been out of print . The British writer Robert Neill dramatised the events of 1612 in his novel Mist over Pendle , first published in 1951. The writer and poet Blake Morrison treated
14440-485: The lower nobility and thus "unworthy" of his son. A Catholic figure who preached against witchcraft was popular Franciscan preacher Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444). Bernardino's sermons reveal both a phenomenon of superstitious practices and an over-reaction against them by the common people. However, it is clear that Bernardino had in mind not merely the use of spells and enchantments and such like fooleries but much more serious crimes, chiefly murder and infanticide. This
14592-440: The manuscript before its publication in 1613, declaring it to be "truly reported" and "fit and worthie to be published". Although written as an apparently verbatim account, The Wonderfull Discoverie is not a report of what was actually said at the trial but is instead reflecting what happened. Nevertheless, Potts "seems to give a generally trustworthy, although not comprehensive, account of an Assize witchcraft trial, provided that
14744-600: The mid-15th century, specifically in the wake of the Council of Basel and centered on the Duchy of Savoy in the western Alps, leading to an early series of witch trials by both secular and ecclesiastical courts in the second half of the 15th century. In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued Summis desiderantes affectibus , a Papal bull authorizing the "correcting, imprisoning, punishing and chastising" of devil-worshippers who have "slain infants", among other crimes. He did so at
14896-676: The ministers or the power of the witchcraft. Instead, they questioned whether the witch intended to inflict harm or not. Current scholarly estimates of the number of people who were executed for witchcraft vary from about 35,000 to 60,000. The total number of witch trials in Europe which are known to have ended in executions is around 12,000. Prominent contemporaneous critics of witch-hunts included Gianfrancesco Ponzinibio (fl. 1520), Johannes Wier (1515–1588), Reginald Scot (1538–1599), Cornelius Loos (1546–1595), Anton Praetorius (1560–1613), Alonso Salazar y Frías (1564–1636), Friedrich Spee (1591–1635), and Balthasar Bekker (1634–1698). Among
15048-417: The murder of Robert Nutter's father, Christopher, to which she pleaded not guilty. Demdike's statement to Nowell, which accused Anne of having made clay figures of the Nutter family, was read out in court. Witnesses were called to testify that Anne was a witch "more dangerous than her Mother". But she refused to admit her guilt to the end, and had given no evidence against any others of the accused. Anne Redferne
15200-465: The name 'Malkyn' has been apparently attached to the site since the 1500s. The evidence seems to discount an earlier belief that Malkin Tower was located close to Lower Black Moss Reservoir , near Barley , after a 17th-century cottage, with a mummified cat sealed in the walls, was discovered by water engineers in 2011. The Pendle witches were tried in a group that also included the Samlesbury witches , Jane Southworth, Jennet Brierley, and Ellen Brierley,
15352-795: The newly formed Inquisition was commissioned to deal with the Cathars of Southern France, whose teachings were charged with including witchcraft and magic. Although it has been proposed that the witch-hunt developed in Europe from the early 14th century, after the Cathars and the Knights Templar were suppressed, this hypothesis has been rejected independently by virtually all academic historians (Cohn 1975; Kieckhefer 1976). In 1258, Pope Alexander IV declared that Inquisition would not deal with cases of witchcraft unless they were related to heresy. Although Pope John XXII had later authorized
15504-459: The newly invented printing presses, enjoyed a wide readership. It was reprinted in 14 editions by 1520 and became unduly influential in the secular courts. In Europe, the witch-hunt craze was negligible in Spain, Poland, and Eastern Europe; conversely, it was intense in Germany, Switzerland, and France. The witch trials in Early Modern Europe came in waves and then subsided. There were trials in
15656-411: The numbers of trials, compared to other regions of Europe. Witch-hunts first appeared in large numbers in southern France and Switzerland during the 14th and 15th centuries. The peak years of witch-hunts in southwest Germany were from 1561 to 1670. The first major persecution in Europe, when witches were caught, tried, convicted, and burned in the imperial lordship of Wiesensteig in southwestern Germany,
