There are only a few hours left for the celebration of Halloween, a holiday that has crossed borders, filling our streets with pumpkins, ghosts, monsters... and witches. In the collective imagination, the latter are evil women, not very graceful, who travel on broomsticks, meet in covens and brew potions to do evil to others.

But what were witches really like, did they really exist, and what motivated the persecution of thousands of people in Europe, accused of witchcraft, between the 14th and 17th centuries?

Jesús M. Usunáriz, Full Professor of Modern History of the School of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Navarra, has published "Maleficium. Navarra y la caza de brujas. Siglos XIV-XVII", an analysis of witchcraft and its influence on the society of Navarra throughout the centuries.

Based on a selection of judicial processes and other documents preserved in the file Real y General de Navarra -which constitutes one of the most relevant sets of documents in Europe on the emergence and evolution of witchcraft-, Professor Usunáriz analyzes this phenomenon from different perspectives.

Thus, the work is structured around 5 sections: the construction of the witch myth; the stereotypes surrounding the witch; the witch hunt and the judicial systems; the most relevant moments of persecution recorded in the kingdom of Navarre; and the events that took place in Zugarramurdi and the subsequent decrease of the persecution mania after the implementation of new principles by the Inquisition.

1. This work is the catalog of a exhibition organized in the file Real y General de Navarra. How much documentation is preserved on the witch hunts in Navarra? What subject of documents or sources did you consult for its elaboration?

The documentation on the witch hunts in Navarre is found mainly in two collections: in the file General of Navarre, in the Royal Courts section, and in the file National Historical Archive, Inquisition section. 

In the first case, documentation is preserved from the fourteenth century, with a first episode of execution of witches in 1314, in the section of Records of Comptos; in addition, for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries we have dozens of lawsuits against alleged witches and witches that were settled in the courts of Navarre (the Royal Court and the Royal committee). 

In the case of the National Historical file , in addition to housing a large part of the papers relating to the Zugarramurdi witch hunt of 1609-1614, there are also "Relaciones de causas", that is, summaries, almost statistical, of the lawsuits tried by the inquisitors in the courts of Calahorra and Logroño, which had the kingdom of Navarre in their jurisdiction in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

2. The Zugarramurdi episodes are perhaps the most famous. But what impact did the witch hunts have on other areas of Navarra?

It is true that the process against the witches of Zugarramurdi, extended to the valley of Baztán or the Cinco Villas de la Montaña, at the beginning of the XVII century, is the most famous, but there were other areas and times. During the 14th and 15th centuries, the main witch-hunting centers were in the leave Navarra, in Ultrapuertos, on the other side of the Pyrenees. In the sixteenth century, the Pyrenean valleys of Salazar and Roncal were the main hunting grounds of the entire Modern Age, but also in several villages in the Cantabrian valleys. For example, in the town of Anocíbar, at the end of 1575, a complaint was filed by two children, with a great impact, as complaints multiplied in many other places in the north of Navarre, affecting hundreds of people.

3. There are only a few hours left for Halloween, a celebration that has crossed borders. In the collective imagination, witches have a very specific profile . According to the sources consulted, what was the profile of the people accused of witchcraft like? Did it have any specific or common characteristic?

We can distinguish between a created image of the witch, and the real profile of the witch. Generally speaking, the most common vision of the witch is the one we have inherited from fairy tales: old, lonely, marginalized and, above all, evil women. They had supernatural virtues: they could provoke storms, cast spells on fields, animals and people, especially newborn children; they could metamorphose into different animals and even, thanks to the application of ointments, they could fly on a broom or on a beast. In addition, they participated in meetings with other witches and warlocks, called Sabbat, covens or convent, where they worshipped the devil and denied the Christian God, the Virgin and the saints. This is the image conveyed to us by manuals and treatises, manuscripts and printed matter, since the 15th century, based on the testimony of different witnesses and even of those accused of witchcraft who testified under torment.

However, the reality is different: it is true that most of the protagonists of witchcraft cases were women, but they were neither old nor lived alone for the most part. None of them had powers and at no time could it be proven that they had participated in those witches' assemblies. They were married people, not marginalized, but owners of houses and lands, with their official document and well related to those who, for different reasons (envy, hatred, superstition), were accused by other neighbors. Among the victims and among the accusers, there were numerous children and adolescents who, carried away by their imagination, played a special role in the main episodes of witch-hunting that we know.

4. In the process of preparing this catalog, have you come across any curious documents or data among the sources consulted?

The documents of the file General of Navarra and, especially, the processes, are of great richness, since they describe in detail all the topics and beliefs about witchcraft in modern centuries. They reveal, moreover, not only what we humans are capable of, in our pettiness, to accuse neighbors and relatives of imaginary crimes; they also bear witness to the solidarity and common sense of others who defended and testified in favor of the accused.

It is necessary to emphasize a document of 1370, which mentions for the first time the witches' assemblies; others that speak to us of people, adolescent women, specialized in discovering the mark of the devil among the inhabitants of a locality, unequivocal sign, according to them, that they belonged to a demoniac sect; there are testimonies that include numerous and shocking details of some imaginary assemblies, with dances, meals, black masses, cannibalism, etc. There is no lack of terrible scenes of torment in the lawsuits, especially on the rack. But, none of those statements about the actions and powers of the witches proved to be true, although it served for many people to end up in prison.

5. Is there anything I haven't asked you that you would like to comment on?

I would like to point out that there are many clichés about witch hunts that can be disproved. Especially in the Spanish case. Precisely, in the territories of the Hispanic Monarchy, although the phenomenon of witch-hunting occurred in areas such as the Basque Country, Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia and Castile-La Mancha, its repression was much less brutal than in other parts of Europe.

In different areas of the Holy Roman Empire, France, Switzerland and Scotland, thousands of victims, mostly women, but also men, were executed as victims of a "dream epidemic", as the witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries have been described. However, in Spain, where the king's courts and, above all, the local judges, were harsher, the ecclesiastics and, especially, the Inquisition, were more reluctant and skeptical of the accusations of witchcraft and this contributed, unlike other crimes, to the fact that the repression, although harsh, did not reach the extremes of other territories on the continent.

Next Tuesday, November 7, at 19:00 hours, at the file Real y General de Navarra (C/ Dos de Mayo, Pamplona), Professor Usunáriz will give the lecture "De brujas y akelarres. From file to the legend". In the framework of the discussion paper, will be presented this book, which can be purchased for 15 euros in the same file. It is also on sale at the Fondo de Publicaciones del Gobierno de Navarra (C/ Navas de Tolosa, Pamplona).