9 Sexual and spiritual politics in the events of 1633–34 and The Late Lancashire Witches
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Alison Findlay
Abstract
This chapter outlines the sexual and spiritual politics in the 1634 case and shows how it came to be adapted for the London stage after some of the victims were brought to London for questioning. The stories told against them were invented, but they were effective because they expressed common attitudes and drew on still-current memories of the events of 1612, fictions that were again circulated in the 1634 play. They were refashioned around themes such as disruptive women, transgressive sexual energy, and social inversion. Religious politics formed the background to the 1612 trials, but a generation later things had moved on. Not popery but Puritanism and the ritualistic high Anglicanism of the 1630s were the targets of its even-handed satire; and whilst the witches were still the object of real fears and fascinations, they were beginning to become figures of fun.
Abstract
This chapter outlines the sexual and spiritual politics in the 1634 case and shows how it came to be adapted for the London stage after some of the victims were brought to London for questioning. The stories told against them were invented, but they were effective because they expressed common attitudes and drew on still-current memories of the events of 1612, fictions that were again circulated in the 1634 play. They were refashioned around themes such as disruptive women, transgressive sexual energy, and social inversion. Religious politics formed the background to the 1612 trials, but a generation later things had moved on. Not popery but Puritanism and the ritualistic high Anglicanism of the 1630s were the targets of its even-handed satire; and whilst the witches were still the object of real fears and fascinations, they were beginning to become figures of fun.
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
