Gone Medieval - Ireland's First Convicted Witch

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

In 1324, Alice Kyteler became the first woman in Britain and Ireland to be tried for witchcraft. Married to four different husbands - all of whom died in suspicious circumstances - Alice was accused of murder, heresy and having carnal relations with the devil. But was she guilty? Or just another woman who fell victim to the medieval distaste for women in power?In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Cat Jarman is joined by Professor Claire Downham to discuss why Alice’s status as a successful business woman put a target on her back, how she found herself caught up in a web of religious politics and intrigue, and the significance of Britain and Ireland’s first ever burning at the stake for witchcraft.This episode was edited by Joseph Knight and produced by Rob Weinberg.If you’re enjoying this podcast and are looking for more fascinating Medieval content then subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android or Apple store  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello and welcome to Gone Medieval. I'm Dr. Kat German. In 1324, a woman by the name of Alice Kittler became the first person in Ireland to be tried for witchcraft. The charges against her included heresy, having carnal relations with the devil and using sorcery to get rid of not just one but four husbands. Alice was a successful and influential businesswoman and moneylender in Kilkenny.

But was she guilty of murdering her husbands and defrauding her stepchildren? Or was she simply a woman caught up in a complex web of religious politics? With me today to talk about Alice, I have the return of medieval historian Professor Claire Downham from the Institute of Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool. Welcome, Claire, and thanks for joining me again on Gone Medieval. It's lovely to be back talking about more medieval things with you. Yes, and I think we talked about women last time as well, didn't we? But in a slightly different context this time.

Yeah, absolutely. So this is a really interesting case from later in the Middle Ages, whereas I think last time we were talking about women in the Viking Age. Well, we talked about powerful women then too, but in a different way. So this case, the case of Alice, is quite an intriguing one. And why is it so interesting and important, would you say? It's important in different ways. There's both the individual story, the drama surrounding Alice and her family. So you've obviously got the case of a very wealthy woman. We don't have much insight into the lives of individual women in the later Middle Ages in Ireland. But the drama that plays out between her relatives, her stepchildren, the fact that she was married to a series of husbands who died and she's then accused of using witchcraft to kill them. So there's the really interesting kind of family dynamics of what's going on here. But then there's the bigger issues

of this being a landmark case and the development of accusations of witchcraft against women in medieval Europe. So in some ways, it was very innovative case. I think it's the first time a woman was accused of having sex with demons. And the attitude to witchcraft is something that wasn't just old women growing up potions, but actually being something that was allied with the devil, taking on this much darker, more sinister hue, is really something we see in the Alice Kittler case. And so if you want to then understand the later development of witchcraft trials in Europe, which of course reached their peak in the 16th and 17th centuries, you can take the story back to Alice's case of showing where some of these ideas first started.

Yeah, that really does make it very, very unique. And it is such a fascinating story. And it's not really quite clear what's happened and what the outcome, whether she was guilty or not. So we're going to get back to that a little bit later on. But what do we actually know about Alice herself? What about her background and about her family? What do we know? Who was she?

Alice was born in Kilkenny. She probably belonged to a family of Flemish merchant. So her surname Kittler links to a family of Flemish merchants that settled in that part of Ireland in the 13th century. And she was married to four successive men. And this is where the sort of seeds of the story lie. So first married was to a money lender called William Outlaw. Quite a wealthy, successful individual.

William and Alice had a son together, who was also called William. And when her husband died, William takes over the business. And then Alice remarries, and she marries another money lender called Adam LeBlund. And shortly after they get married, Adam quick claims all his goods. In other words, all his possessions, he puts under the jurisdiction of William Outlaw. and that upsets Alice's stepchildren because Adam had been married before. She then marries again after Adam dies to a landowner called Richard DeVal and then he dies a few years later and Alice is in legal proceedings against her stepson, so Richard's son by former marriage,

over her dower rights. So that's her right to have the third of the property of her husband as her dower rights. And then she gets married again, and this is to a knight, Sir John LePur, and John is dying, and his children from a former marriage accuse Alice of trying to poison him. And we've got then this very complex situation of Alice being married to a series of very wealthy, influential husbands, accruing wealth from each marriage, and also her son, William Outlaw benefiting from the property of her successive husbands. but there's a series of stepchildren who are feeling marginalised and disinherited by Alice.

