WEBVTT 00:02.100 --> 00:07.670 Well, in 1921 a group of workmen working on the highway 00:07.670 --> 00:10.250 near the village of St. 00:10.250 --> 00:14.670 Osyth, which is here in Essex, in East Anglia, 00:14.671 --> 00:17.031 discovered a skeleton. 00:17.030 --> 00:20.490 And at first they thought they'd uncovered a modern crime, 00:20.492 --> 00:23.592 but it was soon established that it was very old. 00:23.590 --> 00:26.580 And subsequently, on the basis of both 00:26.576 --> 00:30.286 documentary evidence and forensic evidence, 00:30.290 --> 00:34.880 they identified it as being probably the remains of a woman 00:34.880 --> 00:38.680 named Ursula Kemp who had been executed at St. 00:38.680 --> 00:42.770 Osyth and buried in the highway, rather than in 00:42.765 --> 00:46.225 consecrated ground, in the year 1582. 00:46.230 --> 00:52.210 And Ursula Kemp's crime was the alleged causing of death by 00:52.209 --> 00:53.549 witchcraft. 00:53.550 --> 00:57.560 Now today, obviously, I'm going to talk about 00:57.564 --> 01:02.774 witchcraft and perhaps explain how it was that people like 01:02.765 --> 01:06.045 Ursula Kemp came to such an end. 01:06.049 --> 01:09.939 First of all we need to start with a little context by 01:09.938 --> 01:14.048 discussing the larger place of not simply witchcraft, 01:14.049 --> 01:18.199 a specific crime, but magic within the popular 01:18.195 --> 01:21.325 culture of early modern England. 01:21.330 --> 01:25.810 We could perhaps define that world of magic as being 01:25.810 --> 01:30.870 essentially a body of beliefs, a large body of beliefs, 01:30.867 --> 01:35.627 and practices regarding supernatural power which stood 01:35.632 --> 01:40.582 outside the world of formal religion and yet were widely 01:40.577 --> 01:46.057 known and helped people to cope with their anxieties and their 01:46.061 --> 01:47.861 insecurities. 01:47.860 --> 01:53.750 It helped them to cope above all because it involved various 01:53.751 --> 01:59.351 ritual means of manipulating supernatural powers so as to 01:59.345 --> 02:04.135 ward off misfortune or else to alleviate it. 02:04.140 --> 02:08.080 This world of magic, then, was essentially a world 02:08.082 --> 02:12.272 of trying to propitiate or to manipulate unidentified 02:12.268 --> 02:16.628 supernatural powers, largely for the purposes of 02:16.627 --> 02:18.627 protection and relief. 02:18.628 --> 02:23.228 It wasn't--and it's important to stress this--it wasn't an 02:23.232 --> 02:25.092 alternative religion. 02:25.090 --> 02:29.410 It was a whole mess of supplementary beliefs and 02:29.406 --> 02:31.916 practices, being described by one 02:31.919 --> 02:35.339 historian as "the debris of many different systems of 02:35.340 --> 02:36.360 thought." 02:36.360 --> 02:39.900 It was regarded with some suspicion by the church, 02:39.896 --> 02:42.996 but it was not regarded as a threat as such, 02:43.001 --> 02:44.951 at least not initially. 02:44.949 --> 02:48.159 One historian writing about popular beliefs has put it 02:48.162 --> 02:48.952 splendidly. 02:48.949 --> 02:50.329 I'm quoting from him. 02:50.330 --> 02:52.300 The name's James Obelkevich. 02:52.300 --> 02:56.270 "It was a large, loose, pluralistic affair 02:56.265 --> 02:59.625 without any clear unifying principle. 02:59.628 --> 03:03.758 It encompassed superhuman beings and forces, 03:03.758 --> 03:09.038 witches and wise men and a mass of low-grade magical and 03:09.040 --> 03:11.730 superstitious practices. 03:11.729 --> 03:15.879 The whole was less than the sum of its parts"-- 03:15.878 --> 03:19.478 the whole was less than the sum of its parts -- 03:19.479 --> 03:24.439 "for it was not a cosmos to be contemplated or worshipped 03:24.441 --> 03:29.491 but a treasury of separate and specific resources to be used or 03:29.485 --> 03:32.815 applied in concrete situations." 03:32.819 --> 03:35.339 That puts it extremely well. 03:35.340 --> 03:39.790 These means of tapping into supernatural power were very 03:39.794 --> 03:41.014 widely known. 03:41.008 --> 03:44.738 You could say they were part of the lore which was acquired by 03:44.735 --> 03:47.845 every child as part of their education for life, 03:47.848 --> 03:51.868 like learning to cross the road as it were. 03:51.870 --> 03:55.790 But the world of magic also had its specialists and they were 03:55.788 --> 03:58.528 those who were known as the 'cunning folk', 03:58.532 --> 04:00.822 'cunning men', or 'wise women'. 04:00.818 --> 04:05.068 These individuals were those who were known to have special 04:05.070 --> 04:09.180 knowledge over and above the average knowledge of magical 04:09.175 --> 04:13.425 practices and who often believed to have a special inherent 04:13.426 --> 04:17.236 power, often inherited. 04:17.240 --> 04:21.010 It was thought to pass in the blood. 04:21.009 --> 04:24.289 The cunning folk who were pretty numerous-- 04:24.290 --> 04:27.680 one survey of known cunning folk in East Anglia suggests 04:27.680 --> 04:31.260 that there was a known cunning man or wise woman within ten 04:31.255 --> 04:35.605 miles of any village-- these people were appealed to 04:35.612 --> 04:39.032 for a variety of specific purposes. 04:39.029 --> 04:42.699 In the first place, they often were appealed to for 04:42.699 --> 04:44.019 medical reasons. 04:44.019 --> 04:48.519 Very often they had specialist knowledge of herbs which they 04:48.523 --> 04:52.033 would administer often accompanied by spells to 04:52.033 --> 04:56.423 increase their effectiveness-- the psychological effect of the 04:56.415 --> 04:59.575 incantation going along with what may well have been the 04:59.583 --> 05:02.063 practical effect of the herbs they used. 05:02.060 --> 05:04.490 Ursula Kemp for example was such a person. 05:04.490 --> 05:07.010 She was known as a healer in her village. 05:07.009 --> 05:10.329 She was good at curing arthritis apparently. 05:10.329 --> 05:14.459 Again, they were appealed to for the diagnosis of witchcraft. 05:14.459 --> 05:17.989 If a person suspected that they might have been bewitched, 05:17.985 --> 05:21.265 they might go to the cunning folk for the provision of 05:21.266 --> 05:22.376 counter-magic. 05:22.379 --> 05:26.819 They might help the victim to identify who might have attacked 05:26.824 --> 05:30.984 them in this occult manner and advise on counteraction. 05:30.980 --> 05:34.960 One of my favorite cunning men came from a town in the north of 05:34.963 --> 05:37.723 England, Stokesley, and he was called 05:37.716 --> 05:41.046 John Wrightson, and he was known as Old 05:41.048 --> 05:44.498 Wrightson the Wise Man of Stokesley, 05:44.500 --> 05:47.770 and people went to him for help with their horses. 05:47.769 --> 05:49.119 He was a horse leech. 05:49.120 --> 05:52.240 He was very good at telling whether your horse had been 05:52.235 --> 05:54.995 bewitched and knowing how to take the appropriate 05:55.004 --> 05:56.164 countermeasures. 