The Case of the North Devon White Witch (1877)

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an excerpt from:
"Doctors: Or, The science of medical thought among the people." 
by W.R. Bartlett, M.D., New Haven Conn. published in "The Sanitarian" vol. 7, 1879 (http://books.google.com/books?id=4C6gAAAAMAAJ)

"At the Exeter Quarter Sessions last week, John Harper, aged 83, a quack doctor and herbalist, known as the North Devon White Witch, appealed against his recent conviction and sentence to a month's imprisonment for obtaining money by false pretenses some time ago. He was called in to see a woman who was ill and had been given up by the doctor. He prescribed for her and placed in her hands rods with the names of planets attached, and told her to strike with them a piece of metal which he held in his hand, while he at the same time uttered some formula of words. He received a fee of twenty five shillings, but the woman afterwards died, and he was then prosecuted and convicted of obtaining money by palmistry and subtle devices."


The White Witch of Devon
Published in "The Standard", October  18, 1877
As quoted in "Notes and Queries," Fifth Series, Volume Ninth, January - June, 1878
(http://books.google.com/books?id=JGEEAAAAYAAJ)

"The case of the North Devon White Witch came before Earl Devon and other magistrates at quarter sessions at Exeter yesterday. The name of the so-called witch is John Harper. He is eighty three years of age, appears in his younger days to have been a good deal connected with mines in the neighborhood of Combmartin, in the north of Devon, and he now described himself as a mining proprietor. He, however, did a considerable business as a herbalist, or quack doctor, and was commonly known as the 'White Witch' of North Devon. In visiting patients he usually took with him a number of sticks or rods of wood or metal, with small pieces of parchment attached, on which were inscribed the names of different planets, and these rods were supposed to have some mysterious instrumentality in the cures he professed to effect. The proceedings leading to his being brought before the magistrates arose in consequence of a death of the wife of a cattle doctor. A medical man attended her for some time, but on his pronouncing her case as hopeless, her husband went a journey of twenty miles to see the White Witch. He came to the woman, and inquired as to the day, the hour, and the planet under which she was born. From a box he produced some rods with the names of the planets written on the parchment attached, and, placing these one at a time in the woman's hands, directed her to strike a piece of metal which he produced, and as she complited with his directions he spoke some words in a low tone. He also prescribed some bitters, ad gave a powder whihch was to be mixed in boiling water, and which, he added, he always used in every fever but typhus. He stated that though the woman was very weak there was no reason why she should not recover. She, however, died a day or two afterwards. When asked what his charges were, the so-called witch said twenty-five shillings, and that sum was paid him. For the defence it was stated that the rods were struck by the patient on a piece of manganese, and this produced an electric shock. It was further contended that the different planets actually did exercise a powerful influence over the human frame and the electric currents permeating the system. Some persons spoke as to the cures effected by Harper in some cases after medical men had given up all hopes. When he first came to the house he said he was a humble instrument in the hands of God, and he was not sure he could do anything. It was denied that he said there must be three persons of one faith in the room before he could do any good. The magistrates in petty sessions sentenced Harper to one month's imprisonment, but owing to his age they did not impose hard labour. The defendant now appeared against teh conviction, on the ground that the use of certain means and devices to deceive or impose on Her Majesty's subjects had not been proved, and objections were also taken to the form of conviction, the words 'hard labour' having been inserted in the copy now before court, whereas no hard labour was imposed. It was explained that these words were inserted as after the committal of the defendant it was found that he could not be imprisoned without hard labour. The objection was held to be fatal, and the conviction was quashed."

John Lydus: Nominal Christian, "Submerged" Pagan. Part One.

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"One could not find more anti-Christian circles than these .... The most cultured men of the age [5th and 6th centuries] ... should now be classified as non-Christian."
[Anthony Kaldellis, The Religion of Ioannes Lydos]

Part One: A little background
John Lydos was born in 490 AD and lived at least into the 550s, and probably into the 560s. His first name is given variously as John, Ioannes, Ἰωάννης, or even Johannes. His last name varies between Lydos (the Greek form, or, even more properly: Λυδός), and Lydus, the latinized form.

By the time he was born, the old religion of Paganism, which Lydos would have referred to as Hellenism, had been subjected to violent suppression for almost two centuries. And yet the old Gods continued to be worshipped by some, and there is very good reason to suspect that one of these die-hard Hellenes was John Lydos. But how does one properly investigate such a suspicion, and what might constitute reasonable cause for giving rise to the suspicion in the first place?

No one has given more thought to the subject of religious identity in general and religious conversion in particular than that professional harvester of human souls, the Christian missionary. A while ago I posted a long excerpt from a contemporary textbook on the science of "missiology" (Confessions of a Christian Missionary), in which the author (Alan Tippett) lays bear the religious realities of coerced conversion.

Tippett makes the painfully obvious observation that when religious conversion is imposed by force, the result is that people do not undergo genuine conversion of the heart. Instead, one finds that people who are forced to convert do so only "nominally", in Tippett's words. While going through the motions of the officially approved religion, victims of forced conversion have a tendency to nevertheless persist in covertly practicing their old religion, which Tippett refers to as their "latent" or "submerged" religion. And Tippett makes a point of adding this: "It will be this latent religion that speaks to their deepest feelings."