And then that prompts them to accuse her of seducing their fathers, luring them into a marriage, disinheriting them, and that she's using witchcraft against them. And they then go to the local bishop in 1324 with their accusations, and the local bishop very enthusiastically takes on this case and pursues Alice. And the real question in all this is, is Alice a powerful successful woman dealing in something like money lending where you make enemies and she's being targeted and victimized or is she a serial murderer? And the jury is out on this and different people reading the facts of the case come to different conclusions when they read through the story. So it's one of those unsolved medieval mysteries as to is Alice a victim or is she the perpetrator in this story?

And as you say, there's some quite intriguing parts, one of them being the stepchildren and the fact that there's actually quite a lot of money involved, isn't it? I think we've got some figures. And we are talking about quite substantial amounts that she owns and inherits, doesn't she? So there's quite a lot involved and at stake, I suppose. Yes. I mean, Alice had powerful connections through this influence of her family. And she has powerful friends as well as influential enemies. So some of the people who support Alice are Roger Outlaw, who's presumably, a relative, perhaps the brother of her first husband. He's Chancellor of Ireland. And then another person who very much works in Alice's favour is the seneschal of Kilkenny, Arnold LePuer, whose surname

suggests that he's a kinsman of her fourth husband. So this again adds intrigue into the story, because it shows not all these relatives of her husbands were against her, but there were really powerful men who were really putting themselves in danger by advocating for her against these accusations of witchcraft. And was it unusual then for a woman in the 13th or 14th century in Ireland to become that wealthy and actually have means and have that power? I think it's less uncommon than we tend to assume. So we tend to have a very stereotyped image of medieval women as being very submissive to their husbands and very limited in the range of activities they could do. But certainly we do find cases of women like Alice who are widows of merchants or money lenders who carry on the family business once their husband has died.

And it was quite often in widowhood that a woman could achieve her most independent status in life. But women's history in Ireland has become under increasing scrutiny in recent years, but there's still been much less research done on the women of medieval Ireland than the men of medieval Ireland. So in a way, she offers us a tantalizing glimpse into a world of female merchants and moneylenders that hasn't really been explored much. And I hope that encourages more people to investigate the material that we have. Absolutely. Let's get onto the witchcraft now and these accusations against her. I mean, first of all, in the 14th century, what was meant by witchcraft and heresy is the other term, isn't it, that comes up? What did they mean by that at the time?

Well, interesting that you asked that because the process of defining witchcraft was actually in a period of flux at this time. And it's a really interesting phenomenon of generally a more intolerant approach towards women who were seen to be practicing magic. So magic was part and parcel of medieval society. its validity wasn't really denied as a phenomenon. But generally, the idea of using magic in things like medicine or so on was just seen as something that benign women might do. They might cook up potions, try and heal people from illness, and that might accompany incantations over a sick person. There might be elements of magic woven into things like medicine, which were traditionally areas that women might perform in. But in the 14th century, the papacy takes a much. And the papacy takes a

much harder line on what magic is and what witchcraft is. So witchcraft is using magic negatively to harm others. And in medieval society, that was defined as maleficium. And it was treated as a criminal offence where the woman would be held responsible or man because men could perform magic and witchcraft too. But the crime was what harm they inflicted on their victim. Whereas in the 14th century, the nuance of the papal interpretation is that now witchcraft is heresy. So it's not whether you harm somebody else that you're criminalised for. It's for the very practice of witchcraft is a huge crime in itself because it's seen as being an alliance with the devil. And this is a much broader change in medieval society. And I'm always minded of a really great

book I read as a first-year undergraduate, which is R. I Moore's formation of a persecuting society, where he shows this evolution from the 10th of the 14th century of growing intolerance towards marginal groups in medieval society, a growing pressure for social conformity. And that goes across the board from intolerance towards religious minorities, such as the Jews in Europe, intolerance towards disabled people and lepers, intolerance towards divergence in faith, so the idea of heresy. But I would argue that. this also reflects growing intolerance towards the position of women in society because they would be the biggest victims of witchcraft accusations in the late medieval

and early modern period. So this very sinister turn in defining witchcraft is used against Alice. And I think actually the people accusing Alice of witchcraft wouldn't quite have realized what they were unleashing here. I think they might have been horrified to know that this would end up with the burning of Alice's maid servant. have been completely unknown to them. The idea of burning somebody at the state for witchcraft was just virtually unknown at this period. I think they were just saying, well, we think something

