Pendle

• Economic and social context

  • Whalley Abbey provided charity and education - closed down in 1541
  • Poor suffer/ population growth in the area (1541 = 500 people/ 1612 = 1500)
  • Reflected in the construction of 2 new mills
  • Enclosure and inflation - rich got richer (inflation increasing 4% a year, wages by 2%)
  • 1601 poor law - vagrants would be arrested
  • Subtenants and copyholders (copyholders expected to pay 12 years rent in one go, subtenants paid 25x more in rent)
  • Copyholders clashed with the Duchy of Lancaster 1607 - showed they were now poor
  • Importance of cows and agriculture - vulnerable economy
  • Overreliance on cloth
• Religion

  • Closely links to economic context (closure of Whalley Abbey)
  • 1.1% of population were Catholic, more than 7% in Lancashire
  • Lancashire was the centre of Catholicism - corrupted versions of old prayers mentioned
  • 2 puritans purchased the formerly Whalley Abbey land
  • Whalley Abbey was very large and hard to control (180 square miles)
• Old Demdike


  Elizabeth Device - Alizon and James Device
• Old Chattox

  Anne Redfem
• Family rivalries

  • Chattox and Demdike rivalry - theft of 20 shillings worth of clothes from Alizon Device
  • Donation of grain from John Device to Chattox - he died when he stopped paying
  • Nutter family (high status) - Chattox was their tenant and was accused of killing John's cow
  • Chattox had an existing reputation (at least with the Demdike family) as a witch
  • Rivalries over begging and as reputation of healers - Demdike's confession included the clay figure accusation against Chattox and her daughter
• Legal issues

  • 1604 witchcraft act - introduced the notion of the Pact with the Devil, death penalty was retained for the killing of a person, also made it an offence to consult with of feed any evil spirit, fused old English ideas of maleficium with continental diabolical pact and familiars
  • Roger Nowell - JP and landowner, connections with high profile protestants, wanted to prove himself (62 years old), possible that the Nutter family were arrested because he wanted to gain favour with the King for arresting Catholics as well as witches, son-in-law was Robert Hyde of Norbury who was a known Puritan, probably used torture, his family prospered through marriages to wealthy landowners, family estates were enlarged by the purchase of lands formerly belonging to Whalley Abbey, he was Sherriff of Lancashire 1609-10, Potts stated he was a "very religious honest Gentleman" (puritan)
• Thomas Potts provenance

  • Clerk of the court - unique insight to the trial (entirely first-hand account)
  • The two judges ordered him to write an account of the trials that could be made public
  • Published 3 months after the trial
  • The judges may have written some of the accounts themselves
  • His patron was Thomas Knyvet (credited with apprehending Guy Fawkes in 1905)
  • Wrote with a scholarly air
  • Aimed at protecting the reputation of the judges and himself and enable them to advance their careers
  • Selective in details
  • Presents written witness statements as if they were spoken in court to add to the drama
  • Failed to include any of the legal processes