English witchcraft and the secular courts 1542-1736

Abstract

England's legal system had certainly been no stranger to curious methods of trial before the advent of the witch felony in the sixteenth century. For instance, the "trial by ordeal" procedures, which dominated many criminal trials in England between the eighth and thirteenth centuries, have certainly been well documented. Together with a convoluted legal structure and a host of other ornate customs that many modern courts would find highly questionable, it could be argued that the sixteenth century English legal system would have been able to accommodate the witch felony without undergoing any painful period of adjustment in dealing with the crime. But when witchcraft was made a capital felony in 1542, the crime was quite unlike anything that England's legal system had ever dealt with before. Although an accusation of witchcraft was easy to make, evidence of the crime was difficult to prove in a courtroom, and could be easily manipulated by skillful examiners. And unlike their Continental neighbours, the English criminal courts had virtually no previous experience with the crime. Thus, Henry VIII's 1542 and Elizabeth I's 1563 statutes effectively threw the English assize courts in at the deep end, leaving magistrates, juries and Judges alike to formulate a unique approach to dealing with this difficult felony. Although English witchcraft historians have not ignored the legal system, few have recognised that because witchcraft was such a difficult crime to prosecute, the English criminal courts were forced to respond in new and unprecedented ways in coming to terms with the witch felony. Furthermore, virtually no historian has assessed English witchcraft in light of the various statutes that governed criminal procedure. It has been assumed by most that social changes explain the evolution of English witch beliefs and that the English courts played a secondary role. This thesis then, attempts to examine the role that England's legal system played in the evolution of witchcraft and witch beliefs between 1542 and 1736.