ABSTRACT
Derived from Old French traitre and Latin traditor (one who delivers or hands over), ‘traitor’ was a well-established word in Middle English. 1 Early modern English perceptions of traitors were largely influenced by the biblical descriptions of Judas, who was presented as being synonymous with moral corruption and betrayal. Luke 6:16 mentions ‘Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor’. 2 This passage influenced numerous theologians and moralists. In 1558, Thomas Watson warned that those who ‘live after the flesh, and be fettered in the chains of sin and vice, they receive with Judas the traitor poison, and run to the halter of spiritual hanging in hell, being condemned both for their other manifold sins’. 3 In 1598, the surveyor and author of popular devotional works, John Norden, castigated ‘that notorious Arch-traitor Judas, who for monie betrayed his Master, and Lord, the Saviour of the world Jesus Christ’. 4
