Witch Trials

(Presently Work in Progress)

The Medieval conception of witchcraft can be taken as falling into two broad camps. In a largely agricultural world with very little in the way of science the supernatural was often used as an explanation for events and what passed for medicine often more after the fashion of potions. Some were considered capable of manipulating the supernatural for good or ill, usually on a small-scale with various explanations being given such as spirits and familiars being involved. This first group might also be considered as including "fortune tellers", ranging from soothsayers to astrologers. On the other hand some considered that the only source of "diabolical" power was the Devil and that his ultimate purpose was to bring about the supremacy of the Antichrist and in consequence the end of the world, thus the second camp would include those who actively conspired towards downfall of the state through "supernatural" means.

This article looks at the development of approaches to witchcraft and sorcery as connected with Chester and the little known "handbook on witches" published in 1617, Somwhat surprisingly this was dedicated to the mayor and corporation of the city. It was perhaps a topical work as in the same year Elizabeth Wainewright of Hawarden, widow, and Richard Fazakarley, of Broadlane were both accused, "of going to charmers to be blessed". While accusations of witchcraft are often portrayed as often being the first step down a path with no good destination, it did not alawys go against tha supposed witch, as an unproven accusation could lead to return suit for slander. A case for Flint, lodged in 1617, was brought by William Banyon and his wife Katherine. The case (for forty pounds) was against William Starkie and his wife Anne. Anne, at Hawarden earlier that year, had allegedly said to Katherine "Thaw art a witch", in English. The outcome was that the verdict was for the plaintiff and assessed at damages of 20s but in the 1618 bill of costs, the total of the plaintiffs' costs was for the sum of three pounds and 14s 6d.

Witches in General
Tales of witchcraft in Cheshire range from folk-tales to the those which led to actual executions. However there was nothing on the scale of the witch trials elsewhere in England, particularly in puritanical East Anglia and Lancashire.



In the Chester Mystery Plays magic is always diabolical (as opposed to miracles), but there are no actual witches. There is a sibyl in "The Nativity" and some vague references to "pagan prophets", but the nearest approach to a female witch is the Ale Wife in the "Harrowing of Hell". She was a rather comic character who was apparently a hit with the crowds during the Midsummer Watch Parade, even though she rode alongside the character of the Devil (until she was banned from the procession). Ale was of course terribly important in a world where safe drinking water was difficult to come by and ale was both the most affordable and clean beverage available. At mealtimes in the Middle Ages, persons of all ages drank small beer, particularly while eating a meal at the table.

The precise amount of ale that was ingested daily is not known, but it appears to have been up to a gallon a day per person. Table beer was around this time typically less than 1% alcohol by volume and was made from the re-boiled mash left-over from brewing a stronger beer. It would need a largish cauldon, which possibly helped the association with witchcraft implied in the play. The beer produced was just alcoholic enough to kill any bugs at a time when water was not at all safe, and to stop it going off in transit. Beer is well known to contain a large number of nutritive components, including vitamins (particularly B vitamins) and minerals (particularly selenium and silicon). It also has a high potassium/sodium ratio (usually in the ratio of 4:1). Although the profession was later taken over by men, the original brewing profession back in ancient Mesopotamia was principally performed by women. Brewsters became the scapegoat for the brewing community as a whole for the vices that the Medieval world feared from the production of alcohol. In 1540, the city of Chester ordered that no women between the ages of 14 and 40 would be permitted to sell ale, in the hopes of limiting the trade to only women above or below an age of sexual desirability.

Exodus 22:18 is one of the most widely used passages to justify the need for witch-hunts by demonological "scholars" of the early modern period. The conventional "King James" translation is "Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live", but the original Latin is "Maleficos non patieris vivere", which can have several translations. The original Hebrew word "kasaph" can be translated as "seer, diviner or poisoner", and can therefore be interpreted as "fortune tellers" as well as brewers of bad ale.

The history of this particular law is peculiar. West Saxon king Alfred (c. 848-899) incorporated a translation of (as he puts it) "the best part of chapters 20 to 22 of Exodus" into the prologue of his Domboc (his laws). Alfred’s source was the Vulgate, Jerome’s fourth-century, Latin translation of the Bible. Jerome translated the book of Exodus straight from the Hebrew and he used the ambiguous word "maleficus" to denote the "poisoners" and/or "magicians" that are condemned in the Talmud. Alfred was probably helped in his translation by Plegmund, and the word maleficus appears to have been translated with a specific intent:


 * "Þa fæmnan þe gewuniað onfon [anfon] gealdorcræftigan [galdorcræft] scinlæcan wiccan, ne læt þu ða libban"

