Basque witch trials
Encyclopedia
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
ever undertaken by the Spanish Inquisition
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...
. The trial of the Basque witches
Sorginak
Sorginak are the assistants of the goddess Mari in Basque mythology. It is also the Basque name for witches or pagan priestesses , being difficult to discern between the mythological and real ones.Sometimes sorginak are confused with lamiak...
at Logroño
Logroño
Logroño is a city in northern Spain, on the Ebro River. It is the capital of the autonomous community of La Rioja, formerly known as La Rioja Province.The population of Logroño in 2008 was 153,736 and a metropolitan population of nearly 197,000 inhabitants...
, near Navarre
Navarre
Navarre , officially the Chartered Community of Navarre is an autonomous community in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Country, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and Aquitaine in France...
, in northern Spain, which began in January 1609, against the background of similar persecutions conducted in Labourd
Labourd
Labourd is a former French province and part of the present-day Pyrénées Atlantiques département. It is historically one of the seven provinces of the traditional Basque Country....
by Pierre de Lancre
Pierre de Lancre
Pierre de Rosteguy de Lancre or Pierre de l'Ancre, Lord of De Lancre , was the French judge of Bordeaux who conducted a massive witch-hunt in Labourd in 1609...
, was almost certainly the biggest single event of its kind
Witch-hunt
A witch-hunt is a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic, mass hysteria and lynching, but in historical instances also legally sanctioned and involving official witchcraft trials...
in history. By the end some 7,000 cases had been examined by the Inquisition.
Process
Although Logroño is not a Basque city, it was the setting for an Inquisition tribunal responsible for the Kingdom of NavarreKingdom of Navarre
The Kingdom of Navarre , originally the Kingdom of Pamplona, was a European kingdom which occupied lands on either side of the Pyrenees alongside the Atlantic Ocean....
, Alava
Álava
Álava is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the Basque Country, heir of the ancient Lord of Álava. Its capital city is Vitoria-Gasteiz which is also the capital of the autonomous community...
, Gipuzkoa, Biscay
Biscay
Biscay is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the Basque Country, heir of the ancient Lord of Biscay. Its capital city is Bilbao...
, La Rioja
La Rioja (Spain)
La Rioja is an autonomous community and a province of northern Spain. Its capital is Logroño. Other cities and towns in the province include Calahorra, Arnedo, Alfaro, Haro, Santo Domingo de la Calzada, and Nájera.-History:...
and the North of Burgos
Burgos (province)
The province of Burgos is a province of northern Spain, in the northeastern part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is bordered by the provinces of Palencia, Cantabria, Vizcaya, Álava, La Rioja, Soria, Segovia, and Valladolid. Its capital is the city of Burgos...
and Soria
Soria (province)
Soria is a province of central Spain, in the eastern part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. Most of the province is in the mountainous Sistema Ibérico areaIt is bordered by the provinces of La Rioja, Zaragoza, Guadalajara, Segovia, and Burgos....
. Among the accused were not only women (although they predominated), but also children and men, including priests guilty of healing with nóminas, amulets with names of saints. The first phase ended in 1610, with a declaration of auto-da-fé
Auto-da-fé
An auto-da-fé was the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates that took place when the Spanish Inquisition or the Portuguese Inquisition had decided their punishment, followed by the execution by the civil authorities of the sentences imposed...
against thirty-one of the accused, twelve or eleven of whom were burned to death (five of them symbolically, as they had died before auto-da-fé).
Thereafter proceedings were suspended until the inquisitors had a chance to gather further evidence, on what they believed to be a widespread witch cult
Sorginak
Sorginak are the assistants of the goddess Mari in Basque mythology. It is also the Basque name for witches or pagan priestesses , being difficult to discern between the mythological and real ones.Sometimes sorginak are confused with lamiak...
in the Basque region
Basque Country (historical territory)
The Basque Country is the name given to the home of the Basque people in the western Pyrenees that spans the border between France and Spain on the Atlantic coast....
. Alonso Salazar Frias
Alonso Salazar Frias
Alonso de Salazar Frías has been given the epithet "The Witches’ Advocate" for his role in establishing the conviction, within the Spanish Inquisition, that accusations against supposed witches were more often rooted in dreams and fantasy than in reality, and the inquisitorial policy that witch...
