Alice Kyteler: Accused Irish Witch
The Woman At the Center of Ireland’s First Witch Trial (1324-1325)
Nov 2, 2008
Lady Alice Kyteler was one of the richest residents in Kilkenny, Ireland. Descending from a prosperous, merchant family, she had the advantage of accumulating even greater wealth through a succession of four marriages. Her first marriage to wealthy banker and money-lender, William Utlagh, produced a son by the same name. Lady Alice’s son took up his deceased father’s trade, and over time, many local nobles became in debt to both mother and son.
Witchcraft Accusations
The strongest antagonism directed at Lady Alice and her son came from the stepchildren of her later marriages. Lady Alice’s first three husbands died, and her fourth husband became ill with a mysterious wasting disease. With family jealousies over money and inheritance playing a motivating role, Lady Alice’s stepchildren and sickly husband began accusing her of poisoning her current husband and bewitching her former husbands to death with black magic potions and powders.
Bishop of Ossory
In early 1324, Richard de Ledrede, the Bishop of Ossory, held a formal inquiry into the accusations against Lady Alice. He indicted her, her son William, and their associates on charges of both maleficium (harmful magic) and demon worship. The bishop was convinced Lady Alice was the leader of a band of heretical sorcerers.
Charges
Lady Alice and her associates were indicted on seven counts. They were accused of concocting powders and ointments to cause death, illness, love, and hatred. They were said to perform incantations while boiling dead men’s nails, animal entrails, and the brains and swaddling of unbaptized babies in a decapitated robber’s skull.
They were charged with denying Christ and Christianity, and seeking counsel from and sacrificing to demons during nocturnal meetings. Lady Alice was charged with obtaining her wealth from an incubus demon and of using sorcery to bewitch her husband and stepchildren.
The Bishop (and her stepchildren seeking inheritance money) tried to discredit Lady Alice from her financial success; the charges the bishop listed clearly stated her wealth came from a demon and diabolical means. Moreover, the witnesses who testified against Lady Alice were many of the nobles who were in debt to her and her son.
Kilkenny Trial Outcome
Lady Alice’s wealth and family status became her lifesaving supports. Ledrede failed to have her arrested; she used her own authority to have him arrested for seventeen days. Her son William was arrested for heresy, while her maid Petronilla was burned alive after confessing under torture to heresy and orgies. Lady Alice fled and lived out the rest of her life in England, and ironically, Ledrede later was accused of heresy.
Ties to the European Witch-Hunt of the 15th-17th Centuries
Lady Alice’s trial was a landmark case in the history of European witchcraft. Her case marked the first time witches were associated with an organized and heretical devil-worshiping sect. In the 14th Century, the educated elite began to merge their learned ideas about demonological heresy with popular beliefs about witchcraft. This merging of beliefs brought together magic and heresy and the idea of organized and conspiring sects of witches worshipping the devil.
These specific ideological developments that occurred within Kyteler’s trial were some of the necessary prerequisites for the commencement and promulgation of the European Witch trials.
Related articles:
North Berwick Witches' Persecution
Salem Witch Persecution: Theories
References
Cohn, Norman. Europe’s Inner Demons: The Demonization of Christians in Medieval Christendom. Revised Ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft. 2nd Edition. New York: Checkmark Books, 1999.
Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. 3rd Edition. UK: Pearson Educated Limited, 2006.
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