Witchcraft, women's honour and customary law in early modern Wales ∗

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes ∗I wish to extend heartfelt thanks to Keith Wrightson for his enthusiasm, effort, insight and unqualified ongoing support. With deep appreciation, I acknowledge the input of Huw Pryce and Rees Davies (Vale, 16 May 2005), Geraint H. Jenkins and Richard Suggett for their time, comments, encouragement and intellectual support. 1Held at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, the records of the Courts of Great Sessions provide a framework for analysing witchcraft, specifically from 1536, from the first Act of Union between England and Wales, to 1736, when the Witchcraft Act of 1604 was rescinded. 2Roger B. Manning, Village Revolts, Social Protest and Popular Disturbances in England, 1509–1640 (Oxford, 1988), 319. 3 Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru. A Dictionary of the Welsh Language (Cardiff, 1968–, ongoing) cites the use of these terms in the written work of William Salesbury, Kynniver Llith a Ban (1551); Robert Holland, Agoriad byrr ar Weddi'r Arglywdd (1677); and Edward Lhud, Archaelogica Britannica (1707). 4Thomas Gwynn Jones, Welsh Folklore and Folk-Custom (London, 1930), 125. 5William Salesbury, A Dictionary in Englyshe and Welsh (London, 1547). 6Richard Suggett, ‘Some Aspects of Village Life in Eighteenth Century Glamorgan’ (B.Litt., Oxon., 1976), 200. 7 Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, op. cit., cites the earliest written date as 1514. 8 ibid., cites William Salesbury, Kynniver Llith a Ban (1551). 9Richard Suggett, ‘Witchcraft dynamics in early modern Wales’ in Michael Roberts and Simone Clarke (eds), Women and Gender in Early Modern Wales (Cardiff, 2000), 84. 10 Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, op. cit. William Salesbury cited the term wits as referring to women who were evil. 11Sally Parkin, ‘Women, Witchcraft and the Law in Early Modern Wales (1536–1736): A Continuation of Customary Practice’ (Ph.D., University of New England, 2002), Appendix i, 314–27, and Appendix ii, 328–60. 12 Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, op. cit., citing William Salesbury, Testament Newydd ein Arglwydd Jesv Christ (1567) using the terms consriwr, consurwr, consierwr, consurwyr meaning conjuror or conjurer. 13Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1991), 209–10, 295–6, 219–20, 316–18, 323–4, 271–2; Owen Davies, Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 1736–1951 (Manchester, 1999), 214–70. 14Christina Larner, Enemies of God. The Witch-hunt in Scotland (London, 1981), 91–2; James Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness. Witchcraft in England 1550–1750 (London, 1997), 114; Francisco Bethencourt, ‘Portugal: a scrupulous inquisition’ in Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen (eds), Early Modern Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries (Clarendon, 1990), 407–9; Ruth Martin, Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice 1550–1650 (Oxford, 1989), 221; Gabor Klaniczay, ‘Hungary: the accusations and the universe of popular magic’ in Ankarloo and Henningsen (eds), op. cit., 219–55, 222; Stephen Dewar, ‘Witchcraft and the evil eye in Guernsey’, Guernsey Historical Monograph, iii (1968), 3–12; Malcolm McGuinness, ‘Witchcraft Trials and the Influence of Literature: Guernsey’ (unpublished postgraduate paper, University of Exeter), presented at ‘Reading Witchcraft Texts, Idioms, Vocabularies’ conference, History Department, University of Wales, Swansea, 9–11 September 1998. 15Sharpe, op. cit.; Robin Briggs, Witches and Neighbors. The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft (New York, 1996). 16Robert Muchembled, ‘The witches of the Cambrensis: the acculturation of the rural world in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’ in James Obelkevich (ed.), Religion and the People 800–1700 (Chapel Hill, 1979), 221–76. 