Late in 1591 the Royal Court of Jersey dealt with a cluster of witchcraft cases in quick succession. Between October and December five people stood trial for sorcery, and the outcome was brutal even by the standards of the time: four were put to death.
The best-recorded of them is Symon Vauldin, from the parish of St Brelade. His name also appears as Symon Vaudin. According to Jersey Heritage, he confessed to 'familiar communication with the devil in the different forms of a cat and a crow'. The familiar in animal form is a standard feature of witch confessions, and Vauldin's is one of the few Jersey cases where the record preserves what the accused actually said. An inquest of 24 men found him guilty. His sentence was that he be strangled, his body burned and reduced to ashes, and all his goods confiscated and claimed by the Crown.
The others tried that season included Michiel Alexandre and his son Collas. Here the sources part company. Jersey Heritage says Collas was acquitted. The Jersey Evening Post's 2022 feature, drawing on an interview with Jersey Heritage's archives director, lists Michiel and Collas Alixandre together with Beneste Jamet and Katherine Bertram as hanged in 1591. We have followed Jersey Heritage's history page, which is the more detailed account, but the discrepancy is worth noting.
Jersey's witch trials were concentrated in the Calvinist decades of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The year 1591 was one of the worst. We do not know where Vauldin lived in St Brelade, so this record is pinned to the parish.
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