An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present - Doreen Valiente 2018

Upright Man, The

The vagabonds and sturdy beggars of olden time had among themselves certain organisations, with rules and orders of precedence, which had considerable power. These organisations were called the Beggars’ Brotherhoods. They were presided over by an elected King of the Beggars, one of the most famous of whom was Cock Lorell, known as “the most notorious rogue that ever lived”.

Cock Lorell ruled his picaresque kingdom for about twenty-two years, until 1533. He is said to have first drawn up the Five-and-Twenty Orders of Knaves, according to their precedence. One of these Orders, the ’Upright Man’, has a very curious connection with the Old Religion of the witches.

The vagabonds were known as the ’Canting Crew’, because for purposes of secrecy they spoke among themselves the jargon which is still known as thieves’ cant. Much of the cant language was evolved from the tongue of the gypsies, with whom the vagabonds mingled as they travelled the roads together.

In the case of the Witches of Warboys, Huntingdonshire, in 1593, Alice Samuel, one of the accused, confessed that “an upright man” gave her six spirits as familiars, “which had reward of her by sucking of her blood”.

The witches’ familiar in this sense is simply a small animal, reptile or bird, used for divining. It is quite possible that in the old days witches used to give the familiar a spot of their blood—or drop of their milk, in the case of a nursing mother—in order to establish a psychic link between the familiar and the witch. There are many instances of such familiars being given by one witch to another.

Alice Samuel swore at first that she did not know the name of the “upright man”; but it came out during the trial that his name was William Langley or Langland, and it was suggested that he was “the devil in man’s clothing”.

Now, the male leader of a coven was known in olden times among the witches as ’The Devil’. He was regarded as the representative of the Horned God, and sometimes dressed in animal skins and a horned head-dress on important ritual occasions.

As such, he presided over those rites of fertility which so upset Puritans, because of their sexual emphasis. Being regarded as the incarnation of the male source of life, in a spiritual sense his embraces were sought in ritual intercourse by his female followers.

From the records that have come down to us about the role of the Upright Man in the old beggars’ brotherhoods, it is evident that it has strong connections with that of the Devil in the witch covens.

He was not the first rank of the Canting Crew. That distinction belonged to the ’Rufflers’, or ’notorious rogues’. The Upright Man came second, and third were the ’Roberds-men’, defined as “mighty Thieves, like Robin Hood”. Yet the Upright Man enjoyed certain peculiar privileges, which belonged to no one else. This is his description, from The Fraternitye of Vacabonds, printed in London by John Awdeley, and originally published about 1561:

An Upright Man is one that goeth with the truncheon of a staff, which staff they call a Filtchman. This man is of so much authority, that meeting with any of his profession, he may call them to account, and command a share or snap unto himself, of all that they have gained by their trade in one month. And if he do them wrong, they have no remedy against him, no though he beats them as he useth commonly to do. He may also command any of their women, which they call Doxies, to serve his turn. He hath ye chief place at any market walk, and other assemblies, and is not of any to be controlled.

It would seem that his office was something altogether apart, and that he was regarded with a kind of religious respect. His rights over all the women are particularly curious. Further details of them are given in A New Dictionary of the Terms, Ancient and Modern, of the Canting Crew, by “B. E., Gent”, published in London in 1640. “Upright-men: the second rank of the Canting Tribes, having sole right to the first night’s lodging with the Dells.”

The “Dells” were “the twenty-sixth order of the Canting tribe; young bucksome Wenches, ripe and prone to Venery, but have not lost their Virginity, which the upright man pretends to, and seizes. Then she is free for any of the Fraternity.”

Moreover, it was the Upright Man who performed the ceremony of initiation called ’Stalling to the Rogue’, by which a newcomer was admitted to the brotherhood. Thomas Harman, who compiled the first dictionary of English cant terms in 1566, tells us that when the Upright Man

mete any beggar, whether he be sturdy or impotent, he will demand of him whether ever he was ’stalled to the roge’, or no. If he says he was, he will know of whom, and his name yt stalled him. And if he be not learnedly, able to shew him the whole circumstance thereof he will spoyle him of his money, either of his best garment, if it be worth any money, and have him to the bowsing-ken: which is, to some typling house next adjoyninge, and layth there to gage the best thing that he hath for twenty pence or two shillings; this man obeyeth for feare of beatinge. Then dooth this upright man call for a gage of bowse, which is a quarte potte of drink, and powres the same upon his peld pate, adding these words,—’I G.P., do stalle thee, W. T., to the Roge, and that from henceforth it shall be lawful for thee to cant, that is, to ask or begge for thi living, in all-places.’

(A Caveat for Common Cursetors, Vulgarly Called Vagabones).

The strange and secret office of the Upright Man, in the underworld of old England, seems to have no other purpose but one derived from a deeply-believed tradition. He is the clear descendant of the Old Religion, surviving among the outcasts of society.