Livestock Deaths, Plant Ingestion and Witchcraft in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Britain

Abstract

Historians, pamphleteers and contemporary authors concur on only one aspect of the sixteenth and seventeenth century witchcraft debate in Britain and that is its existence. Whilst the thesis concerns itself with the effect mdny changes had on the common people, it proposes tom offer another explanation which has not previously been raised or thoroughly researched. Symptomatic evidence inferred from the descriptions of domestic animal deaths and illness can be linked to plant ingestion. A distinct possibility exists that the reason underlying accusations of witchcraft which were associated with the more unusual animal and production losses, was related to plant ingestion. The thesis proposes to examine this link but the examination must be set in the context of the religious, social, judicial, economic and agricultural climate of the period.