05:56.160 --> 06:01.260 People went to the cunning folk also for the recovery of lost or 06:01.257 --> 06:05.707 stolen goods and they went for advice and the telling of 06:05.706 --> 06:08.696 fortunes, and to this extent the wise 06:08.697 --> 06:12.757 women and the cunning men were the popular equivalent of the 06:12.759 --> 06:16.959 astrologers who had a more elite clientele in this period. 06:16.959 --> 06:20.929 So, the cunning folk provided a variety of real services and the 06:20.925 --> 06:24.575 best of them may well have been quite skilled therapists in 06:24.577 --> 06:25.457 their way. 06:25.459 --> 06:28.219 One historian of medical practice in this period says we 06:28.223 --> 06:31.193 ought to count them amongst the medical practitioners of the 06:31.187 --> 06:31.637 time. 06:31.639 --> 06:33.929 They were cheap, they were available and in many 06:33.932 --> 06:35.252 ways quite knowledgeable. 06:35.250 --> 06:40.700 However, the church was pretty unhappy about this kind of 06:40.699 --> 06:41.769 activity. 06:41.769 --> 06:44.769 It didn't like popular magic. 06:44.769 --> 06:47.639 The official teaching of the church was that if a person 06:47.639 --> 06:50.459 suffered any misfortune it must be the result of divine 06:50.456 --> 06:51.236 providence. 06:51.240 --> 06:55.540 It was either a test of your faith or, on the other hand, 06:55.541 --> 06:58.001 it was a judgment on your sin. 06:58.000 --> 07:01.800 The only proper response to misfortune was to search one's 07:01.798 --> 07:04.928 own heart for the possible causes of such divine 07:04.930 --> 07:06.730 intervention: to pray, 07:06.730 --> 07:11.350 to repent, to trust in God's providential purposes. 07:11.350 --> 07:15.260 The church rejected magical means of relief. 07:15.259 --> 07:19.879 It accepted the possibility, but it rejected the means. 07:19.879 --> 07:23.779 God could not be commanded by spells and incantations, 07:23.778 --> 07:27.848 therefore, if there was any supernatural response to such 07:27.850 --> 07:30.830 practices it must be from evil spirits. 07:30.829 --> 07:35.129 And so, given these beliefs, we find the deeply pious of the 07:35.125 --> 07:39.415 period searching their hearts for the sins which had brought 07:39.420 --> 07:42.840 misfortune upon them and sometimes finding quite 07:42.841 --> 07:44.881 extraordinary answers. 07:44.879 --> 07:46.689 You find it in their diaries for example. 07:46.690 --> 07:48.780 For example, the diary of the Reverend Ralph 07:48.776 --> 07:50.676 Josselin, a minister in the late 07:50.675 --> 07:54.285 seventeenth century, who, having lost a dearly loved 07:54.291 --> 07:56.881 daughter, searched his heart as to why 07:56.884 --> 08:00.434 God should have done this, why he should have taken her 08:00.430 --> 08:04.100 away, and came to the conclusion that it was because he had 08:04.098 --> 08:07.768 neglected his clerical duties because of his enthusiasm for 08:07.767 --> 08:08.967 playing chess. 08:08.970 --> 08:12.710 He had played chess too much; God had taken his daughter. 08:12.709 --> 08:16.939 That's the conclusion he came to and he gave up playing chess. 08:16.939 --> 08:19.999 This is a seventeenth-century God, not a nice, 08:20.004 --> 08:21.984 modern, user-friendly, God. 08:21.980 --> 08:24.380 > 08:24.379 --> 08:26.289 Little wonder then, if these were the official 08:26.286 --> 08:28.896 teachings of the church, that the greater part of the 08:28.898 --> 08:32.038 population preferred to explain their misfortunes in terms of 08:32.044 --> 08:34.774 just bad luck, or their neglect of protective 08:34.765 --> 08:37.685 magic, or perhaps the malevolence of 08:37.693 --> 08:40.913 evil spirits and malicious neighbors. 08:40.908 --> 08:45.338 Well, this world of popular magic had long existed and it 08:45.339 --> 08:46.999 was long to endure. 08:47.000 --> 08:50.790 You can find much of it still alive and well deep into the 08:50.792 --> 08:52.192 nineteenth century. 08:52.190 --> 08:56.200 And it endured because in various ways it helped. 08:56.200 --> 09:01.950 But the problem of witchcraft is altogether more distinctive. 09:01.950 --> 09:07.510 That involved a specific kind of magic: the causing of injury 09:07.506 --> 09:12.966 or death by the malevolent and malicious use of supernatural 09:12.971 --> 09:17.141 powers against another or their property. 09:17.139 --> 09:21.549 And that was the practice which was known as maleficium. 09:21.548 --> 09:25.608 That's the Latin legal term which was used for this 09:25.606 --> 09:27.146 maleficent magic. 09:27.149 --> 09:31.659 And concern with witchcraft in this way had a quite distinct 09:31.655 --> 09:32.645 chronology. 09:32.649 --> 09:35.979 The possibility of malevolent magic had always been there, 09:35.980 --> 09:40.950 of course, but concern with it was undoubtedly at an unusual 09:40.952 --> 09:46.432 height in the late sixteenth and earlier seventeenth centuries. 09:46.428 --> 09:50.378 And the key to why that was so is perhaps to be found in what 09:50.375 --> 09:53.265 the historian of the Spanish Inquisition, 09:53.269 --> 09:56.559 Henry Kamen, has described as a peculiarly 09:56.558 --> 10:00.088 horrible conjunction in European history, 10:00.090 --> 10:04.060 a conjunction he says between "popular superstition" 10:04.063 --> 10:06.613 on the one hand and "ecclesiastical 10:06.605 --> 10:08.685 fantasy" on the other, 10:08.690 --> 10:10.860 the fantasies of churchmen. 10:10.860 --> 10:13.940 The popular superstitious element doesn't need any further 10:13.942 --> 10:15.242 elaboration of course. 10:15.240 --> 10:19.130 It had always been the case that some individuals were 10:19.133 --> 10:23.323 regarded as having this special access to occult power. 10:23.320 --> 10:26.040 The element of ecclesiastical fantasy, however, 10:26.044 --> 10:29.724 that was something that was peculiar to western Christendom. 10:29.720 --> 10:33.300 We don't find it in the Orthodox tradition and it was 10:33.302 --> 10:35.992 peculiar to the early modern period, 10:35.990 --> 10:39.600 emerging at the end of the fifteenth century and growing in 10:39.597 --> 10:41.337 strength in the sixteenth. 10:41.340 --> 10:45.380 Essentially, it involved the belief that all 10:45.376 --> 10:50.256 witchcraft in fact involved worship of the devil, 10:50.259 --> 10:55.769 and as a result the elaboration of a stereotype of the witch 10:55.769 --> 11:01.279 which portrayed witches not merely as dabblers in magic, 11:01.278 --> 11:04.178 or perpetrators of malefice against 11:04.179 --> 11:07.189 neighbors, but as something much more 11:07.193 --> 11:11.413 serious, members of an organized 11:11.412 --> 11:20.462 diabolical and malevolent cult: not just village wise women or 11:20.464 --> 11:25.514 cunning men but enemies of God. 11:25.509 --> 11:30.669 Throughout continental Europe, and indeed in Scotland also, 11:30.668 --> 11:35.438 the result of these beliefs was that the main driving force 11:35.443 --> 11:40.713 behind the spasmodic witch hunts which can be found in the period 11:40.712 --> 11:45.872 was probably religious zeal, and the great witch hunts which 11:45.873 --> 11:50.683 would be found scattered across Europe died back only when the 11:50.679 --> 11:55.639 judges came to doubt the reality of that stereotype of the witch 11:55.644 --> 12:00.374 and came to doubt the notion that witchcraft was an organized 12:00.373 --> 12:03.923 cult threatening to Christian society. 