Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. It's officially Halloween season. Yep. Listen,
Speaker 1: It's always Halloween season for me. But I understand that's
Speaker 1: not how the rest of the world works. I think
Speaker 1: the rest of the world is incorrect. But that's fine.
Speaker 1: Here we are. It's October. It is just a heads
Speaker 1: up for everybody. I have a couple of witchy things
Speaker 1: in this mix this year that aren't really all that
Speaker 1: halloweeny in my opinion, because it really becomes a deconstruction
Speaker 1: of like social problems, right, the way religion has been
Speaker 1: used to torture people. Yeah, that happens with a lot
Speaker 1: of the witch episodes, honestly, Yeah, there's no way around it.
Speaker 1: And in the second one that we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about in an upcoming episode, in particular, we talk a
Speaker 1: lot there is a lot of research done into it
Speaker 1: from a psychological perspective, so we talk a lot about that.
Speaker 1: But today we are talking about Alice Kitler, who was
Speaker 1: accused of witchcraft and Kilkenny, Ireland. And although the witchcraft
Speaker 1: allegations against her are generally seen as nonsense today and
Speaker 1: really born out of this interlocking family arguing in a
Speaker 1: personal vendetta that she was pulled into and probably some
Speaker 1: jealousy for her success in life. Alice Killer often does
Speaker 1: not escape suspicion entirely, even through the modern lens, because
Speaker 1: a good many people think she may have been essentially
Speaker 1: a black widow, so a serial killer who murdered her
Speaker 1: husband's for financial gain. You'll see why and you can
Speaker 1: come to your own conclusion. But the real tragedy in
Speaker 1: the case of Alice Kitler and the witchcraft trial that
Speaker 1: really shocked fourteenth century Ireland, in my opinion, has more
Speaker 1: to do with a woman she employed, who paid a
Speaker 1: very steep price for her association with Alice, and that's
Speaker 1: what we're talking about today. In March of thirteen twenty four,
Speaker 1: Richard Ladredd, the Bishop of Ossory in Kilkenny, opened an
Speaker 1: inquisition into heresy and ossary, claiming a quote diabolical nest
Speaker 1: had been uncovered. At the center of that alleged nest
Speaker 1: was a woman named Alice Kittler, So the woman that
Speaker 1: a lot of people saw as suspicious. This is an
Speaker 1: accusation of witchcraft that predates the more commonly known witch
Speaker 1: trials by several hundred years. For example, the Salem witch
Speaker 1: trials didn't happen until the end of the seventeenth century,
Speaker 1: and Norway's Varda witch trials, which we've covered on the
Speaker 1: show before, took place a few decades earlier than the
Speaker 1: trials in Salem, but that was still in the seventeenth century.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that has to be considered
Speaker 1: and remembered in this case is the way that heresy
Speaker 1: and witchcraft became conflated as instances of heresy, by which
Speaker 1: we mean just the rejection of Christianity and or the
Speaker 1: Church's influence in people's lives grew in the twelfth to
Speaker 1: the fourteenth centuries, Church officials increasingly characterized anyone criticizing the
Speaker 1: Church as clearly evil, and that characterization escalated to include
Speaker 1: an assumption of association with demons, and witchcraft was soon
Speaker 1: part of that mix. The definition of heresy also expanded
Speaker 1: from people who actually were working to counter the Church
Speaker 1: to basically anyone who expressed any sort of eccentricity or
Speaker 1: seemed odd or lived outside a pretty narrow boundary of
Speaker 1: societal morese. Additionally, there's an element of time and place
Speaker 1: here that is less about people lumping things together and
Speaker 1: more about legal definitions. In his twenty twelve book of
Speaker 1: Bewitched Land, Witches and Morlocks of Ireland, doctor Robert Kerin
Speaker 1: makes the point that this was before Ireland had any
Speaker 1: witchcraft laws on the book, so it fell under the
Speaker 1: auspices of ecclesiastical law, in which witchcraft was defined specifically
Speaker 1: as heresy rather than as a criminal act. So keep
Speaker 1: all of that in mind as Alice's story unfolds. Regarding
Speaker 1: the Kittler family in Kilkenny, Missus C. J. Murphy, writing
Speaker 1: for the Old Kilkenny Review in nineteen fifty three, stated
Speaker 1: quote among the Norman families who had settled in the
Speaker 1: city was a family named Kittler. Robert le Kitler was
Speaker 1: a trader with Flanders toward the end of the thirteenth century.
