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Janet Boyman (died 1572), also known as Jonet Boyman or Janet Bowman, was a Scottish woman accused of witchcraft; she was tried and executed in 1572 although the case against her was started in 1570. Her indictment has been described by modern-day scholars, such as Lizanne Henderson, as the earliest and most comprehensive record of witchcraft and fairy belief in Scotland.

Accusations of witchcraft

Janet Boyman lived in the Cowgate of Edinburgh, and was said to have been from Ayrshire. She was married to William Steill. In early modern Scotland married women did not change their surnames.

She was alleged to have predicted the death of Regent Moray who was assassinated in January 1570, and her accusation was the first to be made in connection with a political conspiracy.

She told her interrogators that she made contact with the supernatural world at a well on the south side of Arthur's Seat a hill close to Edinburgh. There she conjured spirits who would help her heal others. Sometimes she worked cures by washing the patients's shirt at the well at St Leonards.

She was condemned as:

ane wyss woman that culd mend diverss seikness and bairnis that are tane away with fairyie men and wemen
a wise woman that could heal diverse illnesses and children taken away by fairy men and women.

Jonet Boyman was executed on 29 December 1572.

Personal life

There is little information available concerning Boyman's personal life; however the trial record shows her as living in Cowgate, a street in Edinburgh. No indication is given of her age but she was married to William Steill.

References

Notes

1. Ronald Hutton and others, such as the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft Database, list her as Janet Boyman; Henderson refers to her as Jonet Boyman, which is the form used in the criminal records, but Janet Bowman is a further variation.

Citations

1. Hutton (2017), p. 219
2. ^ "Janet Boyman (29/12/1572)", Survey of Scottish Witchcraft Database, University of Edinburgh, retrieved 10 March 2018
3. Henderson (2011), p. 231
4. Anderson (1877), p. 363
5. ^ Henderson (2011), p. 244
6. Jenny Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community (London, 1981), p. 30.
7. History Workshop, What's in a Surname? Rebecca Mason
8. "Hubble bubble, toil and trouble: Scotland's dark past as a witch-hunting nation". HeraldScotland. 15 October 2017. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
9. Henderson (2011), p. 245
10. Henderson (2011), p. 246

Bibliography

• Anderson, William (1877), The Scottish nation: or, The surnames, families, literature, honours, and biographical history of the people of Scotland, Fullerton
• Henderson, Lizanne (2011), "'Detestable slaves of the devil': Changing ideas about witchcraft in sixteenth-century Scotland", in Cowan, Edward J.; Henderson, Lizanne (eds.), A History of Everyday Life in Medieval Scotland, 1000 to 1600, Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 978-0748621576
• Hutton, Ronald (2017), The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-22904-2

• 1572 deaths
• Scottish women executed for witchcraft
• Criminals from Edinburgh
• 16th-century Scottish women
• 16th-century executions by Scotland