Witchcraft & Brewing: The Tale of Edith Browne of Kington St Michael

Entertaining at an alehouse door. Etching by J. Taylor (?), c.1800, after G. Tilborgh 1625-c.1678. Source: Wellcome Collection.

In medieval and early modern England, the brewing and sale of alcohol represented one of the few sectors in which women could participate independently of men. Edith Browne of Kington St Michael was involved in this trade by 1562, and, given her longevity, she was good at it. Edith ran an alehouse from her cottage where locals gathered to socialise, drink, and eat. Establishments like hers provided one of the few local recreational places outside the parish church. When Edith opened for business she likely displayed an ‘ale-stick’ outside, traditionally a stick with a brush at one end. This has led some historians to suggest that women employed in brewing were associated in the popular imagination with witches. Whether this was true in Kington is impossible to know, but eventually Edith became the focus of a witchcraft allegation at the manor court.

The Browne family were tenant farmers of the manor of Kington. Edith’s husband, John, held little parcels of land west of the village street and southwest of the village next to an area of woodland. On one of these likely stood their cottage cum alehouse. At the outset, Edith worked alongside John. But, in 1562, she was censured by the manor court for allowing drinking past the hour of 9 in the evening. As Edith herself was reproached it is probable she was the principal partner in the business. In 1568, John stopped his involvement. As he died the following year, it is likely that in 1568, his health was already failing. The alehouse was now Edith’s own. She remained unmarried and continued brewing seemingly assisted by her unmarried daughters, Agnes and Joan.

Edith was not the only female alehouse keeper in Kington, another was Margery Russell. Like Edith, she had allowed drinking after 9 in the evening in 1562, but over the years she had also permitted illicit games and gaming, sold illegal measures of alcohol and had not offered her customers victuals. Her house was once out of repair and several times while about the village Margery had committed trespass. Edith kept to the rules of their trade after 1562 and Margery did not.

In agricultural communities like Kington, people depended on their own good health and local agriculture for their livelihoods. One bad harvest and people quickly became malnourished. Two, and there was a real chance of starvation. Communities were vigilant for signs of looming disaster, of portents and signs. When things went wrong during this period, individuals and sometimes whole communities would place the blame on the evil eye, fairies, witchcraft, or some other devilry. This may have been the case in 1574, when Edith was accused of witchcraft alongside her daughters, Joan and Agnes. According to the charge made at the local manorial court leet the women were leading suspicious lives and suspected of witchcraft. Unfortunately, the accuser remained unnamed, the evidence unspecified. Maybe local people had suspected Edith for years, but maybe it was no coincidence that in 1574, a Stephen Browne, presumably a relative of Edith’s husband, first set himself up as a local brewer. Was the witchcraft allegation the culmination of years of whispered suspicions? Or was there a more mundane explanation? No one accused Margery of witchcraft despite her many transgressions. Either way, whether through her own defence or the court's scepticism, the accusation against Edith and her daughters did not stick. They were not handed to the civil authorities, and Edith continued to ply her trade. She was thus spared the fate of Agnes Mylles, a widow from nearby Stanley village, who was tried and hanged for witchcraft in 1564. Edith continued brewing until at least 1577 when the manorial recording stops. By then Stephen Browne's brewing venture had ceased.

Edith Browne likely lived until December 1591, when the burial of a woman by that name was recorded in the registers of the village church. Edith was remarkable. She had run a successful business as a widow in Elizabethan England. She had faced of censure and survived a potentially deadly witchcraft accusation.