Speaker 1: There was also a William Kittler, but nothing of note
Speaker 1: seems to be known of him. The only member of
Speaker 1: this family whose name is remembered through the mists of
Speaker 1: six centuries is Dame Alice Kittler, whose famous trial for
Speaker 1: witchcraft must have shaken all Ireland and had repercussions as
Speaker 1: far away as London and Rome. So Alice was born
Speaker 1: circa twelve sixty. That was a little more than ninety
Speaker 1: years after Kilkenny was officially founded by Charter. Alice's year
Speaker 1: of birth is a little wonky if you look it up.
Speaker 1: It's sometimes given as twelve eighty. It makes more sense
Speaker 1: if that is actually the year of her first marriage,
Speaker 1: which is also often listed as twelve eighty. If you
Speaker 1: do the math, that makes sense. Another year that popped
Speaker 1: up for her birth was twelve sixty three. So it
Speaker 1: seems like somewhere along the line a typo or a
Speaker 1: misread happened that has proliferated through a lot of write
Speaker 1: ups regarding these events. Because twelve eighty gets listed a lot,
Speaker 1: just know that Alice's first husband, probably married in twelve eighty,
Speaker 1: was William Outlaw. The couple had a son with the
Speaker 1: same name as his father, and her husband, William was
Speaker 1: a banker, and he did very well for himself. In
Speaker 1: thirteen oh two, her husband, William Outlaw Senior, died and
Speaker 1: the details of that death are pretty sketchy, but it
Speaker 1: seems as though it was considered to be pretty sudden
Speaker 1: Alice may have been accused of murdering him, although it's
Speaker 1: unclear if that's the case, and there don't appear to
Speaker 1: have been any official legal actions taken, so it might
Speaker 1: have been a rumor or an accusation that never manifested
Speaker 1: in any kind of actual action. But when William Senior died,
Speaker 1: their son William took over his father's banking business, and
Speaker 1: the younger William became both very wealthy and very influential.
Speaker 1: And this was also in part because the Outlaw family,
Speaker 1: which if you look it up is sometimes written as
Speaker 1: Utlaw ut Lagh, was very well positioned and influential in Dublin.
Speaker 1: In the alleged rumors, she was accused of murdering William
Speaker 1: Outlaw with the help of a man named Adam Deblund.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we're also referenced as Adam Blunt, who she married
Speaker 1: soon after William Outlaw's death. While she was with Adam,
Speaker 1: she started to work alongside him and his money lending business.
Speaker 1: Alice and Adam's marriage didn't last especially long, although they
Speaker 1: may have had children together. There's a lack of clarity
Speaker 1: about whether William Outlaw was Alice's only biological child, and
Speaker 1: that perhaps other children often listed as hers, were actually
Speaker 1: step children that had been born during her husband's prior marriages.
Speaker 1: Adam Blund, like William Outlaw Senior, died unexpectedly after a
Speaker 1: strange illness. In thirteen oh nine. Alice was married to
Speaker 1: a third husband, Richard Deval, and after seven years of marriage,
Speaker 1: Alice was widowed for a third time, once again, after
Speaker 1: her husband developed a sudden illness. Richard died in thirteen sixteen.
Speaker 1: After Deval's death, Alice became embroiled in a financial dispute
Speaker 1: with his children over his estate. She fought to get
Speaker 1: her dour that's some of money that was normally set
Speaker 1: aside as a sort of insurance to be paid out
Speaker 1: to a widow if her husband should die. She did
Speaker 1: eventually get the money. This made it the third fortune
Speaker 1: that she had inherited. Alice had become so incredibly wealthy
Speaker 1: that she lent money to King Edward. The second one
Speaker 1: of her business ventures was an inn which had been
Speaker 1: in the family since she was a child, and that
Speaker 1: inn still operates today. Yeah, it's actually a popular tourist attraction.
