Witchcraft in United Kingdom

Meaning of Witchcraft

The following is an old definition of Witchcraft [1]: The practices of a witch: a woman (formerly, a man or a woman) supposed to be able to affect the happiness and destiny of other persons by the exercise of supernatural power acquired from intercourse with evil spirits; conjuration; sorcery; enchantment. “A species of offense,”‘ says Blackstone, “against God and religion, of which one knows not well what account to give, is witchcraft, conjuration, enchantment or sorcery. The thing is a truth to which every nation hath borne testimony, by examples seemingly well attested or by prohibitory laws.” The civil law punished with death sorcerers and those who consulted with them, imitating the Mosaic law ” Thou Shalt not suffer a witch to live ” [by her craft?] Our own [English] laws have been equally penal, condemning culprits to the flames. Statute 33 Henry VIII (1548), u. 8, made witchcraft and sorcery felony without benefit of clergy; and 1 James I (1603), c. 12, enacted that persons invoking any evil spirit, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding, or rewarding any evil spirit, or hurting any person by such internal arts, should be guilty of felony without benefit of clergy, and suffer death; and that if any person attempted by sorcery to discover hidden treasure, to restore hidden goods, to provoke unlawful love, or to hurt any man or beast, he or she should suffer imprisonment and pillory for the first offense, and death for the second. Not a few of those executed under these laws confessed guilt at the gallows. Louis XIV of France forbade the courts to receive informations of witchcraft. Statute 9 Geo. III (1769), c. 5, disallowed prosecutions for conjuration, witchcraft, sorcery, or enchantment. But pretending to use witchcraft, tell fortunes, or discover stolen goods, by skill in the occult sciences, is still a punishable misdemeanor in England, and in the States.

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Notes and References

1. Concept of Witchcraft provided by the Anderson Dictionary of Law (1889) (Dictionary of Law consisting of Judicial Definitions and Explanations of Words, Phrases and Maxims and an Exposition of the Principles of Law: Comprising a Dictionary and Compendium of American and English Jurisprudence; William C. Anderson; T. H. Flood and Company, Law Publishers, Chicago, United States)