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The devil's mark: a socio-cultural analysis of physical evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2009

ORNA ALYAGON DARR
ORNA ALYAGON DARR
Affiliation:
Faculty of Law, University of Haifa.
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Abstract

This article discusses the search for ‘the devil's mark’ as an example of the social embeddedness of evidentiary methods. The belief in early modern England was that the devil branded the bodies of witches with symbolic yet concrete corporeal malformations such as marks and growths. Thus a bodily search for the devil's mark became a common procedure in witch-trials. The analysis here of the fierce debate about the probative value of this allegedly direct physical evidence demonstrates an affinity between the evidential dispositions of the participants and their social position. The meaning of this method of proof emerged in the context of different, sometimes inconsistent or even competing, cultural concepts.

Le signe du diable: l'interprétation socio-culturelle de signes physiques

L'auteur examine ce qu'a été la recherche du ‘signe du Diable’ et y voit un phénomène révélant combien profonde dans la société est la quête de la preuve. Dans l'Angleterre de l'époque moderne, on croyait que le diable marquait le corps des sorcières de signes symboliques mais qui étaient aussi des malformations corporelles réelles telles que taches ou excroissances. C'est pourquoi, au cours des procès en sorcellerie, la recherche du signe du diable sur le corps de la sorcière était procédure commune. A analyser le débat acharné quant à la valeur probatoire de ce témoignage physique considéré comme preuve, on voit une relation très nette entre la disposition des participants à accepter une telle preuve et leur niveau social. Ce que signifiait cette façon d'apporter la preuve tenait à des contextes culturels différents, sans grande cohérence entre eux ou même opposés.

Das teufelsmal: eine sozio-kulturelle analyse körperlicher beweismittel

Dieser Aufsatz diskutiert am Beispiel der Suche nach dem Teufelsmal die soziale Einbettung von Untersuchungsmethoden. Im frühneuzeitlichen England glaubte man, der Teufel zeichne die Körper von Hexen mit symbolischen, aber zugleich konkreten körperlichen Missbildungen wie z.B. Wundmalen und Wucherungen. Daher wurde die Leibesvisitation mit der Suche nach dem Teufelsmal zu einem Standardverfahren innerhalb des Hexenprozesses. Analysiert man die scharfen Debatte über den juristischen Wert dieses angeblich direkten körperlichen Beweismittels, so zeigt sich, dass die Neigungen der Beteiligten hinsichtlich des Beweisverfahrens stark von ihrer sozialen Position abhing. Bedeutung erlangte diese Beweismethode im Kontext unterschiedlicher, manchmal auch inkonsistenter oder sogar konkurrierender kultureller Konzepte.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , August 2009 , pp. 361 - 387
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Edmund Bower, Doctor lamb revived (London, 1653), 27, 28–9.

2 Doctor Lambs darling (British Library, Thomason Tracts, 109: E.707[2]) (London, 1653), 7–8; this text, aimed at the cheap and popular market, contains plagiarism from the longer and more serious tract by Bower, and while it cannot be considered an independent historical source on the trial, it reflects the popular sentiment towards the importance of the devil's mark. (Note that in the endnotes below works that were published anonymously appear simply without the name of an author. Seventeenth-century titles are also often considerably shortened; full titles can be found on Early English Books Online. The Thomason Tracts are now housed in the British Library, London, and I include the British Library shelfmark – e.g. here ‘E.707[2]’ – preceeded by the microfilm reel number from the microfilm edition of The Thomason Collection of the British Library published by University Microfilms International (UMI), Ann Arbor, Michigan (1981) – here ‘109’.)

3 Goodare, Julian, ‘Women and the witch-hunt in Scotland’, Social History 23, 3 (1998), 302CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thomas Cooper, Mystery of witch-craft, Early English Books Online (London, 1617), 88.