Speaker 1: You can go have a drink at the pub that
Speaker 1: was owned by the killers. She married her fourth husband,
Speaker 1: John Lapour, in thirteen sixteen, and like her other spouses,
Speaker 1: Lapour was a man of means. He owned a lot
Speaker 1: of property. Eight years into Alice in John's marriage, John
Speaker 1: became seriously ill and he was apparently aware that he
Speaker 1: might not recover from this illness and wanted to update
Speaker 1: his will. And this update left a lot of his holdings,
Speaker 1: some say all of his holdings to Alice and her
Speaker 1: oldest son, William, and diminished or eliminated what his own
Speaker 1: children would receive. When his children visited Alice in John's
Speaker 1: home to check in on their father, they were very
Speaker 1: distraught at what they saw. He was incredibly gaunt. He
Speaker 1: looked as though he had been wasting away for some
Speaker 1: time and maybe had not been administered any help. They
Speaker 1: got very suspicious, particularly when they realized that their father
Speaker 1: had been in the process of amending his will to
Speaker 1: leave everything to Alice and William. And at that point
Speaker 1: they contacted Bishop Richard Ladredd regarding their suspicions that foul
Speaker 1: play was involved and that Alice was the perpetrator. And
Speaker 1: coming up, we're going to talk about Richard Ladredd, but
Speaker 1: first we will pause for a sponsor break. The year
Speaker 1: after Alice had married John Lapour, a new bishop had
Speaker 1: moved to the Osary diocese in Kilkenny. That was the
Speaker 1: aforementioned Richard the Dread and soon Ladred actually had conflict
Speaker 1: with another member of the Lapour family. That was Arnold Lapour,
Speaker 1: who was Seneschal of kil Kenny, Wexford and Carlow. The
Speaker 1: Lapour family had been in Ireland for at least one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years. At this point they had become
Speaker 1: quite powerful, So a seneschal in this instance is a
Speaker 1: government official appointed by the King of England to serve
Speaker 1: as an administrator and sort of like substitute ruler in
Speaker 1: an area. Because bishops also held a place of political
Speaker 1: power and often were in charge of legal matters, this
Speaker 1: meant that if a seneschal and a bishop in an
Speaker 1: area did not agree, it could cause a lot of strife,
Speaker 1: and it definitely did in this instance. One reason there
Speaker 1: was this level of tension and overlap was in part
Speaker 1: because kil Kenny had grown up around a monastery to
Speaker 1: become an important hub for both trade and governance, so
Speaker 1: both the church and the secular government felt that they
Speaker 1: should have primary say over the way the town was run.
Speaker 1: Another issue was that from thirteen oh seven to early
Speaker 1: thirteen twenty seven, King Edward the second was the ruler
Speaker 1: of England. England had claimed lordship over Ireland, but Edward
Speaker 1: the Second was miirred in so many conflicts, both at
Speaker 1: home and abroad, that he was ineffectual in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, and a lot of Ireland was just kind
Speaker 1: of indifferent to rebellious when it came to anyone from England,
Speaker 1: whether from government or the church. So Ledredd right out
Speaker 1: of the gate was just viewed as an interloper. Richard
Speaker 1: Ledredd was born circa twelve eighty somewhere in England, though
Speaker 1: specifics are unknown. His early life in general is not
Speaker 1: very well documented. We know he became a Franciscan friar
Speaker 1: at some point, and that he eventually made his way
Speaker 1: to Avignon when the papal court was there during the
Speaker 1: papacy of John the twenty second. There have been some
Speaker 1: interpretations of his ride where he describes himself as quote
Speaker 1: brought up, educated and promoted under the wings of the
Speaker 1: Holy Apostolic see as meaning that he literally grew up
Speaker 1: at the papal court. But we don't know that for certain.
Speaker 1: It's also been theorized that when la Dread was sent
Speaker 1: to the Osary Diocese in thirteen seventeen, that he might
Speaker 1: have been tasked with seeking out witchcraft, as that was
Speaker 1: something that John the twenty second was concerned about. John
Speaker 1: the twenty second was the pope who would write the
Speaker 1: doctrine that made witchcraft a form of heresy in the
Speaker 1: eyes of the church. Pope John the twenty second was worried,
Speaker 1: or at least claimed to be worried about people attacking
Speaker 1: him with magic. He had Bishop Hughes Jureau arrested and
Speaker 1: charged with attempted murder through sorcery, and other members of
Speaker 1: the papal court had similar accusations made against them. We
Speaker 1: couch that to say he may have been concerned about it,
Speaker 1: because there is plenty of information that suggests this was
Speaker 1: a little bit more calculated than actual fear. Some of
Speaker 1: these accusations were very likely calculated moves to discredit enemies.
