Witchcraft in old and New England / by George Lyman Kittredge.

  • George Lyman Kittredge
Date:
1929
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Witchcraft in old and New England / by George Lyman Kittredge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    604/660 page 590
    republished in his Stelligeri and Other Essays concerning America, New York, 1893) and in his Cotton Mather, pp. 93 ff. 121. A long and curious list of cases of defamation may be seen in a volume of Depositions and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings from the Courts of Durham, extending from 1311 to the Reign of Elizabeth, edited by James Raine for the Surtees Society in 1845 (Publications, XXI). Thus, in 1556-57, Margaret Lambert accuses John Lawson of saying“that she was a chermer” (p. 84); in 1569-70 Margaret Reed is charged with calling Margaret Howhett “a horse goodmother water wych” (p. 91); in 1572. Thomas Fewler deposed that he “hard Elizabeth Anderson caull . . . Anne Burden ‘crowket handyd wytch.’ He saith the words was spoken audiently there; ther might many have herd them, beinge spoken so neigh the crose and in the towne gait as they were” (p. 247). So in 1691 Alice Bovill complained of a man who had said to her, “Thou bewitched my stot” (North Riding Record Society, Publications, IX, 6). See also His¬ torical Manuscripts Commission, Report on Manuscripts in Various Col¬ lections, I, 283; Lefroy, Bermudas or Somers Islands, II, 629 (No. 15). 122. See, for example, Mr. Noble’s edition of the Records of the Court of Assistants, II, 43, 72, 85, 94, 95, 104, 131, 136, — all between 1633 and 1644. 123. See Drake’s Annals of Witchcraft in New England; Noble’s Rec¬ ords, as above, I, 11, 31, 33, 159, 188, 228, 229, 233. 124. “Quia vulgo creditum, multorum annorum continuatam sterilita- tem a strigibus et maleficis diabolica invidia causari; tota patria in extinc- tionem maleficarum insurrexit” (as quoted from the autograph MS. in the Trier Stadt-Bibliothek by G. L. Burr, The Fate of Dietrich Flade, p. 51, Papers of the American Historical Association, V). 125. “Incredibile vulgi apud Germanos, & maxime (quod pudet dicere) Catholicos superstitio, invidia, calumnise, detractationes, susurrationes & similia, quae nec Magistratus punit, nec concionatores arguunt, suspi- cionem magiae primum excitant. Omnes divinae punitiones, quas in sacris literis Deus minatus est, a Sagis sunt. Nihil jam amplius Deus facit aut natura, sed Sagae omnia. 2. Unde impetu omnes clamant ut igitur in- quirat Magistratus in Sagas, quas non nisi ipsi suis linguis tot fecerunt” (Spee, Cautio Criminalis, seu de Processibus contra Sagax Liber, 2d ed., 1695, PP- 387-388; cf. Dubium xv, pp. 67-68, Dubium xxxiv, pp. 231-232). Spee’s book came out anonymously in 1631, and, unlike most works on this side of the question, had immediate results. Spee had no doubt of the existence of witchcraft (Dubium i, pp. 1 ff., Dubium, iii, pp. 7-8); his ex¬ perience, however, had taught him that most of those condemned were innocent. 126. The case is reported in A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations against Three Witches [etc.], 1682, which is reprinted in Howell’s State Trials, VIII, 1017 ff. 127. Roger North, Autobiography, chap, x, ed. Jessopp, 1887, pp. 131— 132. North gives a similar account of the same trial, with some general ob¬ servations of great interest, in his Life of the Lord Keeper Guilford, I, 267- 269 (ed. 1826). It is not clear whether North was present at the trial or not.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3