4 33 Hen. VIII, c. 8, 1542 (repealed five years later by 1 Edw. VI. c. 12, 1547, s. 3); 5 Eliz., c. 16, 1563; 1 Jac. I, c. 12. 1604 (eventually repealed by 9 Geo. II c. 5, 1735).

5 The examination and confession of certaine wytches, Early English Books Online (London, 1566), Avii V – Aviii.

6 Holmes, Clive, ‘Women: witnesses and witches’, Past and Present 140 (1993), 70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cecil L‘Estrange Ewen, Witchcraft and demonianism (London, 1933), 75.

7 A rehearsall both straung and true, Early English Books Online (London, 1579), A6; A detection of damnable driftes, Early English Books Online (London, 1579), A5.

8 See also Holmes, ‘Women’, 71; Gregory Durston, Witchcraft (Chichester, 2000), 317–18.

9 Francis Bragge, A full and impartial account of the discovery of sorcery and witchcraft practis'd by J. W. … her tryal, etc., 2nd edn (London, 1712), 11.

10 The references to Continental authors such as Jean Bodin, Nicolas Rémy, or Martin Antoine Del Rio throughout the early modern treatises demonstrate familiarity despite the lack of translations. Already in 1584 Reginald Scot referred to ‘Sprenger's fables and Bodin's bables’ and criticizes the ideas of the Malleus maleficarum throughout his text; Reginald Scot, The discouerie of witchcraft (London, 1584), B5, 9, 10. Among the translated Continental works are the anonymous A strange report of sixe most notorious vvitches, Early English Books Online (London, 1601); Agrippa von Nettesheim, Henry Cornelius Agrippa's fourth book of occult philosophy, and geomancy (London, 1655) and Three books of occult philosophy, Early English Books Online (London, 1650); S'bastien Michaelis, The admirable historie, Early English Books Online (London, 1613); A true discourse, upon the matter of Martha Brossier, Early English Books Online (London, 1599); Lambert Daneau, A dialogue of witches, Early English Books Online (London, 1575); A true discourse. Declaring the damnable life and death of one Stubbe Peeter, Early English Books Online (London, 1590); Newes from Scotland, Early English Books Online (London, 1592); The life and death of Lewis Gaufredy, Early English Books Online (London, 1612); A relation of the deuill Balams, Early English Books Online (London, 1636); and A certaine relation of the hog-faced gentlewoman, Early English Books Online (London, 1640).

11 John Webster, The displaying of supposed witchcraft, Early English Books Online (London, 1677), 82.

12 Malcolm Gaskill, Witchfinders (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 81.

13 Clive Holmes, ‘Popular culture? Witches, magistrates and divines in early modern England’, in S. L. Kaplan ed., Understanding popular culture: Europe from the middle ages to the nineteenth century (Berlin, 1984), 99; Alexander Roberts, A treatise of witchcraft, Early English Books Online (London, 1616), 14–15.

14 Scot, The discouerie of witchcraft.

15 William Perkins, A discourse of the damned art of witchcraft; so farre forth as it is revealed in the Scriptures and manifest by true experience …, Early English Books Online (Cambridge, 1608), 203; James I, Daemonologie, Early English Books Online (Edinburgh, 1597), 80; Cooper, Mystery of witch-craft, 88.

16 James Sharpe, ‘Witch's familiar’, in G. W. Bernard and S. J. Gunn eds., Authority and consent in Tudor England (Aldershot, 2002), 226.

17 Ibid., 227–9.

18 Gilbert Geis and Ivan Bunn, A trial of witches (London, 1997), 75.

19 A tryal of witches (London, 1682), 35–7; Witches of Warboys, Early English Books online (London, 1593), O3v–O4.

20 Goodare, ‘Women’, 301; A true and impartial relation, Early English Books Online (London, 1682), 11; Bower, Doctor Lamb revived, 28–9, Doctor Lambs Darling, 7–8; H. F., A true and exact relation (Thomason Tracts, 49: E.296[23]) (London, 1645), 9; Newes from Scotland, B2v; Holmes, ‘Popular culture?’, 99.

