But Waristoun spake a word in jest:
Her answer was not good;
And he has thrown a plate at her,
Made her mouth gush with bluid.80
Jean’s attempt to escape her predicament by plotting and then helping to put into effect her husband’s murder met with no sympathy from the elite. Rather, as Brown states, it was necessary for the elite to bring her to a confession, for they needed ‘a subservient and apologetic victim’.81 It is not difficult to imagine under these circumstances how women might be particularly vulnerable to being targeted as evil or as witches. Indeed, if we take into account the efforts of sessions and presbyteries to reshape the mores and values of the population and to criminalize acts of superstition such as charms and healing prayers, it is no wonder that women who played a prominent role in child birth, child-rearing and were practitioners of folk medicine found their actions suddenly dangerous and open to legal action. Those who survived by claiming control over the power to curse found themselves particularly vulnerable to such charges. It was this ability to define what was acceptable behaviour, to shape the very image of ‘witch’ which was crucial to the development of witch-hunting. It was the witch-hunters who constructed this image of woman as witch, and it is to them which we now must turn.
Notes
1.
Larner, Enemies of God, 9.
2.
Ibid., 10–11, 95–96, 200–201.
3.
Levack, Witch-hunt, 2nd ed., 8.
4.
Ibid., 4–9. Larner, Enemies of God, 7–8, 10–11, 106–107.
5.
Elisabeth Dick (2976). Anstruther Easter KS CH26252. The session decided to turn this matter over to the presbytery. There is no indication as to the outcome.
6.
Kirkcaldy KS February 13, 1621. Campbell, The Church and Parish of Kirkcaldy, 166–167.
7.
Kirkcaldy KS, April 22, 1623; May 20, 1623; and, May 27, 1623. The amount in each case was 36s. Campbell, ibid., 167.
8.
Quoted in MacBean, The Kirkcaldy Burgh Records, 157–158. MacBean also includes the text of the kirk session record of May 22 1623 on p. 344. Unfortunately, he doesn’t note that the next reference – to September 24 – relates to documents from 1633, not 1623.
9.
The transcription is that found in the pamphlet ‘The Trial of William Coke and Alison Dick . . .’ in Webster, Rare Tracts. Kirk Session of Kirkcaldy, minutes of September 17, 1633. For the information in this case see also Campbell, ibid., 168–172. Also excerpts were included in John Sinclair ed., The Statistical Account of Scotland 1791–99, vol. X, Fife, (Edinburgh: EP Publishing, 1978 edition), 807–816. Despite the evidence being fairly broadly published, this case has not had a prominent place in the literature. Future notes will refer only to the source being directly quoted.
10.
Ibid., 114. Kirkcaldy KS.
11.
Statistical Account for Scotland, 808. Kirkcaldy KS records September 24, 1633.
12.
‘Trial’, 115–116.
13.
Statistical Account, 810. Kirkcaldy KS.
14.
Kirkcaldy KS. This incident is not recorded in either the Statistical Account or the Pamphlet. Who said what about whom does become confusing. Tensions within the family are evident. This may have also been an attempt to discredit Janet Saunders as a witness against William Coke.
15.
Kirkcaldy KS. Statistical Account, 810. The session and town agreed to pay the expenses.
16.
Kirkcaldy KS, October 2 1633. 5s were spent for ‘coals to warme in Alison Dick’ in the steeple. There is no reference to William Coke being held.
17.
Kirkcaldy KS. The translation differs slightly from that given in the Statistical account, 810–811, and ‘Trial’, 117. The former seems to depend upon the latter. The gist is correct in these published accounts. Some words are changed or left out.
18.
Kirkcaldy KS. October 8, 1633. William Coke the younger’s actions are confusing. At one point it states he ‘was perished; and he saved all the men in the ship’. ‘Perished’ suggests this was the fate about to befall the crew. William Coke the younger’s presence was clearly seen as a factor, but whether it was understood to be at his own instigation or not that they were saved, seems unclear. Was this perceived as a battle between two ‘sorcerers’, the one trying to sink, the other to save? Statistical Account, 811–812. One important change is made in the long quotation. The printed source has it as ‘God’, where in the Manuscript it is ‘god’ with no upper-case.
19.
Ibid., 813.
20.
Kirkcaldy KS. Statistical Account, 813–814. The exact wording relating to the incident at the cellar in the Statistical Account is: ‘And she went down the close, and pissed at their meal-cellar door; and after that, they had never meal in that cellar, (they being meal-makers).’
21.
Kirkcaldy KS. Statistical Account, 814.
22.
The excerpted records leave out much of the information relating to expenditures and process. Kirkcaldy KS, October 2, 1633. The confession on October 8 is recorded.
23.
PBK, 68.
24.
Kirkcaldy KS, October 15, 1633.
25.
Statistical Account, 814.
26.
