Elizabethan witchcraft: a trial that divided a community

In the 1580s, the remote Essex village of St Osyth was beset by poverty and social tensions – and when a servant accused her neighbour of witchcraft, it sparked a crisis that engulfed the entire community. Speaking with Charlotte Hodgman, Marion Gibson explores what this late 16th-century witchcraft trial can tell us about life in early modern England.

Marion Gibson is the author of The Witches of St Osyth: Persecution, Betrayal and Murder in Elizabethan England (Cambridge University Press, 2022)