21 W. W., A True and iust recorde, Early English Books Online (London, 1582), D5v; John Davenport, The witches of Huntingdon (Thomason Tracts, 56: E.343[10]) (London, 1646), 5; The apprehension, Early English Books Online (London, 1589), A4v.

22 Ann Usher felt ‘2 things like butterflies in her secret p[ar]tes’; see Jim Sharpe, ‘The devil in East Anglia’, in Jonathan Barry, Marianne Hester, and Gareth Roberts eds., Witchcraft in early modern Europe (Cambridge, 1996), 248. Jane Holt felt pain when the familiar sucked her at night, but ‘when it lay upon her breast she strucke it off with her hand, and that it was soft as a Cat’; Joan Cariden was sucked regularly by the devil, and ‘it was no paine to her’; for both see The examination, confession, triall, and execution, of Joane Williford (London, 1645), 3, 4.

23 James A. Sharpe, Instruments of darkness (London, 1996), 71; Stuart Clark, Thinking with demons (Oxford, 1997), 451.

24 B. Misodaimon, The divels delvsions (London, 1649), 3–4.

25 Holmes, ‘Women’, 77.

26 I. D., The most wonderfull and true storie, Early English Books Online (London, 1597), 8–9.

27 Henry Goodcole, The wonderfull discouerie of Elizabeth Savvyer, Early English Books Online (London, 1621), B3–B3v.

28 Multiple convictions at the Lancaster Assizes in 1634 made some doubtful authorities seek a respite of execution, a move which prompted an investigation; see Holmes, ‘Women’, 66.

29 Bower, Doctor Lamb revived, 28–9.

30 The tryal of Richard Hathaway (London, 1702), 5.

31 Bragge, Full and impartial account, 11.

32 Richard Bernard, A guide to grand-iury men, Early English Books Online (London, 1627), 111–12.

33 Goodare, ‘Women’, 301–2; Barbara Rosen ed., Witchcraft (New York, 1972); 19, Geis and Bunn, A trial of witches, 75.

34 Keith Thomas, Religion and the decline of magic (New York, 1971), 551. See also John Stearne, A confirmation, Early English Books Online (London, 1648), 16–17, 19, 44, 46; Davenport, The witches of Huntingdon, 15; H. F., A true and exact relation, 26, 28.

35 C. R. Unsworth, ‘Witchcraft beliefs and criminal procedure in early Modern England’, in Thomas G. Watkins ed., The legal record and historical reality: proceedings of the eighth British Legal History conference, Cardiff, 1987 (Cardiff, 1989), 93.

36 A true relation of the araignment of eighteene vvitches, Early English Books Online (London, 1645), 6–7. That manner of search was later forbidden by the judges; see Matthew Hopkins, The discovery of witches (London, 1647; repr. 1988), answer 8. See also Sharpe, Instruments of darkness, 143.

37 Stearne, A confirmation, 46–7; Wallace Notestein, A history of witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 (New York, 1911), available at http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;cc=acls;idno=heb00177.0001.001;view=toc, 167; Unsworth, ‘Witchcraft beliefs’, 93.

38 Hopkins, The discovery of witches, answer 5.

39 E.g. H. F., A true and exact relation, 16, 24.

40 Stearne, A confirmation, 16.

41 Ibid., 46.

42 Gaskill, Witchfinders, 128–9.

43 Brian P. Levack, ‘State-building and witch hunting’, in Barry, Hester, and Roberts eds., Witchcraft in early modern Europe, 106–7.

44 Goodare, ‘Women’, 301. Though investigation under torture was not permitted under the standard English criminal procedure, torture was infrequently warranted by the Privy Council, especially in treason trials; see John H. Langbein, Torture and the law of proof (Chicago, 1977), 73–139. See also Hanson, Elizabeth, ‘Torture and truth in Renaissance England’, Representations 34 (1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and John H. Langbein, ‘The legal history of torture’, in Sanford Levinson ed., Torture: a collection (Oxford, 2006).

