The Lancashire Witches: Histories and StoriesRobert Poole This book is the first major study of England's biggest and best-known witch trial, which took place in 1612 when ten witches from the Forest of Pendle were hanged at Lancaster. In this volume, eleven experts from a variety of fields offer new surveys of these events, and of their meaning for contemporaries, for later generations, and for the present day. It is the fullest study of any English witch trial. Essays look at the politics of witch-hunting, the conduct of the trial, the social and economic contexts, religious forces, and the local and family details of the episode. The book also covers the little-known second witch trial of 1633-4, when up to nineteen witches were sentenced to death. Other essays look at how stories of Lancashire witchcraft have been shaped and retold, from Thomas Pott's original book of the trial, Shakespeare's Macbeth and Heywood and Brome's play The Late Lancashire Witches to Harrison Ainsworth's celebrated Victorian novel. There is also a study of the attitudes of present-day Lancashire Wiccans and their opponents. The essays present new research, but written in a clear style to make them accessible to non-specialists. Short prefaces explain the key points of each essay, and the introduction by James Sharpe places them firmly in context. The book will appeal to academics and students of history, renaissance studies and witchcraft, and to anyone with an interest in the historical truth behind the legendary Pendle witches. |
From inside the book
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Page 60
... Lister of Westbie ' . ( In fact she is almost certainly that Jennet Balderston who married William Preston in Gisburn parish church on 10 May 1587.5 ) She had been treated with special generosity by Lister senior , the main landowner of ...
... Lister of Westbie ' . ( In fact she is almost certainly that Jennet Balderston who married William Preston in Gisburn parish church on 10 May 1587.5 ) She had been treated with special generosity by Lister senior , the main landowner of ...
Page 61
... Lister of Westby to death : and after Master Lister should be made away by Witchcraft , then al the said Witches gave their consents to joyne altogether to hancke Master Leonard Lister , when he should come to dwell at the Sowgill , and ...
... Lister of Westby to death : and after Master Lister should be made away by Witchcraft , then al the said Witches gave their consents to joyne altogether to hancke Master Leonard Lister , when he should come to dwell at the Sowgill , and ...
Page 62
... Lister's close neighbour among the Yorkshire gentry , who on Lister's behalf four years later would , as a magistrate , prosecute Jennet for witch- craft . The church records suggest a dramatic scenario , one which would trau- matise ...
... Lister's close neighbour among the Yorkshire gentry , who on Lister's behalf four years later would , as a magistrate , prosecute Jennet for witch- craft . The church records suggest a dramatic scenario , one which would trau- matise ...
Contents
the Lancashire witches in historical context | 1 |
James Is Daemonologie | 22 |
reconstructing justice | 42 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
Abbey's accused Ainsworth Alice Nutter Alizon Alizon Device Altham Anne Arraignement Assizes bewitched Bromley Cambridge Campion Castle Catholic chapter church Cockburn confessed court CSPD culture cunning cunning folk Daemonologie Decline of Magic demonic Devil Discoverie of Witches early modern England Edmund Robinson Elizabeth English evidence Examination gentry Gisburn healers healing Heywood historians Hoghton Tower Instruments of Darkness James Sharpe James's Jennet Preston Jesuits John Jonathan Lumby judges King Knyvet Lanca Lancashire witch trials Lancashire Witch-Craze Lancaster Castle Late Lancashire Witches London Macbeth Malkin Tower Manchester Nicholas Old Demdike Oxford Paganism pamphlet parish Paslew Pendle Hill Pendle witches persecution play Plot Potts's prosecution Protestant Puritan records Reformation Religion religious Roger Nowell Ronald Hutton Routledge sabbat Samlesbury Satan seventeenth century Shakespeare shee shire social story Swain Thomas Lister Thomas Potts tion Tudor University Press Whalley Abbey Whitaker Wicca witch-hunting witchcraft beliefs Witches and Neighbours woman women Wonderfull Discoverie