The Lancashire trials are among the most famous witch trials in European history, with ten people executed together. The Lancashire trial was highly publicized, including in the 1613 pamphlet by Thomas Potts, . This fascinating trial is an excellent example of the hysteria surrounding witch trials in 17th century England.

The Trial and Executions

The trial of the Lancashire (also called Pendle) witches occurred in 1612 in the northern English county of Lancashire. Twelve individuals were accused of using witchcraft and plotting against authorities. Of the twelve accused, one was tried in York on July 27th, 1612, one died in prison before trial, and the other ten were tried in Lancashire on August 18 and 19, 1612, in a series of trials. Of the eleven accused who went to trial, nine were women and two were men. Only one person was found not guilty. It is estimated that, of the 40,000 executions of suspected witches in Europe between the 15th and mid-18th centuries, only 500 of them occurred in England. This makes the fact that so many people were executed at once following the Lancashire witch trials especially unique (Sharp 3).

Witch Trials in the Social Climate of Early Modern Europe

The typical victims of witch trials in the early modern period were poor elderly women. An account of the trial by Thomas Potts has a description of Anne Whittle, one of the executed women, that illustrates the contemporary misogyny that fueled stereotypes of witches: a very old withered spent and decreped creatureHer lippes ever chattering and walking: but no man knew what.

Despite witch trails occuring throughout Europe in the period, the concept of witchcraft was not the same over all social and economic classes. Scholar Richard Horsely as found that the higher and more educated classes had a specific understanding that witchcraft involved the use of powers specifically granted by the devil. Those of the lower classes did not necessarily make that religious connection and generally used accusations of witchcraft as a way of settling local quarrels. This can be seen in peasants accusing their neighbors of practicing witchcraft but not of practicing sorcery. Horsely discusses peasants’ idea of witchcraft as related to the malicious power inherent in witches, while sorcery was a malicious power enacted through explicit and learned techniques. Therefore, he beleives that to the early modern peasant, witches were an evil separate from the devil.

More learned people, like the ones who generally oversaw the trials, understood the cultural function of witch trials was linked to concepts of a Christian society. Witchcraft was the work of Satan, and witches had been seduced by Satan or his servants.

To commoners, the practice of witch trials was in some ways the transformation of local concerns into formal legal procedure (Holmes 50). Witch trials provides a way to settle scores, end quarrels, and get a form of justice.

Play Adaptation:

is a play adaptation of the Lancashire trials. The play was written by Thomas Heywood and Richard Brome and published in 1639. The play ran for three days in August 1634 at the Globe Theater. A report of the play has survived in a letter that comments and though there be not in it (to my understanding) any poetical genius, or art, or language, or judgment to state or tenet of witches (which I expected), or application to virtue, but full of ribaldry and of things improbable and impossible, yet in respect of the newness of the subject (the witches being still visible and in prison here) and in regard it consisteth from the beginning to the end of odd passages and fopperies foolish or absurd actions to provoke laughter, and is mixed with divers songs and dances, it passeth for a merry and excellent new play.

The successful play (considered so because it was performed three nights in a row) followed the events of the trial of the Pendle witches. Because of this, this play could be considered a part of the true crime genre.

The public’s fascination with the trial and the success of the play when first performed can be attributed to how widely published and unusual the actual events were. Even though the play reveals the chaos surrounding witchcraft, some scholars like Meg Pearson argue that by showing this community already employing a number of traditional practices, several of which are deployed to manage local problems, the playwrights argue that this community—which includes witches—functions perfectly well. The playwrights also reveal the inherent drama in witch trials, and like today, that legal dramas made good entertainment.

Key Print Sources Gowing, Laura. . , Oxford University Press, 23 Sep. 2004. Sharpe, James. in , ed. Robert Poole. Manchester University Press, 2002, pp. 1–19.

Key Online Sources Castelow, Ellen. . , 1 Nov. 2020, https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/18838332.never-forgetting-pendle-witches-tragedy/. Holmes, Clive. . , no. 140, Oxford University Press, The Past and Present Society, 1993, pp. 45–78, , http://www.jstor.org/stable/651213. Horsley, Richard A. . , vol. 9, no. 4, The MIT Press, 1979, pp. 689–715, , https://doi.org/10.2307/203380. Pearson, Meg. . , vol. 3, no. 1, Penn State University Press, 2014, pp. 147–67, , https://doi.org/10.5325/preternature.3.1.0147. Poole, Robert, ed. . Manchester University Press, 2002, , http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt155jb7v. Ostovich, Helen. . , Royal Holloway, University of London and University of Sheffield, 2010, https://www.dhi.ac.uk/brome/viewOriginal.jsp?play=LW&type=TEXT. Shafer, Elizabeth. . , Royal Holloway, University of London and University of Sheffield, 2010, https://www.dhi.ac.uk/brome/history.jsp?play=LW.