12:03.918 --> 12:06.578 One of the first legal jurisdictions to make that 12:06.580 --> 12:09.680 decision, that the whole thing was just a terrible error, 12:09.682 --> 12:11.902 was in fact the Spanish Inquisition. 12:11.899 --> 12:15.129 One doesn't usually associate the Spanish Inquisition with 12:15.131 --> 12:19.071 progressive movements, but in 1610 they were the first 12:19.072 --> 12:22.022 to abandon, to refuse to deal with, 12:22.018 --> 12:23.658 cases of this kind. 12:23.658 --> 12:28.938 The French Parlement again did so in 1640 some years later. 12:28.940 --> 12:31.010 So it gradually died away. 12:31.009 --> 12:35.619 But throughout both Catholic and Protestant Europe for some 12:35.621 --> 12:40.321 time there was a unity in the war against witches as enemies 12:40.315 --> 12:41.185 of God. 12:41.190 --> 12:46.970 Well, how far was that pattern true of England? 12:46.970 --> 12:52.070 The usual answer is that it wasn't true of England and that 12:52.065 --> 12:54.345 was for several reasons. 12:54.350 --> 12:57.500 First of all, the authorities in England 12:57.500 --> 13:02.350 never actually embraced the full ecclesiastical stereotype of 13:02.349 --> 13:07.359 witchcraft as evidence of membership of a diabolical cult. 13:07.360 --> 13:11.410 Continental European ideas about the nature of witchcraft 13:11.409 --> 13:13.869 were certainly known in England. 13:13.870 --> 13:17.310 Books from Europe were read by the educated and these ideas 13:17.312 --> 13:20.402 were disseminated by a number of English writers, 13:20.399 --> 13:24.369 usually clergymen, particularly from the 1580s or 13:24.370 --> 13:25.530 thereabouts. 13:25.528 --> 13:29.228 Gradually, such notions did seep into popular beliefs and 13:29.232 --> 13:33.002 you begin to find them at the popular level by the mid- to 13:33.001 --> 13:34.921 late seventeenth century. 13:34.918 --> 13:39.648 But nevertheless that notion of the nature of witchcraft didn't 13:39.654 --> 13:42.484 have much influence on English law. 13:42.480 --> 13:49.120 Witchcraft was never prosecuted as a heresy in England. 13:49.120 --> 13:53.040 The first act which was passed against it in 1542 made it a 13:53.043 --> 13:55.003 felony-- any crime that was a felony 13:54.995 --> 13:58.485 carried the death penalty-- made it a felony to practice 13:58.491 --> 14:01.131 witchcraft for unlawful purposes. 14:01.129 --> 14:03.489 But that act was only on the statute book for five years; 14:03.490 --> 14:04.410 then it was repealed. 14:04.408 --> 14:07.808 After that there was actually no law against witchcraft for 14:07.809 --> 14:09.099 nearly twenty years. 14:09.100 --> 14:11.560 Then in 1563 there was a new act. 14:11.558 --> 14:16.488 It was made a felony to invoke evil spirits and to--if they 14:16.485 --> 14:21.665 were invoked to cause the death of another, then execution was 14:21.666 --> 14:23.276 the punishment. 14:23.278 --> 14:27.118 Otherwise witches were to be imprisoned or put in the pillory 14:27.118 --> 14:29.868 and face death only for a second offense. 14:29.870 --> 14:33.970 Then finally in 1604 came a third act. 14:33.970 --> 14:36.860 It elaborated on the 1563 act. 14:36.860 --> 14:41.090 It made it a felony to bewitch anyone to either their death or 14:41.089 --> 14:42.129 their injury. 14:42.129 --> 14:46.639 For lesser forms of sorcery people faced imprisonment and 14:46.635 --> 14:48.965 death for a second offense. 14:48.970 --> 14:52.130 But some elements of continental European ideas were 14:52.131 --> 14:55.421 beginning to creep in at last in to this third act. 14:55.418 --> 14:58.628 For example, it was made a felony to dig up 14:58.629 --> 15:02.909 dead bodies for the purposes of practicing witchcraft. 15:02.908 --> 15:05.168 Exactly why they were concerned with that they don't explain, 15:05.172 --> 15:06.872 but that was one of the clauses of the act. 15:06.870 --> 15:11.250 It was also made a felony to consult with or to feed an evil 15:11.251 --> 15:13.111 spirit for any purpose. 15:13.110 --> 15:18.890 So, some elements of the notion of diabolical pacts and the like 15:18.888 --> 15:23.658 were beginning to creep in but not all of the kind of 15:23.657 --> 15:28.877 stereotype of witchcraft which was well known north of the 15:28.884 --> 15:33.434 border in Scotland, or in continental Europe. 15:33.428 --> 15:37.468 Witchcraft remained seen as not specifically diabolical but 15:37.471 --> 15:39.921 rather, as Keith Thomas puts it, 15:39.924 --> 15:43.584 an "antisocial crime," a very unusual one 15:43.582 --> 15:47.682 but an antisocial crime rather than a form of heresy. 15:47.678 --> 15:51.718 And that characteristic, that it's treated as a specific 15:51.715 --> 15:54.355 kind of crime, comes out in the trial 15:54.355 --> 15:55.305 evidence. 15:55.308 --> 15:58.218 For example, in English witchcraft trials 15:58.219 --> 16:02.289 it's very rare to find any reference to making pacts with 16:02.291 --> 16:03.311 the devil. 16:03.308 --> 16:06.128 You get the odd one in the seventeenth century but they are 16:06.128 --> 16:08.918 few; so no diabolical pacts really. 16:08.918 --> 16:15.068 No witches' sabbats at which witches met and feasted and 16:15.065 --> 16:19.195 danced with the devil and so forth. 16:19.200 --> 16:22.200 Very little sex with devils in English witchcraft trials, 16:22.202 --> 16:25.422 though that was a prominent feature in continental trials. 16:25.419 --> 16:27.709 English witches didn't fly. 16:27.710 --> 16:29.690 > 16:29.690 --> 16:31.200 They didn't have much fun at all really. 16:31.196 --> 16:32.196 > 16:32.200 --> 16:35.750 English witches did, however, have pets. 16:35.750 --> 16:38.750 They had imps and "familiars" 16:38.745 --> 16:41.455 as they were known, usually small animals, 16:41.461 --> 16:44.321 and they seem to have been part of popular beliefs in England, 16:44.320 --> 16:46.960 that a witch would have a familiar which could act on her 16:46.964 --> 16:47.394 behalf. 16:47.389 --> 16:49.589 Ursula Kemp, for example, 16:49.591 --> 16:54.001 was alleged to have had four familiars: two cats, 16:53.995 --> 16:59.225 a toad which was called Pygin, and a lamb which was called 16:59.226 --> 17:00.416 Tyffin. 17:00.418 --> 17:05.528 What the English trials focused on first and foremost was simple 17:05.528 --> 17:06.988 maleficent acts. 17:06.990 --> 17:12.200 Other elements usually entered only in a handful of notorious 17:12.199 --> 17:14.369 causes celebres. 17:14.368 --> 17:19.378 Witches were always condemned for maleficium and they 17:19.377 --> 17:24.977 were hanged rather than burned; it was a crime, not a heresy. 17:24.980 --> 17:27.990 Secondly, particular witchcraft prosecutions were rarely 17:27.991 --> 17:29.911 instigated from above in England. 17:29.910 --> 17:31.820 That's another important difference. 