Tippett's focus is on the indigenous populations of the Americas, Africa and Asia whose forced conversion to Christianity took place hand-in-hand with their conquest and colonization by European nation-states during the modern era (going back to the late 15th century). As a Christian missionary, Tippett is troubled by the realization that these populations have not undergone genuine conversion because of the coercive manner in which Christianity was imposed upon them. It must be stipulated that Tippet never questions the agenda of his missionary predecessors, rather, his only problem lies with what he sees as the inartfullness of their methods.

Of great interest, and as noted in that earlier post, is the fact that Tippett draws the reader's attention to the obvious parallel between the more recent (historically speaking) examples of forced conversion (in the Americas, Africa and Asia) that he, as a modern missionary is mostly concerned with in practical terms, and the forced Christianization of the peoples of Europe during the Middle Ages. The violent and coercive Christianization of Europe, in turn, was itself nothing new, but was rather a seamless continuation of how Christianization had been accomplished going all the way back to the reigns of Constantius and Constantine in the fourth century (a small detail that Tippett does not address). Therefore, in my opinion, it is justifiable to extend Tippett's concept of "submerged" Paganism (which he himself extends to the 8th century in Northern Europe) all the way back to the sixth and fifth centuries and, in particular, to the case of John Lydos and like-minded contemporaries. [For more on the "liberal use of the sword" as a constant feature of Christianization from the 4th century forward, see Lawrence G. Duggan 1997 paper "Compulsion and Conversion from Yahweh to Charlemagne", which appears as the third chapter in the anthology The Varieties of Religious Conversion in the Middle Ages, edited by James Muldoon and published by the University Press of Florida.]

In subsequent posts, in addition to delving more deeply into Tippett's concept of "submerged" Paganism in the wake of forced conversion, I will be drawing upon three different works by Byzantine scholar Anthony Kaldellis (also see Kaldellis' list of publications here) listed below. These works by Kaldellis have a great deal to say about "The Religion of Ioannes Lydos", which is the title of the third work. What I will be attempting to do is to show how the evidence presented by Kaldellis concerning Lydos (& Co.) fits nicely into Tippett's conceptual framework of "submerged" Paganism:

• Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
• Identifying Dissident Circles in Sixth-Century Byzantium: The Friendship of Prokopios and loannes Lydos, Florilegium 21 (2004) 1-17.
• The Religion of Ioannes Lydos, Phoenix 57 (2003) 300-316.

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Cosmopolitan Paganism

"The condition of existence I am describing is nothing more or less than ethical, cosmopolitan paganism--the gorgeous inheritance bestowed upon us by the pre-Christian societies of the Mediterranean whose idolatrous proclivities have never been obliterated or even subordinated in the Christian West. Nor are they likely to be. The vernacular of beauty is a part of that pagan inheritance. The whole rhetoric of commerce and practical science is a part of it, too, as are the foundational premises of this republic, whose framers embraced Cicero's insistence that the virtue of any politics is confirmed in the body of the citizen--in the corporeal safety and happiness of that single and collective body."
[Dave Hickey, The Invisible Dragon]

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Witchcraft as Beneficial Magic in Old English Sources

All of these quotes from Old English sources, except for the last, directly attest to the fact that the people of the time sought out Witches for the beneficial magic that they could do.

The last quote directly attests to a close association between "wiccunga" and "galdorsangas". Two of the other quotes (2 & 5) also demonstrate that "galdrum" was placed in the same category of magical practices as Witchcraft.

Some of these sources might be as early as the 7th century Penitential of Theodore. I will update this post as soon as I can with more detailed information on the original sources.

Most, perhaps all, of these quotes are cited in the Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon dictionary entries for wicce, wiccecræft, etc . The translations (and some of the original Old English texts) were found at the Heathen Thing blog: http://www.heathenthing.org/


1.

"Ne sceal se cristena befrínan ða fúlan wiccan be his gesundfulnysse, þeáh ðe heó secgan cunne sum ðincg þurh deófol."

Translation: "The christian must not inquire of the foul witch regarding his health, although she will be able to say some things on account of the devil”. (taken from here: http://www.heathenthing.org/blog/?p=271)



2.

"Ne cristena man ðe his hǽlðe sécan wyle æt unálýfedum tilungum, oððe æt wyrigedum galdrum, oþþe æt ǽnigum wiccecræfte, ðonne bið hé ðám hǽðenum mannum gelíc"

Translation: ”The Christian man who wants to seek his fortune with forbidden methods, either with magic spells or with any witchcraft, then he is equivalent to the heathen man.” (http://www.heathenthing.org/blog/?cat=8&paged=50)



3.

"Wigliaþ stunte men menigfealde wigelunga on ðisum dæge æfter hǽðenum gewunan, swylce hí magon heora líf gelengan, oþþe heora gesundfulnysse"

Translation: "On this day foolish men magic manifold magickings after the heathen fashion, as if they can lengthen their lives, or their healths”  (http://www.heathenthing.org/blog/?m=200806)



4.

"ðonne man tó wiccan and tó wigleran tilunge séce æt ǽnigre néode–"

Translation: "when someone seeks attention from witches and magicians in any need” (http://www.heathenthing.org/blog/?m=200806)



5.

