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The Panic, and the Inquisitor Who Checked

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The Panic, and the Inquisitor Who Checked

The Basque panic crossed a border. It began in French Labourd, where the magistrate Pierre de Lancre conducted an intense campaign in 1609, and moved into northern Navarre, where the Spanish Inquisition's tribunal at Logroño took it up. The accusations followed the usual pattern with one aggravating feature: much of the testimony came from children, who were asked whether neighbours had carried them by night to a gathering, and who supplied names.

At the auto de fe held at Logroño in November 1610, eleven of those condemned as witches were burned, five of them in effigy because they had already died in prison. Alonso de Salazar Frías, the junior of the three inquisitors, had dissented over the handling of the cases.

What followed is almost unique in the history of the subject. The Suprema sent Salazar out through the affected districts with an edict of grace, allowing people to speak without penalty. He gathered an enormous quantity of testimony, and then, instead of counting it, he tested it. He went to the places named. He examined the powders and ointments handed over as evidence. He set statements against each other where they should have agreed, and questioned people separately. Almost everyone who had confessed retracted. Nothing produced as evidence turned out to be anything at all.

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