17:31.818 --> 17:35.778 There's no evidence that the authorities actually wanted a 17:35.777 --> 17:36.677 witch hunt. 17:36.680 --> 17:40.810 One outstanding exception to this generalization was the 17:40.811 --> 17:45.101 activities in 1645 to '47 of a witch finder called Matthew 17:45.095 --> 17:49.375 Hopkins who operated in East Anglia and to all intents and 17:49.377 --> 17:54.037 purposes hired himself out as a consultant for the discovery of 17:54.037 --> 17:55.237 witches. 17:55.240 --> 17:58.650 That was an organized witch hunt from which Matthew Hopkins 17:58.654 --> 18:01.524 personally profited, but it's the only really 18:01.519 --> 18:05.049 outstanding example of such an outbreak in the history of 18:05.046 --> 18:06.616 witchcraft in England. 18:06.618 --> 18:10.358 It was the subject of a wonderful Vincent Price movie 18:10.358 --> 18:12.968 thirty years or so ago, "Witchfinder 18:12.971 --> 18:14.591 General," which I do recommend. 18:14.588 --> 18:18.308 It's got nothing to do with the history, but it's a great movie. 18:18.309 --> 18:19.889 Okay. 18:19.890 --> 18:23.150 So witchcraft prosecutions in England tended not to come in 18:23.148 --> 18:26.238 these witch hunts that would bring hundreds of cases. 18:26.240 --> 18:30.120 They didn't come in great waves with the major exception of 18:30.122 --> 18:32.132 Matthew Hopkins' activities. 18:32.130 --> 18:33.640 They were sporadic. 18:33.640 --> 18:34.590 They were occasional. 18:34.588 --> 18:37.818 They came up one or two at a time and so forth. 18:37.818 --> 18:40.848 In addition, in English law torture was not 18:40.846 --> 18:44.656 used except in state--certain state trials when it was 18:44.664 --> 18:47.984 specially authorized by the privy council. 18:47.980 --> 18:51.220 In day-to-day trials torture was not used whereas it was 18:51.223 --> 18:54.173 routinely used in many jurisdictions in continental 18:54.173 --> 18:56.183 Europe and indeed in Scotland. 18:56.180 --> 19:00.060 As a result, people were not tortured into 19:00.058 --> 19:01.288 confessing. 19:01.288 --> 19:05.638 As a result, large numbers of people were 19:05.644 --> 19:11.854 not implicated by people under torture who named names. 19:11.848 --> 19:15.648 What you get in the witchcraft statistics from the English 19:15.651 --> 19:19.391 courts is really a lot of individual prosecutions brought 19:19.385 --> 19:22.985 from below by the alleged victims of witchcraft seeking 19:22.988 --> 19:26.588 redress in the courts just like any other crime. 19:26.588 --> 19:29.678 So there are some important differences in the way all of 19:29.675 --> 19:31.325 this was handled in the law. 19:31.328 --> 19:33.828 Nevertheless, England did share in the 19:33.834 --> 19:38.034 general European preoccupation with witchcraft even though to a 19:38.030 --> 19:39.250 lesser extent. 19:39.250 --> 19:44.860 Just how far it shared is not fully known. 19:44.858 --> 19:48.188 That's because the relevant legal records don't survive for 19:48.191 --> 19:49.801 every area of the country. 19:49.798 --> 19:52.908 They survive pretty fully for the whole of the southeast and 19:52.909 --> 19:56.069 for the county of Cheshire but for other parts of the country 19:56.070 --> 19:59.550 they tend to survive only from the seventeenth century point, 19:59.548 --> 20:03.278 which is relatively late in the history of this crime. 20:03.278 --> 20:06.988 But where we do have the evidence, one of the striking 20:06.990 --> 20:10.980 features is that the trials appear to have been relatively 20:10.980 --> 20:13.640 rare except for the home circuit, 20:13.640 --> 20:15.570 the counties around London. 20:15.568 --> 20:21.718 If you look at the handout, if you look at the two graphs, 20:21.720 --> 20:27.390 graph A gives you the trials which took place in different 20:27.386 --> 20:33.446 assize circuits and the line at the top showing the real spike 20:33.452 --> 20:35.842 is the home circuit. 20:35.838 --> 20:39.168 You can see how there are vastly more cases being heard in 20:39.172 --> 20:42.802 the whole home circuit than in any other jurisdiction for which 20:42.796 --> 20:44.196 we have the records. 20:44.200 --> 20:47.700 The second spike is Matthew Hopkins operating in 1645, 20:47.701 --> 20:49.951 but the first spike, as you'll see, 20:49.946 --> 20:52.586 was in the later years of Elizabeth. 20:52.588 --> 20:56.208 And even within the home circuit, this area, 20:56.208 --> 21:00.248 the cases came predominantly from one part of it, 21:00.248 --> 21:04.118 the county of Essex to the east of London. 21:04.118 --> 21:07.318 If you look at the second graph, graph B, 21:07.318 --> 21:11.878 there you have the different counties of the home circuit 21:11.875 --> 21:16.505 broken down and it's clear enough that Essex is absolutely 21:16.513 --> 21:21.323 outstanding in terms of the numbers of cases which came from 21:21.315 --> 21:22.775 that county. 21:22.778 --> 21:26.298 To give you some actual figures, in the whole of the 21:26.298 --> 21:29.748 reign of Elizabeth the county of Hertfordshire, 21:29.750 --> 21:32.820 which is just to the north of London, 21:32.818 --> 21:35.948 quite a populous county, produced only twenty-four 21:35.946 --> 21:37.156 witchcraft cases. 21:37.160 --> 21:41.150 The county of Sussex, a large county to the south of 21:41.154 --> 21:43.744 London, produced only fourteen. 21:43.740 --> 21:48.130 The county of Essex produced 172. 21:48.130 --> 21:54.030 In fact, between 1560 and 1680,270 individuals were 21:54.032 --> 21:58.522 prosecuted for witchcraft in Essex, 21:58.519 --> 22:01.779 whereas in comparison, taking a county of similar size 22:01.779 --> 22:05.819 and similar population, in the period between 1580 and 22:05.821 --> 22:10.141 1709 only thirty-four were prosecuted in the county of 22:10.136 --> 22:13.716 Cheshire for which we have good evidence. 22:13.720 --> 22:16.700 So Cheshire, thirty-four: 22:16.702 --> 22:18.322 Essex, 270. 22:18.318 --> 22:23.078 In general, most of the trials for which we have evidence took 22:23.076 --> 22:27.206 place in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. 22:27.210 --> 22:30.930 In the home circuit and in Essex in particular, 22:30.931 --> 22:36.111 they were at their peak between the 1570s and the early 1590s. 22:36.108 --> 22:40.338 Looking at the country as a whole, trials become very rare 22:40.335 --> 22:42.555 everywhere after about 1620. 22:42.558 --> 22:46.608 The numbers are falling away after about 1620 with again the 22:46.611 --> 22:50.461 notable exception of the activities of Matthew Hopkins in 22:50.457 --> 22:55.017 the mid- to late 1640s, which caused a new peak of 22:55.019 --> 22:58.369 concern within a downward trend. 22:58.368 --> 23:02.378 Well, that downward trend, the decline of witchcraft 23:02.380 --> 23:06.940 cases, after around 1620 is something which historians have 23:06.940 --> 23:09.850 found relatively easy to explain. 