"hǽlðe sécan æt unálýfedum tilungum oððe æt wyrigedum galdrum, oþþe æt ǽnigum wiccecræfte"

Translation: "to seek benefits from unsanctioned actions or accursed sorcery, or any witchcraft" (http://www.heathenthing.org/blog/?m=200806&paged=3)



6.

"gif hwylc wíf wiccunga begá and þá déoflican galdorsangas"

Translation: ”if any woman should practice witchcraft and the devilish galdor chants ...”  [a fast of one year is prescribed] (http://www.heathenthing.org/blog/?cat=8&paged=52)

Problems with comments

Recently the comments section for the EGREGORES blog has been deluged by thousands of spam messages that were not caught by blogspot's filters (which up until now have done a pretty good job).

If you have recently attempted to post a comment, I apologize if it did not get through. I have now enabled the word verification feature, which I hope will take care of the issue.

Rajan Zed's Mysterious Silence on Miley Cyrus' Latest Yoga Tweets

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It has now been almost three week since Miley Cyrus tweeted the following:

"Bliss is unchanged by gain or loss"

"Para para paradise ... Rare to get a moment to thank the universe for all my blessings in the form of yoga in a place like this."

Inquiring minds want to know why Rajan Zed suddenly has nothing to say. Past Yoga-related tweets from Cyrus have resulted in rapid and fullsome responses from teh intertubes' favorite "Hindu Statesmen."

Some have speculated that Zed is pissed off at Cyrus because she has spurned his past overtures offering to be her Yoga teacher. Another theory is that Zed is miffed because Cyrus has also declined repeated requests that Cyrus volunteer to be a spokesmodel for one or more of Zed's innumerable self-aggrandizing "campaigns."


Related past posts from this blog:

• Pre-emptive snark in eager anticipation of Rajan Zed's forthcoming apoplectic response to "Yoga Boner"
• Rajan Zed: Some Negative Reviews
• From the desk of Rajan Zed: Miley Cyrus, Naked Yoga, the Church of Norway, and so forth ....

"Current Trends in Historical Witchcraft Studies" (a 2011 paper by Jacqueline Van Gest)

This post is about an important recent paper of interest to all those who want to keep up on contemporary scholarship on Witchcraft. The paper in question is Jacqueline Van Gent's 2011 article "Current Trends in Historical Witchcraft Studies." The full citation is: Journal of Religious History Vol. 35, No. 4, December 2011, pp. 601-612). The paper is freely available in pdf form for download here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9809.2011.01144.x/abstract

Van Gent's paper is a combined review of four recent books on historical Witchcraft studies (well, Levack's book isn't "recent", but it has been recently reissued for its third printing, and van Gent discusses why the book continues to be quite relevant):

• Sarah Ferber: Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France, London and New York: Routledge, 2004; pp. 219 + xii.
• Malcolm Gaskill: Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005; pp. 364 + xvii.
• Brian Levack: TheWitch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, 3rd ed., London and New York: Longman, 2006 (first published 1987); pp. 360.
• Charles Zika: The Appearance of Witchcraft: Print and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Europe, London and New York: Routledge, 2008; pp. 296 + xiv.

In the course of the combined review, Van Gent also makes references to a number of other important works by authors such as Carlo Ginzburg, Wolfgang Behringer, Marie Lennersand, Gary K.Waite, Marion Gibson, Lyndal Roper, Lara Apps, Owen Davies, etc.

Here is  an excerpt from her paper:

Perhaps the most important development to have emerged in the historiography of early modern European witchcraft in the last two decades, is the greater recognition of the remarkable cultural, gender, and social diversity to be found within witchcraft practices. This diversity of witchcraft has made broader historical contextualization imperative. It is not surprising, therefore, that the most exciting studies of recent times are those which invite us to see witchcraft, not as an isolated and somewhat morbid phenomenon, but as an integral part of a much wider spectrum of early modern religious beliefs, gendered power dynamics, political crises, or social behaviour and traditions. This review will discuss four books that have appeared in the last few years and as the witchcraft literature is extremely vast, I will place them in the context of recent trends that have emerged in the last decade.

The most innovative paradigm shift in historical witchcraft research has been the expansion of our focus, both chronologically and thematically, beyond the periods of specific witchcraft persecutions, to consider witchcraft as a less sensational cultural practice. By expanding the timeline for witchcraft investigations to before and after the witch-persecution period, witchcraft studies have unearthed a wealth of new material and questions, and put persecutions into a new perspective. The kind of witchcraft pursued (or imagined) with such intensity by authorities during specific witch persecutions, might actually be an unusual form of witchcraft, restricted to very short periods and defined locations; while everyday forms of magic, more regularly practised, were both more influential and typical. This different paradigm allows for a more integrative view: the full spectrum of social activities, including healing, protective magic, and the recovery of lost objects, can be considered in our analyses. Indeed, it is the more integrative approaches to magic and related phenomena of belief and practice that are producing the most innovative work in the field. By expanding their chronological perspectives on witchcraft, stepping outside of the immediate phases of intense persecutions, or witch hunts, historians are also able to draw broader historical comparisons.

