PROTECTION FROM EVIL
The use of apotropaic marks – from incised symbols to ritual burn marks – to protect homes and buildings from supernatural attack is a near-universal and age-old practice
Since the dawn of time people have used a wide range of magical rituals to neutralise a variety of supernatural powers. AngloSaxon charms protected against elves and demons, and following conversion to Christianity these beliefs survived in the oral tradition, under the gloss of the new religion. During the mediaeval period, invocations to the Virgin, assorted saints and Christ displaced the old gods but the cloying presence of evil persisted. In the later Middle Ages, following the Reformation, the locus of evil was identified as the Devil and during the European witch-hunts, the idea of a Satanic pact with ‘witches’ received official recognition. During the reign of James VI of Scotland (later James I, 160325) fear and anxiety concerning witchcraft grew to extraordinary levels. The King blamed the North Berwick witches for an attempt on his life in 1590 and, following the Gunpowder Plot or “Jesuit Treason”of November 1605, his government blamed the assassination attempt directly upon the “abominable practice of Rome and Satan”.
In Hidden Charms James Wright links this fearful period with a desire to protect high-status buildings with a range of ritual marks. Protecting a home from evil is a very ancient practice and evidence for rituals, whether via a spell, hex or some other magical offering have been identified in buildings across the world (see, for example, FT332:11, 339:28-35). Liminal zones were seen as vulnerable to attack by evil spirits and
therefore hearths, windows and doors required special treatment. Chimneys and fireplaces were also focal points for clusters of protective marks as they were entry points for witches and, in later folklore, Santa Claus. A passage in the book Demonologie written by King James VI may refer to these ideas, noting that evil spirits “will come and pearce through whatsoeuer house or Church, though all ordinarie passages be closed, by whatsoeuer open, the aire may enter in at”.
A recent survey of the Queen’s House at the Tower of London by Wright identified 74 ritual protection marks in 31 locations.1 The mediaeval building acquired a fearsome reputation as the place where a number of high-profile political prisoners such as Sir Thomas More and Guy Fawkes were held or interrogated before their executions. Another survey of the King’s Tower at Knole in Kent also revealed a large group of ritual protection marks in the first and second floor chambers of the stone building, which dates from the mid-15th century. Its owner, the Lord Treasurer and Earl of Dorset, Thomas Sackville, enjoyed the patronage of James I and remodelled the building in 1606 anticipating a royal visit. One of the wooden beams in the second-floor chamber is decorated with 11 protective marks including mesh patterns, ‘Marian’ marks and ritual burns. This beam has been dated by dendrochronology to the spring or summer of 1606, the height of the witchcraft mania. Even more intriguing, the protective marks on the beam were made with a carpenter’s knife during the construction process, as they are horizontal to the timber, “indicating that the beam was standing upright in the framing yard” when they were added.
Ritual protective marks have only recently received the attention they deserve. One of the first papers on the subject appeared in 1999 when Tim Easton published his notes on marks identified inside East Anglian timber buildings dating from the period 15501750. In 2004, Linda Wilson and Chris Binding’s discovery of marks in the Mendip caves helped to settle the debate
over their function. Before this evidence came to light some had suggested they had a purely practical function as carpenter’s or mason’s marks used to guide the placing of timbers in buildings. But the discoveries in Derbyshire and Somerset occur in clear ritual contexts that cannot possibly be linked with any construction function.
In 2016 Historic England asked the public to help them record new examples of protective markings across the UK. This appeal produced 600 responses, 100 of which came from parts of Scotland and Wales. The result demonstrates how widespread these marks actually are. The highest number (150) were reported from the Eastern Counties, where an earlier survey of 64,000 inscriptions in 800 parish churches had revealed that some 20 per cent have a ritual protection function. The survey results may be the tip of an iceberg or simply reflect the activities of fieldworkers like Brian Hoggard who runs www.apotropaios.com , but the secretive nature of counter-witchcraft helps to explain why they have been overlooked by generations of architectural historians and archaeologists.
