Note 121 — GEORGE LYMAN KITTREDGE

A long and curious list of cases of defamation may be seen in a volume of Depositions and other Ecclesiastical Proceedings from the County of Durham, extending from 1311 to the Reign of Elisabeth, edited by James Raine for the Surtees Society in 1845 (Publications, XXI). Thus, in 1566-67, Margaret Lambert accuses John Lawson of saying “that she was a chermer” (p. 84); about 1569 Margaret Reed is charged with calling Margaret Howhett “a horse goodmother water wych” (p. 91); in 1572, Thomas Fewler deposed that he “hard Elisabeth Anderson caull ... Anne Burden ‘crowket handyd wytch.’ He saith the words was spoken audiently there; ther might many have herd them, beinge spoken so neigh the cross and in the towne gait as they were” (p. 247). So in 1691 Alice Bovill complained of a man who had said to her, “Thou bewitched my stot” (North Riding Record Society, Publications, IX, 6). See also Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on Manuscripts in Various Collections, I, 283; Lefroy, Bermudas or Somers Islands, II, 629 (no. 15).