This was clearly signalled with the six volume series The Athlone History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, under the stewardship of general editors, Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark, which appeared between 1998 and 2002. This series marks a watershed for witchcraft research. It has reinforced the point that magical activities have a much longer tradition than witchcraft persecutions: they existed long before and long after the witch hunts. Only one of the six volumes deals with the early modern period of intense witch prosecutions; all others show the different ways in which magic as a cultural and social phenomenon was part of everyday life. The series’ wide geographic spectrum reinforces the message of the diversity of legal approaches and the social dynamics of witchcraft practices. This more integrative approach to witchcraft is also reflected in the 2004 publication by Owen Davies andWillem de Blecourt (editors) of Beyond the Witch Trials: Witchcraft and Magic in Enlightenment Europe, which discusses the “decline” of witchcraft beliefs, or rather their modifications, in several European locations during the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Witchcraft, Magic, and Anglo-Saxon Law

In an interview earlier this year, Ronald Hutton stated that, 

Wicca or wicce (according to the sex of the person described) was by far the most common of the words employed in early English law codes to describe acts of magic equivalent to serious crimes against the person, which injured or manipulated people and ranked with murder and perjury. The Laws of Ethelred II, for example, made exile or execution the penalties for wiccan odde wigelaras, scincraeftan odde horcwecan, mordwyrtan odde mansworan (witches or sorcerers, workers of magical illusion or seduction, those who kill secretly or deceive). While the other terms died out, it became standard and evolved into ‘witch’. The Anglo-Saxons had a range of other expressions for less harmful kinds of magic, such as galdra (charms) and idelra hwata (divinations). 

More recently, Hutton wrote the following in his new paper published in the Pomegranate (Revisionism and Counter-Revisionism in Pagan History):

"The Anglo-Saxon words that form the basis for 'witch', 'wicce' and 'wicca' (according to the sex of the person described), occur in law codes to indicate workers of deadly crimes against the person such as murderers and perjurers.(15) By contrast, Anglo-Saxon churchmen regularly glossed 'wicce' and 'wicce' [sic] with Latin terms defining a range of workers of harmless magic such as divination.(16)"

So much for what Ronald Hutton has to say. Now let us endeavor to discover the truth of the matter.

Fortunately, an industrious graduate student at the University of Amsterdam, named Marianne Elsakkers, has done a remarkable job of systematically analyzing 18 different instances of Anglo-Saxon law with special attention to the words used in those laws for referring to Witchcraft, Heathenism, magic, prostitution, etc. It should be noted that the number 18 could be somewhat misleading because it includes a number of Latin translations.

Elsakkers even went so far as to distill her analysis into one extraordinary, information-laden Table, reproduced as a GIF image at the bottom of this post. I would strongly encourage the interested reader to go directly to the source and read her dissertation to fully appreciate what she has done (and also to get all the niggling details about her sources, and so forth). Her full dissertation is available at this link: http://dare.uva.nl/record/337669, while the specific chapter that contains the table and a discussion of the related data is here: http://dare.uva.nl/document/171169.

All of the information contained in Elsakkers' table is already known to most people who have an interest in such things. However, this is one of those cases where properly organizing and presenting the data, as Elsakkers has done, makes all the difference. There might be other law texts that could be added to this list (in fact there is at least one, as discussed immediately below), and some of the items on Elsakkers' list could use some further clarification (for example, one of the Anglo-Saxon texts is probably a redaction by Wulfstan, which I don't believe she notes). Also, there are other sources that need to eventually be included, such as Anglo-Saxon charms and so forth. One important law missing from Elsakkers table (although she does discuss it at some length in her dissertation) is that attributed to King Ælfred (c.890) which states:

Ða fæmnan þe gewuniað onfon gealdorcræftigan & scinlæcan & wiccan, ne læt þu ða libban

Of the 18 versions/texts of Anglo-Saxon law looked at by Elsakkers, 11 of them are actually Latin translations of laws originally written in Old English. The original seven laws are from the reigns of Aethelstan, Edmund, Edward (and Guthrum), Aethelred, and Cnut, with Cnut being responsible for three of the seven laws. In the following discussion I will also include the one law fro Ælfred not included in Elsakkers' table, bringing the total of vernacular laws to eight.

"Wiccecræft" is mentioned in six out of eight of the original laws in the vernacular. But in all but one of these, "wiccan" appears alongside one or more other magical terms. Three times we find "wiccan" mentioned along with "wigleras" (Aethelred and two of Cnut's laws), and twice it appears along with "scinlæcan"/"scincræftcan" (Ælfred and Aethelred), while "wiccan" appears along with "lybblac" twice (Ælfred and Aethelstan) and once along with "gealdorcræftigan" (Ælfred). The one instance in which "wiccecræft" is the only form of magic explicitly proscribed also happens to be a case where the "crimes" that are being enumerated all fall under the general heading of "hæðenscip" (Heathenism), and another item on the same list is idol worship ("idol weorðunge"). So that particular law (the first of Cnut's)  is actually a clear example of the religious nature of the earliest laws prohibiting "wiccecræft".

