Witch trials in Spain
The Witch trials in Spain were few in comparison with most of Europe. The Spanish Inquisition preferred to focus on the crime of heresy and, consequently, did not consider the persecution of witchcraft a priority and in fact discouraged it rather than have it conducted by the secular courts. This was similar to the Witch trials in Portugal and, with a few exceptions, mainly successful. However, while the Inquisition discouraged witch trials in Spain proper, it did encourage the particularly severe Witch trials in the Spanish Netherlands.
History
The Spanish Reconquista was followed by the Spanish Inquisition, who focused on attaining religious conformity by persecutions of the Jews and the Muslim Moors and their baptized descendants, which was considered a top priority by the church. Persecution of witchcraft was therefore not regarded with much interest in Spain. The Malleus Maleficarum (1486) was in fact published almost at the end of the reconquista.
By the early 16th-century, nevertheless, the witchcraft ideology was accepted in Spain. The Kingdom of Navarre had been conquered and became a part of Spain in 1512 with the excuse that heretic beliefs and religious nonconformity was rampant in Navarre,[citation needed] which created a tense situation in the area. This situation eventually resulted in one of the earliest mass witch trials in Europe: the Navarre witch trials (1525-26). On the assignment of the Navarrese authorities, a witchcraft committee was formed and a commissioner travelled the Pyrenées to identify witches. He managed to have an unknown number of people executed and their property confiscated.[1]
Witch trials were at this point a new crime in Spain, and in August 1525 the Spanish Inquisition ended the Navarre witch trials and issued an investigation as to how such trials should be investigated.[1] In February 1526, the Spanish Inquisition issued a witchcraft regulation in which they stated, that while they accepted witches and their participation in the Sabbath of Satan as a reality, the recommended repentance rather than the death sentence for the condemned and banned confiscation of their property.[1] This regulation almost put an end to witch trials in Spain: between 1526 and 1611, the Inquisition focused in heresy and only circa twenty-two people were condemned for sorcery.[1]
After the Navarre witch trials (1525-26), it was to be fifty years before another witchcraft execution in Navarre. In 1575, the execution of Maria Johan resulted in a big witch hunt, the Navarre witch trials (1575–76) with fifty accused witches, but the Spanish Inquisition managed to transfer these investigation from the secular authorities to the Inquisition, resulting in no further executions.[2]
However, the Spanish Inquisition experienced a few setbacks when it failed to prevent local secular courts from conducting witch trials. This resulted in one of the largest mass witch trials in Europe outside of Germany: the Basque witch trials in 1609. A second incident was a series of severe witchcraft persecutions in Catalonia in 1615–1630, managed by the local secular courts, which resulted in about one hundred executions before the Inquisition managed to take control of the situation.[1]
After this, the Spanish Inquisition had greater success in its policy to prioritize heresy before witchcraft and minimize the witch trials, and only a few isolated cases of witchcraft executions conducted by local secular courts are known until they died out as well in the mid-17th-century. María Pujol was probably the last person executed for witchcraft in Spain, in 1767, after a long period without witch trials.
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e Ankarloo, Bengt, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe; Vol. 4: The period of the witch trials. London: Athlone Press, 2002
- ^ Rojas, Rochelle E (2016). Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Trials in Early Modern Spain, 1525-1675. Dissertation, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/13429.
