Charming Witches: The "Old Religion" and the Pendle Trial

This article examines the charms transcribed in detail in Thomas Potts's pamphlet The wonderfull discouerie of witches in the countie of Lancaster (1613), hitherto treated only briefly by historians. All the charms are related closely to authentic and well-attested older and mostly late medieval traditions of charming, identified here. After considering the possibility that Potts includes these charms as part of his anti-Papist polemical stance, the article then ponders the ways in which the charms are both meticulously detailed and also garbled. Through an examination of the role of gabbling or garbling in both medieval high magic and in Protestant anti-Latin satire, the place of garbled or ungrammatical Latin in particular is presented as an integral part both of magic and of antipopery. In particular, the reference to the Five Wounds in one of the charms is read as bringing together the themes of authentic remembrance of Catholic religious practice and fear of Catholic insurgency harking back to the rebellions of the past.