Two of the eight laws do not mention "wiccecræft" at all, and one of these (Edmund) does mention "lybblac" as the only form of magic specifically prohibited by that law. This is highly significant since the term "lybblac" is itself sometimes translated as "Witchcraft" and it is perhaps the most difficult of all of these terms for us to understand. While an alternative translation of "lybblac" is "poisoning", it must be remembered that this was an age when the word chemistry had not yet been coined, and instead people spoke of "Alchemy," and that, more generally, the vocabularies of "poisoning" and "magic" are often inextricably intertwined, and this is probably such a case.

The other law that doesn't mention "wiccecræft" is that of "Edward and Guthrun" (which is possibly a redaction by Wulfstan), which is included in the list because it does mention "morðwyrhtan", often translated as "secret murder", which is a term with a range of shades of meanings. This term ""morðwyrhtan" is often associated with murder by magical means, but it can also mean literally and simply murdering someone in secret, as opposed to killing someone out in the open and freely admitting to it (there was quite a difference between these two types of killing in Anglo-Saxon culture). If we include "morðwyrhtan", and related terms, as magical terms, then these suddenly jump to tie for the top of the list of magical crimes, occurring in six out of the eight laws, the same as "wiccecræft."

It should be noted that if we include "secret murder" as a magical crime, then there are no instances in which "wiccecræft" is singled out as the only form of magic being criminalized. This is in contrast to "lybblac", which is outlawed in the law attributed to Edmund, and the only other crime listed alongside it in the same section is "mansweriað", perjury, a crime with no magical connotations whatsoever.

Inclusion of the term "morðwyrhtan" also brings us to the question of the 11 different Latin translations that are included in Elsakkers' data. The significance of "morðwyrhtan" in particular is that this Anglo-Saxon term is the one that is most often translated into Latin as either "malefici" or "venefici", the two Latin terms most closely associated with the Christian notion of inherently evil (and literally diabolical) magic, and they are also the Latin terms that Christians are most likely to translate into English as Witchcraft, although "sorcery" would be a close second. There are a total of nine Latin law texts that translate the term "morðwyrhtan", and in five cases it is translated as either "malefici" or "venefici". By contrast, "wiccecræft" and related terms are translated in eight different Latin texts, and only twice is it translated as either "malefici" or "venefici" (once each, as a matter of fact). In the other cases it is translated as "incantores" three times, and one time each for "sortilegis", "sage", and "magi". The translation of "wiccecræft" as "incantores" is especially noteworthy, since the two times that we have examples of "wiccan" and "wigleras" being translated into Latin side-by-side, it is "wigleras" that gets translated as "incantrices." The only other term translated as either "malefici" or "venefici" is "lybblac", which is translated in three different Latin texts, once as "maleficis", and twice with invented Latin terms ("liblacis" and "liblatum") indicating either that the translator simply did not know the meaning of "lybblac", or felt that no Latin equivalent existed.

So, does "wiccecræft" stand out as "by far the most common of the words employed in early English law codes to describe acts of magic equivalent to serious crimes against the person, which injured or manipulated people and ranked with murder and perjury"? Uh, no. For one thing, the actual pool of data is rather too small to meaningfully employ phrases such as "by far the most common". In this sample (based on Elsakkers, 2010, plus Ælfred's law), "wiccecræft" occurs six times (out of a possible total of eight) as does "morðwyrhtan", while "wigleras" and "lybblac" both occur three times, "scinlæcan" twice, and the term "gealdorcræftigan" is found once.

Moreover, Hutton's attempt to characterize Anglo-Saxon laws against "wiccecræft" as falling under the general category of laws against "deadly crimes against the person" is now shown to be utterly ridiculous. It is true that "wiccecræft" appears alongside the explicitly deadly crime of morðwyrhtan in five of its six appearances, but in all but one of these prostitution ("horcwenan") is also on the list, and in the only other case, idol worship is also listed. And at least half of the laws mentioning "wiccecræft" are clearly cases of religiously motivated persecution directed against "hæðenscip."

Perhaps there are other early English laws against "wiccecræft" that Hutton is basing his claims on? But if we look at the statements Hutton has made, these appear to reference only three early English laws. In his interview he explicitly references Aethelred's law, while in his paper he refers the reader to Agnes Jane Roberton's book The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I, which only mentions two relevant laws, that of Edmund and one of Cnut's. In fact, one of the two laws found in Robertson (Edmund's) is precisely the one case where "wiccecræft" is not mentioned at all, but "lybblac" is! So it doesn't appear that Hutton has any secret database of otherwise unknown or little known Anglo-Saxon laws up his sleeve.

Thanks to Marianne Elsakkers' scholarship, we can now see both the forest and the trees. There is no evidence, whatsoever, even remotely suggesting that the Anglo-Saxon precursors to the modern English words "Witch" and "Wicca" stand out as terms that uniquely and unambiguously refer to malevolent practitioners of harmful magic who were hated by their neighbors. Rather, Anglo-Saxon "wiccecræft" was one of at least six different terms (the others being "wigleras", "lybblac", "scinlæcan", "gealdorcræftigan", and "morðwyrhtan") used to refer to varieties of Heathen magic that the Christian kings of England sought to eradicate. In other words, the pattern that emerges when the data are laid out properly bears no resemblance to Ronald Hutton's version of Anglo-Saxon Witchcraft and magic.

