The FIRST IRISH WITCH burning | Halloween special video | Alice Kyteler | History Calling

The FIRST IRISH WITCH burnt at the stake is the subject of today’s HALLOWEEN special video from History Calling. Called Petronilla De Midia, or Petronilla De Meath, she wasn’t even the target of this particular medieval witch hunt. Rather, it was her mistress, Dame Alice Kyteler, a wealthy and well-connected woman from the town of Kilkenny, Ireland, who was suspected of using witchcraft to kill three, perhaps even four husbands and persuade several of them to give their money to her son, William Outlaw. In this video, we’ll look at the charges made against Alice and her supposed accomplices in 1324 by Richard Ledrede, Bishop of Ossory. These included accusations of heresy, inappropriate relations with demons (not that there are ever any appropriate relations with demons!), some hideous sounding spells and potions that involved the body parts of deceased children and criminals and the offence of supposedly poisoning her fourth husband with arsenic. We’ll trace the sequence of events which led to the first Irish witch burning and uncover what a witch fearing Pope, an extremist Bishop, the use of torture and the Knights Templar had to do with the whole situation. If you’ve ever wondered ‘are witches real’, this Halloween history video will leave you in no doubt that your ancestors’ answer to that question would have been a resounding yes, as it will reveal medieval attitudes to witchcraft in Ireland and why a recent change in those attitudes made the reaction to Alice Kyteler’s supposed crimes so much more extreme than it might have been just a few decades earlier. It will explain why Petronilla, a woman who has gone down in history as the first witch in Ireland to be burnt alive, was likely just an innocent servant, caught up in a power struggle between her mistress and the fanatical Ledrede. Patreon:   / historycalling   Instagram:   / historycalling   SUBSCRIBE with NOTIFICATIONS switched on for new videos every Friday. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: HISTORICAL MYSTERIES’ PLAYLIST    • Historical Mysteries   THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF BENJAMIN BATHURST    • THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF BENJA...   THE STORY OF THE AMBER ROOM: LOST TREASURE OF WORLD WAR 2    • The Story of the AMBER ROOM | Lost Tr...   THE 140 YEAR OLD COUNTESS OF DESMOND    • THE 140 YEAR OLD COUNTESS OF DESMOND ...   WHY DID PEOPLE DANCE THEMSELVES TO DEATH?    • WHY DID PEOPLE DANCE THEMSELVES TO DE...   WHAT HAPPENED TO QUEEN ANNE’S CHILDREN?    • WHAT HAPPENED TO QUEEN ANNE’S CHILDRE...   SIX WIVES OF HENRY VIII PLAYLIST    • Six wives of Henry VIII   NB: Links above may be affiliate links. This means if you make a purchase through one of these links, I earn a small commission. It in no way affects the price you pay. Creative Commons licenses used see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/