Speaker 1: So though the Pope might have genuinely worried about things
Speaker 1: like witchcraft and demons, he was also really skilled at
Speaker 1: deploying such accusations with very little real concern. Regarding demons,
Speaker 1: Kilkenny does seem to have been perceived by the Church
Speaker 1: as a potential hotbed for sorcery or some sort of
Speaker 1: cultish behavior involving the devil at this time. And this
Speaker 1: could have been as simple as it having become an
Speaker 1: area of prosperity that was not especially beholden to the Church.
Speaker 1: And it seems that Ledread may have certainly learned from
Speaker 1: John to twenty seconds example when it came to exploiting
Speaker 1: these concerns, real or not, for his own benefit. When
Speaker 1: he started his work in Osrey, his first move was
Speaker 1: to assemble all the clergy of the area for a
Speaker 1: formal meeting, and during that meeting the real lax church
Speaker 1: leadership of Kilkenny was informed of all the ways that
Speaker 1: it would be tightening up and enforcing new rules, and
Speaker 1: that included keeping an eye out for heretics. Meanwhile, Ladread
Speaker 1: and Arnold Dupour were at odds just about from the
Speaker 1: moment Ladrede arrived. According to an article from the Old
Speaker 1: Kilkenny Review that is archived by the kil Kenny Archaeological Society,
Speaker 1: Lapour referred to Ladread as quote that vile, rustic peasant
Speaker 1: from England. In an argument, Ladred told Lapour that he
Speaker 1: did not fear him, and Lapour replied with quote, well, well,
Speaker 1: you will meet obstacles wherever you go, indicating that nobody
Speaker 1: in the area was going to be especially cooperative. So,
Speaker 1: in this atmosphere of conflict, and specifically conflict with the Seneschal,
Speaker 1: the Bishop Ledread was very eager to hear the story
Speaker 1: that the Lapour family had to tell him about John
Speaker 1: Lapour's condition. They described their father's truly troubling state of illness,
Speaker 1: which they suspected might be poisoning or even the result
Speaker 1: of some sort of bewitching, and they also hinted it
Speaker 1: how suspicious it was that Alice's previous three husbands had
Speaker 1: also fallen ill. Suddenly, Ladredd charged Alice, her son William Outlaw,
Speaker 1: and ten other people that Alice was associated with three
Speaker 1: men and seven women with heresy. The specifics of these
Speaker 1: charges sound pretty bananas. Soon Alice had been accused of
Speaker 1: things like sacrificing animals, of using magic on her husband's
Speaker 1: to cause their demises, and of mixing potions in the
Speaker 1: skull of a robber. Even the ingredients she was suspected
Speaker 1: of using in her skull concoctions were listed, and they
Speaker 1: were things like clothes from unbaptized children, hair from buttocks,
Speaker 1: yes you heard that correctly, men's fingernails, and even worms.
Speaker 1: And with these elixirs, Alice and her associate were accused
Speaker 1: of manipulating people's behaviors. The seven accusations leveled at Alice
Speaker 1: were one denying the power of Christ and the church.
Speaker 1: Two sacrificing animals to a demon named Robert, who she
Speaker 1: also had a sexual relationship with. Three asking demons to
Speaker 1: advise her in witchcraft. Four having that sexual relationship with
Speaker 1: the demon Robert sometimes also called Robin Artisan. This accusation
Speaker 1: even describes the shape shifting of the demon, indicating that
Speaker 1: it sometimes appeared as an animal and at other times
Speaker 1: as an Ethiopian man. Five having covent meetings in the church.
