Liminal Language: Boundaries of Magic and Honor in Early Modern Essex

In 1645, in the small village of Stisted, Essex, two serving maids told the Justice of the Peace that a group of twenty or more men and women had, on several occasions, visited various gentry households where they “conjured” the residents to sleep. This group included leading men of the community, male and female servants, and a “Conjurer, that went in black Apparrell.” At the home of John Alston, the master of the two maids, the group dragged the master’s married daughter out of bed and two men “had the use of her bodie.” Then her husband was fetched and two of the maids “kissed him & puld up his shirt, & took up their Coates & lay downe on the top of him & they said that he did them some good, for he lay with them as man with a woman.” They also dragged Alston’s eldest son out of his bed and laid him beside his sister. The maids dressed up in some of their mistress’s petticoats, while some of the group broke into their master’s study and stole money. They even stole malt from their employers to be brewed especially for these meetings. The participants frequently ended these romps by feasting on stolen geese, capons, and venison, while fiddlers from Coggeshall played, or one of the maids entertained them on the virginals. At one such gathering, one of the members of the group was concerned about secrecy and made the participants swear “an oath to keep things secrett” on an unspecified book. Mysteriously, the victims slept through the entire proceedings.

On March 28 and 29, 1645, the two maids, Elizabeth Gallant and Martha Hurrell, gave details of this incident (which took place two years earlier in 1643) to a Justice of the Peace, in relation to a Quarter Sessions investigation of the event. At the next Quarter Sessions, Midsummer 1645, four of the people named in the depositions submitted a petition to the Justice to drop the related allegations. There is no surviving record of an indictment to indicate that formal charges were ever made following the investigation. The depositions indicate that sexual misconduct, theft, and conjuring were all elements of the incident in question. Several prominent families of the parish were involved in this legal situation. By drawing from other county records, such as court cases and parish registers, I have partially reconstructed the scenario in Stisted in the mid-seventeenth century. In brief, John Alston, one of the leading men of the community, accused Robert Aylett and his compatriots of invading his home. They dragged his son, his daughter, and his daughter’s husband out of their beds and assaulted them. Then they broke into his study and took money. All of this was accomplished by “conjuring” the residents to sleep.¹

The accusations against the Aylett group grew out of the fact that John Alston had lost some money out of his study. In order to identify the thief, he and his wife consulted a cunning-man, whom they paid 40 pence. The cunning-man confirmed that it was Robert Aylett and his confederates who broke into the study and stole the money, while Aylett charmed the household asleep. In Martha Hurrell’s first deposition, she confirmed that another one of the maids, Elizabeth Waite, opened the study door with a “picklock,” allowing Robert Aylett and three other men to enter. Alston, however, was not content with a simple charge of theft against the group. In addition to allegations of rape and physical assault, he also accused Aylett of using ceremonial magic. Gallant’s first deposition included details of the magical ceremony. She alleged that the conjurer cast a circle in her master’s hall and set up three candles, which burned blue. The group extinguished the candles with milk and soot.²

The historian can approach this narrative from several angles. The entire account could be dismissed as fictitious, merely wild delusions of serving maids trying to cover up a theft by servants; or it could be read as a version of “rough music,” the English version...