In a recently aired Channel 4 documentary the actress Suranne Jones goes on a journey to discover the origin of the persecution of women accused of being witches. She explores why so many women in history were accused of, and executed for witchcraft, and what the implications these events reveal today about a woman’s place in contemporary society
Suranne began her journey in Lancashire and in particular the Pendle Hill area where the most famous English witch trials were held. It began on 21st of March 1612 when an Alizon Device meets Jon Law who is a peddler selling pins which he refuses to sell to her. She curses him under her breath, and he subsequently becomes paralysed, most likely from natural causes, such as a stroke. There begins a convoluted tale of prejudice and religious, cultural and social conflict as a background to why eight women and four men from two extended families were tried and executed as witches in the autumn of 1612.
Lancashire at that time was seen as a lawless and wild county. It was predominantly Catholic which probably offended the devoutly protestant King James I who coincidently, too, had a fear of witches. The accused Pendle witches were almost certainly innocent of their crimes but were vulnerable to false accusations because of their age, religion and social status that made them easy scapegoats in an anti-witch, anti-Catholic and possibly an anti-Northern narrative.
With that backdrop, Alizon Device’s fate was sealed when, probably with a feeling of unnecessary guilt, but with good intentions, she went to see John Law to apologize for any harm she may have caused him. This implication of guilt was brought to the attention of the local magistrate, Roger Nowell of Read Hall, who, with the intention of placating and impressing his sovereign, decided to pursue an investigation into the matter when a complaint was made by John Law’s family who claimed he had been injured by witchcraft.
Not only was Alizon accused of practicing witchcraft but also her extended family members when they unfortunately held a party on Good Friday of that year when other folk were attending church. Their Good Friday festivities were conveniently interpreted as satanic worship, and alongside their practise as traditional healers, using a mixture of herbal medicine and talismans or charms they were easy targets open to charges of sorcery.
The Pendle witch trials began on the 18th of August 1612 and were accurately recorded by the clerk to the court, Thomas Potts, and written up by him later in his “The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster”. He describes how the most damming evidence as to the guilt of the accused was given by Jennet Device, aged nine, who testified against her own mother, brother and sister, but possibly under duress by the presiding magistrate, Roger Nowell, to confess with the promise of leniency and freedom.
After only a two-day trial, nine of the accused, Alizon Device, Elizabeth Device, James Device, Anne Whittle, Anne Redferne, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, John Bulcock and Jane Bulcock were found guilty and hanged at Gallows Hill in Lancaster on 20 August 1612. The fact that most of the condemned were women is testament to the fact that misogyny was rife, and patriarchy was dominant in English society at the time.
This was none the less true than in Bamber, Germany between 1626 and 1632 where 900 women were accused, tried and executed as witches probably because the little ice age, which occurred in the region at the same time, was blamed on the devil and by association witches. A powerful endorsement of this attitude at the time was attributed to the publication of the book “Malleus Maleficarum” by Henrich Kramer in 1486 in which he expressed bizarre views on witchcraft, witches and women. Essentially Kramer blamed all women for the evils of the world, the little ice age in Germany being no exception, because he wrote all women were unique in their ability to become witches. It was widely read and probably many believed its dubious propaganda.
A firm precedent, and enduring stereotypical image of the female witch clutching a broomstick is the print “Witch riding backwards on a goat” by Albrecht Dürer (1501) which reflected the obsession with witchcraft in Germany at the time. Witchcraft was thought to reverse the natural order of things and in the print the hair of the witch flows out in one direction while the movement of the goat in the other.
Suranne’s last study was of the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. Three Salem women, Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne and Titiba (a black woman), were accused of witchcraft when two young girls, Betty Parris (9), Abigail Williams (11), became delirious, and their condition was diagnosed by a doctor as the work of evil hands. The three accused were unconventional personalities living in a strictly religious, conservative patriarchal community, where even singing and dancing was reviled and where women had no rights. The overall prevailing Puritan belief at the time in this part of colonial Massachusetts was that women were inherently sinful and more susceptible to damnation than men.
In that cultural setting, when Titiba confessed, paranoia and mass hysteria broke out and many new accusations were made of women who were alleged to be witches. Consequently, between February 1992 and May 1693 more than 156 people were accused of witchcraft and fourteen women and five men were executed. Controversially the court admitted damning spectral evidence to the proceedings in which witnesses claimed that the accused appeared to them and did them malevolent harm in their dreams or in a vision. In addition, some of the accused were stripped naked to look for marks on their body which were then interpreted as marks having been left by the Devil after he had sucked their blood.
In the documentary Suranne Jones’s thesis is that these witch trials have created a legend which lingers and have distorted attitudes towards women which still prevails and is reflected in many aspects of contemporary society today.
She gives examples of moral panic such as McCarthyism of the 1950’s, feminists such as Laura Bates experiencing on-line vilification of hate and misogyny solely because she is a woman and in rape trials there are few convictions because in the end it is the man’s word against that of the woman.
While interesting, Suranne Jones’s conclusions lack coherence and are almost thrown together randomly. Despite that her documentaries are another insight into how women were demonised in the past and perhaps the clichéd first image of a witch that comes to mind is that of a woman riding on a broomstick is an indication about how attitudes are still prevalent in society today.
“Witch riding backwards on a goat” by Albrecht Dürer (1501)
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