The Witch, the Household and the Community: Isobel Young in East Barns, 1580–1629

Abstract

Isobel Young had land, wealth and power. Most of her life looks successful by early modern Standards. In her prime from 1590 to 1622, Young wielded influence over many people in her Community. She was a competent, perhaps skilled, household manager. Her husband, George Smith, was the proprietor (holding a feu, a heritable lease) of a produc- tive piece of land in East Barns in the parish of Dunbar, a fertile area of Scotland. She had four sons who brought wives into the household; she may also have had daughters. As well as Controlling the labour of at least twelve servants, she also held sway over tenants and households to whom she lent money and leased land. In 1622, her eldest son John combined Smith’s holding with his own — doubling the family’s holding at a time when other comparable East Barns families either stayed the same or declined.