The Kilkenny witch who still casts a spell 700 years on

It’s almost 700 years since Alice Kyteler was accused of witchcraft in medieval Kilkenny but her presence still lingers vividly. Alice fled Kilkenny and disappeared into oblivion after the witch hunt: she was literally never seen or heard of again. 

Her unfortunate servant Petronella de Meath was condemned to death and executed in her place, being burned alive on November 3, 1324 in front of a large crowd on a main Kilkenny street. Her confession, made after being tortured detailed making potions, consulting demons and acting as a medium between her mistress Alice, and a demon.

Today two businesses in Kilkenny are named after these women; Petronella’s restaurant in the Butterslip and Kyteler’s Inn, the site of Alice’s home but what do we know about the women before the accusations of witchcraft were levelled?

Petronella has the distinction of being the first person in Ireland to be condemned for witchcraft and the first case of convicted heresy resulting in the death sentence. She was reportedly unrepentant  for her crimes but the fact that she was tortured to obtain her confession, colours that observation. Also, because Petronella was of a lower social class there is less documentation about her so we know less about her personally, except that she was Kyteler's close confidante.

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Alice was the daughter of Flemish merchants who had settled in the city and was married 4 times to William Outlaw, Adam le Blund (1302), Richard de Valle (1311) and Sir John le Poer (1324). She and her second husband were accused of murdering her first husband so she seems to have been the subject of gossip in Kilkenny society from early in her life. When her third husband  Richard died, Alice took proceedings to recover her widow’s dower which infuriated her stepchildren and planted the seeds of future troubles.  

Alice was unusual for her times: she was wealthy (she was reputedly the wealthiest woman in Leinster) and independent. She also didn’t fit the stereotypical image of a witch: instead of being a herbalist, she was a businesswoman, wealthy property owner and  a money lender. Her status was such that she even sat in Kilkenny’s parliament and features in the Liber Primus Kilkennius the corporation minutes from meetings in medieval times. However, Alice incurred resentment and jealousy because of her wealth and particularly for her role as a moneylender. 

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Alice had one son, also William Outlaw and he was intricately entwined in her prosecution for witchcraft. He was a man of influence and wealth and was co-charged alongside her for heresy. Both he and his mother became a fixation for Richard de Ledrede who would pursue them relentlessly. 

Alice’s nemesis, the Bishop of Ossory, Richard de Ledrede was a Franciscan of humble origins from London who rose to become a bishop. As an outsider in Ireland he had neither Alice’s family connections nor means and some suggest that he resented her status and affluence. De Ledrede wanted to restore clerical power and raise taxes to fix the then dilapidated St Canice’s Cathedral. Obsessed with witchcraft, he found in Alice a subject he could exploit for his own ends.  No matter her status and wealth, the accusations of witchcraft made Alice extremely vulnerable. The fact that she had red hair and could be very charming was also interpreted by de Ledrede as signs of her evil nature. 

Alice became the incarnation of the clash between ecclesiastical and secular power which obsessed the cleric. Note, she was tried by the Church and not the government of the day. The turbulence of the time only added to the hysteria around her: outside the city walls, the native Irish were rising after 150 years of subjugation. 

When Alice’s last husband, Le Poer fell ill, he said he thought he had been poisoned and after his death his children and the offspring of her previous three husbands accused Alice of sorcery and poisoning. She was then accused of seven formal charges ranging from sacrificing animals to asking demons for advice, having sex with male demons, holding coven meetings, making magic powders and ointments and bewitching and killing her husbands to take their money for herself and her son. 

Alice was charged with Petronella, her maid and 10 others (including her son) but she was the only one to escape. She managed to take Basilia, Petronella’s daughter, with her to safety and after their flight there is no mention of them, ever again. 

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De Ledrede wanted to restore clerical power and raise taxes to fix the then dilapidated St Canice’s Cathedral. When he charged Alice and her son William with heresy, he declared that Outlaw must make penance by attending mass three times daily, feeding the poor and also paying for the chancel and Lady’s Chapel of St. Canice’s to be re-roofed with lead. Outlaw refused to make penance and to assert his power de Ledrede subsequently had Petronella burned in public. This act struck terror into  the Kilkenny populace and soon Outlaw appeared before de Ledrede in sackcloth and ashes to make penance as requested. 

Petronella paid the ultimate price for Alice and Outlaw’s alleged crimes, being killed in Kyteler’s stead. In death however she has achieved a kind of strange fame: feminist artist, Judy Chicago has included her in her work The Dinner Party in New York, while she has also been the subject of books including Her Kind by Niamh Boyce and The Devil to Pay: The Story of Alice and Petronella by Hugh Ryan. There were up to 50,000 people, mostly women, executed for witchcraft across Europe through the centuries. Petronella is only one of these but her fate is a lesson in how jealousy, misogyny and superstition flared to demonise ordinary women and condemn them to a grisly death.