Table 1 from M.J. Elsakkers, 2010: "Reading between the lines: Old Germanic and early Christian views on abortion." The table is found in "Article VIII: Anglo-Saxon laws on poisoning: an invitation to further investigation." 

Revision history:
Originally posted 1-31-2013
Revised version, including Ælfred's law, post 2-1-2013

Popular usage of "good Witch" according to ten early modern sources

This post presents ten different authors who all attribute the phrase "good Witch" (and/or something similar, such as "white Witch", "curing Witch", or "unbinding Witch") to popular usage. The works cited span a time period from around 1600 to 1715.

In his recent publication in the Pomegranate journal, Revisionism and Counter-Revisionism in Pagan History, Ronald Hutton has claimed that all of the instances in which we have written accounts of this sort, that is, contemporaneous sources that attribute the phrase "good Witch" (and the like) to common usage during the 16th to 18th centuries, can be dismissed on account of bias. Hutton's theory is that all of the authors in question are "radical evangelical Protestants" who are therefore, completely unrepresentative of popular opinion. Moreover, Hutton claims specifically that the instances in which these authors attribute phrases such as "good Witch" to popular usage are all part of a "campaign" by the "radical evangelical Protestants" to convince the common people to apply the label of "Witch" to workers of beneficial magic. There are two major problems with Hutton's thesis (or to be more precise, with the specific part of his thesis dealing with these early modern written sources, for Hutton also makes some rather strange claims about Anglo-Saxon law, which will be taken up in a future post).

The first major problem for Hutton is that none of the sources in question ever puts forward anything like the argument that he attributes to them. That is to say, we have precisely zero examples of a source that first criticizes the common people for failing to label workers of beneficial magic as "Witches," and then calls on them to do so henceforward. Rather, we have either (1) passages where the common usage of the phrase "good Witch" (and the like) is reported simply as an observation, or we have (2) passages in which the common people are criticized because they do use the phrase "good Witch" to refer to healers (etc.), and where the criticism is clearly and explicitly focused not on the noun "Witch", but rather on the adjective "good".

Moreover, Hutton baldly refuses to address the fact that if these sources are to be interpreted as attempting to impose a change in how workers of beneficial magic are to be labeled, for the express purpose of maligning these same magical workers, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for these authors to repeatedly go out of their way to use the phrase "good Witch," unless such expressions were in fact already in common usage. There is no doubt that in many (but not necessarily, as it turns out, all) cases, the sources assembled here do wish to malign magical healers and other workers of beneficial magic. But if Hutton's notion of what is really going on had any validity, then surely the sources in question would, if they could, always and everywhere avoid any phrase such as "good Witch," for this obviously diminishes, if not negates, the perjorative sting that is intended to be attached to the label "Witch."

The second major problem is that Hutton's sloppy invocation of "radical evangelical Protestants" is itself fraught with multiple issues. What, according to Hutton, is supposed to objectively distinguishes a "radical" Protestant from a non-radical one, and can Hutton show (does he even try to show??) that these criteria (whatever they might be--we can only guess) actually do apply to all of these sources? As for the adjective "evangelical", Hutton, as a historian, should know that his use of the term in this way, during this time period in Britain, is comically anachronistic (or would be if so many people did not mistakenly take Ronald Hutton seriously as a historian). It is, in fact, true that all of the sources in question can without doubt be labeled as Protestant. In fact, most of them are clearly Puritans, but even that label covers quite a multitude of sins.

 At least three further objections should be made to Hutton's sweeping characterization of all of the sources in question as part of a coherent "campaign" engaged in by "radical evangelical Prostestants." First there is the fact that we know that one of our authors, Thomas Ady, devotes a significant portion of his famous book on Witchcraft to attacking another one of the authors on our list, Thomas Cooper, while two of the other authors, Richard Bernard and John Stearne, both cite Thomas Cooper with approval in their respective works. Moreover, Ady's critique of Cooper amounts to the accusation that Cooper takes a "Popish" view of Witchcraft! Second, one of our authors, Robert Burton, was a critic of Puritans, even suggesting that their religious movement constituted a kind of madness. Thirdly, our final author, Joseph Addison, was many things, but to my knowledge he has never been accused of any kind of religious "radicalism", although he has been credited with espousing and inspiring politically radical ideas, including ideas that led to the American Revolution.

The bottom line is that something more than mere hand-waving and table-pounding on Hutton's part is required if he wants to convincingly argue that the sources presented here either mean something other than what they plainly say, or that their combined and unanimous testimony on the subject of the common usage of phrases such as "good Witch" is to be summarily rejected. Ronald Hutton has shown no inclination for such a serious engagement with these sources, and until he does then no one can be expected to take him seriously either.

But now let us now turn to the sources themselves. One of the works cited below was published anonymously, this being The Witch of Wapping, which first appeared in 1652. Concerning two of the other authors, Thomas Ady and Thomas Cooper, little is actually known of them outside of their writings, although in the case Cooper three of our other authors explicitly reference him in their own writings (as further noted below). The other seven authors are William Perkins, Robert Burton, Richard Bernard, John Stearne, Increase Mather, Richard Baxter and Joseph Addison, all of whom can be described as fairly well documented historical persons (for example, at least we have birth and death dates for them, unlike Cooper and Ady).

