Invoking the Akelarre: Voices of the Accused in the Basque Witch-Craze, 16091614

The records of the Basque witch-craze of 1609–14 provide us with the most demonologically-stereotypical accounts of the witches sabbath or akelarre to have emerged from early modern Europe. This study argues that suspects were not passive recipients of elite demonological stereotypes but animated these received templates with their own belief and experience, from the dark exoticism of magical conjuration to the sharp pragmatism of domestic medical practice and everyday religious observance. It highlights the range of raw materials available to the suspects, helping us to understand how the fiction of the witches sabbath emerged to such prominence in contemporary mentalities, while also restoring some agency to the defendants and nuancing the historical thesis that stereotypical content points to interrogatorial opinion and folkloric content to the voices of the accused.

Format: Hardback
Length: 480 pages
Publication date: 02 August 2019
Publisher: Sussex Academic Press

The records generated by the Basque witch-craze of 1609-14 offer us perhaps the most demonologically-stereotypical accounts of the witches sabbath or akelarre to have emerged from early modern Europe. While the trials have attracted scholarly attention, the most substantial monograph on the subject was written nearly forty years ago, and most works have focused on the ways in which interrogators shaped the pattern of prosecutions and the testimonies of defendants. Invoking the Akelarre diverts from this norm by employing more recent historiographical paradigms to analyze the contributions of the accused. Through interdisciplinary analyses of both French- and Spanish-Basque records, it argues that suspects were not passive recipients of elite demonological stereotypes but animated these received templates with their own belief and experience, from the dark exoticism of magical conjuration, liturgical cursing, and theatrical misrule to the sharp pragmatism of domestic medical practice and everyday religious observance. In highlighting the range of raw materials available to the suspects, the book helps us to understand how the fiction of the witches sabbath emerged to such prominence in contemporary mentalities, while also restoring some agency to the defendants and nuancing the historical thesis that stereotypical content points to interrogatorial opinion and folkloric content to the voices of the accused. In its local context, this study provides an intimate portrait of peasant communities as they flourished in the Basque region in this period and leaves us with the irony that Europes most sensationally-demonological accounts of the witches sabbath may have evolved out of a particular locale.

Weight: 972g
Dimension: 178 x 253 x 31 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781845199692