A contemporary narrative of the proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler, prosecuted for sorcery in 1324, by Richard de Ledrede, bishop of Ossory / edited by Thomas Wright.

Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A contemporary narrative of the proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler, prosecuted for sorcery in 1324, by Richard de Ledrede, bishop of Ossory / edited by Thomas Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/120 (page 3)
    , times. The secular laws considered witcheraft as a crime so far as it was supposed to be a means of inflieting personal injury, and coupled it with murder. Thus in the laws of Edward and Guthrun,* « If witches or di- viners, perjurers, or znorth-workers, or foul, defiled, notorious adulteresses, be found anywhere within the land ; let them be driven from the country and the people cleansed, or let them totally perish within the country, unless they desist, and the more deeply make 50/. In those of king JEthelstan,t * And we have ordained respecting withcerafts and lyblacs and morth-deds: 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 the threefold ordeal shall be guilty, that he be cxx. days in prison: and after that let his kindred take him out, and give to the king cxx. shillings, and pay the wér to his kindred, and enter into borA for him, that he evermore desist from the like. This enactment is repeated in the laws of king Ethelred, and in those of Cnut.[ The latter adds, * and we earnestly forbid every heathenism. Heathenism is, that men worship idols ; that is, that they worship heathen gods, and the sun or moon, fire or rivers, water-wells or stones, or forest- trees of any kind ; or love witch-craft, or promote morth-work in anywise ; or by blot, or fyrht, or perform anything pertaining to such illusions. Remarkable instances of Anglo-Saxon witcheraft proceedings will be found in the Life of Hereward, which was published from a manuscript at Cambridge by the editor of the present volume. S In the twelfth century we find in England as elsewhere the belief in witcheraft widely developed. Already, at this early period, we meet with allusions to the witches' sabbaths, or great assemblies. John of Salisbury speaks of the popular belief in a spirit named Herodias, who called together the witches to meetings by night, where they had feasting, and all kinds of mummery ; different individuals exercising different ministeries and occu- pations, some being punished for offences and others rewarded for their deserts, with other more horrible circumstances.| From this time forward * C. 11. Thorpe's Laws, p. 74. T C. 6. ib. p. £6. 1 See ib. pp. 135 and 162. $ See Vit. Hereward. cc. 23, 24, 25, in the Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, Rouen, 1837, vol ii. pp. 68, 70, 75. || Quale est quod nocticulam quandam vel Herodiadem, vel presidem noctis domi-