Agents of the Invisible World: The Role of Children in English and New English Witchcraft Trials 1589-1692

Abstract

<p>The role that children played within the witchcraft trials that erupted over Europe, England and New England between 1450-1750 is a complex phenomenon that differed substantially between each local, temporal and judicial context. Although the witch-hunt episode itself continues to attract significant attention from scholars and other popular writers, the role of children in these trials has been largely undervalued. My research has examined and given insight into the role that children played within key witchcraft trials in England and New England between 1589 and 1692. Relying on primary sources largely in the forms of legal documents, pamphlets and treatises, this thesis demonstrates that the role that children played is not only more complex than originally thought, but it is also a vital part of the witch-hunt phenomena which deserves its own singular attention.</p> <p>Children are often relegated to the margins of historiography. When they are considered, they are usually done so in relation to other historical events (such as the infamous John Darrell Controversy). In addition to this, some children’s case studies have been written about in the form of microhistories, which are useful, but have had the unintended consequence of rendering a cyclical echo chamber whereby other children’s stories have been forgotten about or ignored. Through a comparative analysis that implements a broad chronological and geographical approach, a total of sixty-one English and New English children are the focus of this thesis’ examination. As liminal beings – not quite infants but not yet adults – children were both loved and feared by their society. They were thought to be both innocent and close to God but also malleable and susceptible to the snares of the Devil. Thus, children held a unique status as agents of the invisible world. Their insight in matters pertaining to the supernatural was frequently used and taken advantage of in witchcraft trials where English and New English children played a variety of roles; they were often accusers, using their spectral sight to be the magistrates of the unseen realm, identifying and denouncing witches, but they could also be accused of witchcraft themselves. My research places children at the forefront of historical knowledge in order to demonstrate both how and why children were pervasive in witchcraft trials on both sides of the Atlantic. </p>