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.

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    complaint of Reginald Kene that John Mody had called Kene’s wife a wicked witch and thief. The same roll gives the presentation of the grand jury to the effect that “Diony- sia Baldewyne is accustomed to receive John de Wermhille and Agnes his wife, and Joan La Cornwalyse [i. e. Cornish woman] of Teignmouth, who are witches and enchanters/’210 “If ever you have practised nygromauncye,” writes Robert of Brunne in 1303, “and have offered sacrifice to the devil through witchcraft, or given reward to anybody to raise the devil in order to discover lost goods, you have sinned. If you have looked into sword or basin or thumb or crystal (or caused a child to do so) — all that sort of thing is called witchcraft. Trust not the pie’s chattering — many men are deceived thereby; nor omens from meeting in the morning, nor hansel, nor dreams. Put not your trust in witchcraft. Whenever it is true, that is merely through the devil’s craft to make men believe what is hateful to God.” So far Robert follows his author, William (conveniently styled “of Wad- dington”), an Englishman who wrote in French in the pre¬ vious century.211 Then, instead of translating William’s story of a false dream, Robert illustrates witchcraft by quite a dif¬ ferent example — the tale of the Witch and her Milk-sucking Bag, which we shall consider in its place (p. 165). Dan Michel of Kent (1340) has a similar passage censuring those who “for pence” cause Satan to be invoked and practise en¬ chantments; those who “make to look in the sword or the nail of the thumb” to detect thieves or for other purposes; and those who by charms or by witchcraft cause man and wife to hate each other or bring about unlawful love between the unmarried. He mentions also the abuse of host, chalice, and chrism by witches and evil-minded priests. In another place he writes of “the deuines [diviners] and the wichen and the charmeresses that werketh be the dyueles crefte.” 212 In the first decade of this century came the prosecution of the Templars in France and England, involving charges of Satanism and the blackest magic which are too familiar to need specification.213 The prevalence of occult practices at about this time is emphasized by Bishop Baldock in a man¬ date “against sorcerers and enchanters” addressed to the official of the Archdeacon of London in 1311. He has learned
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