is going wrong here. We suspect Alice of using magic to kill men. But this obviously, once it's taken on board very enthusiastically by the local bishop, has much bigger implications for society in Kilkenny. So do we know what the actual charges against her were then? Do we have a record of that? We've got a very detailed record of the events surrounding the case of Alice Kitler, and the most likely author of this account is the bishop of Kilkenny Richard LaDredd himself. So whilst it's a very detailed source, there's also a risk that it's quite a bias source because Richard was determined to pin this crime on Alice. So he writes this account in the third person, but it seems like he's the most likely author, where seven accrued. are made against Alice. Some are plausible and some sound completely unhinged. And they range from Alice and her accomplices. So there's a group of people surrounding Alice. There's 10 people in

total who are accused also of heresy. And Alice is seen as the head heretic of this group. So firstly, they're accused of denying Christian faith. They're bad Christians. They don't attend math. The second accusation is that they sacrifice living animals to demons, scattering their body pots around crossroads, which is fascinating. Crossroads representing a kind of liminal space. She's said to seek advice from demons, so giving them sacrifices for information. Her and her friends are said to hold nocturnal meetings in the church where they even excommunicate their husbands. And this is where the gender dimension coming in. This is women subverting the power of the church, unsubverting the power of the marital relationship as it was conceived in medieval

Europe where the woman was supposed to regard her husband as her master. These are subversive women excommunicating their husbands in the church out of ours. Next, it gets even more lurid. Her and her accomplices are said to use the skull of a robber to boil up organs of the animals that they sacrificed, mixing in worms and herbs and fingernail clippings from the furrowing from dead people and hair from the assholes of children and also the clothes of baby boys that hadn't been baptized. And that, I think, reflects the idea, again, of liminality, because infants who hadn't been baptized couldn't enter heaven. So they were in the outer circles of hell. And it's all a little bit like Hubble, bubble, boil and trouble, you know,

when you're a kid and you kind of have this image of witches throwing horrible things into kicking pots and stirring it up. And these potions which Alice and her friends cook up are said to incite people to love and to hate. So they're using this magical power to influence people's emotions. Then this takes a more sinister turn in that Alice is accused of murdering her husbands. And it said that a servant of John Lepeer, her husband at the time, John is very ill. And it said that her maid servants finds a box of potions which Alice has been using. And this is then sent to the bishop with this note that this is what they think she's been using to cook up magic to kill off her husband.

And then finally, and perhaps most sensationally, is that Alice is accused of having carnal relations with a demon. So the idea that the demons can take tangible form, living form in medieval society. And this demon appears either in the form of a cat or a dog or a human and she has sex with them and is subordinate. She's enthralled to the power of this demon. So it's a very, very complex series of accusations that are made against her. Of course, to our 21st century eyes, we're thinking, oh, some of this must be nonsense.

We don't really believe that demons come in human form. But that would have been very real to people in medieval society who heard stories of these things happening elsewhere. They would have thought, wow, this is a real threat to our society. Wow, yes, it's really extensive. And as she's saying it brings in so many different aspects of her as a woman, of the religious aspects, and what's expected in marriage. It really is quite extensive. So I can see this idea that this may well come from the bishop himself as being quite compelling.

And we don't have any other outside sources to prove anywhere, presumably in any way. No, we don't. I mean, obviously we've got some details of the development of the case that we can get from court records and things. But the nature of the accusation suggests somebody with a theological awareness cooked some of these up. And I think, again, that shows this idea of La Dred, putting his own ideas into the accusations. And then later on, when people are flogged and forced to confess to the crimes, you almost sense that a dread is telling them what's happened and they have to confess

that this is actually what took place. So that's rather tragic too, because the other turn in this development in the 14th century is towards this idea, not that people are innocent until proven guilty, but you're guilty until proven innocent. and the inquisitorial procedure, which, of course, could imply use of torture, was a way that you could do that, which obviously puts the power very much in the hand of the accuser rather than the accused in this situation. Sex, it might surprise you to know that, oh, I've been around for a while now.