First of all, Alfred in his late ninth-century book of secular law does not punish malefici. He imposes the death penalty on women who consort with (and probably consult) malefici. Secondly, Alfred seems to focus on the meaning ‘magician’, using three different Old English nouns to explain the word maleficus and the kinds of magicians that women should not associate with: gealdorcræftiga (enchanter, charmer), scinnlæca, (deluder, deceiver, illusionist, necromancer, sorcerer) and wicca (wizard, witch, sorcerer, soothsayer). None of these words has anything in particular to do with poisoning. Ælfric however, in his early eleventh-century Bible translation uses the word geunlybba, which can denote both ‘magic’ and ‘poisoning’ being from lybb meaning ‘medicine, drug, poison or charm’:


 * "Ne læt þu lybban þa þe geunlybban [unlybban] wircon"

Another group in Chester whose work involved cauldrons were the dyers, and may explain why the got the other "witchcraft" play. The Dyers play of "Antichrist" is unique in the tradition of English Mystery cycles and the one which religious campaigners against the plays found most troubling, radically papist, anti-protestant, and perhaps even treasonous. Christopher Goodman (1520–1603), the most vociferous opponent of the plays, claimed that this play was used to assemble and organize religious conservatives and to reassert their faith ("giveth great comfort to the rebellious papist"). The Antichrist promises miracles (raising the dead, trees growing upside down, his own resurrection) - all of which appear to have been performed on stage by the clever use of props.

Finally, the Tanners in the Chester Mystery Plays, possibly had the most "demonic" role: "The Fall of Lucifer" which was the first play in the cycle. Possibly the hellish working conditions in their tanneries was one reason they had this play allocated.

Magic and the Law
Between 900 and 1400, christian authorities were unwilling to so much as admit that witches existed, let alone try someone for the crime of simply being one. This was not for lack of demand. Pope Gregory VII wrote to Harald III of Denmark in 1080 forbidding witches to be put to death upon presumption of their having caused storms or failure of crops or pestilence.

In 1258 Pope Alexander IV had to issue a bull - "Quod super nonnullis" - to prevent prosecutions for witchcraft. "Divination or sorcery" was not to be investigated by Inquisitors of the Church, who were tasked with investigating heresy. Crimes involving magic should be left to local authorities unless they had "knowledge of manifest heresy to be involved", wherein "manifest heresy" included "praying at the altars of idols, to offer sacrifices, to consult demons, [or] to elicit responses from them". At this period in Church history, the use of magic was not seen as inherently heretical, but rather rooted in superstition or erroneous beliefs - Inquisitors had far more important things to do than deal with hedge-witches.

In 1320 the papal stance (under John XXII) was officially changed with the bull "Super illius specula" and the position reversed entirely. Until this time the instruction had been to investigate accusations of magic only if heresy was suspected. The new instruction was to consider all cases of "magic" as inherently heretical.

By the end of the fifteenth century Pope Pope Innocent VIII had issued a bull against charmers and magicians - "Summis desiderantes affectibus" - and in 1486 a Dominican inquisitor (Heinrich Kramer) asserted in a formidable volume, "Malleus Maleficarum", that the Devil and his witches were conspiring on a gigantic scale to overthrow the Catholic Church. Witchcraft and heresy were linked together and years later another author was added to the book to give it more "clout". The mid-17th Century then bore witness to the infamous “European Witch Craze“, a period of frenzied witchcraft accusations, prosecutions and executions, which are thought to have claimed the lives of up to one hundred thousand men, women and children across the continent. Precisely how many witches were murdered in Western Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is impossible to say, but the figure of 100,000 has been credibly reported for Germany, between 3,000 and 4,500 for Scotland and somewhat less than 1,000 for England between 1566 and 1685.There are just 42 cases of witchcraft trials on record in total across the whole of Wales - and only five alleged witches were ever executed. In Ireland witch trials were almost unknown.

Within continental and Roman Law witchcraft was crimen exceptum: a crime so foul that all normal legal procedures were superseded, so that torture could be used to extract an initial confession. Despite what some lurid modern accounts state, torture was seldom used in England.

Causes
Various theories have been put forward for the reasons for the "European Witch Craze". For many years the supposed explanation was either the climatic disturbance of the "Little Ice Age" or the outbreaks of various Pandemics - with "witches" being the convenient scapegoat. Indeed, historical temperature indexes and witch trial data indicate that, generally, as temperature decreased during this period, witch trials increased, however in some cases the fit is not good. A more recent proposal, which has gathered some support, is that "witch-hunting" was an activity intended to attract the loyalty of undecided christians during the reformation and counter-reformation. Put in economic terms:


 * "Europe’s witch trials reflected non-price competition between the Catholic and Protestant churches for religious market share in confessionally contested parts of Christendom. By leveraging popular belief in witchcraft, witch-prosecutors advertised their confessional brands’ commitment and power to protect citizens from worldly manifestations of "Satan’s evil". Similar to how contemporary political candidates focus campaign activity in "scapegoat" battlegrounds during elections to attract the loyalty of undecided voters."