, the junior inquisitor and a lawyer by training, was delegated to examine the matter at length. Armed with an Edict of Grace, promising pardon to all those who voluntarily reported themselves and denounced their accomplices, he traveled across the countryside during the year 1611, mainly in the vicinity of Zugarramurdi
Zugarramurdi
Zugarramurdi is a town and municipality located in the province and autonomous community of Navarre, northern Spain. It passed into history as the setting of the infamous Basque witch trials. Every year in spectacular caves near Zugarramundi the town celebrate the ‘day of the witch’.-External...
, near the French border, where a cave and a water stream (Olabidea or Infernuko erreka, "Hell's stream") were said to be the meeting place of the witches.
As was usual in cases of this kind, denunciations flowed in. Frías finally returned to Logroño with "confessions" from close on 2,000 people, 1,384 of whom were children between the ages of seven and fourteen, implicating a further 5,000 named individuals. Most of 1,802 people witnesses retracted their statements before Salazar, attributing their confessions to torture. The evidence gathered covered 11,000 pages in all. Only six people out of 1,802 maintained their confessions and claimed to have returned to sabbath
Sabbath (witchcraft)
The Witches' Sabbath or Sabbat is a supposed meeting of those who practice witchcraft, and other rites.European records indicate cases of persons being accused or tried for taking part in Sabbat gatherings, from the Middle Ages to the 17th century or later.- Etymology :The English word “sabbat”...
s.
In the stir of the events, proceedings were started in Hondarribia
Hondarribia
Hondarribia is a town situated on the west shore of Bidasoa river's mouth, in Gipuzkoa, Basque Country, Spain. The border town is sited on a little promontory facing Hendaye over the Txingudi bay. The town holds an ancient old quarter with walls and a castle...
too (1611), some 10 km away from Zugarramurdi and 5 km from St-Jean-de-Luz, main hotspots of witchcraft allegations, against presumable female witches accused of casting spells on living creatures and meeting in Jaizkibel
Jaizkibel
Jaizkibel is mountain range of the Basque Country located east of Pasaia, north of Lezo and west of Hondarribia, in Spain, with 547 m at the highest point . The range stretches south-west to north-east, where it plunges into the sea at the Cape Higuer...
in akelarres led by a he-goat shaped Devil. Interestingly, according to evidence given by a witness as attested in the document, "the Devil summoned in the Gascon language
Gascon language
Gascon is usually considered as a dialect of Occitan, even though some specialists regularly consider it a separate language. Gascon is mostly spoken in Gascony and Béarn in southwestern France and in the Aran Valley of Spain...
those from San Sebastian
San Sebastián
Donostia-San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the north of Spain, in the coast of the Bay of Biscay and 20 km away from the French border. The city is the capital of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. The municipality’s population is 186,122 , and its...
and Pasaia
Pasaia
Pasaia is a town and municipality located in the province of Gipuzkoa in the Basque Autonomous Community of northern Spain. It is a fishing community, commercial port and the birth place of the fighting admiral Blas de Lezo. Pasaia lies approximately 5 km east of Donostia's centre, lying at the...
, and in Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
those from Irun
Irun
Irun is a town of the Bidasoa-Txingudi region in the province of Gipuzkoa in the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain...
and Hendaye
Hendaye
Hendaye is the most south-westerly town and commune in France, lying in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department and located in the traditional province Lapurdi of the French Basque Country...
, addressing a few words to them..."
Skepticism
Although the belief in Basque witches was widespread among the Spanish populace, the Spanish Inquisition of the Basque Region was more inclined to persecute ProtestantsProtestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
, Conversos (baptized descendants of Jews and Moors
Mudéjar
Mudéjar is the name given to individual Moors or Muslims of Al-Andalus who remained in Iberia after the Christian Reconquista but were not converted to Christianity...
), and those who illegally smuggled banned books into Spain. As far back as 1538 the Council of Inquisition had warned judges not to believe all that they read in Malleus Maleficarum
Malleus Maleficarum
The Malleus Maleficarum is an infamous treatise on witches, written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer, an Inquisitor of the Catholic Church, and was first published in Germany in 1487...
, the infamous witch-finding text. In March 1610, Antonio Venegas de Figueroa, the Bishop of Pamplona
Pamplona
Pamplona is the historial capital city of Navarre, in Spain, and of the former kingdom of Navarre.The city is famous worldwide for the San Fermín festival, from July 6 to 14, in which the running of the bulls is one of the main attractions...
