Pod Insights Stuff You Missed in History Class Alice Kyteler and the Kilkenny Witch Trials About this episode Alice Kyteler's witchcraft trial shocked 14th century Ireland. Today, the charges against her are seen largely as nonsense, and more about personal vendettas and struggles for power.
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0:34 Holly Frey? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx, listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Whether you're calling the wise women in your life, video calling your girlfriends across the country, or checking in on someone who always knows how to make you smile, staying connected matters. Those small conversations, shared laughs, and quick hellos are what keep
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2:12 Holly Frey? Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeart Radio.
2:22 Holly Frey? Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frey. And I'm Tracy V. Wilson. It's officially Halloween season. Yep. Listen, it's always Halloween season for me, but I understand that's not how the rest of the world works. I think the rest of the world is incorrect, but that's fine. Here we are. It's October. It is.
2:42 Holly Frey? Just a heads up for everybody. I have a couple of witchy things in this mix this year. That aren't really all that Halloweeny, in my opinion, because it really becomes a deconstruction of like social problems. Right. The way religion has been used to torture people. Yeah. That happens with a lot of the witch episodes, honestly. Yeah, there's there's no way around it. And in the second one that we're going to talk about in an upcoming episode in particular, we talk a lot, there is a lot of research done into it from a psychological perspective. So we talk a lot about that. But today, we are talking about Alice Kyteler,
3:22 Holly Frey? who was accused of witchcraft in Kilkenny, Ireland. And although the witchcraft allegations against her are generally seen as nonsense today, and really born out of this interlocking family arguing and a personal vendetta that she was pulled into and probably some jealousy for her success in life. Alice Kyteler often does not escape suspicion entirely, even through the modern lens, because a good many people think she may have been essentially a black widow, so a serial killer who murdered her husbands for financial gain. You'll see why, and you can come to your own conclusion. But the real tragedy in the case of Alice Kyteler and the witchcraft trial
4:07 Holly Frey? that really shocked 14th century Ireland, in my opinion, has more to do with a woman she employed, who paid a very steep price for her association with Alice. And that's what we're talking about today. In March of 1324, Richard Ladred, the bishop of Osire in Kilkenny, opened an inquisition into heresy in Osire, claiming a, quote, "diabolical nest" had been uncovered. At the center of that alleged nest was a woman named Alice Kyteler. This was a woman that a lot of people saw as suspicious. This is an accusation of witchcraft that predates the more commonly known witch trials by several hundred years.
4:51 Holly Frey? For example, the Salem witch trials didn't happen until the end of the 17th century, and Norway's Varda witch trials, which we've covered on the show before, took place a few decades earlier than the trials in Salem, but that was still in the 17th century. And one of the things that has to be considered and remembered in this case is the way that heresy and witchcraft became conflated. As instances of heresy, by which we mean just the rejection of Christianity and/or the church's influence in people's lives, grew in the 12th to the 14th centuries, church officials increasingly characterized anyone criticizing the church as clearly evil.
