How Women Lost Their Magic (Medieval Charms to the Pendle Witches)
Renaissance English History Podcast: A Show About the TudorsShow Notes
Long before anyone in England was hanged as a witch, ordinary women had a magic of their own. They wrapped parchment girdles covered in prayers around their bellies in labor. They borrowed holy relics from the parish like library books. They baked cakes in total silence on St Agnes’ Eve, hoping to dream of the man they’d marry. Nobody called them witches. It was just how you got through life.
In this audio episode, I follow what happened to that magic from the 1400s to the Pendle trials of 1612. You’ll meet Eleanor Cobham, who went to the Witch of Eye for help having a baby. There’s Ursula Kemp, the Essex cunning woman whose healing skills became the evidence against her. And there’s Old Demdike, who spent fifty years as the woman her neighbors went to for help. It’s the story of how the Reformation took away women’s protective magic, until the same skills that made a woman useful could get her hanged.
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