Speaker 1: Six making powders and ointments or potions from ingredients, including
Speaker 1: those who mentioned a moment ago. The subtext on this
Speaker 1: one indicated that it was these potions used in the
Speaker 1: seventh accusation, which was seven bewitching her husbands and killing
Speaker 1: them for their money. There have been scholarly papers written
Speaker 1: that suggests that it was actually Richard Ledredd who introduced
Speaker 1: these ideas of demonic interactions into Ireland, as similar stories
Speaker 1: had existed in France prior to his assignment at Ossary,
Speaker 1: but don't really appear to be part of any Irish
Speaker 1: records before he was there. Witchcraft and occult practice had
Speaker 1: been known of in the years before Ladread, throughout Europe,
Speaker 1: of course, and in Ireland, but it wasn't considered a crime,
Speaker 1: either civilly or ecclesiastically. It was only perceived as evil
Speaker 1: if it was used to harm, and any charges regarding
Speaker 1: it had to do a specific instances in which someone
Speaker 1: had wronged someone else, So you could be charged with
Speaker 1: using witchcraft to cause someone trouble, like spoiling their crop,
Speaker 1: but you'd only be facing the consequences for the damage
Speaker 1: to the crop, not for being involved in the occult
Speaker 1: or witchcraft. But the time of Ladread in Ireland and
Speaker 1: Alice's case are in the early phase of that changing
Speaker 1: in Europe as the concept begun, and to include this
Speaker 1: idea that in order to achieve some level of proficiency
Speaker 1: or power in witchcraft, a person just had to have
Speaker 1: made a pact with the devil. There are, of course,
Speaker 1: theories that all of the wild accusations thrown at Alice
Speaker 1: Kitler were actually catalyzed by Ladred's vendetta against her husband's relative,
Speaker 1: Arnold Lapour, because Arnold and Alice were good friends, and
Speaker 1: Ladred was frustrated he had been assigned to Ossory but
Speaker 1: didn't know anybody or have any friends there, and the
Speaker 1: locals were not interested in his authority. Kilkenny was too
Speaker 1: remote in terms of the English King to have a
Speaker 1: higher up step in to settle these kinds of disputes,
Speaker 1: so Ladred didn't have a lot of tools at his
Speaker 1: disposal when it came to this ongoing beef with Arnold Lapour,
Speaker 1: but he could do what Pope John the twenty second
Speaker 1: had done to his enemies, which was take legal action
Speaker 1: against people in Arnold Lapour's circle. In the case gets
Speaker 1: convoluted almost instantly. When Ledred became concerned that he could
Speaker 1: not manage the situation and kill Kenny, he wrote to
Speaker 1: the Chancellor of the King in Dublin. This was the
Speaker 1: normal order of operations for escalating a situation, but the
Speaker 1: chancellor for the King was a man named Father Roger Outlaw,
Speaker 1: a relative of Alice's first husband and a cousin of
Speaker 1: her son William, and at this point, William, who had
Speaker 1: become quite influential, reached out to his cousin Roger and
Speaker 1: discussed the matter, and soon both father Roger Outlaw and
Speaker 1: Arnold Lapour had written to Richard Ledredd telling him that
Speaker 1: he really should just drop the matter. Bishop Ledread was
Speaker 1: unwilling to just let it go, though, and he was
Speaker 1: insistent that this was an issue of faith that should
Speaker 1: not be ignored. He told the Chancellor Roger Outlaw as much,
Speaker 1: and the Chancellor's reply, which was intended it would seem
Speaker 1: to put an obstacle in Richard's path, said that a
Speaker 1: person could not be detained by the church unless they
Speaker 1: had been excommunicated for a period of forty days. But
Speaker 1: to Ladread, this was not an obstacle exactly. It was
Speaker 1: more like a fresh project. He was adamant that heretics
Speaker 1: didn't fall under that rule because they were flight risks.
Speaker 1: He issued a citation to Alice which came with a
Speaker 1: court date, and she promptly did exactly what Ladredd said
Speaker 1: that she would, which is that she fled Kilkenny. Her
Speaker 1: court date, though went ahead is planned. The Chancellor actually
Speaker 1: sent a defense team to handle Alice's case, saying that
Speaker 1: she was not required to personally appear to answer a
Speaker 1: charge of heresy, so to be clear. The person Ledred
Speaker 1: had turned to for help in this matter instead sided
Speaker 1: with the accused and used the power of his office
Speaker 1: to provide her with legal assistance. But Ladred still went
Speaker 1: ahead with the case and he declared Alice excommunicated. The
Speaker 1: period of her excommunication was set to more than forty days,
Speaker 1: and then he charged her formally with heresy. But since
Speaker 1: Arnold Lapour had a significant amount of power in kill Kenny,
Speaker 1: he was able to stifle the trial by having Ladread arrested.
Speaker 1: He did not want to give witchcraft accusations any oxygen
Speaker 1: and he was hoping to just shut the whole thing down.
Speaker 1: Bishop Ladread was taken to the prison at Kilkenny Castle
Speaker 1: and he was in custody for seventeen days before he
Speaker 1: was released. During that time, Arnold Lapour and William Outlaw
Speaker 1: offered an open forum for anyone in Kilkenny who had
Speaker 1: issues with Ladredd to state those with the assurance that
Speaker 1: their complaints would be heard and also pursued. The pair
Speaker 1: were surely hoping that enough people would bring them complaints
Speaker 1: that they could make a case that la Dread should
Speaker 1: be recalled by the Pope, but nobody else filed any complaints.