5:34 Holly Frey? And that characterization escalated to include an assumption of association with demons, and witchcraft was soon part of that mix. The definition of heresy also expanded from people who actually were working to counter the church to basically anyone who expressed any sort of eccentricity, or seemed odd, or lived outside a pretty narrow boundary of societal mores. Additionally, there's an element of time and place here that is less about people lumping things together and more about legal definitions. In his 2012 book, A Bewitched Land: Witches and Warlocks of Ireland, Dr. Robert Curran makes the point that this was before Ireland had any witchcraft laws on the book, so it
6:18 Holly Frey? fell under the auspices of ecclesiastical law, in which witchcraft was defined specifically as heresy rather than as a criminal act. So keep all of that in mind as Alice's story unfolds. Regarding the Kyteler family in Kilkenny, Mrs. C.J. Murphy, writing for the old Kilkenny Review in 1953, stated, quote, "Among the Norman families who had settled in the city was a family named Kyteler. Robert L. Kyteler was a trader with Flanders toward the end of the 13th century. There was also a William Kyteler, but nothing of note seems to be known of him. The only member of this family whose name is remembered through the mists of six centuries
7:00 Holly Frey? is Dame Alice Kyteler, whose famous trial for witchcraft must have shaken all Ireland and had repercussions as far away as London and Rome." So Alice was born circa 1260. That was a little more than 90 years after Kilkenny was officially founded by Charter. Alice's year of birth is a little wonky. If you look it up, it's sometimes given as 1280. It makes more sense if that is actually the year of her first marriage, which is also often listed as 1280. If you do the math, that makes sense. Another year that popped up for her birth was 1263. So it seems like somewhere along the line, a typo or a misread happened that has proliferated through a lot of write-ups
7:45 Holly Frey? regarding these events because 1280 gets listed a lot. Just know that. Alice's first husband, probably married in 1280, was William Outlaw. The couple had a son with the same name as his father. And her husband, William, was a banker and he did very well for himself. In 1302, her husband, William Outlaw Sr., died. And the details of that death are pretty sketchy, but it seems as though it was considered to be pretty sudden. Alice may have been accused of murdering him, although it's unclear if that's the case and there don't appear to have been any official legal actions taken. So it might have been a rumor or an accusation
8:25 Holly Frey? that never manifested in any kind of actual action. But when William Sr. died, their son, William, took over his father's banking business. And the younger William became both very wealthy and very influential. And this was also in part because the Outlaw family, which, if you look it up, is sometimes written as Outlaw, U-T-L-A-G-H, was very well-positioned and influential in Dublin. In the alleged rumors, she was accused of murdering William Outlaw with the help of a man named Adam de Blund, sometimes also referenced as Adam Blunt, who she married soon after William Outlaw's death.
9:06 Holly Frey? While she was with Adam, she started to work alongside him in his money lending business. Alice and Adam's marriage didn't last especially long, although they may have had children together. There's a lack of clarity about whether William Outlaw was Alice's only biological child and that perhaps other children, often listed as hers, were actually stepchildren that had been born during her husband's prior marriages. Adam Blunt, like William Outlaw Sr., died unexpectedly after a strange illness. In 1309, Alice was married to a third husband, Richard DeValle.
9:47 Holly Frey? And after seven years of marriage, Alice was widowed for a third time, once again after her husband developed a sudden illness. Richard died in 1316. After DeValle's death, Alice became embroiled in a financial dispute with his children over his estate. She fought to get her dower, that's a sum of money that was normally set aside as a sort of insurance to be paid out to a widow if her husband should die. She did eventually get the money. This made it the third fortune that she had inherited. Alice had become so incredibly wealthy that she lent money to King Edward II. One of her business ventures was an inn, which had been in the family since she was
10:31 Holly Frey? a child, and that inn still operates today. Yeah, it's actually a popular tourist attraction. You can go have a drink at the pub that was owned by the Kittlers. She married her fourth husband, John Lepore, in 1316. And like her other spouses, Lepore was a man of means. He owned a lot of property. Eight years into Alice and John's marriage, John became seriously ill, and he was apparently aware that he might not recover from this illness and wanted to update his will. And this update left a lot of his holdings, some say all of his holdings, to Alice and her oldest son, William, and diminished or eliminated what his own children would receive.
11:16 Holly Frey? When his children visited Alice and John's home to check in on their father, they were very distraught at what they saw. He was incredibly gaunt. He looked as though he had been wasting away for some time and maybe had not been administered any help. They got very suspicious, particularly when they realized that their father had been in the process of amending his will to leave everything to Alice and William. And at that point, they contacted Bishop Richard Ladred regarding their suspicions that foul play was involved and that Alice was the perpetrator. And coming up, we're going to talk about Richard Ladred. But first, we will pause for a sponsor break.
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12:32 Holly Frey? Hey, everybody. It's Tracy from Stuff You Missed in History Class. That's Alan Goya, a planning engineer at AT&T. He's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, defining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.
12:53 Speaker 05 It was good to rival anything that was already built. And that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.