15808-467: The others at that meeting that they had killed a child from Colne, Anne Foulds. Jennet Device also picked Katherine out of a line-up, and confirmed her attendance at the Malkin Tower meeting. Alice Grey was accused with Katherine Hewitt of the murder of Anne Foulds. Potts does not provide an account of Alice Grey's trial, simply recording her as one of the Samlesbury witches – which she was not, as she
15960-603: The others were sent to Lancaster Gaol, to join the four already imprisoned there. Malkin Tower is believed to have been near the village of Newchurch in Pendle , or in Blacko on the site of present-day Malkin Tower Farm, and to have been demolished soon after the trials. Surveys point to 'two large rectangular anomalies that were found to be clay floored farm buildings dating to the early 17th century' at Malkin Tower Farm:
16112-776: The people of their superstitious belief in witchcraft. A comparable situation in Russia is suggested in a sermon by Serapion of Vladimir (written in 1274~1275), where the popular superstition of witches causing crop failures is denounced. Early secular laws against witchcraft include those promulgated by King Athelstan (924–939): And we have ordained respecting witch-crafts, and lybacs [read lyblac "sorcery"] , and morthdaeds ["murder, mortal sin"] : if any one should be thereby killed, and he could not deny it, that he be liable in his life. But if he will deny it, and at threefold ordeal shall be guilty; that he be 120 days in prison: and after that let kindred take him out, and give to
16264-516: The persecution of alleged witches during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The Scottish government had not apologized previously. Shakespeare adapted or was influenced by several concepts from the trials, including the rituals confessed by the witches and the Scottish setting, in his tragedy Macbeth . Heavily influenced by the incidents made public, the play was published a few years after King James's Daemonologie . Borrowing many quotes from
16416-457: The practice of witch hunts in geographically and culturally separated societies (Europe, Africa, New Guinea) since the 1960s has triggered interest in the anthropological background of this behaviour. The belief in magic and divination , and attempts to use magic to influence personal well-being (to increase life, win love, etc.) are universal across human cultures. Belief in witchcraft has been shown to have similarities in societies throughout
16568-459: The purpose of the meeting at Malkin Tower, who had attended, and what had happened there. As a result of the inquiry, eight more people were accused of witchcraft and committed for trial: Elizabeth Device, James Device, Alice Nutter , Katherine Hewitt, John Bulcock, Jane Bulcock, Alice Grey and Jennet Preston. Preston lived across the border in Yorkshire, so she was sent for trial at York Assizes;
16720-615: The reader is constantly aware of his use of written material instead of verbatim reports". The trials took place not quite seven years after the Gunpowder Plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in an attempt to kill King James and the Protestant aristocracy had been foiled. It was alleged that the Pendle witches had hatched their own gunpowder plot to blow up Lancaster Castle, although historian Stephen Pumfrey has suggested that
16872-474: The request of inquisitor Heinrich Kramer , who had been refused permission by the local bishops in Germany to investigate. However, historians such as Ludwig von Pastor insist that the bull neither allowed anything new, nor was necessarily binding on Catholic consciences. Three years later in 1487, Kramer published the notorious Malleus Maleficarum (lit., 'Hammer against the Evildoers') which, because of
17024-481: The rest remained in prison to receive the doome of judgment at the Kinges Majesties will and pleasure. Duncan was also found to have conspired with Euphame MacCalzean in the murder of Duncan's godfather. Barbara Napier came from a good family and had married a book dealer named George Ker in 1572. George died at La Rochelle in 1576, and she then married Archibald Douglas whose brother Robert Douglas
17176-572: The school at Saltpans in Lowthian, of whose life and strange acts you shal hear more largely in the end of this discourse. These were by the said Geillis Duncane accused, as also George Motts wife, dwelling in Lowthian; Robert Grierson, skipper; and Jannet Blandilands; with the potter's wife of Seaton: the smith at the Brigge Hallis, with innumerable others in those parts, and dwelling in those bounds aforesaid; of whom some are already executed,