17Cases of Gwen verch Ellis, NLW, Great Sessions 4/9/4/10 NLW Denbigh Gaol Files (1594) Great Sessions for Denbigh; Katherine Rees, NLW, Great Sessions 4/886/15 Great Sessions for Cardigan (1693); Dorothy Griffiths, NLW, Great Sessions 4/985/2/1 Great Sessions for Flint (1655–6); Margaret David/Maggie Hier, NLW, Great Sessions 4/719/2/49 NLW Great Sessions for Carmarthen (1656); Katherine Lewis, NLW, Great Sessions 33/6/5, the testimony of Richard Browning, who gives this information concerning Katherine Lewis. 18Social positions of women accused as witches in Wales closely resemble those elicited by Joan Kent, ‘The rural “middling sort” in early modern England, circa 1640–1740: some economic, political and socio-cultural characteristics’, Rural History, x (1999), 1, 19–54, at 22; Malcolm Gaskill, ‘Witchcraft in early modern Kent: stereotype and the background to accusations’ in Jonathan Barry, Marianne Hester and Gareth Roberts (eds), Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. Studies in Culture and Belief (Cambridge, 1996), 257–87, 263–6, 271, 277, 283; Annabel Gregory, ‘Witchcraft, politics and “good neighbourhood” in early seventeenth-century Rye’, Past and Present, cxxxiii (1991), 31–66, 33–5 and 37; Bengt Ankarloo, ‘Sweden: the mass burnings (1668–1676)’ in Ankarloo and Henningsen (eds), op. cit., 310–12; P. G. Maxwell-Stuart, ‘The fear of the King is death: James VI and the witches of East Lothian’ in William G. Naphy and Penny Roberts (eds), Fear in Early Modern Society (Manchester, 1997), 209–25. 19Evidence which implied that the woman slandered as a witch could transform her shape came from a Montgomery case in 1650/1 when Jane Meredith brought a case for an unspecified amount of damages against Joan Miris. Joan had said: ‘Allan a thi am ty i witch, di a withiest dy ew (ythr) oi haner i wared, mi a wel (aist) dy yn dwad mewn trwy dwll y klo dair gwaith me bedair’ or ‘Out of my house witch, thou didst bewitch thy uncle from ye mydle downward; I saw thee coming through a hole in ye lock three or foure times’: NLW, Great Sessions 13/16 Great Sessions for Montgomery (1650/1). 20Gwen verch Ellis, NLW, Great Sessions 4/9/4/13. NLW Denbigh Gaol Files (1594) Great Sessions for Denbigh. Margaret verch Richard, NLW, Great Sessions 16/7 Great Sessions for Anglesey (1655). 21Evidenced in cases for Durham, Devon and Cornwall. For the situation elsewhere see Helena Kennedy, Eve was Framed: Women and British Justice (London, 1992), 25; Peter Rushton, ‘Women, witchcraft and slander in early modern England: cases from the church courts at Durham, 1560–1675’, Northern History, xviii (1982), 116–32; Janet Thompson, Wives, Widows, Witches and Bitches. Women in Seventeenth Century Devon (New York, 1993), 81–101; Martin Ingram, Church Courts, Sex and Marriage, 1570–1640 (Cambridge, 1987), 2; Bryan Wilson, Religion in Sociological Perspectives (Oxford, 1992), 59. 22Henry Charles Lea, Materials Towards a History of Witchcraft (New York, 1957), vol. 3, 1306. 23Dafydd Jenkins, The Law of Hywel Dda. Law Texts from Medieval Wales (Dyfed, 1986), xviii. 24The British Library, Additional mss 22356. 25D. Jenkins, op. cit., xxi. 26 ibid., xxx–xxxiii. 27Gwyn Alf Williams, When Was Wales? A History of the Welsh (Harmondsworth, 1991), 8. 28E. Ro(w)land Williams, Some Studies in Elizabethan Wales (Newtown, 1924), 26. 29Glyn Parry, A Guide to the Records of Great Sessions in Wales (Aberystwyth, 1995), xxxii–xxxiii; Hugh Thomas, A History of Wales 1485–1660 (Cardiff, 1972), 63. 30R. R. Davies, ‘The survival of the bloodfeud in medieval Wales’, History, liv (1969), 344. 31 ibid., 354. 32David Walker, Medieval Wales (Cambridge, 1990), 144–9, quote at 147 and Gwyn A. Williams, op. cit., 75. 33Concept from a review of European legal customs in Anne Llewellyn Barstow, Witchcraze. A New History of the European Witch Hunts (San Francisco, 1995), 32. 34See D. Jenkins, op. cit., and Dafydd Jenkins and Morfydd E. Owen (eds), The Welsh Law of Women (Cardiff, 1980). 35Davies, op. cit., 21. 36Morfydd E. Owen, ‘Shame and reparation: women's place in the kin’ in Jenkins and Owen, op. cit., 42–4. 37Richard F. Suggett, An Analysis and Calendar of Early Modern Welsh Defamation Suits (unpublished), vol. 1; NLW, Facs 721, ii. 38Owen M. Edwards, The Story of the Nations (London, 1901), 333 and Thomas, op. cit., 64. 