13:01 Holly Frey? That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.
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13:24 Holly Frey? AT&T, connecting fans to what they love. Connecting changes everything. AT&T. A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities?
14:09 Holly Frey? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other? Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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15:04 Holly Frey? The year after Alice had married John Lepore, a new bishop had moved to the Osiri Diocese in Kilkenny. That was the aforementioned Richard the Dread. And soon, Lepore actually had conflict with another member of the Lepore family. That was Arnold Lepore, who was seneschal of Kilkenny, Wexford, and Carlo. The Lepour family had been in Ireland for at least 150 years at this point. They had become quite powerful. So a seneschal in this instance is a government official appointed by the King of England to serve as an administrator and sort of like a substitute ruler in an area. Because bishops also held a place of political power and often were in charge of legal matters,
15:49 Holly Frey? this meant that if a seneschal and a bishop in an area did not agree, it could cause a lot of strife, and it definitely did in this instance. One reason there was this level of tension and overlap was in part because Kilkenny had grown up around a monastery to become an important hub for both trade and governance. So both the church and the secular government felt that they should have primary say over the way the town was run. Another issue was that from 1307 to early 1327, King Edward II was the ruler of England. England had claimed lordship over Ireland, but Edward II was mired in so many conflicts, both at home and abroad, that he was ineffectual in a lot of ways.
16:33 Holly Frey? And a lot of Ireland was just kind of indifferent to rebellious when it came to anyone from England, whether from government or the church. So Liddred, right out of the gate, was just viewed as an interloper. Richard Liddred was born circa 1280, somewhere in England, though specifics are unknown. His early life in general is not very well documented. We know he became a Franciscan friar at some point and that he eventually made his way to Avignon when the papal court was there during the papacy of John XXII. There have been some interpretations of his writing where he describes himself as, quote, "brought up, educated, and promoted under the wings of the Holy Apostolic See",
17:17 Holly Frey? as meaning that he literally grew up at the papal court. But we don't know that for certain. It's also been theorized that when Liddred was sent to the Osri diocese in 1317, that he might have been tasked with seeking out witchcraft, as that was something that John XXII was concerned about. John XXII was the pope who would write the doctrine that made witchcraft a form of heresy in the eyes of the church. Pope John the 22nd was worried, or at least claimed to be worried, about people attacking him with magic. He had Bishop Hughes Jureau arrested and charged with attempted murder through sorcery, and other members of the Papal Court had similar accusations made against them.
18:02 Holly Frey? We couch that to say he may have been concerned about it because there is plenty of information that suggests this was a little bit more calculated than actual fear. Some of these accusations were very likely calculated moves to discredit enemies. So though the Pope might have genuinely worried about things like witchcraft and demons, he was also really skilled at deploying such accusations with very little real concern regarding demons. Kilkenny does seem to have been perceived by the Church as a potential hotbed for sorcery or some sort of cultish behavior involving the devil at this time. And this could have been as simple as it having become an area of prosperity that was
18:47 Holly Frey? not especially beholden to the Church. And it seems that Ladred may have certainly learned from John the 22nd's example when it came to exploiting these concerns, real or not, for his own benefit. When he started his work in Osiri, his first move was to assemble all the clergy of the area for a formal meeting. And during that meeting, the relaxed church leadership of Kilkenny was informed of all the ways that it would be tightening up and enforcing new rules, and that included keeping an eye out for heretics. Meanwhile, Ladred and Arnold de Por were at odds just about from the moment Ladred arrived. According to an article from the old Kilkenny Review that is archived by the
19:31 Holly Frey? Kilkenny Archaeological Society, de Por referred to Ladred as, quote, "that vile rustic peasant from England."
19:40 Holly Frey? In an argument, Ladred told Lepore that he did not fear him, and Lepore replied with, quote, "Well, well, you will meet obstacles wherever you go," indicating that nobody in the area was going to be especially cooperative. So in this atmosphere of conflict, and specifically conflict with the Seneschal, the bishop Ladred was very eager to hear the story that the Lepore family had to tell him about John Lepore's condition. They described their father's truly troubling state of illness, which they suspected might be poisoning or even the result of some sort of bewitching. And they also hinted at how suspicious it was that Alice's previous three husbands had also fallen ill suddenly.