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- Witchcraft in early modern Britain
- Channel Islands Witch Trials
- Witch trials in England
- Witchcraft in Orkney
- Witch trials in early modern Scotland
- Witchcraft in early modern Wales
- Windsor Witches (1579)
- St Osyth Witches (1582)
- Witches of Warboys (1589–1593)
- North Berwick witch trials (1590)
- Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1597
- Pendle witches (1612)
- Northamptonshire witch trials (1612)
- Samlesbury witches (1612)
- Witches of Belvoir (1619)
- Bury St Edmunds witch trials (1645, 1662, 1655, 1694)
- Great Scottish witch hunt of 1649–50
- Alloa witch trials (1658)
- Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661–62
- Bute witches (1662)
- Bideford witch trial (1682)
- Paisley witches (1696)
- Pittenweem witches (1704)
- Islandmagee witch trial (1711)
- Witch trials in Hungary
- Witch trials in Poland
- Kasina Wielka witch trial (1634)
- Northern Moravia witch trials (1678)
- Szeged witch trials (1728–29)
- Doruchowo witch trial (1783)
- Witch trials in France
- Labourd witch-hunt of 1609
- Aix-en-Provence possessions (1611)
- Loudun possessions (1633–34)
- Louviers possessions (1647)
- Normandy witch trials (1669–70)
- Affair of the Poisons (1679–1682)
- Trial of the Wizards of Lyon (1742–1745)
- Witch trials in the Holy Roman Empire
- Rottweil Witch Trials
- Derenburg witch trials (1555)
- Wiesensteig witch trial (1562–1563)
- Rottenburg witch trials (1578–1613)
- Trier witch trials (1581–1593)
- Pappenheimer family witch trial (1600)
- Fulda witch trials (1603–1606)
- Ellwangen witch trial (1611–1618)
- Eichstätt witch trials (1617–1630)
- Würzburg witch trials (1626–1631)
- Bamberg witch trials (1626–1631)
- Baden-Baden witch trials (1627–1631)
- Mergentheim witch trials (1628–1631)
- Esslingen witch trials (1662–1666)
- Witch trial of Fuersteneck (1703)
- Witch trials in Denmark
- Witch trials in Estonia and Latvia
- Witch trials in Finland
- Witch trials in Iceland
- Witch trials in Norway
- Witch trials in Sweden
- Põlula witch trials (1542)
- Copenhagen witch trials (1590)
- Gyldenstierne-sagen (1596)
- Køge Huskors (1608–1615)
- Finspång witch trial (1617)
- Vardø witch trials (1621)
- Akershus witch trials (1624)
- Ramsele witch trial (1634)
- Rosborg witch trials (1639–1642)
- Vardø witch trials (1651–1653)
- Kirkjuból witch trial (1656)
- Vardø witch trials (1662–63)
- Kastelholm witch trials (1665–1668)
- Mora witch trial (1669)
- Torsåker witch trials (1675)
- Katarina witch trials (1676)
- Rugård witch trials (1685–86)
- Thisted witch trial (1696–1698)
- Witch trials in Italy
- Witch trials in Catalonia
- Witch trials in Portugal
- Witch trials in Sicily
- Witch trials in Spain
- Val Camonica witch trials (1505, 1518)
- Mirandola witch trials (1522–1525)
- Navarre witch trials (1525–26)
- Lisbon witch trial (1559–60)
- Benandanti (1575–1650)
- Witches of Laspaúles (1593)
- Basque witch trials (1609)
- Terrassa witch trials (1615–1619)
- Witch trial of Nogaredo (1646–47)
in Europe
- Witch trials in the Netherlands
- Witch trials in the Spanish Netherlands
- Stedelen witch trial (1397–1407)
- Valais witch trials (1428–1447)
- Geneva witch trials (1571)
- Amersfoort and Utrecht witch trials (1591–1595)
- Bredevoort witch trials (1610)
- Roermond witch trial (1613)
- Spa witch trial (1616)
- Lukh witch trials (1656–1660)
- Salzburg witch trials (1675–1681)
- Liechtenstein witch trials (1679–1682)
- Witch trials in Virginia (1626–1730)
- Connecticut Witch Trials (1647–1663)
- Maryland Witch Trials (1654–1712)
- Witch trials in New York (1642–1790)
- Salem witch trials (1692–1693)
- Witchcraft and divination in the Old Testament (8th–2nd centuries BC)
- Directorium Inquisitorum (1376)
- De maleficis mulieribus (1440)
- Formicarius (1475)
- Summis desiderantes affectibus (1484)
- Malleus Maleficarum (1487)
- De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus (1489)
- Laienspiegel (1509)
- De praestigiis daemonum (1563)
- The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584)
- Newes from Scotland (1591)
- A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcrafts (1593)
- Daemonolatreiae libri tres (1595)
- Daemonologie (1597)
- Magical Investigations (1599)
- Compendium Maleficarum (1608)
- A Guide to Grand-Jury Men (1627)
- The Discovery of Witches (1647)
- Treatises on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants (1751)