39NLW, Great Sessions 13/6 Great Sessions for Denbigh (1604) Sessions for Denbigh, 23 April, 2 James I. 40NLW, Great Sessions 21/104, m. 18a. 41NLW, Great Sessions 21/104, m. 8a. 42NLW, Great Sessions P. 680 Great Sessions for Denbigh (1673) Sessions for …?, April, 25 Charles II. 43NLW, Great Sessions P. 720 Great Sessions for Denbigh (1684) Sessions for …?, March, 36 Charles II. 44NLW, Great Sessions 13/29-1 Great Sessions for Pembroke (1634) Sessions for Haverfordwest, 14 September, 10 Charles I. 45 ibid. 46NLW, Great Sessions 13/45-1 Great Sessions for Flint (1635) Sessions for Flint, 19 October, 11 Charles I. 47NLW, Great Sessions P. 358 Great Sessions for Flint (1677) Sessions for Flint, 8 October, 29 Charles II. 48NLW, Great Sessions 13/41-1 Great Sessions for Flint (1610–11) Sessions for Hawarden, 1 October, 8 James I. 49NLW, Great Sessions P. 324 Great Sessions for Flint (1660) Sessions for …?, 10 September, 12 Charles II. 50NLW, Great Sessions P.336 Great Sessions for Flint (1666) Sessions for Flint, 13 August, 18 Charles II. 51NLW, Great Sessions 13/15 Great Sessions for Montgomery (1648) Session for Welshpool, 16 October, 24 Charles I. 52NLW, Great Sessions 13/16 Great Sessions for Montgomery (1650/1) Sessions for …?, 17 March 1650/1. 53It has to be assumed that there was one initially as the case would have begun in the quarter sessions and moved to the Great Sessions if compensation of over 40 shillings was requested. Both of these cases were, however, very late in the early modern period – 1712 and, particularly, 1783. 54NLW, Great Sessions P. 755 Great Sessions for Denbigh (1712) Sessions for Denbigh, 22 September, 11 Anne. 55NLW, Great Sessions 13/14 Great Sessions for Montgomery (1635) Sessions for Welshpool, 20 April, 11 Charles I. 56NLW, Great Sessions 13/14 Great Sessions for Montgomery (1636) Sessions for Montgomery, 24 October, 12 Charles I. 57If a woman's husband had been wayward on more than three occasions, in the eyes of the community, and if the woman stayed with her husband, her loss of status was enormous as she was seen as accepting rather than dealing with the insult. The community expected the woman to assert her rights and leave her husband as she had the legally recognized financial ability to survive on her own: see Jenkins, op. cit., 46. Under Welsh law, a woman could injure or kill her husband's cywyras or mistress with her two hands and remain free without having to pay compensation to the mistress's kin. See Christopher McAll, ‘The normal paradigms of a woman's life in the Irish and Welsh texts’ in Jenkins and Owen op. cit., 20–1. 58R. F. Suggett, ‘Slander in early modern Wales’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, xxxix (1992), 124. 59 ibid., 124–5. 60NLW Wales 4/985/2/18-19 Great Sessions for Flint (1655–6) Dorothy Griffith of Picton. 61NLW Wales 4/789/4 Great Sessions for Pembroke (1655) Golly Lullock of Haverfordwest; NLW Wales 4/719/2/48-55 Great Sessions for Carmarthen (1656) Gwenllian David or Lys Hier of Llangadock and Margaret David or Maggie Hier of Llangadock. 62 ibid. The bill of indictment against Gwenllian Hier was declared Ignoramus and that against Margaret Hier was declared true endorsed and supported by fourteen witnesses but she was released. 63NLW Wales 4/985/5 Great Sessions for Flint (1657) Anne Ellis of Penley (particularly f. 23). 64NLW Wales 33/6/5-6 (1607) Great Sessions for Pembroke (1607) Katherine Lewis of Gumfreston or Katherine Bowen of Tenby at Pembroke. 65NLW Wales 4/886/15 (1693) NLW Gaol files for Aberteifi, Cardigan Gaol File (1693) the case of Katherine or Catherine Rees. (The ‘K’ and ‘C’ are interchangeable but ‘C’ remains the most commonly used spelling of her name throughout the text.) 66NLW Wales 16/7 Great Sessions for Anglesey (1655) Margaret verch Richard of Beaumaris. Margaret verch Richard was executed for witchcraft practices. 67NLW, Great Sessions 4/9/4/10-15 NLW Denbigh Gaol Files (1594) Great Sessions for Denbigh, 36 Elizabeth. See Suggett, ‘Witchcraft dynamics’, op. cit., 85–6. Transcriptions of this case do not specifically state the actual outcome of Gwen's case. Gwen was tried under the Witchcraft Act of Elizabeth I (5 Eliz.cap.16), not the 1604 Witchcraft Act of James I. In the 1562 Act, if maleficia was proved but had not resulted in a death, punishment was one year of imprisonment. If it was proved that a death had resulted from maleficia, the guilty person was executed. The point is, however, that in Welsh cases, even where the woman was proved guilty, execution was not the outcome. 