, sent a letter to the Inquisition in which he claimed that the witch hunt was based "on lies and self-delusion" and that there had been little knowledge of witchcraft in the region before the outset of the trials.
Contrary to the usual picture of the Inquisition, ready to believe all and every confession of wrongdoing, Salazar, the youngest judge in a panel of three, was also skeptical about the whole thing, saying that he had found no substantive proof of witchcraft on his travels, in spite of the manifold confessions. More than that, he questioned the whole basis of the trials. Because of this disagreement on how to proceed, the matter had to be referred to the Inquisitor-General in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
. The senior judges, Alonso Becerra y Holquin and Juan del Valle Alvarado, even went so far as to accuse their colleague of being "in league with the Devil". Some of Salazar's objections are remarkable, considering the atmosphere of the times, and are therefore worth quoting:
The real question is: are we to believe that witchcraft occurred in a given situation simply because of what the witches claim? No: it is clear that the witches are not to be believed, and the judges should not pass sentence on anyone, unless the case can be proven with external and objective evidence sufficient to convince everyone who hears it. And who can accept the following: that a person can frequently fly through the air and travel a hundred leagues in an hour; that a woman can get through a space not big enough for a fly; that a person can make himself invisible; that he can be in a river or the open sea and not get wet; or that he can be in bed at the sabbathSabbath (witchcraft)The Witches' Sabbath or Sabbat is a supposed meeting of those who practice witchcraft, and other rites.European records indicate cases of persons being accused or tried for taking part in Sabbat gatherings, from the Middle Ages to the 17th century or later.- Etymology :The English word “sabbat”...
at the same time... and that a witch can turn herselfShapeshiftingShapeshifting is a common theme in mythology, folklore, and fairy tales. It is also found in epic poems, science fiction literature, fantasy literature, children's literature, Shakespearean comedy, ballet, film, television, comics, and video games...
into any shape she fancies, be it housefly or raven? Indeed, these claims go beyond all human reason and may even pass the limits permitted by the Devil.
The Inquisitor-General appeared to share his view that confession and accusation on their own were not enough. For some time the central office of the Inquisition had been sceptical about claims of magic and witchcraft, and had only sanctioned the earlier burnings with considerable reluctance, and only because of the reported mood of panic from Logroño. In August 1614 it ruled that all of the trials pending at Logroño should be dismissed. At the same time it issued new and more rigorous rules of evidence, that brought witch-burning in Spain to an end, long before the Protestant North.
Discussion
The background and circumstances leading to the events unleashed are not unknown to us, dismissing for the most part esoteric and magical approaches. In a wider context of religious persecution and conflict in the whole Europe, Catholic Church aimed at suppressing old popular customs and ways that could contend and question official ideology and manners. In the Basque Country, where the language provided a stronger shelter for old semi-pagan believes and against Church's authority and control, midwives and herbalistHerbalist
An herbalist is:#A person whose life is dedicated to the economic or medicinal uses of plants.#One skilled in the harvesting and collection of medicinal plants ....
s played an important role, besides holding a social status and carrying a popular wisdom that didn't go down well with the authorities.
The so-called sabbaths and akelarres may have been meetings out of reach of the official religious and civil authorities. The punters to the meetings would eat, drink, talk and dance, namely party, sometimes all night long in the forest or caves, at times taking to consuming mind and spirit altering herbs and ointments.
Memory
Sabbath (witchcraft)
The Witches' Sabbath or Sabbat is a supposed meeting of those who practice witchcraft, and other rites.European records indicate cases of persons being accused or tried for taking part in Sabbat gatherings, from the Middle Ages to the 17th century or later.- Etymology :The English word “sabbat”...
. The village of Zugarramurdi holds the Witchcraft Museum highlighting the appalling events of the early 17th century, where the memory of the victim villagers is dignified.
