The Templars, the Witch, and the Wild Irish - by Maeve Brigid Callan (Paperback)

About the Book

Maeve Brigid Callan analyzes Ireland's medieval heresy trials, which all occurred in the volatile fourteenth century. These include the celebrated case of Alice Kyteler and her associates, prosecuted by Richard de Ledrede, bishop of Ossory, in 1324.

Book Synopsis

Early medieval Ireland is remembered as the "Land of Saints and Scholars," due to the distinctive devotion to Christian faith and learning that permeated its culture. As early as the seventh century, however, questions were raised about Irish orthodoxy, primarily concerning Easter observances. Yet heresy trials did not occur in Ireland until significantly later, long after allegations of Irish apostasy from Christianity had sanctioned the English invasion of Ireland. In The Templars, the Witch, and the Wild Irish, Maeve Brigid Callan analyzes Ireland's medieval heresy trials, which all occurred in the volatile fourteenth century. These include the celebrated case of Alice Kyteler and her associates, prosecuted by Richard de Ledrede, bishop of Ossory, in 1324. This trial marks the dawn of the "devil-worshipping witch" in European prosecutions, with Ireland an unexpected birthplace.Callan divides Ireland's heresy trials into three categories. In the first stand those of the Templars and Philip de Braybrook, whose trial derived from the Templars', brought by their inquisitor against an old rival. Ledrede's prosecutions, against Kyteler and other prominent Anglo-Irish colonists, constitute the second category. The trials of native Irishmen who fell victim to the sort of propaganda that justified the twelfth-century invasion and subsequent colonization of Ireland make up the third. Callan contends that Ireland's trials resulted more from feuds than doctrinal deviance and reveal the range of relations between the English, the Irish, and the Anglo-Irish, and the church's role in these relations; tensions within ecclesiastical hierarchy and between secular and spiritual authority; Ireland's position within its broader European context; and political, cultural, ethnic, and gender concerns in the colony.

Review Quotes

Callan's style is vivid and evocative of her level of comfort with the topic. Discussion of each trial relies heavily on descriptions from witness testimonies as well as the available legal records, allowing Callan to reconstruct the circumstances of each trial for her readership. Her deft handling of interdisciplinary approaches and the extensive usage of primary sources to set up the trials discussed makes this book an entertaining read for both students and seasoned scholars of Irish studies.

Heresy in Ireland has been a neglected topic, and this well-researched work is a welcome contribution to our understanding of it.

Maeve Brigid Callan weaves Irish and wider European patterns together convincingly in her account of incidents concerning heresy and witchcraft that occurred in Ireland between 1310 and 1360.... [T]his is a bold, fresh and scholarly account that will be warmly welcomed by medieval historians and the general reader wishing to enter the stormy world of fourteenth-century Ireland.

Maeve Callan's readable, well-structured, and scholarly book examines Irish medieval heresy trials of the volatile fourteenth century through the lens of three little-studied, interlocking case studies.... Callan's book is a novel, commendable study of the political, interpersonal, and to a lesser extent ethnic issues that underpinned "artificial" Irish heresy trials in the fourteenth century. It displays a deep understanding of the period and the people involved and will be read with profit by students of all levels of late medieval Ireland, as well as those studying sorcery trials in the prewitch-hunt period.

About the Author

Maeve Brigid Callan is Associate Professor of Religion at Simpson College.