17328-459: The song are, however, slightly erroneous as James was not yet the king of England during the North Berwick Witch Trials. Diana Gabaldon 's Outlander series of novels features a recurring character named Geillis Duncan who is tried and convicted of being a witch. In the television adaptation she is portrayed by Lotte Verbeek . Shadow of Night ( All Souls series book #2) by Deborah Harkness , although not taking place in Scotland, mentions
17480-443: The subject in his suite of poems Pendle Witches , published in 1996. Poet Simon Armitage narrated a 2011 documentary on BBC Four , The Pendle Witch Child . The novel Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (later adapted for television ) features several witch characters named after the original Pendle witches, including Agnes Nutter, a prophet burned at the stake, and her descendant Anathema Device. Gaiman confirmed
17632-444: The subject of a contemporary play written by Thomas Heywood and Richard Brome , The Late Lancashire Witches . In modern times the witches have become the inspiration for Pendle's tourism and heritage industries, with local shops selling a variety of witch-motif gifts. Burnley 's Moorhouse's produces a beer called Pendle Witches Brew, and there is a Pendle Witch Trail running from Pendle Heritage Centre to Lancaster Castle, where
17784-612: The throne in 1558 Catholic priests once again had to go into hiding, but in remote areas such as Pendle they continued to celebrate Mass in secret. In 1562, early in her reign, Elizabeth passed a law in the form of the Witchcraft Act 1562 . This demanded the death penalty, but only where harm had been caused; lesser offences were punishable by a term of imprisonment. The Act provided that anyone who should "use, practise, or exercise any Witchcraft, Enchantment, Charm, or Sorcery, whereby any person shall happen to be killed or destroyed",
17936-436: The time headed by a woman in her eighties: Elizabeth Southerns (a.k.a. Demdike), her daughter Elizabeth Device, and her grandchildren James and Alizon Device; Anne Whittle (a.k.a. Chattox), and her daughter Anne Redferne. The others accused were Jane Bulcock and her son John Bulcock, Alice Nutter , Katherine Hewitt, Alice Grey, and Jennet Preston. The outbreaks of 'witchcraft' in and around Pendle may suggest that some people made
18088-461: The treatise, the three witches cast their spells in the same manner: "purposely to be cassin into the sea to raise winds for destruction of ships." The trials and the events leading up to them are fictionalised in the 1971 young adult historical novel The Thirteenth Member by Mollie Hunter . Heavy / doom metal group Cathedral has a song called "North Berwick Witch Trials" on their 2005 album The Garden of Unearthly Delights . The lyrics of
18240-585: The trials were: More than 100 suspected witches in North Berwick were arrested. Several confessed under torture to having met with the Devil in the church at night, and devoted themselves to doing evil, including poisoning the King and other members of his household, and attempting to sink the King's ship. In February 1591 James VI instructed David Seton or Seaton of Tranent to find accused people who had fled to England. The English ambassador Robert Bowes wrote that these fugitives were "the worst sort of witches". David Seton's servant Geillis Duncan had been one of
18392-576: The two families, possibly dating from 1601, when a member of Chattox's family broke into Malkin Tower , the home of the Devices, and stole goods worth about £1, equivalent to about £215 as of 2023. Alizon accused Chattox of murdering four men by witchcraft, and of killing her father, John Device, who had died in 1601. She claimed that her father had been so frightened of Old Chattox that he had agreed to give her 8 pounds (3.6 kg) of oatmeal each year in return for her promise not to hurt his family. The meal
18544-607: The two. In 331 BC, a deadly epidemic hit Rome and at least 170 women were executed for causing it by veneficium . In 184–180 BC, another epidemic hit Italy, and about 5,000 people were brought to trial and executed for veneficium . If the reports are accurate, writes Hutton , "then the Republican Romans hunted witches on a scale unknown anywhere else in the ancient world". Under the Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis of 81 BC, killing by veneficium carried
