Dame Alice Kyteler the Sorceress of Kilkenny A.D. 1324 (Folklore History Series)

John Drelincourt Seymour

• Editorial: Pierides Press
• Año: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781447490340
• Categoría: Histoire
• Categoría: Histoire de l'Irlande

The witchcraft case of Dame Alice Kyteler is famous in Ireland for the incredible story of her capture and escape. This book uses manuscripts from the archives of the British museum to bring this amazing story back to life. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

A.D. 1324

DAME ALICE KYTELER, THE SORCERESS OF KILKENNY

THE history of the proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler and her confederates on account of their dealings in unhallowed arts is to be found in a MS. in the British Museum, and has been edited amongst the publications of the Camden Society by Thomas Wright, who considers it to be a contemporary narrative. Good modern accounts of it are given in the same learned antiquary’s “Narratives of Witch-craft and Sorcery” in Transactions of the Ossory Archæological Society, vol. i., and in the Rev. Dr. Carrigan’s History of the Diocese of Ossory, vol. i.

Dame Alice Kyteler (such apparently being her maiden name), the facile princeps of Irish witches, was a member of a good Anglo-Norman family that had been settled in the city of Kilkenny for many years. The coffin-shaped tombstone of one of her ancestors, Jose de Keteller, who died in 128–, is preserved at S. Mary’s church; the inscription is in Norman-French and the lettering is Lombardic. The lady in question must have been far removed from the popular conception of a witch as an old woman of striking ugliness, or else her powers of attraction were very remarkable, for she had succeeded in leading four husbands to the altar. She had been married, first, to William Outlawe of Kilkenny, banker; secondly, to Adam le Blund of Callan; thirdly, to Richard de Valle—all of whom she was supposed to have got rid of by poison; and fourthly, to Sir John le Poer, whom it was said she deprived of his natural senses by philtres and incantations.

The Bishop of Ossory at this period was Richard de Ledrede, a Franciscan friar, and an Englishman by birth. He soon learnt that things were not as they should be, for when making a visitation of his diocese early in 1324 he found by an Inquisition, in which were five knights and numerous nobles, that there was in the city a band of heretical sorcerers, at the head of whom was Dame Alice. The following charges were laid against them.

1. They had denied the faith of Christ absolutely for a year or a month, according as the object they desired to gain through sorcery was of greater or less importance. During all that period they believed in none of the doctrines of the Church; they did not adore the Body of Christ, nor enter a...