Abstract

Juries saved a high proportion of people accused of crimes related to witchcraft even at the height of the so-called ‘witch hunting’ era in England’s history. Trial juries sent hundreds of women (and some men) to the gallows, true, but this talk focuses on the restraint and doubt shown not by learned, elite scholars or judges but by community members who acted as witnesses or jurors and helped free many hundreds more. Examining an unusually well documented set of accusations against two women in the 1580s – accusations that travelled from rural Buckinghamshire to Queen Elizabeth’s privy council at Westminster – this talk explores the trial process, the role of the jury, and the work done by stories of ‘common and vulgar’ superstition in our understanding of the history of witchcraft.