In fact, we are all the living, walking, breathing, talking proof that sex has been around for a long time. And over on the Betwixt the Sheets podcast with me, Kate Lister, I will be rooting around for the kinkiest, quirkiest stories in the history of sex, scandal and society, or in other words, the best bits. Well, at least I think so. From bras to BDSM, from African warrior queens to witches, join me as I bed hopped throughout time and civilizations to get under the cover with the most fascinating things that we've been doing,

not to mention the downright weird. For example, did you know that men in ancient Greece were so turned on up by a naked statue of Aphrodite, that it had to be protected by guards. We have accounts of men trying to have sex with the statue. It caused a sensation. And that university professors once moonlighted as grave robbers. We were executing less and less people, so there was a real shortage. If you want to hear about all of this and more, then join me betwixt the sheets today,

wherever it is that you get your podcasts. Brought to you by History Hit. Let's talk a little bit about this bishop. then. What do we know about him and his background? Yeah, again, Richard Ledred is a fascinating individual in many ways. And I always think if this was turned into a film, he would play Alice. Is she some sexy femme fatale who lures men into marriages? Or is she much more like normal woman who's the victim of circumstances and accusations? And then you kind of wonder who Lydrad would be as a sort of arch-enemy character because he has a very complex individual.

He was born in England. He's later accused by one of Alice's accomplices as being a low-born vagabond. So he might have actually come from lower social echelons, but rose his way up through the church hierarchy, partly due to merit because he clearly was a very clever individual, but also perhaps by making effective alliances with the right people to kind of climb the ladder. He arrived in Ireland in 1317 as a papal appointee and he'd actually spent time at the papal curia, which was in Avignon at the time, where ideas about heresy and witchcraft were very much part of the discussion of the church at the time. So it came fresh with all these ideas, came to Ireland and was all ready on the lookout for heretics. So La Dredd seems to have been

quite an obsessive individual, the way that he doggedly pursues the case of Alice. And we can talk about that in different stages is interesting. So he's discouraged from pursuing the case against Alice and he refuses to relent. And he ends up actually being put in jail for 17 days by one of Alice's accomplices to try and buy her and her son time to avoid these accusations of heresy. And he very much then goes into all this closing regarding his status. He orders that his vestments are brought to the prison so that when he leaves prison, he parade out wearing his full Episcopal regalia. He is the one who's responsible for building the bishop's palace at Kilkenny. So you get the sense that he's very aware of his status and very much wanting to proclaim this.

At one stage, he forces his way into the court of Arnold LePuer, who's one of Alice's supporters, who's a local seneschal. And he's just really quite aggressive in the way that he pursues his case. And you can kind of see this later in life as well. So ultimately with the case of Alice Kilkenny, La Dredd wins, basically. Alice has to flee Ireland. One of Alice's maids carries the can for witchcraft and is burnt at the stake. And it's one of the best women to have been burnt at the state for witchcraft. But in later life, La Dredd continues to be controversial. In 1329, so five years after the witchcraft case, he accuses his superior, the Archbishop of Dublin, of plotting to murder him. And he's summoned to Dublin to answer for this, why are you making these accusations against the

bishop? And he flees to England, and he's exiled from his diocese until 1347. And again, some years after that in 1358, calls are made for him to be removed from his office because he's becoming old and senile, but there's also this sense that he still is persecuting his parishioners. So he was really unpopular in some circles, but you can see within Lodred, this dogged determination and quite a legal ability. He knows how to play the rules of the laws of the church and secular society to try and gain the outcomes he wants from this case. So a very intriguing figure in his own right. Yeah, and that's so interesting that you'll say that that he clearly knows the systems because actually part of the key of this whole story is that this is new,

as you've said before, this isn't something that's set procedures that's been going on and you just throw a new victim into it. But this is really the start of it, isn't it? So this whole process, the legal procedures are partially for that reason, I suppose, really complicated because it's not something that's really been happening before. Yeah, you can see La Dredd using this legal posturing and his knowledge of the rules. And I think that, again, those who are making the original accusation couldn't have foreseen how this played out. And some of the people along the way who are trying to shut Lerdred down or telling him maybe you shouldn't pursue this, he's got this series of legal tools, if you like, that he deploys to deflect that and to try, as a say, pursue what he

wants out of this case. So I mentioned that Lodred was briefly put in jail by one of Alice's supporters to try and buy time in the case. And not only does he request that his bishop's regalia is brought into the prison, but he also has the host brought in. So the bread that represents the body of Christ so that he can claim that Christ also has been imprisoned. And he deploys church laws to say that secular powers can't rough handle ecclesiastical figures. So he can accuse his enemies and detractors of not following the proper procedure and therefore is able to get himself out of a sticky situation, but also win higher powers onto his side to then continue to pursue the case against Alice. And he's from England originally as well, isn't he? And he comes to Ireland into this

post as a bishop. And that's quite important for the development of this story as well, isn't it? And the impact that has on some of these relationships. Yeah, absolutely. It's one of the many fascinating dimensions of this case, because you've got the tension between secular and ecclesiastical power, you've got the tension between female. and masculine power, but you've also got the tension between different ethnic groups in late medieval Ireland. So Ireland had been invaded by the English in the late 12th century, but the English who had settled in Ireland, who had been there for some time, were starting to develop their own unique identity, which was as much Irish as it was English. And you can sense that

