Professor Marion Gibson reveals how England\u2019s early modern legal system dealt with suspected \u2018witches\u2019 <\/p>
People who were accused\u2028of witchcraft were tried\u2028in different ways based on where they lived and when. A witchcraft suspect in Innsbruck, Austria, in the 1480s would have been tried very differently to a suspect in Salem, Massachusetts, in the 1690s. To understand in detail the choices that were made about how to arrest and try a witch, let\u2019s focus on one legal system and one period of history: the legal unit of England and Wales, between 1550 and 1750. For most of this time period and across most communities, how did people go about trying a witch?<\/p>\n
The first thing that a suspect would hear \u2013 let\u2019s call her Mary and say the year is 1590 \u2013 is a knock on the door. Outside would be a constable representing Mary\u2019s village or town. The constable was a male neighbour appointed by the community to look after everyday law and order. He was the ancestor of the modern police constable, although there was no professional police force. Instead, the constable worked with the local magistrate, and that was where he would take Mary now. The magistrate was a landowner\u2028in the area, a man with experience in\u2028the law \u2013 maybe even legal training. It was his job to respond to local concerns about crime. If someone suspected Mary of casting a spell on their pig and killing it, for example, they would go to the magistrate and give a statement called\u2028an \u2018information\u2019. Once Mary had been accused, the magistrate would have to arrest and question her. So he would send the constable to fetch her and together they would walk up to the big house. Mary would be deeply alarmed.<\/p>\n
The magistrate would call Mary into his study and ask her about the suspected crime. If Mary was a respectable person, and had good answers, she could maybe go home, and the case would be dropped. But if the magistrate thought there was any vaguely plausible reason to send her for formal trial, he would do that, as a duty to his community. The constable would take Mary to the village lock-up and arrange for her transport by cart to prison in a local town. Prisons were haunted by rats and disease and prisoners had to pay for their own food and bedding, so each day Mary spent in jail she was creating a debt \u2013 most witchcraft suspects tended to be poor and weren\u2019t able to pay. If she was unlucky, she might catch jail fever and die before her case came to trial. If she was luckier, she would get her day in court.<\/p>\n
The trial would be held in the prison town. The judges would ride out from London and hold \u2018assize\u2019 courts in each of the biggest settlements, judging criminal cases. Even if Mary had been accused by her neighbours, she would be prosecuted in the monarch\u2019s name, and the queen\u2019s judges would ultimately decide her fate. However, before that, the actual decision about whether she was guilty would be taken by two juries: a grand jury of 24 men and a petty jury of 12 men.<\/p>\n
First, the charges against Mary would be drawn up in an \u2018indictment\u2019, a document sent to the grand jury. If the grand jury thought the indictment contained a plausible case, they would pass it on to the petty jury. If the grand jury was not happy with the indictment \u2013 maybe there was a mistake in the date of the crime, or the crime described wasn\u2019t covered by the law against witchcraft \u2013 they could reject the indictment and set Mary free. However, most cases went on to petty jury trial.<\/p>\n
The petty, or little, jury is the one we still have in criminal cases in Britain today, but the juries who judged witchcraft cases in the 16th to 18th centuries were all male. They were 12 reasonably respectable and wealthy citizens. When they received the indictment from the grand jury they would file into the courtroom \u2013 which might be a public hall or a market building \u2013 and be sworn in, pledging to judge the case fairly. Mary would then stand before them, facing the judge, and her indictment would be read out. She would plead \u201cguilty\u201d or \u201cnot guilty\u201d. If she said \u201cguilty\u201d, no trial would take place. Mary would be sent out to wait for her judgment. If she said \u201cnot guilty\u201d, the trial would begin.<\/p>\n
The judge would ask Mary directly about the crime. She would not be represented by a lawyer, but by herself: a big challenge for a village woman unused to public speaking. The judge might ask: had she put a spell on the pig? Was she a witch? If not, why was she being accused? Mary\u2019s answers would be vital \u2013 she would have to convince the jury. After about 10 minutes \u2013 most trials took only that amount of time \u2013 the judge would ask the jury for their verdict. They would confer, and then deliver the verdict. Imagine the hush in court, and Mary\u2019s terror. Witchcraft cases were frightening and humiliating. Spectators would come into the courtroom to see the supposed witch, to chat about her crimes, or even to shout abuse and accusations. Mary would be upset, intimidated and anxious about the trial\u2019s outcome.<\/p>\n