23:09.848 --> 23:14.038 The decline can be explained in a number of ways. 23:14.038 --> 23:17.418 First of all, from at least the 1580s some of 23:17.421 --> 23:21.801 the justices of the peace and the assize judges who had to 23:21.800 --> 23:26.260 handle these cases were very worried about the difficulties 23:26.258 --> 23:28.408 of proving witchcraft. 23:28.410 --> 23:31.650 They weren't necessarily skeptical. 23:31.650 --> 23:34.910 They frequently believed that witchcraft was possible, 23:34.910 --> 23:40.250 but how could you prove in law that a particular individual was 23:40.246 --> 23:44.116 actually responsible unless they confessed? 23:44.118 --> 23:47.288 How could you prove that something was caused by 23:47.294 --> 23:49.994 witchcraft rather than by natural causes, 23:49.994 --> 23:53.714 if for example someone died of a lingering illness? 23:53.710 --> 23:57.850 And even if it was witchcraft, who did it? 23:57.848 --> 24:01.728 So they were worried about the problem of proof and they talked 24:01.730 --> 24:02.420 about it. 24:02.420 --> 24:06.990 In witchcraft cases normal rules of evidence could not 24:06.993 --> 24:09.673 apply and this bothered them. 24:09.670 --> 24:12.600 Increasingly in the seventeenth century, lawyers who were 24:12.595 --> 24:15.675 worried about all of this became very unwilling to entertain 24:15.676 --> 24:16.196 cases. 24:16.200 --> 24:19.730 They tried to talk people into not prosecuting, 24:19.732 --> 24:24.272 or they were--or they insisted upon additional evidence if a 24:24.265 --> 24:26.335 case was to go forward. 24:26.338 --> 24:29.228 In addition, from the early seventeenth 24:29.228 --> 24:33.558 century onwards there seems to have been an actual decline 24:33.561 --> 24:37.821 amongst educated people in belief in the very possibility 24:37.818 --> 24:39.338 of witchcraft. 24:39.338 --> 24:43.258 The conviction grew that it was a fantasy which had been 24:43.258 --> 24:47.318 projected onto wretched people by hysterical neighbors. 24:47.318 --> 24:52.538 The conviction grew that the accused did not have the occult 24:52.540 --> 24:57.320 powers that were claimed, even if they thought they did 24:57.319 --> 25:00.029 so; they were frauds. 25:00.028 --> 25:03.318 And in the later seventeenth century there was the growth of 25:03.320 --> 25:06.780 awareness of the mechanical philosophy of Sir Isaac Newton, 25:06.778 --> 25:11.018 who regarded the universe as having been created by God and 25:11.015 --> 25:14.005 subjected to laws which were immutable; 25:14.009 --> 25:17.769 you could not tamper with God's natural laws through using 25:17.769 --> 25:19.219 spells and the like. 25:19.220 --> 25:24.010 Well, all of this probably had its influence in the course of 25:24.013 --> 25:27.293 the decline of witchcraft prosecutions. 25:27.288 --> 25:30.858 Though initially it's most likely that it was the legal 25:30.862 --> 25:32.892 concern, the unwillingness of some 25:32.886 --> 25:35.116 lawyers and judges to handle these cases, 25:35.118 --> 25:39.798 which was the main cause of the falling off noticeable by the 25:39.797 --> 25:41.977 early seventeenth century. 25:41.980 --> 25:45.670 So in these various ways one can perhaps satisfactorily 25:45.665 --> 25:49.075 explain the decline of concern with witchcraft, 25:49.078 --> 25:54.438 but we still have to explain the sixteenth-century rise of 25:54.439 --> 25:59.609 concern and that turns out to be much more difficult. 25:59.608 --> 26:04.038 Much more difficult because this seems to have been a 26:04.040 --> 26:08.220 genuine popular concern, with cases coming up from 26:08.217 --> 26:09.067 below. 26:09.068 --> 26:14.088 One can't simply explain it in terms of the activities of a 26:14.085 --> 26:16.675 number of bishops or judges. 26:16.680 --> 26:20.270 The dominant explanation was put forward some years ago by 26:20.266 --> 26:24.166 Keith Thomas and Alan Macfarlane in two of the pioneering works 26:24.167 --> 26:27.857 on this subject, and they explained the rise of 26:27.856 --> 26:32.906 witchcraft prosecutions in terms of a detailed examination of the 26:32.907 --> 26:35.747 circumstances of surviving cases. 26:35.750 --> 26:41.920 Witches were usually women and they were frequently elderly 26:41.919 --> 26:42.769 women. 26:42.769 --> 26:47.769 Witches were usually accused of bewitching neighbors within 26:47.766 --> 26:50.466 their own village; not strangers, 26:50.474 --> 26:53.014 always neighbors, people they knew. 26:53.009 --> 26:58.589 Witches were often poorer than their alleged victims. 26:58.588 --> 27:02.058 This suggested that the accusations were therefore 27:02.059 --> 27:06.379 arising from tensions between relatively marginal women in the 27:06.380 --> 27:09.780 village community and better-off neighbors, 27:09.779 --> 27:13.189 who might be men or women. 27:13.190 --> 27:16.920 Then they looked at the known circumstances of cases, 27:16.920 --> 27:20.920 and the classic circumstances were more or less as follows: 27:20.922 --> 27:23.892 a quarrel would occur between neighbors, 27:23.890 --> 27:27.050 ending in one of them, the supposed witch, 27:27.049 --> 27:30.049 going away cursing or muttering. 27:30.048 --> 27:34.848 The victim would then suffer some form of personal 27:34.846 --> 27:36.116 misfortune. 27:36.118 --> 27:40.728 The victim would then begin to entertain suspicion that they'd 27:40.733 --> 27:42.023 been bewitched. 27:42.019 --> 27:45.479 They would talk to other neighbors some of whom might 27:45.484 --> 27:49.354 have similar suspicions about the person they suspected. 27:49.348 --> 27:53.228 A person would then be identified as a possible witch, 27:53.230 --> 27:57.040 as a malevolent person in the eyes of the village. 27:57.038 --> 28:01.478 It's possible that some of those who were so accused did 28:01.479 --> 28:06.399 practice magic and did believe themselves to have the power to 28:06.402 --> 28:09.162 harm, and to some extent they may 28:09.163 --> 28:12.933 even have used it as a form of begging with menace. 28:12.930 --> 28:17.100 The quarrels between neighbors which initiated cases very often 28:17.096 --> 28:20.856 began when someone was turned away having been begging or 28:20.859 --> 28:23.279 asking for a favor of some kind. 28:23.278 --> 28:27.308 It's possible that some of these marginal women responded 28:27.310 --> 28:31.920 to being gradually identified as witches by playing the part, 28:31.920 --> 28:34.470 by scaring their neighbors, as it were, 28:34.470 --> 28:37.110 into meeting their needs. 28:37.108 --> 28:41.928 That could go on for years and often did, but eventually some 28:41.926 --> 28:46.176 incident serious enough to trigger off an actual court 28:46.182 --> 28:49.492 prosecution would occur; perhaps a death, 28:49.491 --> 28:51.751 something of unusual seriousness. 28:51.750 --> 28:55.660 When that happened someone would bring an accusation; 28:55.660 --> 28:58.250 other neighbors would chime in. 28:58.250 --> 29:00.670 There were lots of such accusations. 29:00.670 --> 29:04.610 Alan Macfarlane found that in Essex there was an average of 29:04.611 --> 29:07.331 four accusers for each accused witch, 29:07.328 --> 29:09.708 so other people would chime in with their suspicions. 