18696-487: The victim claimed that the death had been arranged by his stepmother. The most detailed account of a trial for witchcraft in Classical Greece is the story of Theoris of Lemnos , who was executed along with her children some time before 338 BC, supposedly for casting incantations and using harmful drugs. During the pagan era of ancient Rome , there were laws against harmful magic. According to Pliny ,
18848-472: The victims of the Finnmark witchcraft trials. In England, the Witchcraft Act 1541 regulated the penalties for witchcraft. In the North Berwick witch trials in Scotland, over 70 people were accused of witchcraft on account of bad weather when James VI of Scotland , who shared the Danish king's interest in witch trials, sailed to Denmark in 1590 to meet his betrothed Anne of Denmark . According to
19000-502: The view of the Church for many centuries. The general desire of the Catholic Church 's clergy to check fanaticism about witchcraft and necromancy is shown in the decrees of the Council of Paderborn , which, in 785 AD, explicitly outlawed condemning people as witches and condemned to death anyone who burnt a witch. The Lombard code of 643 AD states: Let nobody presume to kill a foreign serving maid or female servant as
19152-427: The wilderness, bestowed their embraces upon them and begat this savage race, which dwelt at first in the swamps, a stunted, foul and puny tribe, scarcely human, and having no language save one which bore but slight resemblance to human speech. The Councils of Elvira (306 AD), Ancyra (314 AD), and Trullo (692 AD) imposed certain ecclesiastical penances for devil-worship. This mild approach represented
19304-462: The world. It presents a framework to explain the occurrence of otherwise random misfortunes such as sickness or death, and the witch sorcerer provides an image of evil. Reports on indigenous practices in the Americas, Asia and Africa collected during the early modern Age of Exploration have been taken to suggest that not just the belief in witchcraft but also the periodic outbreak of witch-hunts are
19456-465: The writings of Augustine of Hippo and early theologians, who made little distinction between witchcraft and the practices of pagan religions. Many believed witchcraft did not exist in a philosophical sense: Witchcraft was based on illusions and powers of evil, which Augustine likened to darkness, a non-entity representing the absence of light. Augustine and his adherents like Saint Thomas Aquinas nevertheless promulgated elaborate demonologies, including
19608-599: The year of the trials, every justice of the peace (JP) in Lancashire was ordered to compile a list of recusants in their area, i.e. those who refused to attend the English Church and to take communion , a criminal offence at that time. Roger Nowell of Read Hall , on the edge of Pendle Forest, was the JP for Pendle. It was against this background of seeking out religious nonconformists that, in March 1612, Nowell investigated
19760-459: Was a spirit familiar of her grandmother named Ball; which spoke twice in English offering to lame him. A few minutes after the encounter with Alizon Device, she said she saw Law stumble and fall, apparently lame, perhaps because he suffered a stroke; he managed to regain his feet and reach a nearby inn. Initially Law made no accusations against Alizon, but she appears to have been convinced of her own powers; when Abraham Law took her to visit his father
19912-482: Was accused of the murder of Robert Nutter. She pleaded not guilty, but the confession she had made to Roger Nowell—likely under torture—was read out in court, and evidence against her was presented by James Robinson, who had lived with the Chattox family 20 years earlier. He claimed to remember that Nutter had accused Chattox of turning his beer sour, and that she was commonly believed to be a witch. Chattox broke down and admitted her guilt, calling on God for forgiveness and
20064-453: Was being plotted against by Scottish witches. After a visit to Denmark, he had attended the trial in 1590 of the North Berwick witches , who were convicted of using witchcraft to send a storm against the ship that carried James and his wife Anne back to Scotland. In 1597 he wrote a book, Daemonologie , instructing his followers that they must denounce and prosecute any supporters or practitioners of witchcraft. One year after James acceded to