68See Larner, op. cit.; Briggs, op. cit. 69The difficulties some communities faced in achieving reconciliation in any form become very apparent in cases of possession, particularly when the possessed were young people. See J. A. Sharpe, ‘Disruption in the well-ordered household: age, authority, and possessed young people’ in Paul Griffiths, Adam Fox and Steve Hindle (eds), The Experience of Authority in Early Modern England (New York, 1996), 187–212; R. Godbeer, The Devil's Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England (Cambridge, 1996). 70The Welsh bloodfeud resolution process for the death/injury of another through acknowledgement and reconciliation achieved by arbitration and financial compensation: see Davies, op. cit., 338–57 for compensation treaty payments/agreements re paying out of blood debt by the slayer's kin. The emphasis was on preventing inter-kin feud because of its potential for communal disharmony. 71Arbitration was used for settling disputes, reflecting the Welsh emphasis on reconciliation between parties rather than punishment. See Llinos Beverley-Smith, ‘Disputes and settlements in medieval Wales: the role of arbitration’, English Historical Review, ccccxxi (1991), 836–60. 72NLW, Great Sessions 4/985/6/f.17 (1657) NLW Flintshire Gaol Files, examination of Elizabeth Jeffreys of Penley. 73NLW, Great Sessions 4/9/4/12-13 Denbigh Gaol Files (1594) Great Sessions for Denbigh, 36 Elizabeth. 74No evidence for the use of witches' butter as a counter-magical agent has been found for any other witchcraft case-study for the early modern world. The use of witches' butter was referred to initially by Cecil L'Estrange Ewen, Witchcraft and Demonianism (London, 1933), citing NLW, Great Sessions 4/719/2/48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55; Eirlys Gruffydd, ‘Witches’ butter in Wales’, Bulletin of the British Mycological Society, xix, 1 (1985), 63–5. 75Welsh people also used bottles as counter-magical tools, but not generally as part of a malefice or bewitchment process. Bottles were used to hold items which protected the owner of the bottle: iron filings, sealed in lead, or a charm paper. Witches' bottles in Wales were used mainly to counteract bewitchment rather than to engage in malefice; the importance of the bottle was as a container for charm papers. See W. Ll. Davies, ‘The conjuror in Montgomeryshire’, Collections Historical and Archeaological Relating to Montgomeryshire, xlv (1937–8), 159; Thomas Gwynn Jones, op. cit., 141; Elias Owen, ‘Folk-lore, superstitions, or what-not, in Montgomeryshire and elsewhere’, Montgomeryshire Collections, xvi (1883), 153. 76Anon, ‘White chalk ornamentation on the flags before doorways’, Addenda B, Archaeologia Cambrensis, lxxx, seventh series, v (1925), 120; Hope Hewett, Walking through Merioneth (Newtown, n.d.), 62; Eurwyn Wiliam, ‘To keep the devil at bay’, Country Quest, xv, 12 (1975), 34–6; Thomas Gwynn Jones, op. cit., 176. 77Eurwyn Wiliam, ‘The protection of the house: some iconographic evidence from Wales’, Folklore, lxxxix, ii (1978), 130–2; Thomas Gwynn Jones, op. cit., 177. 78Francis Jones, The Holy Wells of Wales (Cardiff, 1992), 12; Elias Owen, ‘Holy wells, or water-veneration’, Archaeologia Cambrensis, viii, fifth series (1891), 8–9; Ifan ab Owen Edwards, A Catalogue of Star Chamber Proceedings Relating to Wales, i (Cardiff, 1929), 125. 79Iowerth C. Peate, Guide to the Collection of Welsh Bygones (Cardiff, 1929), 60; E. S. Hartland, ‘Pin-wells and rag-bushes’, Folklore (1893), 58–9; D. Edmondes Owen ‘Pre-reformation survivals in Radnorshire’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1910–11), 106. 80Dafydd G. Ifan, ‘Witches’ grave on the banks of a Welsh lake', Country Quest, May (1987), 9; W. J. Hemp, ‘Two cairns’, Transactions of the Caernarvonshire Historical Society, v (1944), 101–2; O. M. Edwards, Yr Hwiangerdii (1911), 72; Frank Ward, Lakes of Wales (1931); Revd Jonathan Williams, The History of Radnorshire (Tenby, 1859) or Edwin Davies (ed.), A General History of the County of Radnor (Brecknock, 1905), 168. 