Richard Lodredd being put in post from England and not really fitting in with the low Anglo-Irish society creates some tensions of itself. And we see that particularly in the testimony of Arnold Le Quir, who's the Seneschal of Kilkenny, who's advocating in Alice's favour. And there's one occasion when he calls Richard this low-born vagabond from England. It's full of contempt. He's not one of us. He's low-born and he's English, which is quite interesting because these are Anglo-Irish people saying this. So within Ireland, they would be the class as English people. But they've clearly develop this sense of Irish identity, which we also see when Arnold Le Plur later calls for unity amongst the Anglo-Irish at the Court of Dublin not to accept Le Dredd's accusations. And he makes the

statement that Ireland, since the beginning of time, has not been a land of heretics. It's been a land of saints and scholars. And in doing so, Arnold is aligning himself and his identity with the history of Ireland. So you'd see these tensions developing between their community and who is outside the community and people flown in from England into hype office could be quite unpopular amongst the local Anglo-Irish elites because they had their own sense of community and identity in the way that they felt that things should be done. It seems to me like Alice fell into this perfect storm of different types of conflicts and different powers being drawn and pulled apart at this sort of very specific points where a lot of things are being developed between church and secular society

and different groups. And she almost feels like she thought of victim to being at that point in time, which was very unfortunate for her, I suppose. Yeah, absolutely. We don't know if Alice was responsible for bumping off her husband or whether she was just unlucky in a series of marriages. And, okay, to lose one husband is bad look, but to lose four kind of starts to ask questions, doesn't it? Yes, it's quite a lot. It is quite a lot. Yeah, it is quite a lot. We are dealing with the early 14th century.

So if one was to say, perhaps she is a victim of accusations, and there was a very high mortality rate in the early 14th century. We're dealing in the years building up to the Black Death. And early 14th century society was wrecked by famines and diseases that led up to this great catastrophe. So whilst, I think, to our 21st century eyes, to lose, four husbands, you're going seriously, there has to be something wrong here. In the early 14th century, it might just be bad luck. I certainly don't think Alice would have killed off her first husband because they had quite a long marriage. Their son reached adulthood by the time he died,

and she maintained such good relationships with the relatives of her first husband. So I don't know whether down the line she thought, well, this is a good way to get rich. And maybe if you just died a little bit sooner than we might expect. That might not be such a bad thing. I don't know. But nobody, including Alice herself, could have foreseen how the case would blow up into such epic proportions of representing the conflict between the state and the church, between growing ideas of witchcraft and heresy. The implications of this all become much bigger as the fallout proceeds from the case and different figures get drawn into the story. Yeah, absolutely.

I'm so one to just dig into all those cases and try and solve this cold case murder, but I don't think we're going to succeed, aren't we? But never mind. Let's just sort of have a little think about all those other people then and what happened to this. So you've already mentioned the maid who very unfortunately gets murdered, gets burnt at the stake. And her son William also gets punished, doesn't he? Because he's also accused alongside her.

What actually happened to him then? Yeah, so Alice, once she realised that things are stacked against her, flees Ireland, with the daughter of her maid servant, Petronela Demeith, and she's not heard of again, although there is some later English folklore that may be links to England, but that might just be later invention. So William is left behind, and he's been seen as the main beneficiary,

apart from Alice, of these successive husbands, because each time he's been giving gifts or he's inherited goods from Alice's. later marriages. So he's arrested and put in jail, and in order to commute a prison sentence to penance, he's required to confess. So he is required to say, yes, all those accusations are true. And on that basis, Richard Lodredd agrees that he will release him, but he has to undertake penance. And I do wonder if this is Richard Lodredd trying to cover his back, because he must have known he was pushing the boundaries of what could be deemed acceptable behaviour as a clergyman and that he could then be accused of concocting these accusations against Alice. So by getting