Protestants in general also tended to be more wary of witches: Luther himself authorized the execution of four accused witches, while Calvin urged Genevan officials to wipe out "the race of witches".

Cheshire and Flintshire
In England and Wales, as elsewhere, belief in wells, for example, had a long ancestry. In primitive times it was considered that special properties pertained to them; the Roman Catholic Church consecrated many pagan practices and long after the Reformation the healing qualities of wells continued to attract sufferers, in some cases until the present day. St. Winifred's Well, of course occupies the premier place. Of the fifty-one wells identified in Flintshire, twenty-seven bear the names of saints. Eight are dedicated to St. Mary and four to St. Michael. There are a string of healing and/or magical wells associated with churches down the River Dee. Including such dubious examples as Billy Hobbies Well in Grosvenor Park.

The first Witchcraft Act in England was introduced in 1542 ( Henry VIII's Act of 1542 (33 Hen. VIII c. 8) ). It was concerned both with treasure finding by divination and harm by witchcraft, and forbade anyone to:


 * ... use devise practise or exercise, or cause to be devysed practised or exercised, any Invovacons or cojuracons of Sprites witchecraftes enchauntementes or sorceries to thentent to fynde money or treasure or to waste consume or destroy any persone in his bodie membres, or to pvoke [provoke] any persone to unlawfull love, or for any other unlawfull intente or purpose ... or for dispite of Cryste, or for lucre of money, dygge up or pull downe any Crosse or Crosses or by such Invovacons or cojuracons of Sprites witchecraftes enchauntementes or sorceries or any of them take upon them to tell or declare where goodes stollen or lost shall become ...

The Act was however repealed in 1547. The Witchcraft Act of 1563 (5 Eliz. I c. 16) introduced the death penalty for any sorcery used to cause someone's death. This included the casting of horoscopes on the rather dubious basis that predicting a death was similar to causing it. Ferdinando Stanley's mother, Margaret Stanley, Countess of Derby, had for example been excluded from the Queen's court and placed under house-arrest for allegedly plotting against Elizabeth (by having a horoscope prepared to see when the queen would die - the astrologer got the axe although Margret claimed that the accused sorcerer, William Randall, was in fact her physician). Stanley inherited a prominent social position that was both dangerous and unstable, as his mother was heir to Queen Elizabeth I under the Third Succession Act (see: Shakespeare and Chester).

While king of Scotland, James VI became utterly convinced about the reality of witchcraft and its great danger to him, leading to the North Berwick witch trials that began in 1590. James was convinced that a coven of powerful witches was conspiring to murder him through magic, and that they were in league with the Devil. In 1597, with the end of the trials, James published his study of witchcraft, "Daemonologie". Shortly after becoming king of England he passed his "Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and dealing with evil and wicked spirits". It was this statute that was enforced by Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled Witch-Finder General whose career flourished during the English Civil War. The witch incident involving James in Chester depicted in the Chester Pageant of 1910 is entirely fictitious, and nothing of the kind occurred during James' actual visit of 1617.

The methods of investigating witchcraft used by Hopkins drew heavy inspiration from the Daemonologie of King James, which was directly cited in Hopkins' own book: "The Discovery of Witches" (1647). Although torture was nominally unlawful in England, Hopkins often used techniques such as sleep deprivation to extract confessions from his victims. He would also cut the arm of the accused with a blunt knife, and if she did not bleed, she was said to be a witch. Matthew Hopkins died at his home in Manningtree, Essex, on 12 August 1647, probably of pleural tuberculosis: the story that he was tried and executed by his own methods is a myth.

Sir Thomas Browne, who has links with Chester, would become involved in the subject in 1662 and his legal analysis would later be used at the Salem Witch Trials. Witch trials would last almopst to the end of the Stuart period - in 1712, Queen Anne pardoned Jane Wenham who had been sentenced to death for witchcraft, which served as a signal to the authorities that prosecution for such "crimes" should be ceased (the last witch execution was Mary Hicks in 1716).

Thomas Cooper
Thomas Cooper (1569/70 - 1626 or later) was born in London, attended Westminster School, then Christ Church, Oxford, taking his B.A. in 1590 and M.A. in 1593. He became vicar of Great Budworth in Cheshire, then in 1604 moved to Holy Trinity church, Coventry. At Oxford, Cooper was drawn to "magical practice", something that was not uncommon at the time.

