Dataset for "'The Wicked Things You Want to Hear': Accusation, Coercion and Investigation in the Vaudois Witch Trials, 1448–1465"

This dataset supports the under-review article "'The Wicked Things You Want to Hear': Accusation, Coercion and Investigation in the Vaudois Witch Trials, 1448–1465" Study abstract: This study examines a series of nine witch trials in the Vaud region (then duchy of Savoy, now Switzerland) conducted between 1448 and 1465. These trials – against Jaquetus Durier, Catherine Quicquat, Petrus Mugner, Petrus Chavaz, Petrus Anthonie, Petrus douz Chanoz, Guillelmus Giro, Johanneta Anyo, and Perrissona Gappit – are documented in Archives cantonales vaudoises (ACV) Ac 29 and represent some of the earliest documented inquisition processes against diabolical witchcraft. Combining close reading with quantification and spatial mapping of the accusations made across these proceedings, the study analyzes how the denunciation of alleged accomplices related to the narrative motifs that also emerged. Different defendants navigated inquisitorial pressure in distinct ways, but coercion, including the extensive use of torture, served to extract both names and an expected story of witchcraft. The extraction of social information that might provoke further trials, however, proved highly challenging. Despite inquisitorial efforts to build cases through corroborated denunciations, actionable overlaps proved vanishingly rare, and the spatial associations of alleged accomplices pointed overwhelmingly to the immediate localities of existing suspects rather than to any wider nexus of witchcraft interaction. The effective impossibility of reconstructing the coherence of the expected “sect” at a socio-geographic level stands in sharp contrast to the relative ease with which a consistent narrative of diabolical activity – nocturnal gatherings, cannibalistic suppers, pacts with the Devil – was established across the trials, a fact that may help explain why such motifs came to assume such prominence and extremity in early witchcraft trials. This supporting dataset contains data derived from the nine extent records of witchcraft trials that occurred in the Vaud region (in modern day Switzerland) between 1448 and 1465: those of Jaquetus Durie (1448), Catherine Quiqctat (1448), Petrus Mugnier (1448), Petrus Chavaz (1448), Petrus Anthonius (1449), Petrus dou Chanoz (1458), Guillelmus Girod (1458), Johanetta Anyo (1461) and Perrissona Gappit (1465). The data derives from the editions of these records found in: Pau Castell Granados, Gwendolin Ortega, and Martine Ostorero, eds. Les sources du droit du Canton de Vaud: La répression de la sorcellerie en Pays de Vaud (1438-1536) (Basel/Berlin, 2025). All records are found in the same manuscript: Lausanne, Archives cantonales vaudoises (ACV), Ac 29. The dataset contains six sheets:1. A table of defendants ("defendant_deponents" sheet; n=9) “person_id”, “person_label”, “person_sex”: specifies the defendant’s identity and sex. “trial_location_id”, “trial_location_label”, “trial_location_modern”, “trial_location_lat”, “trial_location_long”: specifies the location of their trial and its geographic coordinates. “person_location_id”, “person_location_label”, “person_location_modern”, “person_location_lat”, “person_location_long”, specifies the location ascribed to the defendant and its coordinates. “person_location_localization”, “person_location_localization_note”: specifies the quality of localization (precise, approximate, or ambiguous – the latter where other possible geolocations of the toponym are plausible) and any editorial note regarding geolocation choice. 2. A table of non-defendant witnesses whose depositions were included in the trial documentation ("witness_deponents" sheet"; n=4). “person_id”, “person_label”, “person_sex”: specifies the witnesses’s identity and sex. “at_trial_of_id”, “at_trial_of_label”: specifies the defendant whose trial they appeared at. “person_location_id”, “person_location_label”, “person_location_modern”, “person_location_lat”, “person_location_long”, specifies the location ascribed to the witness and its coordinates. “person_location_localization”, “person_location_localization_note”: specifies the quality of localization (precise, approximate, or ambiguous – the latter where other possible geolocations of the toponym are plausible) and any editorial note regarding geolocation choice. 3. A table of individuals accused by the defendants and non-defendant witnesses in their depositions ("accused_individuals" sheet, n=178). NB. This table includes the names of 4 of the defendants (Jaquetus Durie, Catherine Quicqtat, Petrus Mugnier, and Perrissona Gappit), since they were cited as accomplices or otherwise denounced by other deponents in the surviving documentation. “person_id”, “person_label”, “person_sex”: specifies the accused person’s identity and sex. “person_location_id”, “person_location_label”, “person_location_modern”, “person_location_lat”, “person_location_long”, specifies the location ascribed to the accused and its coordinates. “person_location_localization”, “person_location_localization_note”: specifies the quality of localization (precise, approximate, or ambiguous – the latter where other possible geolocations of the toponym are plausible) and any editorial note regarding geolocation choice. “condemned_/_appeared_before_court”: specifies whether we know the person to have been tried and condemned for heresy / witchcraft outside of the context of these trials (“condemned”), or otherwise to have appeared before court on the same account (“appeared”). “deponent_accuser_ids”, “deponent_accuser_names”: specifies the defendant/s or non-defendant witness/es who accused the individual. Where there are multiple accusers, their details are separated by “ #” in each column 4. A table of witches’ sabbath locations mentioned in the depositions ("sabbath_locations" sheet, n=21). “sabbath_location_id”, “sabbath_location_name”, “sabbath_location_modern”, “sabbath_location_lat”, “sabbath_location_long”: specifies the location ascribed to the sabbath and its coordinates. “sabbath_location_localization”, “sabbath_location_localization_note”: specifies the quality of localization (precise, approximate, or ambiguous – the latter where other possible geolocations of the toponym are plausible) and any editorial note regarding geolocation choice. “attending_defendant_ids”, “attending_defendants_names”: specifies the defendant who confessed to attending a sabbath or sabbaths in that location. 5. A chronological table of trial events (e.g. depositions) at which deponents offered (or were asked to offer) testimony (“testimony_events” sheet, n=53). “event_id”, “event_date”: specifies the trial event and its date. “event_location_id”, “event_location_label”, “event_location_modern”, “event_location_lat”, “event_location_long”: specifies the location of the trial event and its geographic coordinates. “deponent_id”, “”deponent_label”: specifies the identity of the defendant or non-defendant witness who was the deponent at the trial event. “inquisitor_id”, “inquisitor_label”: specifies the identity of the inquisitor who oversaw the trial event “torture”: specifies whether torture was applied immediately preceding or during the deposition. “accused_id”, “accused_label”: specifies the individuals accused by the deponent at the trial event. Where there are multiple accused, their details are separated by “ #” in each column. 6. An edge list of individual accusations (chronologically ordered) used to make the spatial network projection featured as fig. 5 of the article (“accusation_edges” sheet, n=262). An accusation is counted as an accusatory mention by a deponent of another individual in the context of a specific trial event. If the same accused is denounced by the same accuser across multiple trial events, each represents a separate accusation. “accusation_id”, “accusation_date”: specifies the identifier and date of the accusation “accuser_id”, “accuser_label”, “accurser_location_id”, “accuser_location_label”, “accuser_lat”, “accuser_long”: specifies the identity of the accuser, as well as their associated location and its coordinates “accused_id”, “accused_label”, “accused_location_id”, “accused_location_label”, “accused_lat”, “accused_long”: specifies the identity of the accused, as well as their associated location and its coordinates “distance_kms”: specifies the distance (in kilometres) between the locations of the accuser and accused.