her son to agree to confess to it all, he was doing a cover-up exercise. So the penance that William Mountlaw has to undertake is he has to hear mass three times a day for a year. I think he has to go on a pilgrimage. He has to feed some poor people within the diocese. And he has to pay for the lead for the re-roofing of the cathedral of Kilkenny. Now, after a while, La Dreddrens summons William Outlaw back to the ecclesiastical court because he doesn't think that he's being sincere enough in his penance. And therefore, William is briefly imprisoned again, and he's released, as long as he guarantees paying for the roofwork for the cathedral,

and there are other payments that are made to Ledred. So again, this makes La Dredd look really bad, because it looks like he is negotiating. Either I can accuse you of heresy or you and your friends can pay me off and buy a new roof for the cathedral. And we'll just commute it to penance, but I'm watching you, so keep in line.

This is the kind of vibe we're getting from Lodred here. But the ultimate irony of all of this is that the bell tower of the cathedral collapses a few years later in 1332. So the cathedral roof collapses under the weight of the lead that William Oatlaw has been obliged to pay for. And it is almost... I was poetic.

isn't it? It is. It is almost poetic. Did people at the time think, well, God has made his own judgment on this case? So William obviously has to suffer for years after the event for the way that La Dredd continues to pursue him over this case. And obviously, I think when La Dredd eventually gets expelled from the diocese and has to be in exile for some years, that must have been a great relief to some people in Kilkenny society. You know, thank goodness that crazy. bishop who keeps pursuing us for not being good Christians. He's got out of the picture for a while. And then, of course, we have to feel so sorry for Petronilla, the maid servant of Alice. And I think,

again, Lodred wanted to get Alice. He wanted Alice to suffer. But Alice was too clever, and Alice was too well connected for him to be able to pin her down, and she leaves the country. So then Lodred turns on a close personal associate, her personal maid. I remember Alice fled the country. with Petronilla's daughter, which suggests there must have been some bond of affection or a link between these two women. And it's Petronilla who's flogged until she confesses to all the crimes. And then she's burnt at the state, which of course would have been a horrendous way to die. And it's something that really shocked contemporary. So John Clen, who's a local Franciscan chronicler, records the event and he says nobody has ever been put to death for heresy in Ireland

before. This has seen as shocking to people at the time. So that really shows that this was a crucial case. And you've talked a lot about the impact that this has. So this really is the first time, I suppose, that we see this. Yeah, I mean, the ideas around heresy as witchcraft had been brewing in France before this time. I think there had been a couple of cases where these kind of accusations had been aired before Ludbredge brings this new brand of thinking about witchcraft to Ireland. But certainly within Britain and Ireland, this is the first known case. And obviously, it reaches this very dramatic conclusion with Petronella being burnt at the stake. And Herald's a very nasty precedent for the later development of witchcraft trials

where the burning of women at the stake becomes fairly routine. And does that happen quite soon afterwards? Does this take off after this case, or does it take much longer? I'd say the most famous later medieval case of a woman being burnt at the stake. For accusation of heresy would of course be Jonah Barc, who was burnt at the stake at Rouen in 1431. And again, that's not a simple case because it's not that Joan was just accused of using her power and her religious claims. But it was also very much enmeshed with the politics of the time and the conflict between England and France.

So within the later Middle Ages, there were the cases of women being burnt at the stake. And then, of course, the main period of witchcraft trials is really in the 16th and 17th century, where particularly in Scotland and in Germany, there are many cases of women being burnt at the state. at the stake for witchcraft. Claire, that's been a fantastic discussion. And thank you so much for sharing all of this about Alice, so I think it's a person that people really should know more about. And I think understanding that early history of these witchcraft trials,

it's actually really, really important, isn't it, for developing later on? So people should definitely look into Alice Kidler a bit more. Yeah, she's certainly a fascinating case. And there's so many sources from later medieval island that are still under research, so there's still more to be discovered there. Claire Downen, thank you again so much for joining us on Gone Medieval today. Oh, thank you. I love talking about this stuff, so thank you. So this has been an episode of Gone Medieval from History Hit. I'm Dr. Kat Jerman. Do please

subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already and leave us over you and that will really help other people find us. Do also subscribe if you want to to our Medieval Monday's newsletter. Just look in the episode notes wherever you found this podcast to see how to do that. My co-host Matt Lewis will be back on Saturday and I will be back again next. Tuesday. I hope you will join us then. Thank you so much for listening.