29:09.710 --> 29:13.260 Supplementary proofs might be looked for, 29:13.259 --> 29:16.749 for example the witch's mark--the existence on the 29:16.748 --> 29:21.158 witch's body of a wart or mole or other mark which seemed to be 29:21.162 --> 29:25.362 insensitive to pain and which was thought to be the place at 29:25.362 --> 29:29.422 which the witch's familiar would feed on her blood. 29:29.420 --> 29:32.200 If they found such a thing it was considered additional proof 29:32.199 --> 29:33.959 and the witch might be found guilty. 29:33.960 --> 29:36.880 Fine. 29:36.880 --> 29:40.760 Well, those do indeed seem to have been what one can think of 29:40.756 --> 29:44.366 as the classic circumstances though they were by no means 29:44.374 --> 29:45.154 unusual. 29:45.150 --> 29:48.420 Witchcraft accusations could arise in other contexts. 29:48.420 --> 29:51.920 They could arise for example as a result of personal rivalries 29:51.921 --> 29:53.071 in local politics. 29:53.068 --> 29:56.748 An accusation of witchcraft was something which was easy to 29:56.750 --> 29:59.920 throw at another person in order to discredit them, 29:59.922 --> 30:02.272 so there are other circumstances. 30:02.269 --> 30:05.599 Not all witches were women, some were men, 30:05.603 --> 30:08.453 though most were women and so on. 30:08.450 --> 30:12.230 But these do appear to have been the classic circumstances. 30:12.230 --> 30:15.670 Why then should the late sixteenth and early seventeenth 30:15.671 --> 30:19.421 centuries have seen a peak of such accusations because surely 30:19.424 --> 30:22.434 one could find such circumstances earlier and one 30:22.428 --> 30:24.178 could find them later? 30:24.180 --> 30:28.410 Why was that the peak period of anxiety? 30:28.410 --> 30:31.790 Thomas and Macfarlane suggest, first of all, 30:31.788 --> 30:36.188 it was partly because of the loss of the protective magic 30:36.191 --> 30:40.201 which had been supplied by the medieval church. 30:40.200 --> 30:44.120 The Church of England allowed the belief in witchcraft to 30:44.118 --> 30:47.028 continue, but it wouldn't offer 30:47.034 --> 30:52.074 ecclesiastical means of counter-magic and it forbade 30:52.073 --> 30:54.843 people to resort to them. 30:54.838 --> 30:57.848 If that was the case, then bringing a legal 30:57.849 --> 31:01.079 accusation, a trial, and eventually seeking an 31:01.076 --> 31:05.016 execution would be the only way out of the impasse. 31:05.019 --> 31:08.389 A second part of their explanation is that the reason 31:08.392 --> 31:12.482 for so many late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century trials 31:12.477 --> 31:16.497 was that because that period was one of unusual tensions within 31:16.498 --> 31:19.528 village society, within neighborhoods. 31:19.528 --> 31:22.238 It was a period, as we know, of economic 31:22.243 --> 31:24.823 distress, one which saw a declining 31:24.824 --> 31:28.244 position for the poor, especially perhaps the elderly 31:28.240 --> 31:31.510 and marginal poor, the widowed and so forth. 31:31.509 --> 31:36.129 The Poor Laws had not yet been fully put into effect to provide 31:36.127 --> 31:37.467 for such people. 31:37.470 --> 31:41.330 Neighbors who themselves were feeling the pinch might be less 31:41.330 --> 31:44.420 willing to show charity, less willing to help. 31:44.420 --> 31:46.200 They might feel uncomfortable about that. 31:46.200 --> 31:49.120 They might feel rather guilty about that. 31:49.118 --> 31:52.588 That might prey on their minds and make them sensitive to 31:52.592 --> 31:56.192 misfortunes which they saw as the revenge of people to whom 31:56.189 --> 32:00.319 they had refused charity, people who had perhaps cursed 32:00.319 --> 32:00.789 them. 32:00.788 --> 32:03.808 Accusing such a person of witchcraft was a way of severing 32:03.807 --> 32:07.777 their responsibility, assuaging their feeling of 32:07.781 --> 32:12.461 guilt, transferring it to the accused witch. 32:12.460 --> 32:17.330 Well, all of this is an ingenious explanation, 32:17.328 --> 32:22.108 which may well hold a great deal of truth and it's indeed 32:22.107 --> 32:27.477 widely accepted as an account of the sociology and psychology of 32:27.483 --> 32:28.853 accusations. 32:28.848 --> 32:32.718 Recently, that explanation of Thomas and Macfarlane has been 32:32.724 --> 32:36.404 elaborated by more focus upon the fact that most of those 32:36.403 --> 32:39.493 accused of witchcraft were of course women. 32:39.490 --> 32:42.420 The tensions within neighborhoods seemed to have 32:42.417 --> 32:46.217 come to focus upon punitive action against women above all. 32:46.220 --> 32:48.340 Why was that? 32:48.338 --> 32:52.468 Thomas and Macfarlane suggest that it was simply a product of 32:52.474 --> 32:56.274 the fact that most of the economically marginal and most 32:56.266 --> 32:59.916 of the aged in particular were indeed poor women. 32:59.920 --> 33:03.000 Some feminist writers see it as more sinister, 33:03.000 --> 33:07.180 as constituting an attack upon women who, 33:07.180 --> 33:10.710 by their social situation, or perhaps their aggressive 33:10.714 --> 33:13.704 personalities, stood outside the normal 33:13.704 --> 33:16.724 controls of the patriarchal household. 33:16.720 --> 33:22.250 It's an important issue, but one has to pause, 33:22.250 --> 33:25.710 I think, before jumping to the conclusion that witch hunting 33:25.711 --> 33:28.411 was in effect a form of repression of women. 33:28.410 --> 33:33.020 Certainly, it was the case that the association of witchcraft 33:33.016 --> 33:36.486 with women specifically, which was universal, 33:36.493 --> 33:40.153 derived in large part from fundamentally misogynistic 33:40.145 --> 33:41.055 attitudes. 33:41.058 --> 33:43.808 Women were seen as being morally weaker, 33:43.807 --> 33:47.747 as more prone to temptation, as more likely to use occult 33:47.753 --> 33:51.493 means to revenge themselves upon their neighbors; 33:51.490 --> 33:54.040 spells were the weapons of the weak. 33:54.038 --> 33:58.298 However, witchcraft prosecutions were not simply a 33:58.303 --> 34:02.313 patriarchal drive against marginal, aggressive, 34:02.305 --> 34:04.475 or troublesome women. 34:04.480 --> 34:08.930 The magistrates who heard the cases were men but the accusers 34:08.934 --> 34:11.984 themselves were very often other women. 34:11.980 --> 34:15.260 The work of James Sharpe reveals how many of the 34:15.259 --> 34:18.819 suspicions that led to accusations actually arose in 34:18.818 --> 34:21.538 the female spheres of village life; 34:21.539 --> 34:24.259 they were often initiated by other women. 34:24.260 --> 34:28.190 Women themselves felt threatened by witchcraft and 34:28.188 --> 34:31.958 were deeply involved in identifying and accusing 34:31.956 --> 34:32.916 witches. 34:32.920 --> 34:38.450 And on the other hand many of the juries, universally male, 34:38.445 --> 34:43.015 who heard these cases, failed to believe them. 34:43.018 --> 34:46.678 Many accused witches were acquitted by male juries. 