Explore one of Europe’s most notorious witch hunts – the Basque witch trials in France and Spain – with historian Jan Machielsen, author of the new release “The Basque Witch Hunt: A Secret History.” We uncover the complex factors behind the trials, including the role of sex-obsessed judge Pierre de Lancre. Machielsen shares the unique Basque Sabbath descriptions and the controversial use of child witnesses, revealing how approximately 100 victims fell prey to these trials. Learn how witch hunt fears persisted and transformed within communities, and draw striking parallels between historical witch hunts and modern witch persecutions. Join us for an eye-opening exploration of the Basque country’s rich history.
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Transcript
Josh Hutchinson: [00:00:00] Welcome to Witch Hunt, the podcast that explores the history and impact of witch hunts around the world. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. Today we're uncovering the history of one of Europe's most notorious witch hunts, the Basque Witch Trials.
Josh Hutchinson: We're joined by historian Jan Machielsen, author of the newly released book, The Basque Witch Hunt: A Secret History. Jan's research offers a fresh perspective on this dark chapter of history.
Sarah Jack: From sex obsessed judges to child witnesses, and from bizarre descriptions of witches' sabbaths to lingering societal fears, the episode uncovers the complex factors that fueled the Basque Witch Hunt.
Josh Hutchinson: Jan also draws some intriguing parallels between historical witch hunts and modern day conspiracy theories, reminding us that these events are not just relics of the past.
Sarah Jack: So get ready for a fascinating journey into the heart of the Basque country and the witch hunts that shaped its history.
Josh Hutchinson: Let's begin our conversation with Jan [00:01:00] Machielsen.
Sarah Jack: Welcome to Witch Hunt and congratulations on your new book, The Basque Witch Hunt: A Secret History. Can you tell our listeners about your background and expertise? And have you had any author events?
Jan Machielsen: Oh, so my name is Jan Machielsen. I'm a reader, which is sort of associate professor here in the UK. I'm a reader at Cardiff University. This is my, depending on how you count, my second or my third book. I've written widely about witchcraft in different guises. I have written a biography of a man called Martin Delrio, who some of your readers, listeners, might know. He is one of the very famous demonologists, but this is a very different book.
Jan Machielsen: This is a book about a witch hunt rather than a demonologist, although there is a demonologist involved in it, too. But I didn't really want to start a Jan Machielsen series of biographies of demonologists. So I was very keen on focusing it on the witch hunt rather than on the [00:02:00] demonologist in question, Pierre de Lancre.
Jan Machielsen: And yeah, the book came out, as we're speaking, the book came out last week. So at the moment I have one event here in Cardiff, next week on the 15th of October, but it's sold out. And when I say sold, it's actually a free event. So it's not that difficult. And then there is an event in London that people might want to get tickets for still, and that's on Thursday, from memory, the 23rd of October. And that's at Treadwell's. It's a bookshop in London, in Bloomsbury.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you. And your book is more than a simple retelling of the story of the Basque Witch Hunt. It offers a lot more. What more can listeners expect to learn about when they pick up your book?
Jan Machielsen: Well, the story of the Basque witch hunt is really famous. It is one of Europe's most [00:03:00] notorious witch hunts. And actually the parallel here is maybe particularly with Salem in the United States. There is, just as Salem is like part of the origin story of the United States, the Basque Witch Hunt is very much part of the origin story of the Basque country as a territory, and the traditional story of the witch hunt that has been retold over the centuries is that this is a witch hunt there's been inflicted on the Basque country by evil outside judges.
Jan Machielsen: The Basque country is,as you may know, divided between France and Spain. On the French side, you have a judge called Pierre de Lancre who wrote a famous book about his experiences in the Basque Country, and he's maybe for that reason always held up as almost an archetypal villain.
Jan Machielsen: And then on the Spanish side you have the Inquisition who got involved. So it's quite easy to see why this is a witch hunt that's often been told as a story of outside [00:04:00] judges like going into a territory and then searching for evil. And that's a story that's like particular resonances in the Basque Country, because the Basque Country is quite an unusual space.
Jan Machielsen: Basque, the language, is Europe's only language isolate, which means that it has no connections whatsoever to any other European language. So the Basque have their very own distinct culture, and part of what seems to have happened also is that that culture ends up being demonized in some ways.
Jan Machielsen: And of course, this attack, or this witch hunt, is then seen as an attack not just on Basque people, Basque women in particular, of course, but also seen as an attack on Basque culture, as well. And what I sort of tried to do in this book is actually turn the story a bit on its head and show that actually a lot of the impulse for this witch hunt was actually homegrown starting in the Basque country and actually that Basques have a very [00:05:00] long-established history of witch hunting that goes back at least a century, a century and a half, possibly longer, and that this is just the most extreme version of a long-existing trend.