20:26 Holly Frey? Ladred charged Alice, her son William Outlaw, and 10 other people that Alice was associated with, three men and seven women, with heresy. The specifics of these charges sound pretty bananas. Soon, Alice had been accused of things like sacrificing animals, of using magic on her husbands to cause their demises, and of mixing potions in the skull of a robber. Even the ingredients she was suspected of using in her skull concoctions were listed, and they were things like clothes from unbaptized children, hair from buttocks, yes, you heard that correctly, men's fingernails, and even worms.
21:05 Holly Frey? And with these elixirs, Alice and her associates were accused of manipulating people's behaviors. The seven accusations leveled at Alice were: One, denying the power of Christ and the church. Two, sacrificing animals to a demon named Robert, who she also had a sexual relationship with. Three, asking demons to advise her in witchcraft. Four, having that sexual relationship with the demon Robert, sometimes also called Robin Artisan. This accusation even describes the shape-shifting of the demon, indicating that it sometimes appeared as an animal and at other times as an Ethiopian man. Five, having coven meetings in the church.
21:48 Holly Frey? Six, making powders and ointments or potions from ingredients, including those we mentioned a moment ago. The subtext on this one indicated that it was these potions used in the seventh accusation, which was seven, bewitching her husbands and killing them for their money.
22:06 Holly Frey? There have been scholarly papers written that suggest that it was actually Richard Liddred who introduced these ideas of demonic interactions into Ireland, as similar stories had existed in France prior to his assignment at Osiri, but don't really appear to be part of any Irish records before he was there. Witchcraft and occult practice had been known of in the years before Liddred, throughout Europe, of course, and in Ireland, but it wasn't considered a crime, either civilly or ecclesiastically. It was only perceived as evil if it was used to harm, and any charges regarding it had to do with specific instances in which someone had wronged someone else.
22:47 Holly Frey? So you could be charged with using witchcraft to cause someone trouble, like spoiling their crop, but you'd only be facing the consequences for the damage to the crop, not for being involved in the occult or witchcraft. But the time of Liddred in Ireland and Alice's case are in the early phase of that changing in Europe, as the concept began to include this idea that in order to achieve some level of proficiency or power in witchcraft, a person just had to have made a pact with the devil. There are, of course, theories that all of the wild accusations thrown at Alice Kyteler were actually catalyzed by Liddred's vendetta against her husband's relative, Arnold Lepour.
23:31 Holly Frey? Because Arnold and Alice were good friends, and Liddred was frustrated. He had been assigned to Osiri but didn't know anybody or have any friends there, and the locals were not interested in his authority. Kilkenny was too remote in terms of the English king to have a higher-up step in to settle these kinds of disputes, so Liddred didn't have a lot of tools at his disposal when it came to this ongoing beef with Arnold Lepour. But he could do what Pope John the 22nd had done to his enemies, which was take legal action against people in Arnold Lepore's circle. And the case gets very convoluted almost instantly. When Ladred became concerned that he could not manage the situation in Kilkenny,
24:16 Holly Frey? he wrote to the Chancellor of the King in Dublin. This was the normal order of operations for escalating a situation. But the Chancellor for the King was a man named Father Roger Outlaw, a relative of Alice's first husband and a cousin of her son William. And at this point, William, who had become quite influential, reached out to his cousin Roger and discussed the matter. And soon, both Father Roger Outlaw and Arnold Lepore had written to Richard Ladred, telling him that he really should just drop the matter. Bishop Ladred was unwilling to just let it go, though. And he was insistent that this was an issue of faith that should not be ignored. He told the Chancellor, Roger Outlaw as much.
