The Ballad of the Inquisition’s Greatest Witch Trial

How a lost ballad detailing the Inquisition’s sentencing of 28 alleged Basque witches spread a witchcraft panic through 17th-century Spain.

L ike all legal institutions, the Spanish Inquisition recognised that justice needed not only to be done but also to be seen to be done. Its public judgments were solemn occasions, as befitted a religious body concerned with the salvation of souls. An auto de fe, or ‘act of faith’, was, in part, a religious procession, possibly designed to mimic the Last Judgement. Autos emphasised penance and reconciliation; many first offenders escaped death by publicly confessing their crimes. This show of mercy was intentionally humiliating. Penitents were forced to wear sambenitos, special garments, which, upon completion of their sentences, would be hung in the parish church to remind them, their offspring and their communities of their crimes.

The recent discovery of a lost ballad describing an auto de fe – a form of entertainment that appears to be at odds with its solemnity – would be enough to make any auto de fe exceptional. But the two-day auto held in the small northern town of Logroño in November 1610 has always been considered remarkable. The 53 accused included the Inquisition’s usual targets: blasphemers, fornicators and a contingent of ‘Judaising Jews’, New Christians accused of returning to their ancestral faith. But the vast crowds, possibly as many as 30,000 people, were not interested in them and the ballad pays them no attention. Everyone was there for the 29 Basque witches who, it was said, had committed unspeakable acts with the devil at their sabbats. Historians have long known that the event resulted in two pamphlets; the existence of a ballad had been reported, but it had never been found.

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