45 Newes from Scotland, B.

46 Holmes, ‘Popular culture?’, 98; Geis and Bunn, A trial of witches, 75.

47 Holmes, ‘Popular culture?’, 98; E. G., A prodigious & tragicall history (Thomason Tracts, 103: E.673[19]) (London, 1652), 5; Ralph Gardiner, England's grievance (London, 1655), 107–10.

48 Goodare, ‘Women’, 301; Christina Larner, Enemies of God: the witch-hunt in Scotland (Baltimore, MD, 1981), 111.

49 Unsworth, ‘Witchcraft beliefs’, 92.

50 W. W., A true and iust recorde, C2v–C3; Goodcole, The wonderfull discouerie of Elizabeth Savvyer, B3v.

51 A woman was said to be quick with a child when she felt the movement of the fetus (the ‘quickening’). Such special juries were used in civil proceedings as well. For example, in divorce litigation on grounds of impotence, matrons were ordered to inspect the woman's virginity, or most extraordinarily, the man's genitalia, to test whether he could be sexually aroused. It was sometime suggested that ‘maleficium’ could be one of the reasons for male impotence; see R. H. Helmotz, Marriage litigation (London, 1974), 88–9; Oldham, James, ‘On pleading the belly’, Criminal Justice History 6 (1985)Google Scholar, and his ‘The jury of matrons’, available on http://141.161.16.100/alumni/publications/2006/fall/documents/facultyarticle.pdf?bcsi_scan_C0DDF20615F2D3B0=0&bcsi_scan_filename=facultyarticle.pdf.

52 Unsworth, ‘Witchcraft beliefs’, 92.

53 Goodcole, The wonderfull discouerie of Elizabeth Savvyer, B3.

54 Alan Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England (New York, 1970), 160; Thomas, Religion and the decline of magic, 568.

55 Holmes, ‘Women’, 76.

56 Marianne Hester, ‘Patriarchal reconstruction’, in Barry, Hester, and Roberts eds., Witchcraft in early modern Europe, 288–9, 93.

57 For a rare instance in a 1621 Old Bailey case, see Goodcole, The wonderfull discouerie of Elizabeth Savvyer, B3–B3v.

58 I. D., The most wonderfull and true storie, 8–9; Bernard, A guide to grand-iury men, 230; The tryal of Richard Hathaway, 5; Great news from the West of England, Early English Books Online (London, 1689), 2; A true and impartial relation, 11; H. F., A true and exact relation, 16; A declaration in answer to several lying pamphlets (London, 1652), 5–6.

59 Great news from the West of England, 2.

60 E.g., I. D., The most wonderfull and true storie, 8.

61 A true and impartial relation, 11.

62 A tryal of witches, 35–7.

63 A declaration in answer to several lying pamphlets, 5–6.

64 The witches of Northampton-Shire, Early English Books Online (London, 1612), Dv.

65 Robin Briggs, Witches & neighbors (New York, 1996), 280–1; Gaskill, Witchfinders, 46.

66 A declaration in answer to several lying pamphlets, 5.

67 Ibid., 5–6.

68 John Cotta, The triall of vvitch-craft, Early English Books Online (London, 1616), 114.

69 Ibid., 122–3.

70 Thomas Ady, A candle in the dark, Early English Books Online (London, 1655), 127–9.

71 Sharpe refers to Ady as a physician, although there is no definite proof that he was such. Yet, his prevalent medical perspective justifies, in my view, classifying him with other authors of medical treatises; Sharpe, Instruments of darkness, 68.