20216-488: Was brought into court Alizon fell to her knees in tears and confessed. She was found guilty. Almost everything that is known about the trials comes from a report of the proceedings written by Thomas Potts, the clerk to the Lancaster Assizes. Potts was instructed to write his account by the trial judges, and had completed the work by 16 November 1612, when he submitted it for review. Bromley revised and corrected
20368-540: Was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging ; her execution took place on 29 July on the Knavesmire , the present site of York Racecourse. All the other accused lived in Lancashire, so they were sent to Lancaster Assizes for trial, where the judges were once again Altham and Bromley. The prosecutor was local magistrate Roger Nowell, who had been responsible for collecting the various statements and confessions from
20520-469: Was found guilty. Jane Bulcock and her son John Bulcock, both from Newchurch in Pendle , were accused and found guilty of the murder by witchcraft of Jennet Deane. Both denied that they had attended the meeting at Malkin Tower, but Jennet Device identified Jane as having been one of those present, and John as having turned the spit to roast the stolen sheep, the centrepiece of the Good Friday meeting at
20672-451: Was found innocent, while Mary was acquitted of witchcraft but she was still sentenced to be hanged as punishment for the death of her child. She died in prison. About eighty people throughout England's Massachusetts Bay Colony were accused of practicing witchcraft; thirteen women and two men were executed in a witch-hunt that occurred throughout New England and lasted from 1645 to 1663. The Salem witch trials followed in 1692–1693. Once
20824-438: Was given to the devil for the destruction of the king. Napier had bought charms to help her own health and to try and fix her poor relationship with Jean Lyon, Countess of Angus who employed her and her husband. They did not work as she lost her job. When it all came to trial, Napier was accused of a practice to kill the king by witchcraft but was found guilty of only the lesser crime of conspiring with witches. James VI ordered
20976-551: Was guilty of a felony without benefit of clergy , and was to be put to death. On Elizabeth's death in 1603 she was succeeded by James I . Strongly influenced by Scotland's separation from the Catholic Church during the Scottish Reformation , James was intensely interested in Protestant theology, focusing much of his curiosity on the theology of witchcraft. By the early 1590s he had become convinced that he
21128-456: Was handed over annually until the year before John's death; on his deathbed John claimed that his sickness had been caused by Chattox because they had not paid for protection. On 2 April 1612, Demdike, Chattox, and Chattox's daughter Anne Redferne, were summoned to appear before Nowell. Both Demdike and Chattox were by then blind and in their eighties, and both provided Nowell with damaging confessions. Demdike claimed that she had given her soul to
21280-410: Was her daughter, Jennet, who was about nine years old. When Jennet was brought into the courtroom and asked to stand up and give evidence against her mother, Elizabeth, confronted with her own child making accusations that would lead to her execution, began to curse and scream at her daughter, forcing the judges to have her removed from the courtroom before the evidence could be heard. Jennet was placed on
21432-435: Was listed in a group of 20 tried at Lancaster Assizes on 24 March 1634, although it cannot be certain that it was the same Jennet Device. The charge against her was the murder of Isabel Nutter, William Nutter's wife. In that series of trials the chief prosecution witness was a ten-year-old boy, Edmund Robinson . All but one of the accused were found guilty, but the judges refused to pass death sentences, deciding instead to refer
21584-425: Was one of those identified as having been at the Malkin Tower meeting – and naming her in the list of those found not guilty. Alizon Device, whose encounter with John Law had triggered the events leading up to the trials, was charged with causing harm by witchcraft. Uniquely among the accused, Alizon was confronted in court by her alleged victim, John Law. She seems to have genuinely believed in her own guilt; when Law
21736-539: Was part of the parish of Whalley , an area covering 180 square miles (470 km), too large to be effective in preaching and teaching the doctrines of the Church of England : both the survival of Catholicism and the upsurge of witchcraft in Lancashire have been attributed to its over-stretched parochial structure. Until its dissolution , the spiritual needs of the people of Pendle and surrounding districts had been served by nearby Whalley Abbey , but its closure in 1537 left