National Library of Scotland, Adv. Ms. 31.310, f64v. Michael Wasser discovered this commission while doing research on these records. These commissions were not included in the printed versions of the Records of the Privy Council.
27.
PBK, 69.
28.
Kirkcaldy KS, November 19, 1633. Statistical Account, 815.
29.
The expenses relating to this execution have been published in several places. MacBean, Kirkcaldy Burgh Records, 344–345; Statistical Account, 815–816; ‘Trial’, 123.
30.
J.A. Sharpe, ‘Witchcraft and women’, 185.
31.
John Campbell, in The Church and Parish of Kirkcaldy, also spends time on this case. While not believing Coke or Dick were witches, he suggested that they were ‘simply ignorant, coarse, violent people, pretending to a mysterious power over their enemies, and trading upon men’s fears.’, 171.
32.
Kirkcaldy KS. The references to other offences usually came at the beginning of the meeting and included fornication, drinking at home while the sermon was being preached, as well as non-attendance at church.
33.
John Robertson, An Orkney Anthology, 352, 368. Hans Eyvind Naess, ‘Norway: The Criminological Context,’ in EMEW, 373.
34.
Case 3134. PBK, 92.
35.
Case 3158. Campbell, The Church and Parish of Kirkcaldy, 166. Kirkcaldy KS.
36.
PBK, 114.
37.
Smith, Annotated edition, 221.
38.
RPC 2nd ser. vol. 3, 104. In the commission reference is made to Alexander’s practice of both witchcraft and charming.
39.
The source for all of these cases is Benson, South-West Fife, App. 2, 266 and 269. None of those mentioned here were entered into the SWHDB.
40.
Godbeer, The Devil’s Dominion, 67 has a good discussion of both popular and elite attitudes. ‘Even healers who used neither charms nor occult rituals were vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft, so hazy was the boundary between magical and non-magical treatment.’ That haze existed in Scotland, as well as New England.
41.
Many cases involving suggestions of charming have already
been discussed in the chapters on the various presbyteries.
42.
Oliphant was found innocent of witchcraft, but guilty of charming. MacBean, Kirkcaldy Burgh Records, 154–155. Christian Wilson, Ch22241, f114. It is difficult, in part, to see the relationship between these two activities because in listing ‘witchcraft’ cases in Black, the Sourcebook, and the SWHDB, it is sometimes impossible to determine what is witchcraft and what is ‘charming’. Generally speaking, cases of simple charming, where the word ‘witch’ appears, were not included in the Sourcebook nor in the SWHDB – but there are some exceptions. Yet, without a comprehensive listing of all of the cases of charming, it is difficult to see if they were more or less prevalent during major hunts. In some instances we know from the Presbytery of Dunfermline, a concern for witchcraft and witch-hunting did seem to cast a wide enough net to include those who used charms.
43.
CH22241, f127–128.
44.
Campbell, The Church and Parish of Kirkcaldy, 166.
45.
Case 2457. Markinch KS CH22581 December 24, and 31, 1641.
46.
Beveridge, Culross and Tuliallan, 208–209.
47.
Dunfermline KS CH25921, f111. Henderson, Extracts of the kirk session, 33.
48.
Case 2373. Dalyell, Darker Superstition, 424–425.
49.
Case 3162. Campbell, Church and Parish, 167.
50.
Larner, Enemies of God, 97–98. Levack, Witch-Hunt 1st ed., 152. Quaife, Godly Zeal, 171.
51.
Larner, Enemies of God, 3.
52.
Historians continue to struggle with this subject. Larner’s comments, ibid., p. 3 are worth noting. Clarke Garrett, ‘Women and Witches: Patterns of Analysis,’ Signs 3 (1977): 461–470, and Carolyn Matalene, ‘Women as Witches’ (1978) in Articles on Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology, edited by Brian P. Levack. Vol 10, Witchcraft, Women and Society (New York: Garland, 1992.), 51–66, offer summaries of the interpretations of the question to that point in time. One article by a non-historian, biblical scholar Rosemary Ruether, ‘The Persecution of Witches: A case of Sexism and Agism?’ (1974), also reprinted in Levack, vol. 10, makes the case strongly for the witch-hunt being driven by male hatred of women. On why so many accused women were older, Ruether concluded: ‘Thus the fury and hatred of woman as sexual being is logically directed not against the young girl but against the idea of the older woman as a secretly lusty creature.’ (p. 253–254). While theoretically stimulating, no evidence has since been produced which would support the thesis. In his text Klaits argues strongly for misogyny as a key force in driving the witch-hunt (Servants of Satan, in particular p. 72, 84) while Geoff Quaife devoted two chapters to the discussion (Godly Zeal, chapters 6 & 7, esp p. 90). Quaife is even able to weave Staislav Andreski’s argument regarding the introduction of syphilis into Europe into the argument on misogyny. Brian Levack offers a balanced discussion of the issues, Witch-hunt in Early Modern Europe, 2nd edition, 133–141. See Clive Holmes, ‘Women: Witnesses and Witches’, Past and Present (1993) and Susanna Burghatz, ‘The Equation of Women and Witches’ (1988) for two recent discussions of this issue. Holmes explores women, not only as victims, but as accusers, yet still concludes we cannot yet remove either gender or misogyny as ‘key category for any discussion of witchcraft beliefs and prosecutions,’ 72. Burghatz makes the fascinating point that even before the publication of the Malleus, 91% of victims were women (p. 63). The movement away from seeing the entire issue as if every cleric accepted the ideas of the Malleus unquestioningly (let alone was aware of them), has led to a growing sophistication in terms of the debate. J.A. Sharpe’s ‘Witchcraft and Women in seventeenth-century England: some Northern evidence’ (1991), not only questions the role of the Malleus, but also poses significant questions about why older, poorer women were more likely to be considered as witches. Specifically on Scotland, J.K. Swales & Hugh McLachlan ‘Witchcraft and the status of women: a comment’ (1979) used Scottish evidence to challenge the arguments of Alan Anderson and Raymond Gordon.
