The Witches' Advocate

Description

Early in the seventeenth century the Spanish Inquisition was faced with an "outbreak" of witchcraft accusations in the Basque region. The tribunal of Logrono sent one of its three inquisitors on a journey of visitation to investigate the charges, with the result that many persons were detained and tried, and some were executed. For Basque society these events were a wrenching experience, and they proved to be pivotal within the framework of European inquisitorial witch¬craft proceedings. Another inquisitor, Alonso de Salazar, conducted the next visitation. His extensive investigatiors into witch families and practices led him to doubt the validity of the many confessions heard earlier, and he filed a minority report which resulted in termination of the Inquisition's witch burnings. Students of witchcraft and the Inquisition have long regarded the Salazar report as crucial to an understanding of the phenomenon, but had no access to it. Danish scholar Gustav Henningsen located the manuscript in a Spanish archive and found it to be a fascinating document. The Witches' Advocate is Henningsen's study of how Salazar penetrated the testimony of the numerous witnesses who were coerced by parish priests or family members into accusing others, or who were simply availing themselves of the opportunity to redress old scores. It provides one of the most detailed accounts to date of witches and inquisitors, including recipes for making flying ointment from toads, the techniques of securing confessions, and the grim realities of an auto de fe. Henningsen uses Salazar's insights to conduct a psychological and sociological analysis of the phenomenon. In the process we are asked to consider evidence contradictory to the school of thought which contends that witches existed as remnants of a pagan cult. What emerges is the anatomy of mass hysteria fomented by the existing power structure for its own ends. Finally, the fascinating intellectual portrait of Salazar himself reveals one of the world's great humanists, a figure who richly deserves to be rescued from obscurity. This is an important book for any student of witchcraft, the Inquisition, or the Spanish Renaissance. GUSTAV HENNINGSEN discovered the long-lost Salazar papers while doing re¬search on witchcraft in Spain. He is now research director at the Danish Folklore Archives in Copenhagen. "Historians of early modern Spain will find that this is one of the most important books to be published in their field ... a fascinating and edifying story, superbly told." — History Today