Speaker 1: Realizing that no one was going to come forward, Lapour
Speaker 1: had the Bishop released. When he got out, the Bishop
Speaker 1: was not especially interested in letting things go. He went
Speaker 1: right back to his accusations and even decided he could
Speaker 1: issue a judgment against Alice and her associates and his
Speaker 1: opinion the matter was settled and she was guilty. Ladred
Speaker 1: issued another summons for both Alice Kitler and William Outlaw
Speaker 1: to appear before him in ecclesiastical court on these charges,
Speaker 1: but Alice's friends and relations once again intervened. King's Chancellor,
Speaker 1: Roger Outlaw summoned Bishop Ledread to appear in Dublin in court,
Speaker 1: and the date for his hearing just happened to be
Speaker 1: the exact same date that Ladred had called Alice and
Speaker 1: William to come in to see him. Ladred actually thought
Speaker 1: initially that all of this might work out in his favor.
Speaker 1: He was at last going to get to lay out
Speaker 1: his case against Alice before a higher authority, which is
Speaker 1: something he had wanted all along. Arnold Lapour is said
Speaker 1: to have waited along the road for Ladred to pass
Speaker 1: so he could once again arrest him. But Ladred learned
Speaker 1: of this plan and avoided it. But when Richard Ladredd
Speaker 1: arrived in Dublin, he found that another trap of sorts
Speaker 1: had been laid. Alice Kitler was there and she had
Speaker 1: prepared a defamation case against the bishop for accusing her
Speaker 1: of heresy and sentencing her to excommunication without a fair trial.
Speaker 1: Alice had a lot of money and so she had
Speaker 1: a lot of resources, and she had appealed the bishop's
Speaker 1: ruling and it went to the parliament in Dublin. Had
Speaker 1: she been making this appeal a couple hundred years later,
Speaker 1: she might have been in trouble with higher officials. But
Speaker 1: her case was before the fevered witch hunts of Europe
Speaker 1: and other parts of the world really got into swings.
Speaker 1: So a lot of officials came away from these proceedings
Speaker 1: thinking that maybe Ladred was not really in touch with reality. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were, like, these charges seem Cokammie to us worked
Speaker 1: in Alice's favor, that she is on the early side
Speaker 1: of things. Bread had been trying the entire time he
Speaker 1: had Alice in his sights to get the authorities in
Speaker 1: Dublin to issue a warrant for her arrest so that
Speaker 1: he could legally detain her. And now all of the
Speaker 1: people he had been trying to get help from were
Speaker 1: allied with Alice against him. Now in the King's Court
Speaker 1: and as part of the proceedings, Arnold Lapour addressed the
Speaker 1: court saying, quote, you know that in Ireland there never
Speaker 1: was found heretics, for it is wont to be called
Speaker 1: the island of saints. But now a stranger from England
Speaker 1: comes and says, we are all heretics and excommunicated, alleging
Speaker 1: for this certain papal constitutions which we never heard of.
Speaker 1: And since the Infamia of that land touches the person
Speaker 1: of us all, it becomes you all to take a
Speaker 1: part against him. And Ladred's early rulings were dismissed and
Speaker 1: he was sent back to his diocese. But once he
Speaker 1: got back to Kokenny, he continued to pursue his case
Speaker 1: against Alice. He was so obsessed and so dogged trying
Speaker 1: to convince higher ups in the church and in the
Speaker 1: government that he was on to something that he eventually
Speaker 1: managed to convince a handful of those people to come
Speaker 1: to kil Kenny for a court session. He had called
Speaker 1: for distance reference. Kill Kenny is about one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty eight kilometers or eighty miles southwest of Dublin. In
Speaker 1: a car today, that would take maybe ninety minutes, but
Speaker 1: in thirteen twenty four it was a much more time
Speaker 1: consuming journey to convince somebody to make They really must
Speaker 1: have been hoping they could just show up and put
Speaker 1: the matter to rest once and for all, so that
Speaker 1: they could get some peace from Richard Ladredd. This hearing
Speaker 1: took place in Saint Mary's Church, and the people in
Speaker 1: attendance included Chancellor Roger Outlaw, as well as other officials
Speaker 1: from Dublin. In this time, Ladredd formally accused William Outlaw
Speaker 1: of harboring heretics. In a somewhat odd detail, William appeared
Speaker 1: at this hearing in a full suit of armor. And
Speaker 1: there is a plot twist coming, So we're actually gonna
Speaker 1: pause right here for a sponsor break. During the hearing
Speaker 1: on July second, thirteen twenty four, and Kill Kenny, in
Speaker 1: which Richard Ledrette accused William Outlaw the Younger of heresy,
Speaker 1: things got very heated. The accusers and William's defenders argued
Speaker 1: back and forth until Suddenly, all of that bickering was
Speaker 1: ended when William confessed to harboring heretics. Part of the
Speaker 1: preparations for this event was the questioning of a woman
Speaker 1: named Petronilla of Meath, who worked for Alice. Petronella was
Speaker 1: one of the people accused of being part of Alice's
Speaker 1: nefarious group of witches, and Petronilla was questioned while being whipped.