And now to the list itself, in chronological order of the works cited. For the seven more well known individuals we will have little to say about their biographies, and even less to say about the one anonymous author. A little more background information, such as it is, is provided concerning the two Thomases. Scroll to the bottom of the post for links to the full texts of all works cited.  

1. William Perkins (1558-1602)
Perkins was a Puritan, but not a radical one in that he accepted the Elizabethan Settlement and opposed those who wished to break away from the Church of England.

Quote from Perkins' A Discourse on the Damned Art of Witchcraft (the text of one of his sermons, which was first published in 1618, well after Perkins' death.):

• "And the good Witch is commonly tearmed the vnbinding Witch."
• "Of Witches there be two sorts: The bad Witch, and the good Witch: for so they are commonly called."

2. Thomas Cooper (dates uncertain, 17th century)
This particular "Thomas Cooper" is a bit difficult to pin down. There was a famous Anglican Bishop named Thomas Cooper, who died in 1594. There was also a noteworthy colonel in the Parliamentary Army by that name. Then there was a Thomas Cooper of Boston, an acquaintance of Increase Mather and a captain of the Suffolk Guard. And a little later on there was a radical Chartist named Thomas Cooper who spent two years in Stafford gaol for sedition from 1843-1845. But the author of "The Mysteries of Witchcraft", first published in 1617 and then reissued under the title "Sathan Transformed into an Angell of Light" in 1622, is none of those men. Our Thomas Cooper appears to be the one listed in the Appendix ("The University Background of the Preachers") in R.C. Richardson's "Puritanism in North-West England: A Regional Study of the Diocese of Chester to 1642", where he we find one Thomas Cooper who received his B.A. in 1590 and his M.A. in 1593 from Christ Church College, Oxford.

Interestingly, three of the other authors on this list make direct references to Cooper's work. Even more interestingly, perhaps, is the fact that they have varying opinions concerning Thomas Cooper. On the one hand, Richard Bernard makes numerous references to "Master" Cooper as a reliable authority on the subject of Witchcraft, while in contrast, Thomas Ady devotes a significant amount of ink to attacking Cooper for his "Popish" views on Witchcraft. It is also significant to note that Bernard also cites King James' Dæmonologie approvingly, whereas Ady attacks that work even more virulently and at much greater length than his attack on Cooper. John Stearne makes a single reference to Thomas Cooper, and he appears to have no criticism of Cooper as an authority on the subject of Witchcraft.

Quotes from Thomas Cooper's The Mysteries of Witchcraft, 1617

• "The Good Witch, as they are termed, because they doe seeme to helpe."
• "And so contrariwise, there are others who by Divine Justice, are given up to Satans power with this limitation onely, to helpe and do good, and these are called Good Witches, Blessers, Wise, and Cunning-women."
• "That the Blesser or good Witch (as we terme her) is farre more dangerous then the Badde or hurting Witch ..."
• "That they are to bee punished with death, especially the Blesser and good Witch, as they terme her."

3. Robert Burton 1577-1640
Burton was a scholar mostly known today for his work "The Anatomy of Melancholy," in which he argues, among other things, that the "enthusiasm" of the Puritans was actually a variety of mental illness.

Quote from Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)

"Sorcerers are too common; cunning men, wizards, and white-witches, as they call them, in every village, which if they be sought unto, will help almost all infirmities of body and mind"


4. Richard Bernard (1568-1641)
A Puritan, but a moderate one who opposed separatism. Bernard has a reputation, possibly deserved, as a proponent of religious toleration, at least by the standards of the day.

Quotes from Richard Bernard's A Guide to Grand-Jury Men (1627)

• "Bad Witches many prosecure with all eagernesse; but Magicians, Necromancers, (of whom his late Maiestie giueth a deadly censure in his Dæmonologie) and the Curing Witch, comonly called, The good Witch, all forts can let alone: and yet bee these in many respects worse then the other."
• "That there are such as be called good Witches, and how they may be knowne to be Witches."
• "That there are such as bee called good Witches, and how they may be knowne."
• "Of good witches falsly so called."
• "The good Witches (vn truely so called) may be sundry waies knowne."
• "Thus may these, falsely so named good Witches, be discouered."
• "The report of a White or good Witch, as the people call him or her." 
•  "If thou shalt finde one that is a Witch: though such an one as thou couldest be contented to winke at, and to passe by (as people now doe such as be called with vs, good Witches) yet shalt thou not suffer him or her to liue; no more then a bad Witch ...."
• "By all the names giuen vnto them, by which these sorts are set forth, and rather such as bee now held good Witches then such as be held cursing and bad Witches."
• "The imagined good Witch, the Coniurer, Enchanter, Magician, Southsayer, and the rest ought to dye; for besides the former reasons; 1. As hath beene proued; the course of the Scriptures is generally against these."
• "Those called good Witches should be put to death."

5. John Stearne (c.1610-1670)
John Stearne is arguably the most notorious name on this list. He was by all accounts a real, honest-to-gods, bonafide fanatical Witch-hunter. According to Malcolm Gaskill's Witchfinders, Stearne was a "staunch Puritan with a censorius manner and a mind steeped in Scripture."