The work for which Cooper is best known and which most commonly gets cited from is his "The Mystery of Witchcraft", 1617.

The work was perhaps not very widely read, for The Mystery of Witchcraft was re-issued in 1622 as "Sathan transformed into an angell of light". The body text itself has not been reset, but a new dedication to the "worthy Governour of the East In­dian Merchants" replaces that to "the Mayor and Corporation of the Ancient Citie of CHESTER" in the 1617 volume. This looks as though unsold copies of Nicholas Okes' print run were left over in such numbers five years later that an attempt to shift a few more copies was made via the new title and the left-over copies being re-bound between new covers.

John Bradshaw
John Bradshaw had been appointed Chief Justice of Chester in 1649 in part recognition of his services as Lord President of the High Court which had tried and sentenced Charles I to death. Bradshaw had condemned to death three Cheshire women for "entertaining evil spirits and bewitching Elizabeth Furnivall, who had languished and died". They had been hanged at Boughton about 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 17 October 1654.

A further three women were sentenced to death by the same judge at Chester in 1656 and were hanged at Boughton (a fourth is said to have fled to Wrexham). Those hanged (15th October 1656) were:


 * Ellen Beach who "did exercise and practice the Invocation and conjuration of evil and wicked spirits, and consulted and covenanted with, entertayned, imployed, ffed and rewarded certayn evill and wicked spirits",


 * Anne Osboston having "on the 20th November exercised certayn artes and Incantations on Barbara Pott, late wife of John Pott, of Ranowe, from the effects whereof she died on the 20th of January then next following", and, lastly,


 * Anne Thornton who did "wickedly, divillishly and feloniously devise, excercise and practiuce certaiyne divellish and wicked acts".

Bradshaw was himself to hang: on 30 January 1661 – the twelfth anniversary of the regicide – the bodies of John Bradshaw, Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton were ordered to be exhumed and displayed in chains all day on the gallows at Tyburn. At sunset, the three bodies that had been displayed publicly as those of the three judges being executed posthumously were all beheaded. The bodies were thrown into a common pit and the heads displayed on pikes at Westminster Hall. Whether Bradshaws body was actually one of those "executed" is not certain.

Witches Graves
When the new Magistrates Court was constructed in 1991 a number of graves were discovered.

Bridget Bostock

 * "Old Bridget Bostock…hath, in her life-time, made it her business to cure the country-folks, her neighbours, of sore legs, and other disorders; but her reputation now seems so wonderfully to increase, that people come to her from far and near…She cures the blind, the deaf, the lame of all sorts, the rheumatic, King’s evil [scrofula], histeric fits, falling fits, shortness of breath, dropsy, palsy, leprosy, cancers, and, in short, almost every things, except the French disease [syphilis], which she will not meddle with, and all the means she uses for cure is, only stroking with her fasting spittle, and praying for them."

Related Pages

 * Elen of the Hosts;
 * Chester Mystery Plays: just what is the connection between the subject matter of the plays and the guilds which performed them?
 * Shakespeare and Chester: was he influenced by the portent and prophecy aspects of the mystery plays?
 * Chamber's Book of days: of particular interest is Chambers' discussion of "Chester's Triumph in Honour of her Prince", which Chambers seems to consider is possibly the worst play ever performed in Chester, but which in fact is a far more complex work than he percieves it to be;
 * Queen Dido: another example of a play in Chester having a hidden political message?
 * Cholmondeley: more "fake news" from Chester;
 * Bruen: even St Werburgh gets dragged into propaganda;
 * Plegmund: manipulation of myth for gain was still happening in Chester in 1908. When Plegmunds Well was restored, things were not entirely as they seemed;

Online

 * "A list of tracts relating to Witchcraft and Demoniacs in Cheshire and Lancashire 1564-1699": letter to Edward Baines, from R.T. Hampson, who was employed by Baines to find and copy material for the "History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster", published by Baines in 1836;
 * Witchcraft as Words: Slander and Defamation Case Studies
 * King James and the Intellectual Influences of the Witchcraft Phenomenon in England and ScotlandPhenomenon in England and Scotland
 * Reading between the lines: Old Germanic and early Christian views on abortion;
 * Thomas Cooper;
 * Thomas Cooper: The Mystery of Witchcraft;
 * Witch Trials as an economic phenomenon;
 * Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Flintshire;
 * Magic as a Political Crime in Medieval and Early Modern England: A History of Sorcery and Treason;
 * POLITICAL PROPHECY IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND;
 * Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe;
 * Chester Records Office;
 * Witch trials in Wales;