Speaker 1: This is often described as being questioned under torture, and
Speaker 1: while whipping would certainly be torturous, just for clarity, this
Speaker 1: was not the same kind of torture that would later
Speaker 1: be used to question suspected witches. At the time, England
Speaker 1: had a law in place against using torture to gain confessions.
Speaker 1: Whipping was allowed because Petronilla was a servant and servants
Speaker 1: could be whipped according to the law. The whipping was
Speaker 1: certainly enough. Petronilla told authorities that she watched Alice practice
Speaker 1: witchcraft and had participated and acted as a go between
Speaker 1: for Alice and her demon lover. Her recorded testimony was
Speaker 1: brought into the court proceedings against William. In fact, her
Speaker 1: whole case was based on Petronilla's torture induced confession. Although
Speaker 1: William had confessed he was imprisoned only briefly. His negotiated sentencing,
Speaker 1: which was issued by Ladred, was surprisingly not all that harsh.
Speaker 1: To make penance, he had to agree to attend Mass
Speaker 1: three times a day for a year. He also had
Speaker 1: to feed the poor and kill Kenny, and he needed
Speaker 1: to pay for some needed upkeep to the cathedral and chapel,
Speaker 1: specifically the laying of a new lead roof. And William
Speaker 1: agreed to the sentence, but he didn't actually follow through
Speaker 1: and do those things, and that made Richard Ladredd I rate.
Speaker 1: William's disregard for his penance put ladredde in the position
Speaker 1: of weakness. He had worked so hard to get to
Speaker 1: a point where he had successfully prosecuted at least one
Speaker 1: person from the heretic nest he believed was operating and
Speaker 1: kill Kenny, only to have his judgment ignored. He wanted
Speaker 1: to punish Alice Kitler once and for all, but the
Speaker 1: problem was he couldn't find her. He could, however, find
Speaker 1: her servant, Petronella, and she would have to serve as
Speaker 1: an example. On November three, thirteen twenty four, Petronella became
Speaker 1: the first person in Ireland to be burned at the
Speaker 1: stake for witchcraft. William, though was once again able to
Speaker 1: avoid any harsh punishment, undoubtedly due to his status as
Speaker 1: a wealthy and powerful man, he did have to finally
Speaker 1: pay for that church roof. As for the other people
Speaker 1: that La Dread sentenced alongside Alice, because others in their
Speaker 1: group were convicted, there isn't much information regarding their lives
Speaker 1: after the trial, and there are actually, undoubtedly because this
Speaker 1: is from seven hundred years ago, a lot of really
Speaker 1: unsatisfying loose ends in this story. So when did Alice's
Speaker 1: fourth husband, John Lapour die? We don't know what happened
Speaker 1: to his kids who started all of this with their
Speaker 1: accusations unclear? And the big question where did Alice Killer
Speaker 1: end up? Because she vanishes and it is generally believed
Speaker 1: that she used her vast wealth and connections to escape
Speaker 1: to England and she probably lived out the rest of
Speaker 1: her life there. She did take Petronella's daughter Basilia, who
Speaker 1: had also been accused with her kill. Kenny seemed to
Speaker 1: be stuck with Ladredd, though he remained the bishop there
Speaker 1: until his death in thirteen sixty. He published his account
Speaker 1: of the trial in Latin several years after it was concluded.
Speaker 1: In his time in Ireland he was embroiled in witchcraft
Speaker 1: and heresy, accusations, claims that people were plotting to kill him,
Speaker 1: and complaints sent by various officials, including King Edward the
Speaker 1: Third to the Pope asking him to please recall Ladread.
