The witch trials of early modern Europe, which occurred between the mid-fifteenth century and lasted until the middle of the eighteenth century, resulted in the mass murder of 40,000 to 60,000 people, the majority of whom were women.
Among the earliest signs of what was to come was the 1324 trial of Dame Alice Kyteler by an ecclesiastical court in Kilkenny, Ireland. This case would set a precedent in ironing out the relationship between secular and sacred law, making sorcery and witchcraft prosecutions easier in the future.
Alice was born to wealthy Norman parents in 1263.
Her reputation was tarnished by allegations that she had murdered her former husbands (all four of them) and engaged in money lending.
Her first husband, William Outlawe, was a local banker who had become ill and died suddenly after only a few short years of marriage. Her second marriage was also cut short by the death of her second wealthy husband, Adam de Blund of Cullen. Her third husband, Richard de Valle, also died suddenly.
The reality is that in an age before vaccines and antibiotics, people often succumbed to their afflictions, and the fact that Alice had outlived three husbands was not actually that unusual. (Bess of Hardwick outlived four husbands and became the second wealthiest woman in England, second only to Queen Elizabeth herself, and she was never suspected of foul play.) It was only when husband number four died that people began to question whether Alice Kyteler had played a part in her spouses’ demise. And this (allegedly) was because of accusations levied by the man himself on his deathbed.
Husband number four, landowner Sir John de Poer, began to show signs of illness a few years into their marriage. His symptoms included emaciation, hair loss, and (more unusually) his nails also fell out. One day, having become convinced that his condition was the result of powders and lotions prescribed by his wife, John, grabbing the keys from his wife’s maidservant, opened the chests which contained the ‘poisonous ingredients’ and sent them to be examined by the Bishop of Ossory.
The bishop, Richard Ledrede, prosecuted Alice on a charge of practising sorcery. (Or at least he tried to.)
Because of the unsettled relationship between sacred and secular law at this time and because of Alice’s position in high society, Ledrede had great difficulty even having her arrested. In fact, he was even arrested at one point in the whole affair!
This debacle allowed Alice to escape out of Kilkenny, and out of history.
The link between poisoning and witchcraft (maleficium) was long established at this point, with even the Greek Septuagint Bible rendering the Hebrew m’khashephah (malevolent magic doer) as pharmakeia or poisoner. What is particularly interesting about Kyteler’s story is that much of the witch stereotype appears in this case, demonstrating that the notion of ‘the witch’ was slowly coming into existence by the early fourteenth century.
In addition to being accused of poisoning her husbands, Alice Kyteler was also accused of:
- Rejecting Christianity - refusing to hear mass, eat the holy bread or drink holy water.
- Sacrificing animals to demons at a crossroads
- Seeking advice and answers from demons
- Holding nocturnal meetings where she would mix the intestines of sacrificed animals with hairs from the buttocks, the clothes of boys who had died before being baptized, and fingernails from dead bodies, and boil the mixture in the skull of a decapitated thief. (Various powders and ointments were made from the mixture, some of which were used to murder her hubbies.)
- Using sorcery to manipulate other Christians
- Having an incubus lover named Robin, Son of Art who appeared in the shape of a cat, a shaggy black dog, and a black man. (Apparently, Alice admitted that she received her wealth and everything she owned from this demon.)
While Alice was lucky to have escaped with her life, it was a different story for her maidservant, Petronilla of Meath, who had been arrested and tortured into confessing to helping Alice carry out the activities above. She was flogged and burnt at the stake as a heretic in November 1324. Her execution foreshadowed the mass murder of peasant women which was to unfold in the following centuries.
While it might be true that John suspected his wife had poisoned him, we must consider who put the idea in his head. On that note, it is intriguing to learn that his children and the children of husbands two and three informed the bishop that Alice had used sorcery to make their fathers become so ‘stupid’ that they left their fortunes to her and her youngest son William (son of husband number one) rather than to them, the rightful heirs. It seems highly likely that they encouraged the rumours about their mother/stepmother having been a sorceress in order to gain financially.
Photograph: Kilkenny Castle, Kilkenny, Ireland. It is said that Alice was imprisoned in the castle dungeons.
Main source: Brian P Levack (ed.), The Witchcraft Sourcebook: Second Edition (2nd. edn, London, 2015), 41-44.