If Mary was to be found guilty of magically killing her neighbour\u2019s pig, she would be imprisoned for one year. During that time, she would make four appearances at the pillory. Pillories were wooden frames in market places and village greens into which convicted criminals were inserted. People would be encouraged to view and scorn them, and even throw rotten fruit or mud. After a year\u2019s jail and pillory Mary would be freed, but she would still have to pay her jail fees or find someone else who could. Then she could go home.<\/p>\n
But if she re-offended and was convicted again, she would be executed by hanging for that second witchcraft offence. And imagine for a moment that the first crime Mary was accused of involved killing a child, not a pig. That was murder, and that meant she would be hanged rather than imprisoned. In 1604, there was a change in the law, and Mary would be hanged for most types of witchcraft \u2013 even killing a pig. The sentence would be delivered by the judge after he heard the jury\u2019s verdict. He would wear a special cap and speak solemnly and horrifyingly to the convicts, telling them how they would be executed.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, anti-witchcraft laws applied in Scotland as well as England and Wales, although there were differences in their content and in trial processes. If Mary lived in Scotland, she might be tried by a local court or by the authority of the Scottish monarch\u2019s council. In at least one case, the king himself questioned witches and determined their fate.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n Acquitted: Annis Heard, 1582<\/strong><\/p>\n In 1582, Annis Herd from the village of Little Oakley, Essex, was accused of witchcraft. Several farmers said she had killed their animals, and the rector of a neighbouring parish accused her of murdering his wife. Annis was tried at Chelmsford Assizes. The case looked watertight: her young daughter confessed that her mother kept demonic spirits, Annis had a reputation for promiscuity and witchcraft, and she was accused by a clergyman. But at the assizes, records suggest she was charged with only one minor offence and then acquitted. Why? It\u2019s impossible to be sure, but doubts about the rector\u2019s evidence and Annis\u2019 connections with a prominent local family probably helped. Annis went back to everyday life and continued to fight off accusations; she died at home in 1602.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Convicted: Elizabeth Sawyer, 1621<\/strong><\/p>\n In 1621, Elizabeth Sawyer of Edmonton, then in Middlesex, was accused of killing several unnamed children, a number of animals, and her neighbour Agnes Ratcliffe. She protested her innocence, but had a reputation for swearing and an \u2018unusual\u2019 appearance (she had one eye, and a back injury). Elizabeth was tried at the Old Bailey, London. She was acquitted of killing the children, but the jury failed to reach a verdict in the case of Agnes Ratcliffe. They asked for direction, and the magistrate who had arrested Elizabeth suggested searching her body for \u2018demonic marks\u2019. Three women were tasked, and reported finding a mark suggesting Elizabeth had fed her blood to the Devil, a common belief about witches. The jury then convicted Elizabeth, and she was hanged.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Marion Gibson is professor of Renaissance and magical literatures at the University of Exeter, and author of several books on witchcraft history, including The Witches of St Osyth: Persecution, Murder and Betrayal in Elizabethan England <\/em>(Cambridge University Press, 2022) and Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials<\/em> (Simon & Schuster, 2023)<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Professor Marion Gibson reveals how England\u2019s early modern legal system dealt with suspected \u2018witches\u2019 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":35235,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"7"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/04\/rough-injustice-what-really-happened-at-a-witch-trial-scaled.jpg",2560,1634,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/04\/rough-injustice-what-really-happened-at-a-witch-trial-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/04\/rough-injustice-what-really-happened-at-a-witch-trial-300x192.jpg",300,192,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/04\/rough-injustice-what-really-happened-at-a-witch-trial-768x490.jpg",768,490,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/04\/rough-injustice-what-really-happened-at-a-witch-trial-1024x654.jpg",800,511,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/04\/rough-injustice-what-really-happened-at-a-witch-trial-1536x981.jpg",1536,981,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2024\/04\/rough-injustice-what-really-happened-at-a-witch-trial-2048x1307.jpg",2048,1307,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Professor Marion Gibson reveals how England\u2019s early modern legal system dealt with suspected \u2018witches\u2019","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/35234"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Two notorious witch trials<\/h4>\n
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