Speaker 1: By the time he died, he had a reputation for
Speaker 1: terrorizing his parishioners with baseless accusations. Yeah, he was not
Speaker 1: satisfied with any of this and really just kept going
Speaker 1: to the point that people were like, somebody, come and
Speaker 1: get your boy, Ladredd, because more problems than helping any
Speaker 1: of us. Uh. In twenty twenty four, Kill Kenny commemorated
Speaker 1: the trial and the death of Petronilla with a full
Speaker 1: program of events including lectures. They did tours, they had
Speaker 1: a reenactment of the trial, and they had a civic
Speaker 1: service of atonement and forgiveness in Saint Kanis's Cathedral. Dad
Speaker 1: is the story of the first witch burned in Ireland. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have many thoughts that we could talk about on Friday,
Speaker 1: and in the meantime I also had a fun email
Speaker 1: about sewing. This is from our listener Kelly, who writes
Speaker 1: Allow Holly and Tracy. I'm behind, but I've just listened
Speaker 1: to your podcast on paper sewing patterns. I wish I
Speaker 1: had heard it early, as there was a convention on
Speaker 1: sewing patterns in Charlotte, North Carolina in July or August
Speaker 1: of this year that I could have told y'all about.
Speaker 1: Check out patterncon dot com for more information. She mentions
Speaker 1: that it is supposed to be in Atlanta in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, so I will be on the lookout for
Speaker 1: that because that would be fun. It's a brand new convention,
Speaker 1: so that's why I had never heard of it. Kelly writes,
Speaker 1: Below are my two rescue dogs, Abby, the gray mastive mix,
Speaker 1: and Hefner, the tan Staffordshire Terrier mix. Hefner passed away
Speaker 1: in January, and we believe Abby is thirteen or even fourteen.
Speaker 1: We've had her since twenty thirteen. Also attached is a
Speaker 1: dress sewing pattern that I will attempt to make for
Speaker 1: my daughter's wedding and the material I will be making
Speaker 1: it out of, which is sharmus. Take care, and at
Speaker 1: least I will be happy to hear more about home
Speaker 1: sewing history any aspect will be interesting to me. Kelly. Okay,
Speaker 1: First of all these dogs, those are kissable faces. They're
Speaker 1: good ones. Second, the pattern that she shared with us
Speaker 1: is when I was very familiar with already. It's a
Speaker 1: pattern by charm Patterns, which is a pattern company run
Speaker 1: by a woman who goes by Gerty who does like
Speaker 1: retro style patterns with some you know, modern cuts and techniques,
Speaker 1: and they're amazing. I love them. If you are a
Speaker 1: pattern person and you're dismayed at how commercial patterns are
Speaker 1: playing out right now, this is a great option. I
Speaker 1: have no reason to tout this other than I love
Speaker 1: charm Patterns and I follow her Patreon and you get
Speaker 1: a free pattern every month with it, and I love it.
Speaker 1: I don't make them all, but I love them all.
Speaker 1: I cannot wear this particular dress. It is like a
Speaker 1: halter thing of the very open back, and I just
Speaker 1: am not built for that. But I love it. And
Speaker 1: I also want to applaud your bravado in making this
Speaker 1: out of Charmus, because Charmus is a pain and that
Speaker 1: took us to work with in my opinion, but it
Speaker 1: gives me a lovely memory of watching Project Runway this
Speaker 1: season that Nick Verios was on and him being in
Speaker 1: mood Fabrics and the way he pronounced charmus when speaking
Speaker 1: Spanish was chamuz and I will never forget it and
Speaker 1: I love it forever. So Kelly, I hope your dress
Speaker 1: turns out beautiful, and I also hope you send me
Speaker 1: a picture of it, because I really want to see it.
Speaker 1: This particular pattern I have met, Like I said, I've
Speaker 1: never used, but I stole a technique from it on
Speaker 1: a wedding dress that I just made. So I hope
Speaker 1: only great success for you, and thank you for sharing
Speaker 1: both your project and your pups with us. And I'm
Speaker 1: glad that you like our sewing stuff. If you would
Speaker 1: like to write to the podcast, you can do that
Speaker 1: at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. And if you
Speaker 1: haven't subscribed to the show, you can do that EASYPC.
Speaker 1: It's easier than sewing. I promise you can do it
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