21888-489: Was perhaps difficult for the judges charged with hearing the trials – Sir James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley – to understand King James's attitude towards witchcraft. The king was head of the judiciary, and Bromley was hoping for promotion to a circuit nearer London. Altham was nearing the end of his judicial career, but he had recently been accused of a miscarriage of justice at the York Assizes, which had resulted in
22040-422: Was reserved solely for witches and heretics, the implication being that a burned body could not be resurrected on Judgment Day . The resurgence of witch-hunts at the end of the medieval period, taking place with at least partial support or at least tolerance on the part of the Church, was accompanied with a number of developments in Christian doctrine, for example, the recognition of the existence of witchcraft as
22192-402: Was shaved and she was fastened to the wall of her cell by a scold's bridle , an iron instrument with 4 sharp prongs forced into the mouth, so that two prongs pressed against the tongue, and the two others against the cheeks. She was kept without sleep and thrown with a rope around her head. After these ordeals she confessed to the 53 indictments against her. She was finally strangled and burned as
22344-455: Was so keen to get hold of them and why Law was so reluctant to sell them to her. Whether she meant to buy them, as she claimed, and Law refused to undo his pack for such a small transaction, or whether she had no money and was begging for them, as Law's son Abraham claimed, is unclear. According to the 1613 tract "Potts Discovery of Witches", the Devil appeared in the likeness of a black or brown dog with fiery eyes; which Jennet Device later claimed
22496-414: Was sufficient to persuade the jury to find him guilty. 19 August The trials of the three Samlesbury witches were heard before Anne Redferne's first appearance in court, late in the afternoon, charged with the murder of Robert Nutter. The evidence against her was considered unsatisfactory, and she was acquitted. Anne Redferne was not so fortunate the following day, when she faced her second trial, for
22648-543: Was the laird of Corshogill . Her family included a daughter, Janet Douglas. Gillis Duncan caused the arrest of Barbara Naper for bewitching to death Archibald Douglas, 8th Earl of Angus . Archibald was reported to have died from a disease so strange there could be no cure or remedy. He fell ill at Langhope and died at Smeaton near Dalkeith on 4 August 1588. It was alleged that Euphame MacCalzean, Barbara Napier, Agnes Sampson and others had attended an assembly of witches at " Atkynson's Haven " where an image of James VI
22800-475: Was unveiled in her home village, Roughlee . In August, a world record for the largest group dressed as witches was set by 482 people who walked up Pendle Hill, on which the date "1612" had been installed in 400-foot-tall numbers by artist Philippe Handford using horticultural fleece . The Bishop of Burnley, the Rt Rev John Goddard , had objected to the appearance of the numerals, as what he saw as
22952-867: Was used in the American colonies as early as May 1647, when Margaret Jones was executed for witchcraft in Massachusetts , the first of 17 people executed for witchcraft in the Colonies from 1647 to 1663. Witch-hunts began to occur in North America while Hopkins was hunting witches in England. In 1645, forty-six years before the notorious Salem witch trials , Springfield, Massachusetts experienced America's first accusations of witchcraft when husband and wife Hugh and Mary Parsons accused each other of witchcraft. In America's first witch trial, Hugh
23104-672: Was well known for a quarrelsome and aggressive nature." According to Julian Goodare, in Europe, the overall proportion of women who were persecuted as witches was 80%, although there were countries and regions like Estonia, Normandy and Iceland, that targeted men more. In Iceland 92% of the accused were men, in Estonia 60%, and in Moscow two-thirds of those accused were male. In Finland, a total of more than 100 death row inmates were roughly equal in both men and women, but all Ålanders sentenced to witchcraft were only women. At one point during
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