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The Basque witch trials of the seventeenth century represent the last attempt at rooting out supposed witchcraft from Navarre by the Spanish Inquisition, after a series of episodes erupted during the sixteenth century following the end of military operations in the conquest of Iberian Navarre, until 1524.
Since being conquered by Castile in 1512–21, Navarre (and to a lesser extent areas of the Basque Country) suffered numerous inquisitorial processes, mainly against Jews and Muslims, but occasionally also against Basque sorginak. Particularly important was the 1610 process of Logroño that focused on the akelarre of Zugarramurdi.
Witches' Sabbath (1798), by Francisco Goya. Akelarre is a Basque term meaning Witches' Sabbath (a gathering of those practicing witchcraft). Akerra means male goat in the Basque language. Witches' sabbaths were envisioned as presided over by a goat. The word has been loaned to Castilian Spanish (which uses the spelling Aquelarre).
The Labourd witch-hunt of 1609 took place in Labourd, French Basque Country, in 1609. The investigation was managed by Pierre de Lancre on the order of King Henry IV of France and III of Navarre. It resulted in the execution of 70 people. 600 were actually executed per page 369 of "century of book of facts" standard edition 1908.
Pierre de Rosteguy de Lancre or Pierre de l'Ancre, Lord of De Lancre (1553–1631), was the French judge of Bordeaux who conducted the massive Labourd witch-hunt of 1609.In 1582 he was named judge in Bordeaux, and in 1608 King Henry IV commanded him to put an end to the practice of witchcraft in Labourd, in the French part of the Basque Country, where over four months he sentenced to death ...
The mythology of the ancient Basques largely did not survive the arrival of Christianity in the Basque Country between the 4th and 12th century AD. Most of what is known about elements of this original belief system is based on the analysis of legends, the study of place names and scant historical references to pagan rituals practised by the ...
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 ...
Those present in the meetings used to call the caves from this field, because in it, a big black he-goat used to graze (called Akerbeltz in Basque). It is said the he-goat turned into a human when the witches gathered, so it is thought the goat was the devil itself. This is why Zugarramurdi is often called “The Cathedral of the Devil”.