34:46.679 --> 34:49.739 The gender element then is clearly there, 34:49.744 --> 34:53.834 but it's complex; it's paradoxical. 34:53.829 --> 34:58.229 These issues remain far from resolved, but they add further 34:58.226 --> 35:02.616 complexity to any discussion of the sociology of witchcraft 35:02.621 --> 35:03.761 accusation. 35:03.760 --> 35:09.010 There were a number of other problems also to which I need to 35:09.014 --> 35:12.644 draw your attention, problems relating not so much 35:12.643 --> 35:15.653 to the sociology of specific witchcraft accusations, 35:15.650 --> 35:19.620 but to the history of witchcraft as a crime, 35:19.619 --> 35:23.749 and two questions in particular arise in the English case. 35:23.750 --> 35:26.720 First of all, why were the witchcraft 35:26.717 --> 35:29.767 statutes passed in the first place? 35:29.768 --> 35:33.378 And, secondly, once they were passed why did 35:33.382 --> 35:38.762 such an utterly disproportionate number of the cases arise in the 35:38.759 --> 35:40.439 county of Essex? 35:40.440 --> 35:45.110 Essex seems to be wholly unusual so far as one can tell. 35:45.110 --> 35:49.040 If there were neighborhood tensions which were acute in the 35:49.036 --> 35:52.216 county of Essex leading to such accusations, 35:52.219 --> 35:55.639 why were there not such neighborhood tensions in the 35:55.639 --> 35:58.789 counties of Kent or Sussex or Hertfordshire, 35:58.789 --> 36:01.959 all of which were places which had a great deal in common with 36:01.958 --> 36:04.758 Essex in terms of social structure or local economy and 36:04.764 --> 36:05.444 so forth. 36:05.440 --> 36:07.460 Why Essex? 36:07.460 --> 36:11.160 Well, some brief suggestions. 36:11.159 --> 36:13.639 First of all, as regards the laws, 36:13.643 --> 36:18.313 I think it's worth considering that these laws were passed when 36:18.309 --> 36:20.749 they were, perhaps because of a 36:20.746 --> 36:22.506 convergence of two things. 36:22.510 --> 36:25.160 First of all, both of the major witchcraft 36:25.155 --> 36:29.475 statutes in England were passed at the beginning of new regimes, 36:29.480 --> 36:32.570 one in Elizabeth's second Parliament, 36:32.570 --> 36:37.670 one in the first Parliament of King James VI and I. 36:37.670 --> 36:40.610 It makes one wonder whether there was an element in this 36:40.606 --> 36:45.026 legislation of symbolism; that acts on this subject were 36:45.025 --> 36:50.875 passed perhaps as part of the propaganda of a new regime, 36:50.880 --> 36:55.590 that passing statutes of this nature in a sense conferred 36:55.588 --> 37:00.038 legitimacy on new regimes by showing their firm stance 37:00.043 --> 37:04.253 against a particularly symbolically charged form of 37:04.248 --> 37:05.508 deviance. 37:05.510 --> 37:10.750 To be opposed to witchcraft was in a sense a declaration of 37:10.753 --> 37:11.933 legitimacy. 37:11.929 --> 37:15.799 The acts may have had then a certain symbolic function when 37:15.804 --> 37:19.414 they were passed through Parliament, without opposition 37:19.411 --> 37:21.151 so far as we can tell. 37:21.150 --> 37:24.630 Secondly, another element of the timing of the acts is the 37:24.628 --> 37:27.798 fact that there may have been an element of political 37:27.802 --> 37:31.252 contingency, specifically in the form of 37:31.248 --> 37:35.528 suspected threats to the person of the monarch. 37:35.530 --> 37:39.960 In 1561, two years before the 1563 act was brought forward, 37:39.956 --> 37:44.226 a plot had been discovered in which sorcery was allegedly 37:44.231 --> 37:46.751 being used against Elizabeth. 37:46.750 --> 37:49.380 William Cecil was horrified to find, when the plot was 37:49.382 --> 37:52.172 uncovered, that there was actually nothing on the statute 37:52.166 --> 37:53.306 book forbidding it. 37:53.309 --> 37:56.699 This may have been a contingent political reason for moving 37:56.695 --> 37:58.675 ahead with a witchcraft statute. 37:58.679 --> 38:01.949 It may have persuaded him to go along with one or two of the 38:01.954 --> 38:05.234 bishops who were themselves interested in having legislation 38:05.230 --> 38:06.230 on this issue. 38:06.230 --> 38:09.750 That's an interpretation, then, which might be 38:09.746 --> 38:14.276 particularly relevant to the passage of the 1563 act though 38:14.278 --> 38:18.658 the full details of its passage through Parliament remain 38:18.655 --> 38:22.425 unknown; the documentation is too poor. 38:22.429 --> 38:25.409 The act of 1604 is a lot clearer. 38:25.409 --> 38:30.069 Following the accession of James VI of Scotland as James I 38:30.065 --> 38:33.235 of England, he was a man with a profound 38:33.242 --> 38:36.322 interest in witchcraft, he'd written a book about it on 38:36.324 --> 38:38.494 the subject in-- he'd written a book about the 38:38.492 --> 38:41.892 subject in Scotland-- following his accession and the 38:41.887 --> 38:45.317 union of crowns, the witchcraft statutes of both 38:45.315 --> 38:48.845 England and Scotland were overhauled and revised by a 38:48.851 --> 38:51.231 committee of judges and bishops. 38:51.230 --> 38:53.860 This again may have been a symbolic act. 38:53.860 --> 38:55.320 They decided to do it then. 38:55.320 --> 38:56.090 Why then? 38:56.090 --> 39:00.550 It's a new regime and a new act was passed in Scotland at the 39:00.547 --> 39:01.437 same time. 39:01.440 --> 39:05.410 It may have been helped along again by the fact that in 1604 39:05.405 --> 39:08.895 there was a particularly notorious witchcraft case in 39:08.902 --> 39:12.212 London itself, which may have drawn attention 39:12.206 --> 39:14.026 to the problem once again. 39:14.030 --> 39:18.800 So what I'm suggesting is that these acts of Parliament were 39:18.798 --> 39:22.518 essentially introduced as legitimizing symbols: 39:22.518 --> 39:27.448 good and godly laws introduced by good and godly regimes. 39:27.449 --> 39:31.279 Yet there's no evidence that the authorities that put them on 39:31.277 --> 39:34.337 the statute book actually wanted a witch hunt. 39:34.340 --> 39:37.490 If they'd wanted one, they could have had one. 39:37.489 --> 39:39.489 But they didn't. 39:39.489 --> 39:44.139 What they did was to make witchcraft prosecutions possible 39:44.141 --> 39:48.111 in the royal courts-- and to that extent the 39:48.112 --> 39:53.252 political and ecclesiastical elite had a bigger role in 39:53.248 --> 39:59.148 making possible the prosecutions which took place than is often 39:59.146 --> 40:00.666 recognized. 40:00.670 --> 40:05.640 So one can perhaps explain why the acts were put on the statute 40:05.643 --> 40:09.663 book in that kind of way, but that still leaves the 40:09.655 --> 40:11.335 problem of Essex. 40:11.340 --> 40:13.840 Why Essex? 40:13.840 --> 40:19.010 Is it possible that Essex as a local society was peculiarly 40:19.005 --> 40:22.565 conscious of the threat of witchcraft? 40:22.570 --> 40:25.610 But why should that be so? 40:25.610 --> 40:29.390 It's quite clear that people might feel threatened by 40:29.391 --> 40:32.521 maleficium in any part of England. 