25:00 Holly Frey? And the Chancellor's reply, which was intended, it would seem, to put an obstacle in Richard's path, said that a person could not be detained by the Church unless they had been excommunicated for a period of 40 days. But to Ladred, this was not an obstacle exactly. It was more like a fresh project. He was adamant that heretics didn't fall under that rule because they were flight risks. He issued a citation to Alice, which came with a court date, and she promptly did exactly what Ladred said that she would, which is that she fled Kilkenny. Her court date, though, went ahead as planned. The Chancellor actually sent a defense team to handle Alice's case,
25:43 Holly Frey? saying that she was not required to personally appear to answer a charge of heresy. So to be clear, the person Ladred had turned to for help in this matter instead sided with the accused and used the power of his office to provide her with legal assistance. But Ladred still went ahead with the case, and he declared Alice excommunicated. The period of her excommunication was set to more than 40 days, and then he charged her formally with heresy. But since Arnold Lepore had a significant amount of power in Kilkenny, he was able to stifle the trial by having Ladred arrested. He did not want to give witchcraft accusations any oxygen,
26:27 Holly Frey? and he was hoping to just shut the whole thing down. Bishop Ladred was taken to the prison at Kilkenny Castle, and he was in custody for 17 days before he was released. During that time, Arnold Lepore and William Outlaw offered an open forum for anyone in Kilkenny who had issues with Ladred to state those with the assurance that their complaints would be heard and also pursued. The pair were surely hoping that enough people would bring them complaints that they could make a case that Ladred should be recalled by the Pope, but nobody else filed any complaints. Realizing that no one was going to come forward, Lepore had the bishop released.
27:09 Holly Frey? When he got out, the bishop was not especially interested in letting things go. He went right back to his accusations and even decided he could issue a judgment against Alice and her associates. In his opinion, the matter was settled and she was guilty. Ladred issued another summons for both Alice Kyteler and William Outlaw to appear before him in ecclesiastical court on these charges. But Alice's friends and relations once again intervened. King's Chancellor Roger Outlaw summoned Bishop Ladred to appear in Dublin in court, and the date for his hearing just happened to be the exact same date that Ladred had called Alice and William to come in to see him.
27:51 Holly Frey? Ladred actually thought initially that all of this might work out in his favor. He was at last going to get to lay out his case against Alice before a higher authority, which is something he had wanted all along. Arnold Lepore is said to have waited along the road for Ladred to pass so he could once again arrest him. But Ladred learned of this plan and avoided it. But when Richard Ladred arrived in Dublin, he found that another trap of sorts had been laid. Alice Kyteler was there, and she had prepared a defamation case against the bishop for accusing her of heresy and sentencing her to excommunication without a fair trial. Alice had a lot of money and so she had a lot of resources and she had appealed
28:34 Holly Frey? the bishop's ruling and it went to the parliament in Dublin. Had she been making this appeal a couple hundred years later, she might have been in trouble with higher officials, but her case was before the fevered witch hunts of Europe and other parts of the world really got into swing. So a lot of officials came away from these proceedings, thinking that maybe Ladred was not really in touch with reality. Yeah, they were like, um, these charges seem cockamamie to us. Worked in Alice's favor that she is on the early side of things. Ladred had been trying the entire time he had Alice in his sights to get the authorities in Dublin to issue a warrant for her arrest so that he could legally detain her.
29:19 Holly Frey? And now all of the people he had been trying to get help from were allied with Alice against him now in the king's court. And as part of the proceedings, Arnold Lepour addressed the court, saying, quote, "You know that in Ireland, there never was found heretics, for it is wont to be called the island of saints. But now a stranger from England comes and says, 'We are all heretics and excommunicated, alleging for this certain papal constitutions which we never heard of. And since the infamia of that land touches the person of us all, it becomes you all to take a part against him.'" And Ladred's early rulings were dismissed and he was sent back to his diocese.
30:00 Holly Frey? But, once he got back to Kilkenny, he continued to pursue his case against Alice. He was so obsessed and so doggedly trying to convince higher ups in the church and in the government that he was on to something, that he eventually managed to convince a handful of those people to come to Kilkenny for a court session, he had called. For distance reference, Kilkenny is about 128 kilometers or 80 miles southwest of Dublin. In a car today, that would take maybe 90 minutes, but in 1324, it was a much more time-consuming journey to convince somebody to make. They really must have been hoping they could just show up and put the matter to rest once and for all so that they could get some peace from Richard Ledred.
