it might well have been a history of the sixteenth century. During the reign of King John, in 1209, a woman named Galiena was charged with sorcery, but acquitted after the ordeal of the hot iron. In 1233 Hubert, Earl of Kent, was accused “upon pretence that he stole out of the King’s Jewel-house a stone that would make a man invisible, and gave it to Lewellyn the King’s Enemy. Also that he had drawn the King’s Favour to himself, above others, by Sorceries.” In 1279 a man killed a woman commonly reputed to be a witch, who had upon some occasion visited his house and assaulted him. He was fined, but had already fled from justice.
In 1303 one of the chief priests of the realm, Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, was accused before Boniface VIII of witchcraft, and the Pope ordered a full inquiry into the charges, but the incriminated prelate was able completely to clear himself.[1]
On a charge of black magic, in 1371, a man was arrested at Southwark and brought before Sir John Knivet of the King’s Bench. He was discovered in most incriminating circumstances, since he had upon a him a skull, the head of a corpse, and a book of goety. There can be no reasonable doubt that he had been reciting a demoniacal invocation, but the court merely made him swear that he would never perform any occult rite or rehearse runes and cantrips of any kind whatsoever, whereupon apparently without any further penalty he was released from prison, the talismanic
- ↑ “Erat episcopus in regno Angliæ et alibi publice defamatus quod diabolo homagium fecerat, et eum fuerat osculatus in tergo elique locutus multotiens.”