72 Ady, Candle in the dark, 99–100.

73 Ibid., 129.

74 Ibid., 128.

75 Ibid., 129 (emphasis added).

76 Barbara J. Shapiro, Probability and certainty (Princeton, NJ, 1983), 218.

77 Webster, The displaying of supposed witchcraft, 82.

78 Ibid., 81.

79 Ibid., 82.

80 Ibid., 82–3.

81 James A. Sharpe ed., English witchcraft, 1560–1736, 6 vols. (London, 2003), vol. 6, x.

82 Richard Boulton, Compleat history (London, 1715), 23.

83 Michael Dalton, The countrey iustice, Early English Books Online (London, 1618), 243.

84 Shapiro, Probability and certainty, 205. The inclusion of Richard Bernard (see below) in the list of the creators of rigid evidential standards, as long as we focus on devil's marks, is similarly mistaken. For Bernard, the devil's mark was a sufficient proof for conviction.

85 Michael Dalton, The countrey justice, 4th edn (London, 1630), 273.

86 Sharpe, Instruments of darkness, 221.

87 Geis and Bunn, A trial of witches, 75.

88 Scot, The discouerie of witchcraft, A6v.

89 Goodcole, The wonderfull discouerie of Elizabeth Savvyer, A4v–B. (An ‘ordinary’ was a cleric with ordinary jurisdiction over a specified territory.)

90 Ibid., B3 (emphasis added).

91 Ibid., C3–C3v.

92 Holmes, ‘Popular culture?’, 92.

93 Peter Elmer, ‘Introduction’, in Peter Elmer, The later English trial pamphlets (London, 2003), xi. For the testimony of Dr Martin see The tryal of Richard Hathaway, 5–8.

94 George Lyman Kittredge, Witchcraft in old and new England (Cambridge, MA, 1929), 583, 96; Elmer, ‘Introduction’, xiii.

95 Bragge, Full and impartial account, 11.

96 A full confutation of witchcraft (London, 1712), 17.

97 Sir Robert Filmer, An advertisement to the jury-men, touching witches (Thomason Tracts, 106: E690[6]) (London, 1653), 10.

98 Barbara J. Shapiro, “Fact” and the proof of fact in Anglo-American law (c. 1500–1850)’, in Austin Sarat, Lawrence Douglas, and Martha Merrill Umphrey eds., How law knows (Stanford, 2007), 43.

99 The former is a deduction of unknown facts from known evidence, and the latter is the application of the same rule of law to given sets of circumstances.

100 Perkins, Damned art, 203.

101 Perkins died in 1602 when James was still only the king of Scotland, as James VI. His treatise was published posthumously, when James had ascended the English throne as James I. The publisher did not hesitate to publish this denial of the king's arguments, a fact which may imply that James's image as a zealot witch-hunter is incorrect, and that he was considered a lesser religious authority; see Kittredge, Witchcraft, 291.

102 Perkins, Damned art, 203.

103 Cooper, Mystery of witch-craft, 275.

104 Sharpe, Instruments of darknes, 141–2; Kittredge, Witchcraft, 25.

105 John Gaule, Select cases of conscience (Thomason Tracts, 168: E.1192[1]) (London, 1646), 80.

106 Ibid., 105–6.

107 Sharpe, ‘The devil in East Anglia’, 251; Kittredge, Witchcraft, 273.

108 Bernard, A guide to grand-iury men, 111–12.

109 Ibid., 112.

110 Ibid., 218.

111 Ibid.

112 Ibid., 218.

113 Ibid., 219.

114 Ibid.

115 Ibid., 220.

116 Ibid., 229–30.

117 The dictionary of national biography (London, 1963–1965), vol. 2, 386–7, entry on Richard Bernard; Broadside story concerning a man who became possessed by an evil spirit (Glasgow, c. 1810–1830), available at www.nls.uk/broadsides/broadside.cfm/id/16634/transcript/1.

118 For some of the few references to suspicious marks on the male bodies, see Davenport, The witches of Huntingdon, 15; Misodaimon, The divels delvsions, 3–4.