Janet Boyman (died 1572), also known as Jonet BoymanorJanet Bowman,[a] was a Scottish woman accused of witchcraft; she was tried and executed in 1572 although the case against her was started in 1570.[5] 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.[5]
Janet Boyman lived in the Cowgate of Edinburgh, and was said to have been from Ayrshire.[5] She was married to William Steill.[5]Inearly modern Scotland married women did not change their surnames.[6][7]
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.[2][8]
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.[9] Sometimes she worked cures by washing the patients's shirt at the well at St Leonards.[10]
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.[5]
There is little information available concerning Boyman's personal life; however the trial record shows her as living in Cowgate, a street in Edinburgh.[5] No indication is given of her age but she was married to William Steill.[5]
^Ronald Hutton and others, such as the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft Database, list her as Janet Boyman;[1][2] Henderson refers to her as Jonet Boyman,[3] which is the form used in the criminal records, but Janet Bowman is a further variation.[4]
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, ISBN978-0748621576
Hutton, Ronald (2017), The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present, Yale University Press, ISBN978-0-300-22904-2
