5 Witchcraft, economy and society in the forest of Pendle
-
John Swain
Abstract
This chapter explores economic and social history in the context of witchcraft in the Pendle area using the ‘village tensions’ approach, the most influential modern explanation of witchcraft. This model focuses upon the grassroots generation of witchcraft accusations rather than on the prosecution process. It proposes that the profound social and economic pressures of the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries tended to divide the members of parish communities against each other, and these in turn generated threats and accusations of witchcraft. Using this model, an account of the pressures on Pendle's upland ‘cattle and cloth economy’ is combined with a detailed analysis of the individual accusations in the 1612 trial. A high proportion of the witchcraft cases in Pendle involved disputes over money and property or misfortunes involving milk and cattle, arguing that social and economic pressures influenced but did not determine the events of 1612. Magical powers, offered or threatened, were themselves part of the local economy, what might be called a black economy of witchcraft.
Abstract
This chapter explores economic and social history in the context of witchcraft in the Pendle area using the ‘village tensions’ approach, the most influential modern explanation of witchcraft. This model focuses upon the grassroots generation of witchcraft accusations rather than on the prosecution process. It proposes that the profound social and economic pressures of the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries tended to divide the members of parish communities against each other, and these in turn generated threats and accusations of witchcraft. Using this model, an account of the pressures on Pendle's upland ‘cattle and cloth economy’ is combined with a detailed analysis of the individual accusations in the 1612 trial. A high proportion of the witchcraft cases in Pendle involved disputes over money and property or misfortunes involving milk and cattle, arguing that social and economic pressures influenced but did not determine the events of 1612. Magical powers, offered or threatened, were themselves part of the local economy, what might be called a black economy of witchcraft.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- Notes on contributors vii
- Preface x
- Acknowledgements xiii
- 1 Introduction 1
- Part I: The Trials of 1612 19
- 2 Potts, plots and politics 22
- 3 Thomas Potts’s ‘dusty memory’ 42
- 4 ‘Those to whom evil is done’ 58
- Part II: Contexts 71
- 5 Witchcraft, economy and society in the forest of Pendle 73
- 6 The Reformation in the parish of Whalley 88
- 7 Beyond Pendle 105
- Part III: Rewriting the Lancashire Witches 123
- 8 The pilot’s thumb 126
- 9 Sexual and spiritual politics in the events of 1633–34 and The Late Lancashire Witches 146
- 10 The ‘Lancashire novelist’ and the Lancashire witches 166
- 11 Wicca, Paganism and history 188
- Bibliography 204
- Index 219
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- Notes on contributors vii
- Preface x
- Acknowledgements xiii
- 1 Introduction 1
- Part I: The Trials of 1612 19
- 2 Potts, plots and politics 22
- 3 Thomas Potts’s ‘dusty memory’ 42
- 4 ‘Those to whom evil is done’ 58
- Part II: Contexts 71
- 5 Witchcraft, economy and society in the forest of Pendle 73
- 6 The Reformation in the parish of Whalley 88
- 7 Beyond Pendle 105
- Part III: Rewriting the Lancashire Witches 123
- 8 The pilot’s thumb 126
- 9 Sexual and spiritual politics in the events of 1633–34 and The Late Lancashire Witches 146
- 10 The ‘Lancashire novelist’ and the Lancashire witches 166
- 11 Wicca, Paganism and history 188
- Bibliography 204
- Index 219
