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Significance of the social, economic and religious context of the Pendle…
Significance of the social, economic and religious context of the Pendle witch trials
Economic context
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Suspects were accused of damaging livestock as well as people - demonstrate the importance of cattle to the economy of pendle
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Old Chattox and her daughter Elizabeth were accused of killing a cow belonging to John Nutter after Elizabeth begged for a dish of milk
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Early 17th century it was considered a pastoral economy - limited arable farming which centred the production of oats and cloth
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Pendle Forest was originally set aside for deer hunting but by 1296 over 900 cattle were kept on farms
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Those without rights as copyholders paid forest entry fines and rents led to their economic situation becoming strained - increase in enclosure meant tenants faced threat of eviction
Social context
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Copyholders came to below with the duchy of Lancaster in 1607 when lawyers questioned the validity of copyholders
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Duchy tried to gain money for the Crown - copyholders petitioned the duchy of Lancaster in 1608 and said they had limited resources to pay further fees - added to economic tensions
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1609 an agreement was made with the duchy and copyholders who had to pay a sum of 12 years rent to confirm their rights
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Feeling of insecurity was increased by the lengths of contracts given to subtenants which were only a year - suspected withces like Anne Redferne was a tennant of Rob Nutter
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Likely many of the suspected witches lived in properties acquired by this arrangement, they were exposed to more economic difficulties with no legal contracts as the law prohibited houses with fewer than 4 acres being let
Religious context
Whalley Abbey was closed down which provided charity and education to the local population - owned swathes of land making a healthy income from rents
Group of Puritan clergy amongst the gentry were able to wield more influence - abbey and its land became the property of the Crown who instructed 2 members of the gentry to manage the estate
Parish of Whalley consisted of 10,000 people - Lancashire was considered an ignorant corner of England where Catholicism and superstition could be easily fostered
Attempts were made to clamp down on drunkenness and reduce the strength of the beer sold in the alehouses around the Pendle Forest
Newchurch was a dependent chapelry of the parish of Walley and included chapelries of Colne, Clitheroe, Padiham and Burnley
Around 1594 there was a rare case of witchcraft which hinted at the influence of more godly Puritans
Older witches were charged with using spells based on corrupted visions of Old Catholic prayers suggests the Protestant Reformation may have only had a limited impact on people
Case centred on the household of Nicholas Starkie within Whalley parish and resulted in the publication of George More's Discourse of Concerning the Possession and Dispossession of 7 persons of one family in 1600
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Kirsteen Bardell investigated that the wider witch-hunting landscape in Lancashire and found evidence of 100 other cases from Lancashire Quarter Sessions
1626 Richard Moore was charged for claiming God did more harm than good and a constable was charged in 1622 for being absent in church
Magic was accepted as a familiar part of religious life and there are blurred boundaries between witchcraft and work of healers
Limited examples of residents of Pendle troubling the church courts - 1611 2 Catholics were living in Henry Staden's house in secret and weren't attending their parish church
Evidence from Pendle suggests senior witches - Demdike and Chattox - were involved in white magic as well as maleficum
He married them without a license in 1592 - curate of Newchurch gained a reputation for heavy drinking and immoral behaviour
Chris Nuttall who was a minister of Pendle came to the attention of authorities when he married a couple in an alehouse
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