53.
King James VI, Daemonology. G.B. Harrison, ed., Daemonology (1597) and Newes from Scotland: Declaring the damnable Life and death of Doctor Fian, a notable Sorcerer who was burned at Edenborough in January last (1591) (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1966). The question of why women are more likely to be witches than men is posed. The suggested ratio is 20 women to 1 man (!) and the reason given is that women are weaker than men ‘so it is easier to be intrapped in these grosse snares of the Deuill’. The example of Eve is then cited, 42–44. It is always difficult to trace the influence of a book, unless it is directly cited. All that can be said of Daemonology is that some of the key themes of the book (the witch’s sabbath, meetings in churches) have little influence in Fife, and the one unique contribution of the book – the notion of a witch’s transport being only in spirit and not the physical body – was argued against in a late tract which used extensive evidence from Fife. See G. Sinclair, Satan’s Invisitble World Discovered; also Stuart Clark, ‘King James’s Daemonologie’. One of the few sermons known to have been preached at a witch-craft trial which has survived, failed to make the argument that women were more likely to be witches, and blamed Adam as well as Eve for the fall. George Neilson, ed. ‘A Sermon on Witchcraft in 1697,’ in Articles on Witchcraft, Magic and Demonology, ed. Brian P. Levack. Vol 7, Witchcraft in Scotland (New York: Garland, 1992), 394–395. That men, as well as women, were named in this case (the Bargarran case) should be noted.
54.
PBK, 353.
55.
J.A. Sharpe, ‘Witchcraft and Women’, 182. Levack, Witch-hunt, 1st ed., 141–156.
56.
Data is from the SWHDB.
57.
Margaret Young (1459). RPC 2nd ser. vol. 8, 28.
58.
Ibid., 28.
59.
Ross, Aberdour and Inchcolme, 330.
60.
Ibid., 342.
61.
Bensen, South-West Fife, 187.
62.
Elspeth Seath, STACUPR, 147–150. Isabell Dairsie, STACUPR, 15. Isobell Kellock, Buchner, Rambles, 44–46. Dorothy Oliphant, L. MacBean, Kirkcaldy Burgh Records, 154–155. William Crichton, Henderson, Extracts from the Kirk Session, 27. Poor witches who couldn’t pay are noted in Benson, South-west Fife, 273. Culross witches, JC214 350–351.
63.
PBK, 132.
64.
The pamphlets include A True and Full Relation of the Witches at Pittenweem to which is added . . . Edinburgh (1704) and A Just Reproof to the False Reports and Unjust Calumnies in the Foregoing Letters (1705) both written by the same individual, sometimes known as a ‘Lover of Truth’. The opposition is staked out by ‘a Gentleman in Fife’ whose tract An Answer of a Letter from a Gentleman in Fife to a Nobleman (1705) contains two separate letters. All of these pamphlets can be found in Webster, Rare Tracts, in the Ferguson collection in the University of Glasgow Library. For more detailed information on the tracts see John Ferguson, ‘Bibliographical Notes’, 71–73.
65.
An Answer, 3. A Just Reproof, 89. The massive literature on Salem has already been briefly discussed. All of these hunts involved adolescents as the primary accusers. There are other elements which set them apart. See Ankarloo, ‘Sweden: The Mass Burnings’, 295–303. The possible connections between these hunts needs to be explored further.
66.
These details come from True and Full Relation, 7, 8.
67.
An Answer, 2. True and Full Relation notes it was only after the individuals were arrested
that confessions came, 8–9.
68.
Beatrix Laing’s petition to the Privy Council, May 1, 1705. In Cook, Annals of Pittenweem, 124–125.
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