30:46 Holly Frey? This hearing took place in St. Mary's Church, and the people in attendance included Chancellor Roger Outlaw, as well as other officials from Dublin. And this time, Ledred formally accused William Outlaw of harboring heretics. In a somewhat odd detail, William appeared at this hearing in a full suit of armor. And there is a plot twist coming, so we're actually going to pause right here for a sponsor break.
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31:47 Holly Frey? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other?
32:31 Holly Frey? Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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33:23 Speaker 04 Every small business owner has that one story, the one moment that could have broken them, but remarkably, it didn't. Hi, I'm Kathleen Griffith, co-host of The Unshakeables, along with Stevie Barron, CEO of Chase for Business. We have more incredible stories of overcoming the impossible still to come in season three. You'll hear from entrepreneurs who faced make-or-break moments and came out stronger. We dig into how they did it, what they learned, what they'd never do again, and what kept them pushing forward. These are the stories that remind us that being unshakable isn't about never falling, it's about how you rise, rebuild, and keep going. Whether you're starting up, scaling up, or trying to find your footing again,
34:07 Speaker 04 these stories remind us that resilience lives everywhere, in small businesses shaping communities all across America. Listen to The Unshakeables wherever you get your podcasts and learn more at chase.com/podcast. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., member FDIC. Copyright 2026 JPMorgan Chase and Company.
34:37 Holly Frey? During the hearing on July 2nd, 1324 in Kilkenny, in which Richard Ladred accused William Outlaw, the younger, of heresy, things got very heated. The accusers and William's defenders argued back and forth until suddenly, all of that bickering was ended when William confessed to harboring heretics. Part of the preparations for this event was the questioning of a woman named Petronilla of Meath, who worked for Alice. Petronilla was one of the people accused of being part of Alice's nefarious group of witches, and Petronilla was questioned while being whipped.
35:17 Holly Frey? This is often described as being questioned under torture, and while whipping would certainly be torturous, just for clarity, this was not the same kind of torture that would later be used to question suspected witches. At the time, England had a law in place against using torture to gain confessions. Whipping was allowed because Petronilla was a servant, and servants could be whipped according to the law. The whipping was certainly enough. Petronilla told authorities that she watched Alice practice witchcraft and had participated and acted as a go-between for Alice and her demon lover. Her recorded testimony was brought
35:59 Holly Frey? into the court proceedings against William. In fact, her whole case was based on Petronilla's torture-induced confession. Although William had confessed, he was imprisoned only briefly. His negotiated sentencing, which was issued by Ladred, was surprisingly not all that harsh. To make penance, he had to agree to attend mass three times a day for a year. He also had to feed the poor in Kilkenny, and he needed to pay for some needed upkeep to the cathedral and chapel, specifically the laying of a new lead roof. And William agreed to the sentence, but he didn't actually follow through and do those things, and that made Richard Ladred irate.
36:46 Holly Frey? William's disregard for his penance put Liddred in the position of weakness. He had worked so hard to get to a point where he had successfully prosecuted at least one person from the heretic nest he believed was operating in Kilkenny, only to have his judgment ignored. He wanted to punish Alice Kyteler once and for all, but the problem was he couldn't find her. He could, however, find her servant Petronilla, and she would have to serve as an example. On November 3rd, 1324, Petronilla became the first person in Ireland to be burned at the stake for witchcraft. William, though, was once again able to avoid any harsh punishment,
37:29 Holly Frey? undoubtedly due to his status as a wealthy and powerful man. He did have to finally pay for that church roof. As for the other people that Liddred sentenced alongside Alice because others in their group were convicted, there isn't much information regarding their lives after the trial. And there are actually, undoubtedly because this is from 700 years ago, a lot of really unsatisfying loose ends in this story. So when did Alice's fourth husband, John Lepore, die? We don't know. What happened to his kids who started all of this with their accusations? Unclear. And the big question, where did Alice Kyteler end up?