40:32.518 --> 40:37.718 Why should they act against it so much more in the county of 40:37.724 --> 40:38.434 Essex? 40:38.429 --> 40:43.479 And the only suggestion I can make on that issue is that the 40:43.481 --> 40:48.191 use of the criminal law against witches had had terrible 40:48.190 --> 40:50.160 publicity in Essex. 40:50.159 --> 40:54.919 Essex was unusual in the sense that it saw three causes 40:54.923 --> 40:57.853 celebres, three group trials. 40:57.849 --> 41:00.879 They took place in 1566, only three years after the 41:00.880 --> 41:04.480 passage of Elizabeth's statute; in 1582; 41:04.480 --> 41:07.370 and in 1589. 41:07.369 --> 41:11.339 In each of these cases an initial accusation was 41:11.342 --> 41:15.742 vigorously pursued by local justices of the peace who 41:15.739 --> 41:20.049 happened to have a particular personal concern about 41:20.052 --> 41:21.492 witchcraft. 41:21.489 --> 41:25.369 That meant that instead of just one person going on trial small 41:25.369 --> 41:28.809 groups of women went on trial and these trials were well 41:28.811 --> 41:32.321 publicized in pamphlets which were written about them and 41:32.317 --> 41:34.317 which survive to this day. 41:34.320 --> 41:37.670 You can read them on Early English Books Online. 41:37.670 --> 41:41.720 All of this, then, may have given peculiar 41:41.724 --> 41:47.364 publicity to witchcraft as a threat and what could be done 41:47.364 --> 41:48.654 about it. 41:48.650 --> 41:51.130 One wonders, then, whether a number of 41:51.130 --> 41:55.090 particularly scandalous local cases occurring in this county 41:55.085 --> 41:59.105 had the effect of heightening anxiety about witchcraft within 41:59.108 --> 42:02.248 Essex, enhancing the sense of threat 42:02.246 --> 42:05.776 which people felt, making it more intense than 42:05.775 --> 42:09.605 elsewhere, and of course providing an 42:09.610 --> 42:13.940 object lesson in how to deal with it. 42:13.940 --> 42:18.450 So are we dealing then with a moral panic breaking out within 42:18.452 --> 42:22.742 a particular local society, which subsequently died down in 42:22.740 --> 42:26.800 the seventeenth century until it was artificially revived again 42:26.802 --> 42:29.492 by the activities of Matthew Hopkins, 42:29.489 --> 42:34.989 the Witchfinder General, in 1645? 42:34.989 --> 42:39.269 Ursula Kemp incidentally was one of the women tried in one of 42:39.268 --> 42:41.978 those group trials, the one of 1582. 42:41.980 --> 42:46.570 So to conclude: the whole issue of the history 42:46.574 --> 42:50.084 of witchcraft, why people were so concerned 42:50.083 --> 42:52.623 with it at a particular point in time, 42:52.619 --> 42:56.439 is clearly enormously complex. 42:56.440 --> 43:01.250 But what I'm suggesting is that first, the case of England was 43:01.253 --> 43:06.233 different to a degree from what was going on elsewhere in Europe 43:06.226 --> 43:07.486 at the time. 43:07.489 --> 43:11.349 There were no mass witch hunts to marry popular superstition 43:11.353 --> 43:15.093 and ecclesiastical fantasy in the way one found in various 43:15.085 --> 43:19.445 parts of Europe and in Scotland, Matthew Hopkins excepted. 43:19.449 --> 43:24.159 Secondly, in England witchcraft prosecutions did come up 43:24.164 --> 43:29.144 spontaneously from below and they probably usually arose in 43:29.137 --> 43:34.447 pretty much the way Thomas and Macfarlane and James Sharpe have 43:34.452 --> 43:37.472 suggested, as far as individual cases were 43:37.467 --> 43:40.237 concerned, though it was an accusation 43:40.244 --> 43:45.074 which could also be used for malicious prosecution and was so 43:45.074 --> 43:45.724 used. 43:45.719 --> 43:48.899 But thirdly, these cases could only arise 43:48.900 --> 43:53.830 because of the existence of laws which were perhaps essentially 43:53.831 --> 43:57.411 symbolic and contingent in their origins. 43:57.409 --> 44:01.289 And that once those laws existed, fourthly, 44:01.286 --> 44:04.606 the cases arose only sporadically. 44:04.610 --> 44:08.730 The sense we have of a definite chronological pattern in 44:08.731 --> 44:13.151 witchcraft prosecutions is very heavily influenced as you've 44:13.152 --> 44:15.852 seen by the case of Essex alone. 44:15.849 --> 44:20.409 Essex does seem to have been unique for very special reasons 44:20.411 --> 44:24.821 which we may never be able to do more than to guess at. 44:24.820 --> 44:29.030 Elsewhere in the country cases arose sporadically, 44:29.030 --> 44:31.990 occasionally, no clear pattern beyond the 44:31.992 --> 44:36.442 fact that they were more common in the late sixteenth century 44:36.438 --> 44:37.548 than later. 44:37.550 --> 44:41.140 And finally, there was no English witch hunt 44:41.143 --> 44:46.073 because at the end of the day the authorities in both church 44:46.072 --> 44:48.582 and state didn't want one. 44:48.579 --> 44:52.429 They never felt sufficiently threatened to instigate one 44:52.434 --> 44:55.384 against those they deemed their enemies. 44:55.380 --> 45:01.090 The potential for a witch hunt was there and it long continued. 45:01.090 --> 45:04.240 Village tensions hadn't faded. 45:04.239 --> 45:06.979 The difference of the seventeenth century from the 45:06.980 --> 45:10.000 later sixteenth century was above all that the judicial 45:10.000 --> 45:13.020 authorities not only failed to seek a witch hunt, 45:13.018 --> 45:17.668 but actually became active in suppressing the accusations 45:17.668 --> 45:20.408 which were brought before them. 45:20.409 --> 45:24.969 So then, I suspect that overall both the rise and the fall of 45:24.965 --> 45:29.435 witchcraft prosecution is best explained by the way in which 45:29.443 --> 45:32.333 the law first of all gave people, 45:32.329 --> 45:34.859 and then later took away from them, 45:34.860 --> 45:38.580 the opportunity to settle a particular kind of personal 45:38.577 --> 45:42.497 conflict through the use of the law and the prosecution of 45:42.501 --> 45:44.361 people to their deaths. 45:44.360 --> 45:47.880 The beliefs behind all of that were very ancient and they long 45:47.878 --> 45:50.378 continued, but the history of witchcraft 45:50.382 --> 45:54.072 is very much to do with the use of the criminal law in the way 45:54.070 --> 45:55.160 I've described. 45:55.159 --> 45:59.069 The crucial issue was perhaps that for a short while, 45:59.070 --> 46:02.780 for two generations, there was indeed a conjunction 46:02.780 --> 46:06.420 of long-standing patterns of popular belief with a 46:06.418 --> 46:11.018 shorter-term enhancement of the anxieties and the credulousness 46:11.018 --> 46:12.428 of the elite. 46:12.429 --> 46:16.759 It was they who passed the laws that made witchcraft trials 46:16.757 --> 46:17.577 possible. 46:17.579 --> 46:20.819 They later repented of their folly. 46:20.820 --> 46:26.210 They avoided the enforcement of those laws and eventually, 46:26.211 --> 46:29.051 in 1736, they repealed them. 46:29.050 --> 46:32.900 But that, of course, was about 150 years too late 46:32.896 --> 46:34.336 for Ursula Kemp. 46:34.340 --> 46:40.000