Witchcraft In Early Stuart England

In 1593, George Gifford, a renowned Puritan preacher from Maldon, Essex, wrote that the “maine ground of witchcraft” was the “covenant that is between Satan and the witch”. This pact involved the witch binding themselves “vnto [the Devil] by solmne vowe…[promising] to renounce…God…[and]…giue [the Devil] either [their] body, or soul, or both” in return for the gift of supernatural abilities. This view of witchcraft reflected the foundation of all demonological witch-beliefs: Devil-worship. The covenant between the witch and Satan formed the basis of demonological theory, not only in early Stuart England but also across much of early modern Europe. As Richard Bernard, a puritan preacher, wrote in 1627, “In this act only standeth the very reality of a Witch.” Nevertheless, whilst the idea of the covenant was prevalent across Europe, it was only one of several demonic activities believed to be undertaken by the witch during the continental Sabbat (the traditional ritual of Devil worship), which included night-flying, copulation with demons, and cannibalistic

feasts.

Conversely, these features, and the idea of the Sabbat in general, were strikingly absent from English belief. Stuart Clark has suggested that this was due to the absence of reference to such activities in the Bible. Yet, this highlights what James Sharpe has termed the “major stumbling block” of English demonological witch-belief, as the diabolic pact is also nowhere to be found, not only in the biblical precepts specifically concerning witchcraft, but across the whole of scripture. This inconsistency of reasoning, and the continual emphasis laid by puritans on the covenant’s importance, is therefore all the more intriguing, especially as this lack of biblical basis was initially noted in 1584. England’s first demonologist, the famous witch-sceptic Reginald Scot, questioned: “How chanceth it that we heare not of this bargaine in the

scriptures”? Indeed, it is clear that Scot’s cynical work was heavily based upon scripture, presenting something of a predicament for demonologists who also used the Bible as their ultimate truth. A few clerical writers, however, refused to abandon the scriptures as an authority on witchcraft. The Cambridgeshire clergyman, Henry Holland, argued in 1590 that, whilst there were no direct biblical passages describing the covenant, there were areas that indicated its existence, an approach later utilised by the early seventeenth-century divines. For example, Perkins highlighted Psalms 58:5 and Matthew 4:8-9 which, in his opinion, provided evidence for the existence of a diabolic covenant. Psalms 58:4-5 describes the ‘wicked’ as follows: