An Anglo-Saxon charter from the third quarter of the tenth century records one of the earliest trials concerning witchcraft in Britain. It concerns an exchange of lands between Æthelwold, the Bishop of Winchester and a man named Wulfstan Uccea. A number of properties are exchanged between the two wealthy men, in a manner typical of so many transactions of the times. The normally dry text of the charter becomes interesting when it reveals the reason on of these lands came into Wulfstan’s possession. A widow and her son forfeited the lands

forþanþe hi drifon serne stacan on Ælsie Wulfstanes feder 7 þæt werð æreafe 7 man teh þæt morð forð of hire inclifan…

because they drove an iron pin into Ælfsige, Wulfstan’s father & it was detected & some one took that deadly thing forth from her chamber…

After that, we are told, “the woman was drowned at London Bridge, but her son escaped and became an outlaw, and the estate passed to the king, and the king then granted it to Ælfsige” (Robertson 69), who of course passed it to his son at the appropriate time.

What I find interesting about this incident, is that it points to the supreme importance of the land transaction in this case of accused witchcraft. We are accustomed to reading of many accounts in the heyday of the Burning Times (the Reformation era, not the Medieval for the most part—yes, a common misconception), where the ulterior motives of land-grabbing seemed (to our twenty-first century eyes) transparent. The majority of transactions at this time were not written down—no one got receipts from the market square or for the mundane transactions of bartered produce. Important people, however, making important deals made sure to record these business arrangements in a well-kept record book in a reliable location. They were primarily concerned with the proof of their legitimacy to any claim. Wulfstan and Æthelwold go to some trouble to claim—fairly long after the fact—that this land was come by fair and square.

But was it?

Robertson notes in this collection of charters from the period that “The Penitential of Egbert, Archbishop of York, prescribes a period of fasting for such an offence” (324). Indeed in book II rule 23, the penitential orders that any “cristenum men” who “idele hwatunga” (false augury) perform “swa hæðene men doð” (as heathen men do), or believe in the sun and moon [as gods] or the stars’ mysteries, or use auguries to know the future, or collect herbs [while reciting] incantations (except if those incantations include the Pater Noster or Credo); any who undertake such “idelen þingas” should confess and fast for 40 days (Thorpe 371). If he returns to such foolishness, the archbishop warns, he’ll have to fast three times longer. There is nothing about drowning such a person—or driving them to outlawry.

Previous laws, like those of the influential ninth-century king Alfred the Great inflicted harsh penalties only upon those who sought out others to perform “hwatunga” for them:

Ða fæmnan þe gewuniað onfón gealdorcræftigan 7 scinlæcan 7 wiccan, ne læt þu ða libban.

Those women who continue to receive/harbor enchanters, & magicians & witches, do not suffer them to live (Liebermann 38-9).

Clearly there was a great deal of concern, but the focus of this concern was never consistent. As time went by, there was even more of an assumption that such things were going to happen, although the church would do what it could to discourage them. A tenth century canon was more practical in its warning against

…wiccige ymb æniges mannes lufe 7 him on æte sylle oþþe on drince oþþe æniges cynnes gealdorcræftum þæt hyra lufu forþon þe mare beon scyle…

…practices witchcraft concerning the love of any man, & gives him in food or drink or in enchantments of any kind anything so that because of it their love may be the greater… (Crawford 111)

Here we can see that specific kinds of magic are discouraged, but this leaves room for the thought that other types might still be acceptable—if they do no harm, if they do not seek to bend another’s will. By the eleventh century, the famous homilist Ælfric denigrates the women (for women are more often accused of such things from that time forward) who deal with such things as ‘love philtres’ and the interpretations of dreams. Here too begins the explicit reference of these powers to the ‘devils’—even if they work, their ultimate source is unacceptable. He warns his listeners

Us is to secenne, gif we geswencte beoþ / Þa bote æt gode, ne æt þam gramlican wiccan.

It is for us to seek, if we are sore afflicted / the cure from God, not from these grim witches. (Crawford 111)

As Crawford notes in her essay, these women were nonetheless an important part of society, although not an encouraged one. But the customs they followed were old ones, leftovers from the pagan past and living a strange after-life in the Christian era.

We may never know what magic—if any—was performed upon Ælfsige. But perhaps with this small incident, we can see the beginning of the cynical land-grabbing envy that sparked many a phony witch trial in the years to come. There is much more work to be done to sort out how the people of Anglo-Saxon England regarded witches and the Craft.

Resources:

Jane Crawford. “Evidences for Witchcraft in Anglo-Saxon England.” Medieum Ævum 32.2 (1963): 99-116.

F. Liebermann. Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (Scientaa Aalen 1960).

A. J. Robertson, ed. and trans. Anglo-Saxon Charters (Cambridge UP 1939).

Benjamin Thorpe. Ancient Laws and Institutes of England (London 1840).