This chapter drills into the parish records of Little and Great Clacton to reveal new information about the Selles family, accused of witchcraft as tensions around child-rearing and illegitimacy reached a peak in a second village. It shows how parish records are vital to an understanding of the life circumstances of ordinary villagers and how much a name, a relatuonship or a life event can tell us about the processes of witch accusation.

This chapter ranges over the St Osyth lndscape, mapping its haunted spots and the location of key encounters with familiar spirits, particularly those said to belong to Elizabeth Bennet, Margerie Sammon, Ales Hunt and Joan Pechey. It introduces further key figures from the wider Darcy estate and shows how more suspects were drawn into the witch hunt. It argues that the history and features of a landscape can tell us much about the origin of local witchcraft fears.

This chapter tells the story of the witch hunts arrival in Little Oakley and Beaumont cum Moze, and reconstructs the life of the sole suspect there, Annis Herd. Using parish and manorial court records, and the records of the archdeaconry court, it shows how Annis interacted with the churchwardens of several parishes, her inter-related neighbours and the Beaumont Rector, Richard Harrison, leading to her accusation.

This chapter examines how the witch hunt that began in St Osyth spread east to the three Soken villages, Thorpe, Kirby and Walton. It draws on manorial court records of these linked villages to reveal new information about the suspects and their accusers and it discusses their economic rivalries over resources and land.

This chapter examines the origin of the St Osyth witchcraft accusations in the strained relationship between Grace Thurlowe, a servant at St Osyth Priory, and the cunning woman Ursley Kempe. It reconstructs the network of magical healers in the locality, suggesting that competition and sensitivities around child-rearing and illegitimacy were important in sparking suspicion, as well as several recent deaths of key players in the village.

An emotive, haunting story of a community torn apart, the Essex witch accusations and trial of 1581-2 are, taken together, one of the pivotal instances of that malign and destructive wave of misogynistic persecution which periodically broke over early modern England. Yet, for all their importance in the overall study of witchcraft, the so-called witches of St Osyth have largely been overlooked by scholars. Marion Gibson now sets right that neglect. Using fresh archival sources – and investigating not just the village itself, but also its neighbouring Elizabethan hamlets and habitations – the author offers revelatory new insights into the sixteen women and one man accused of sorcery while asking wider, provocative questions about the way history is recollected and interpreted. Combining landscape detective work, a reconstruction of lost spaces and authoritative readings of newly identified key documents, Gibson skilfully unlocks the poignant personal histories of those denied the chance to speak for themselves.

Witch hunts raged for almost 300 years across Europe and its colonies, claiming the lives of some 50,000 women, men, and children. At their height, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, magistrates and inquisitors tortured those suspected of witchcraft in desperate attempts to uncover their confederates and prove their fealty to the Devil himself. Many people believed that their friends and neighbors had made wicked pacts with Satan and practiced harmful magic that destroyed crops, sickened livestock, and murdered the innocent. Lurid tales of secret gatherings, where witches worshipped the Devil and ate the flesh of unbaptized infants, combined with widespread economic hardship, famine, and war to produce unprecedented levels of paranoia and anxiety that lasted for generations. Theologians and philosophers accused witches of engaging in sexual intercourse with demons, the ruling classes led brutal purges of rebels and heretics, and practitioners of folk magic — healers, midwives, soothsayers — went from respected members of their communities to suspected witches.

Chapter 5 examines what happened to women who did not conform, the troublemakers and heretics who refused to adhere to the expectations of their faith and their societies. This chapter offers a case study of Ann Hibbens, who exemplifies the dangers to women who transgressed gendered boundaries. The wife of a wealthy and well-regarded man, Hibbens faced censure charges when she disputed the work and fees of a carpenter she hired. While negotiating such work fell within the boundaries of wifely duties, challenging a man in business did not. In her censure process, Ann did not adhere to the expectations for a female sinner and was resolute that she was right and refused to submit to the authority of men. Any deviance or defiance of the social norms branded women as suspect, and Ann’s determination to spar with men made her very dangerous. When her husband died, leaving her unprotected, she went from a troublesome woman to a witch. The costs were high for such women in early New England.

After 600 years without executions of heretics, several were burned in France in 1022. Persecutions, erratic across western Europe, remained rare in Orthodox lands. Debate continues over whether large medieval heretical movements existed or were inflated by authorities seeking an excuse to assert their authority. Hunts for heretics turned into witchcraft trials by the late 1300s. Soon a stereotype of the witch insisted that she rejected Christianity and committed evil acts at the devil’s command. Witch hunts then occurred in various lands, especially along the Rhine in 1580–90 and 1620–30. Such persecutions, also erratic, never took place in many areas. The relatively few Russian cases rarely mentioned alliance with Satan. Both strains of persecution arose in western Europe by the eleventh century as fear worsened of enemies within Christendom. The church strengthened its influence, making heresy identifiable. In Catholic and Protestant regions witch hunts arose when villagers accused their neighbours of foul deeds and the local elite seized on the witch stereotype. But authorities often rejected that image, while central officials in Sweden, for instance, halted trials. Thus, it is doubtful that the hunts had the intention or effect of terrorising women, instilling social discipline among peasants or strengthening the state. They ended as objections grew that evidence for witchcraft was weak or conjectural.