Akelarre
Akelarre (film)
Akelarre is a 1984 Basque drama film directed by Pedro Olea. It was entered into the 34th Berlin International Film Festival.-Cast:* Silvia Munt as Garazi* José Luis López Vázquez as Inquisidor* Mary Carrillo as Amunia...
was a 1984 Spanish film by Pedro Olea, about these trials. Zugarramurdi
Zugarramurdi
Zugarramurdi is a town and municipality located in the province and autonomous community of Navarre, northern Spain. It passed into history as the setting of the infamous Basque witch trials. Every year in spectacular caves near Zugarramundi the town celebrate the ‘day of the witch’.-External...
now celebrates the witches with a feast by the cave on Midsummer
Midsummer
Midsummer may simply refer to the period of time centered upon the summer solstice, but more often refers to specific European celebrations that accompany the actual solstice, or that take place on a day between June 21 and June 24, and the preceding evening. The exact dates vary between different...
's eve, June 23, the folk date for the summer solstice
Summer solstice
The summer solstice occurs exactly when the axial tilt of a planet's semi-axis in a given hemisphere is most inclined towards the star that it orbits. Earth's maximum axial tilt to our star, the Sun, during a solstice is 23° 26'. Though the summer solstice is an instant in time, the term is also...
.
The Basque witch trials are also featured as a subplot in Season 4 of the HBO series True Blood
True Blood
True Blood is an American television series created and produced by Alan Ball. It is based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris, detailing the co-existence of vampires and humans in Bon Temps, a fictional, small town in the state of Louisiana...
, when the spirit of a powerful witch, Antonia Gavilán, fed upon tortured and condemned to death by vampire priests in the city of Logroño in 1610 takes possession of a modern-day Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
n in order to exact revenge on vampires.
External links
- Auñamendi Encyclopedia in Spanish
- María de Echachute, burnt at the stake.
- María de Echalecu, died in prison. Her bones were "relaxed to the secular arm".
- Joanes de Echegui, died in prison. His bones were "relaxed to the secular arm".
- María de Echegui, sentenced to confiscation her belongings and life prison. Freed later.
- María de Endara, sentenced to confiscation of her belongings and life prison. Freed later.
- Inesa Gaxen, their belongings were returned and she was indultIndultAn indult in Catholic canon law is a permission, or privilege, granted by the competent church authority – the Holy See or the diocesan bishop, as the case may be – for an exception from a particular norm of church law in an individual case, for example, members of the consecrated life seeking to...
ed. Upon her return to HondarribiaHondarribiaHondarribia is a town situated on the west shore of Bidasoa river's mouth, in Gipuzkoa, Basque Country, Spain. The border town is sited on a little promontory facing Hendaye over the Txingudi bay. The town holds an ancient old quarter with walls and a castle...
, the local administration did not accept the Inquisition decision; she and her companions were banned to HendayeHendayeHendaye is the most south-westerly town and commune in France, lying in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department and located in the traditional province Lapurdi of the French Basque Country...
. - Joanes de Goiburu, sentenced to confiscation of his belongings and life prison.
- Miguel Goiburu, died in prison. His image was burnt at the stake.
- Hernando de Golarte, Jesuit. He pleaded for many of the defendants.
- Joanes de Iribarren, sentenced to confiscation of his belongings and life prison.
- Petri de Joangorena, burnt at the stake.
- María de Jureteguia, sentenced to confiscation of her belongings and life prison. Freed later.
- Beltrana de Lafarga, sentenced to confiscation of her belongings and limited prison.
- Joanes de Lambert, sentenced to confiscation of his belongings and limited prison.
- Joanes de Odia, died in prison. His bones were "relaxed to the secular arm".
- Estefanía de Petrisancena, died in prison. Her bones were "relaxed to the secular arm".
- María Presona, sentenced to confiscation of her belongings and life prison.
- Alonso de Salazar y Frías, inquisitor. His reports led to the practical suppression of witch burnings in the Spanish empire one century before the rest of Europe.
- Joanes de Sansin, sentenced to confiscation of her belongings and life prison.
- Domingo de Subildegui, burnt at the stake.
- María de Telechea, sentenced to confiscation of her belongings and life prison. Freed later.
- Graciana Xarra, burnt at the stake.
- María de Zozaya, died from the tortures before the auto-da-féAuto-da-féAn auto-da-fé was the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates that took place when the Spanish Inquisition or the Portuguese Inquisition had decided their punishment, followed by the execution by the civil authorities of the sentences imposed...
. Her bones were "relaxed to the secular arm". The article quotes from the confession extracted by Alonso Becerra and Juan del Valle Alvarado.