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Disease in the Drowned Lands: Health and medicine in the pre-drainage Fens
4th November 2025 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Disease in the Drowned Lands: Health and medicine in the pre-drainage Fens
Tuesday 4th November 7pm
A talk by Dr Tabitha Stanmore.
In the 1600s, the Fens had a reputation for being an unhealthy place. If you believed the pamphlets written from that time, the ‘noisome’ air could cause fevers, and all manner of demons and spirits could spread disease. How did Fenlanders stay healthy in their wetland home? This talk will explore some of the plant-knowledge, folklore, and even some spells which helped communities survive and thrive.
Biography
Dr. Tabitha Stanmore is a specialist in English magic and witchcraft between the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries, and particularly interested in the role that the supernatural played in everyday life, culture and politics.
She gained her doctorate from the University of Bristol, during which she explored the use of ‘service’ magic – practical spells sold by professional magicians – in premodern England. Tabitha’s research was supervised by Professor Ronald Hutton (University of Bristol) and Professor Catherine Rider (University of Exeter, and funded by an AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership award. The findings from her thesis was published as a monograph by Cambridge University Press in 2022, entitled Love Spells and Lost Treasure: Service Magic in England from the Later Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period.
Drawing on the same research, in 2024 Tabitha published her first book for general readers, Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic with The Bodley Head (UK) and Bloomsbury (US).
Tabitha is currently a postdoctoral researcher on the Leverhulme-funded Seven County Witch Hunt Project, investigating the people affected by the 1640s witch trials in eastern England. The aim of this project is to return the identities and stories of the accused (and their accusers) to their communities.
She lives in the South West of England with her partner, her cat Faustus, and not enough books.
Tickets £8.50
Gates open at 6.30pm
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