38:12 Holly Frey? Because she vanishes, and it is generally believed that she used her vast wealth and connections to escape to England, and she probably lived out the rest of her life there. She did take Petronilla's daughter Basilia, who had also been accused with her. Kilkenny seemed to be stuck with Liddred, though. He remained the bishop there until his death in 1360. He published his account of the trial in Latin several years after it was concluded. In his time in Ireland, he was embroiled in witchcraft and heresy accusations, claims that people were plotting to kill him, and complaints sent by various officials, including King Edward III to the Pope, asking him to please recall Liddred.
38:57 Holly Frey? By the time he died, he had a reputation for terrorizing his parishioners with baseless accusations. Yeah, he was not satisfied with any of this and really just kept going to the point that people were like... Somebody come and get your boy LaDread because he's really making more problems than helping any of us. In 2024, Kilkenny commemorated the trial and the death of Petronilla with a full program of events, including lectures, they did tours, they had a reenactment of the trial, and they had a civic service of atonement and forgiveness in St. Canis's cathedral.
39:37 Holly Frey? Um, that is the story of the first witch burned in Ireland. Yeah. I have many thoughts that we could talk about on Friday. And in the meantime, I also had a fun email about sewing. This is from our listener Kelly who writes, hello Holly and Tracy, I'm behind, but I've just listened to your podcast on paper sewing patterns. I wish I had heard it early as there was a convention on sewing patterns in Charlotte, North Carolina in July or August of this year that I could have told you all about. Check out patterncon.com for more information. She mentions that it is supposed to be in Atlanta in 2026. So I will be
40:22 Holly Frey? on the lookout for that because that would be fun. It's a brand new convention. So that's why I had never heard of it. Kelly writes, below are my two rescue dogs, Abby, the gray Mastiff mix, and Hefner, the tan Staffordshire Terrier mix. Hefner passed away in January, and we believe Abby is 13 or even 14. We've had her since 2013. Also attached is a dress sewing pattern that I will attempt to make for my daughter's wedding and the material I will be making it out of, which is charmeuse. Take care and at least I will be happy to hear more about home sewing history. Any aspect will be interesting to me, Kelly. Okay, first of all, these dogs, those are kissable faces. They're good ones. Second, the pattern that she shared with us is one I was very familiar
41:05 Holly Frey? with already. It's a pattern by Charm Patterns, which is a pattern company run by a woman who goes by Gertie, who does like retro style patterns with some, you know, modern cuts and techniques, and they're amazing. I love them. If you are a pattern person and you're dismayed at how commercial patterns are playing out right now, this is a great option. I have no reason to tout this other than I love Charm Patterns and I follow her Patreon. And you get a free pattern every month with it, and I love it. I don't make them all, but I love them all. I cannot wear this particular dress. It is like a halter thing with a very open back, and I just am not built for that. But I love it. And
41:49 Holly Frey? I also want to applaud your bravado in making this out of charmeuse, because charmeuse is a pain in the tuchus to work with, in my opinion. But it gives me a lovely memory of watching Project Runway, the season that Nick Varyos was on, and him being in Mood fabrics. And the way he pronounced charmeuse when speaking Spanish was charmeuse. And I will never forget it, and I love it forever. So Kelly, I hope your dress turns out beautiful. And I also hope you send me a picture of it, because I really want to see it. This particular pattern, I have, like I said, I've never used, but I stole a technique from it on a wedding dress that I just made. So I hope only great success for you. And
42:32 Holly Frey? thank you for sharing both your project and your pups with us. And I'm glad that you like our sewing stuff. If you would like to write to the podcast, you can do that at [email protected] . And if you haven't subscribed to the show, you can do that. Easy peasy. It's easier than sewing, I promise. You can do it on any podcast platform that you listen on, or on the iHeartRadio app.
42:58 Holly Frey? Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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