81‘Brecon and Radnor Notes’, Hereford Times, 26 November 1910; Ella M. Leather, ‘Radnorshire’, Folklore, i (1913), 110; Thomas Richard Phillips (ed.), The Breconshire Border between the Wye and Usk, with Notes, including a First Flora of Breconshire (Talgarth, 1926), 103; E. and M. A. Radford, Superstitions of the Countryside (London, 1975), 58; Miranda Green, ‘The symbolic horse in pagan Celtic Europe: an archaeological perspective’ in Sioned Davies and Nerys Ann Jones (eds), The Horse in Celtic Culture (Cardiff, 1997), 1–22, especially 3–6; R. J. Moore-Colyer, ‘On the ritual burial of horses in Britain’, Folk Life Journal of Ethnological Studies, xxxii (1993–4), 62. 82NLW, Great Sessions 4/985/5/f. 22v, examination of Elizabeth Jeffreys of Penley, evidence against Anne Ellis. NLW, Great Sessions 4/985/5 Great Sessions for Flint (1657). 83Bodleian Library mss Ashmole 1815 f. r.–v. Letter written in February 1693/4 by John Edwards, then a justice of the peace for Pembroke, to Alexander Forde, his Archdeacon at Jesus College, detailing the case of Olly Powell. See NLW, Great Sessions 33/6/6 (1607) Great Session for Pembroke, Katherine Lewis of Gumfreston. 84Charm papers were used as personal protective devices but the actual papers had to be created by a conjuror and were considered as a communal protective mechanism. 86NLW, Great Sessions 4/985/2/18. 85NLW, Great Sessions 4/985/2/18-19 Great Sessions for Flint (1655–6). 87NLW, Great Sessions 4/719/2/48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55 Great Sessions for Carmarthen (1656). 88NLW, Great Sessions 4/719/2/52. 89That is, she was a spinner of yarn ‘as illustrated by the metamorphosis of the term “spinster”, from one who spins to an unmarried woman’: see Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, ‘“The hidden investment”: women and the enterprise’ in Pamela Sharpe (ed.), Women's Work. The English Experience 1650–1914 (London, 1998), 240. 90NLW, Great Sessions 33/6/5-6 Great Session for Pembroke (1607) Katherine Lewis of Gumfreston. 91NLW, Great Sessions 33/6/5. 92Bodleian Library mss Ashmole 1815 f. r.–v., op. cit. 93 ibid., 1. 94NLW, Great Sessions 4/9/4/13-14 (1594). 95NLW, Great Sessions 4/9/4/14. 96NLW, Great Sessions 4/9/4/14. 97A. H. Reginald Buller, Researches on Fungi, ii (New York, 1958), 156–63. 98NLW, Great Sessions for Carmarthen, 4/719/2/48-55. Case of Gwenllian David/Lys Hier and her daughter Margaret David/Maggie Hier, both of Llangadock (1657). 100NLW, Great Sessions 4/719/2/53 Great Sessions for Carmarthen (1656). 99NLW, Great Sessions 4/719/2/52 Great Sessions for Carmarthen (1656). 101NLW, Great Sessions 4/719/2/53 Great Sessions for Carmarthen (1656). Great Sessions 4/719/2/52 Great Sessions for Carmarthen (1656). Great Sessions 4/985/5/f. Great Sessions 4/985/5 Great Sessions for Flint (1657). and M. A. Radford, op. cit., Witchcraft in and New England (New York, 1929), ibid., 1. Library mss Ashmole 1815 f. r.–v., op. cit. Great Sessions 33/6/6 Great Session for Pembroke (1607) Katherine Lewis of Gumfreston. H. Jenkins, The of Modern Wales and 1987), Thomas Gwynn Jones, op. cit., John Celtic Folklore Welsh and i (Oxford, 1901), Owen Davies, in England and Wales the and Rural History, viii, 1 Elias Owen, Welsh A Collection of the and of Wales 1976), H. Jenkins, op. cit., to in this work as as it is the in R. and Montgomeryshire Collections, in was also very The of the in this was John Roberts who was also a and who from to Some be found who in Robert Williams, of the of Montgomeryshire Collections, role of in Wales was to the role by witch and in other early modern See Robin Briggs, of Cultural and Social in Early Modern (Oxford, 1989), C. ‘The and his Folk C. in her witchcraft and in Journal of Social History, a and witchcraft in in in and (eds), Witchcraft in the to (The 1990), Great Sessions testimony of Richard in the case against Katherine Rees, Great Sessions for Cardigan J. A. Sharpe, ‘The people and the in B. 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