On March 14, 1629, the judicial machinery of early modern Scotland turned its attention toward John Cristie, a married man residing in the coastal burgh of Eyemouth, Berwick. The formal documentation preserved under case reference C/LA/3017 identifies John as the subject of an inquiry into the crime of witchcraft, a legal process that positioned him within the broader framework of the Scottish state’s regulation of perceived maleficium.
Following the initial registration of his case, the proceedings moved toward a formal adjudication under trial reference T/LA/1278. While the historical record provides the essential markers of his identity—his residency in the border town of Eyemouth and his status as a husband—the surviving archives offer only the skeletal structure of a legal narrative. Thus, the life of John is documented primarily through his interaction with the seventeenth-century ecclesiastical and secular courts during a period when such trials were becoming a formalized component of Scottish social and judicial life.