Show Notes
We head inside Roman-walled Exeter, Devon, with University of Southampton historian Mark Stoyle, author of Witchcraft in Exeter, to trace a century of quarter sessions and church-court records showing a steady trickle of cases rather than explosive mass witch hunts. Stoyle explains how Henry VIII made Exeter a county with its own justices, prison, and gallows just before Elizabeth I’s 1563 Witchcraft Act, yet local magistrates often resisted executions, sometimes banishing the accused, and most defendants were acquitted; about 30 people were formally tried, with only four executed. Stories include toad and animal familiars, harmed livestock and failed butter or beer, William Harvey dissecting a “familiar” to amuse Charles I, a boy haunted by a pig in a hat in the last Exeter case, and the Bideford witches (1682) alongside the mystery of “Alice” vs “Avis” Molland in 1685. The hosts also announce August 2026 appearances at History Camp Boston and Connecticut Witch and Culture Fest.
Links
- Buy The Western Rising of 1549 by Mark Stoyle
- Buy Books on English and European Witch Trials
- CT Witch and Culture Fest
- History Camp Boston
- End Witch Hunts
- The Thing About Witch Hunts
- The Thing About the Salem Witch Trials
- Salem Witch Trials History Youtube