Quotes from John Stearne's A Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft, 1648

• "That there are Witches called bad Witches and Witches untruely called good or white Witches , and what manner of people they be..."
• "And as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do those also resist the truth. There you may see plainly that there should be such to the latter end, besides in diverse other places speaking expressly of Witchcraft. Likewise of the Pythoness which brought her mistress much gain. And so I might nominate diverse other places, for those which remain doubtful either being bewitched or of Witches themselves, but because their own confessions clear this evidently besides the forenamed places, I proceed to distinguish between those called bad Witches, and those called white or good Witches, which is easily to be discerned and known. But yet I say all Witches are bad, and ought to suffer alike, being both in league with the Devil: for so is the good, so untruly called as well as other, either open or implicit. And therefore I conclude, all that are in league with the Devil ought to die."
• ".... but this woman desired him to undo what he had done; and he told her he could not undo what he had done, but told her he was sorry for it, and told her of another that could, as he said, and as she affirmed, that was one, as we untruly call them, White or good Witches, and one that was then suspected, who accordingly did it ...."
• "And that all that are thus in league, (as express or open league as aforesaid) are to be found out and known by these evidences, be they of either sort, bad, or white or good Witches so called ...."

6. The anonymous author of The Witch of Wapping (published 1652)

• "There are two sorts oi Witches, which the Vulgar people distinguish by the names of the Good Witch, (I wonder how that can be,) and the Bad."

7. Thomas Ady (dates uncertain, 17th century)
Other than his published writings, little is known of Thomas Ady. He is often described as "a physician and a humanist," but sources describing him as a humanist inevitably also claim that Ady's views on Witchcraft were "skeptical." It must be emphasized that while Ady was a harsh critic of many of the popular views about Witches current during his day, he was nevertheless adamant about the reality of Witches. Ady was of the opinion that many popular notions concerning what we now call "diabolical" Witchcraft were just so much "Popish" nonsense. Ady wished to replace the "Popish" conception of Witchcraft with one based solely on Scripture (or at least on Ady's interpretation of Scripture). Therefore, Ady not only emphatically endorses the Biblical injunction "thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live," but his stated goal is to correct public opinion concerning Witchcraft so that the real Witches can be hunted down and put to death.

Quotes from Thomas Ady's Candle in the Dark (1656):

• "....  to shew them the vanity and ridiculousness of those delusions and lying Wonders, by which men were so easily deluded in old times by Pharaohs Magicians, by Simon Magus, and Elimas the Sorcerer, and now adays by our professed Wizzards, or Witches, commonly called Cunning Men, or good Witches , who will undertake to shew the face of the Thief in the Glass ...."
• ".... many indeed have been led after Southsayers, but they are termed good Witches, and whereas they as Witches ought to dye, many have been put to death by their devillish false accusations, and if the Witch of Endor were now living amongst us, we should call her a good Witch, so blinde are the times."

8. Increase Mather (1639-1723)
Prominent New England Puritan who was the first president of Harvard College, and the father of Cotton Mather.

Quote from Increase Mather's Remarkable Providences (1684) 

• "Let such practitioners think the best of themselves, they are too near a kin to those creatures who commonly pass under the name of 'white witches.' They that do hurt to others by the devils help are called 'black witches' but there are a sort of persons in the world that will never hurt any; but only by the power of the infernal spirits they will un-bewitch those that seek unto them for relief. I know that by Constantius his law, black witches were to be punished, and white ones indulged ; but M. Perkins saith, that the good witch is a more horrible and detestable monster than the bad one. Balaam was a black witch, and Simon Magus a white one."

9. Richard Baxter (1615-1691)
A moderate Puritan who continued to advocate against separatism after the Restoration and even after the Act of Uniformity. Theologically, he rejected the central Calvinist doctrine of limited atonement in favor of universal atonement.

Quote from Richard Baxter's The Certainty of the WORLDS of SPIRITS (1691)

• "Being asked if he could do him no good, he said, he did not question but he could, but being a Minister he feared he should lose his Benefice by Peoples saying he was a White-Witch."

10. Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
Addison was a professional writer and also held a number of political offices. His writings, especially his Cato, A Tragedy (written in 1712), are often cited as important influences for later writers, activists, and revolutionaries in both England and America who were inspired by Addison's championing of republicanism, democracy and individual liberty.

Quote from Joseph Addison's play The Drummer, 1715

• "The common people call him a wizard, a white-witch, a conjurer, a cunning-man, a necromancer."

Links to works cited:

1. A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft, Willliam Perkins
2. Sathan Transformed into an Angell of Light, Thomas Cooper
3. The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton
4. A Guide to Grand Iury Men, Richard Bernard
5. A Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft, John Stearne
6. The Witch of Wapping, Anonymous
7. A Candle in the Dark, Thomas Ady
8. Remarkable Providences, Increase Mather
9. The Certainty of the World of the Spirits, Richard Baxter
10. The Drummer, Joseph Addison

Revision history:
Originally posted on 1/29/2013
Revised version, including John Stearne, posted 1/30/2013
Revised again, to include Robert Burton (bringing the count to 10) on 2/6/2013