[4] Her associate Petronilla de Meath (de Midia, meaning of Meath, her first name also spelt Petronella) was flogged and burned to death at the stake on 3 November 1324, after being tortured and confessing to the heretical crimes she, Kyteler, and Kyteler's followers were alleged to have committed.
In 1324, this stepson brought his complaint to Richard de Ledrede, the Bishop of Ossory, who twisted into an elaborate Satanic conspiracy, due to his training under Pope John XXII in Avignon, thereby creating a remarkable precursor to much later European witch trials.
[7] As the primary actors during the investigation of Alice Kyteler, the church had the most influence on the outcome of her and her alleged followers' trial.
The sentence of repentance and self-betterment for Kyteler's son William Outlaw depicts this relationship as religious acts were available means of reform from convictions.
Additionally, William Outlaw failed to produce a confession for the heretical crimes but did apologize for his attacks against Ledrede before the trial.
For both groups, there were limited reasons divorce or an annulment would be approved, which included the prolonged absence of one partner, breakage of a pre-marriage agreement or contract, and impotence, among others.
Richard de Ledrede, Bishop of Ossory, sought to uphold the laws of the church and morality[16] and seek out heretics as soon as he arrived in Kilkenny.
Using the decretal Ut Inquisitiones (1298), designed to protect the faith, Ledrede demanded that secular powers concede to church wishes, and this point of law became a thorny issue throughout the trial.
[18] Ledrede, despite his limited political connections compared to his captors, was released from prison after he ordered the diocese be placed on an interdict.
After some months of stalemate, one of Kyteler's associates, Petronilla de Meath, was tortured and confessed to participating in witchcraft.
[20] Although the testimony did implicate Kyteler in performing heresy, questions concerning Petronella's credibility came to light, especially when examining the contents of her confession.
In Ledrede's retelling of Petronilla's confession, he writes: 'On one of these occasions, by the crossroads outside the city, she had made an offering of three cocks to a certain demon whom she called Robert, son of Art (Robertum filium Artis), from the depths of the underworld.
She had boiled this mixture in a pot with the brains and clothes of a boy who had died without baptism and with the head of a robber who had been decapitated ... Petronilla said she had several times at Alice's instigation and once in her presence, consulted demons and received answers.
In public, she said that with her own eyes she had seen the aforesaid demon as three shapes (praedictus daemon tertius), in the form of three black men (aethiopum) each carrying an iron rod in the hand.
Kyteler's son, William Outlaw, was also accused inter alia, of heresy, usury, perjury, adultery, and clericide.
[22] Source:[23] In the late thirteenth and fourteenth century, heresy was considered as evidence of the struggle with the devil, with the "dangers" of witchcraft voiced by the papacy in Avignon.
Annales Hiberniae state that: Ricardus Ledered, episcopus Ossoriensis, citavit Aliciam Ketil, ut se purgaret de heretica pravitate; quae magiae convicta est, nam certo comprobatum est, quendam demonem incubum (nomine Robin Artisson) concubuisse cum ea ... – that is, that Kyteler had intercourse with a demon named as "Robin Artisson".
[27] "Lady Kyteler" figures in William Butler Yeats' poem "Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen": But now wind drops, dust settles; thereupon There lurches past, his great eyes without thought Under the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks, That insolent fiend Robert Artisson To whom the love-lorn Lady Kyteler brought Bronzed peacock feathers, red combs of her cocks.
The Stone, a novel about the times of Alice Kyteler, was published in 2008, written by a Kilkenny woman named Claire Nolan.
The trial is mentioned in Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose in a conversation between William of Baskerville and Abo the abbot.
[30] The feminist art piece by Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, features a place setting for Petronella de Meath.