Hoggard and other researchers have identified four main categories of ritual protection marks:
‘DAISY WHEELS’, HEXAFOILS OR TRISKELES
The wheel is an ancient Solar symbol that has been identified from Egyptian tombs and prehistoric ritual sites in Europe. These geometric symbols were cut with a pair of compasses and sometimes contain three petals indicating the Trinity. Others have six or 12 petals but all are thought to be protective, acting as ‘demon traps’ to capture, confuse or deflect evil spirits. Examples have been found on the roof timbers of barns and walls of churches dating from the medieval period until as recently as the 19th century. Some appear to have been cut in fresh wood before it was incorporated into buildings while others were made once the timber had dried out. Examples include those at Shakespeare’s birthplace, where they are carved near the door to a cellar once used to store beer. Striking examples can be found on the walls of the tithe barn at Bradford-upon-Avon and in the 17th century Star Chamber at Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire.
PENTAGRAMS
Five-pointed stars are known in ancient Greece and are mentioned in both Jewish texts and the Babylonian Talmud. The ‘Star of David’ or the ‘Seal of Solomon’, formed by two triangles, occurs throughout the early modern period in Europe as a potent symbol to deflect demons. In the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight the hero has a pentagram painted on his shield to protect him against evil during his quest. In more recent years the pentagram has become associated with black magic, paganism and witchcraft, but its original function was protective, as can be seen from numerous examples in religious and secular buildings such as Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire.
MARIAN MARKS
The double VV symbol, sometimes intertwined in the middle to form an inverted M or upright W, is ubiquitous in buildings dating from the 15th to the 18th centuries. Since 2004 many examples have been identified in the caves of the Mendips and, more recently, at Creswell Crags. A popular Marian prayer, attributed to Father Claude Bernard (1588-1641) includes the line “I fly to thee, Mary, Virgin of virgins, mother of Jesus Christ” and the use of this Christian protective symbol survived religious changes during the Reformation. It continued in use as late as the 19th century, when it appears to have become a generic good luck symbol. Other variants include the letters AM and PM for Pace Maria and IH – the first two letters of the Greek form of Jesus. These can be found in large numbers scratched upon wooden beams in barns or etched into the plasterwork of mediaeval churches and houses.
ABOVE: Protective daisy wheels in Shakespeare’s birthplace. LEFT: Ritual ‘burn marks’ in the Tudor kitchens at Haddon Hall in Derbyshire.
‘MESH MARKS’
These are patterns that functioned as ‘demon traps’, with an endless line that was intended to ensnare evil spirits like a spider catching a fly. Once inside the mesh, the malevolent forces would be pinned against the wall and unable to escape the endless line inside the maze.
BURN MARKS
These were made by a candle or taper held against timber for lengthy periods of time to create a tear-shaped mark. This was a form of magic whereby exposing timber to a deliberate flame could prevent a more disastrous blaze of the type that regularly destroyed mediaeval buildings. Experimental archaeology has confirmed these markings could not have been created accidentally. Burn or scorch marks were evil-averting and large numbers have been found in the kitchens of Haddon Hall in Derbyshire and the King’s Tower at Knole in Kent, both dating from the 17th century.
The scorch marks on the door of Blythburgh church in Suffolk are said, in folklore, to be the finger-marks of the Devil, who appeared in the form of a huge black dog during a service on Sunday morning in August 1577 (see FT 66:53; 195:30-35; 340:18-19). Ironically, they may have been placed there to protect the church against evil. As is often the case in folklore, a story emerged to explain their presence long after their original purpose had been forgotten.
NOTES
1 Brian Hoggard, Magical House Protection: the Archaeology of Counter-witchcraft, 2019. 2 James Wright, ‘Cultural anxieties and ritual protection in high-status early modern houses’, Hidden Charms conference proceedings 2016.