Jan Machielsen: That's such a familiar,the secret history part. Really am so happy to see that emphasized. We have seen when we're looking at Salem, there's the history behind what is popularly known. Is there anything else that you want to speak to about the secret history? The other part of the story, I think, in terms of the secret history is the question about the sources that we historians have and how we can use those sources to try and tell a story. Part of the reason why, particularly on the French side of this witch hunt, why this witch hunt was always seen as like Pierre de Lancre being this sole person responsible [00:06:00] for this witch hunt is because he wrote a book about it, and it was like widely believed that no other source survived. And this I think has a sort of like real methodological issue for us as historians, because it raises the question as to how can we see this witch hunt from the eyes of someone else than Pierre de Lancre? And maybe we'll get into this, but Pierre de Lancre is, he's not a nice person. And when I say that this book tries to show that the witch hunts emerged out of the Basque Country itself, it's in no way an attempt to excuse Pierre de Lancre. He was one of the most unpleasant people that I've ever had to work on. And I've worked on other demonologists. So I think that's saying a lot.
Jan Machielsen: What it does mean is trying to escape his perspective. And that's another component, I think, of writing this as a sort of secret history. And in there, I have found other documents that people weren't aware of. Some of them were really difficult documents to work [00:07:00] with. A lot of documents that I found were financial records where I literally just said, payment to this judge, payment to this interpreter, payment to this jailor, and then trying to reconstruct things from there.
Jan Machielsen: But there were also other witnesses out there who've left fragmentary accounts of what happened. And I think when you put all of those things together, you get a different story that shows that Pierre de Lancre is still a significant actor in this story, but he was called in toprosecute this witch hunt, and he was also related by marriage to a member of the local Basque nobility, so he was not actually an outsider, he was actually part of internal factionalism inside the Basque country.
Josh Hutchinson: What can you tell us about the scale and scope, magnitude of this witch hunt? How many victims are we talking about, and what do we need to know [00:08:00] about the victims?
Jan Machielsen: Well, this is a really great question, and it's also a question that doesn't have a very cut and dry answer. Pierre de Lancre, for the French side, Pierre de Lancre is not at all interested in telling usthose types of detail. He doesn't offer like a chronological account, being like, well, today I arrived in Bayonne, the capital of the Basque country, and now I'm going to go and hunt some witches and tomorrow I will execute four. No, all he, all Pierre de Lancre says is that he and his colleague, because there was another judge working alongside him, that they prosecuted between 60 and 80 witches.
Jan Machielsen: That number then gets a bit complex, because he talks about sorcière, so that's the female French for witch, and we know that one set of targets is also priests, who are by definition male, so there might be some men that one could add to that mix. But on the other hand, [00:09:00] we know that some of the people he prosecuted, he ended up banishing rather than executing. So you could take some people away from the equation. And then there is the final thing that is really important to my wider story, is that this witchcraft commission that was sent from Bordeaux In 1609 to deal with this witchcraft problem, and which operated for about four months, that's only one part of the story, like in my book, it's like the middle part.
Jan Machielsen: And what I try to show is that you're actually, there's already witch hunting happening before they call in these outside judges. And actually, after they leave, there's evidence of vigilante justice and people lynching suspected witches. My own estimate is that there is probably about a hundred victims, but that's based not on any clear mathematics. It's really just when you take together the bits and pieces of evidence that we have.
Jan Machielsen: I think that's still a significant number. [00:10:00] It's more than Salem, but it's also,it can also point to some German witch hunts where about a thousand people died. By that count, it's a noticeable number, but it's not exceptionally big by comparative European standards.
Sarah Jack: And was there a lot of confessing that happened with the accused?
Jan Machielsen: So with the testimony that we have,we have quite a few accusations by children that are an important part of this witch hunt.These children were in all likelihood not charged. I think there's one case whereone of these children said the wrong thing and then ended up being executed as a witch. Basically what happened is that they claimed to be taken to the Sabbath by witches, which made them valuable witnesses to use against witches, [00:11:00] and then one of them accidentally said, "Oh yes, but sometimes I went on my own." And that meant that she clearly was not actually taken against her will. And then rather tragically, when she was then on the scaffolds and realized, "Oh my God, I'm being killed too," she said, "No, no, no, I made it all up." And at that point, it was too late. So that makes it actually rather difficult to say how many of the actual accused witches confessed.
Jan Machielsen: Pierre de Lancre really valued the testimony of this particular girl, because he says, witches really rarely confess. But of course,she never thought of herself as a witch. She thought of herself as a witness. So most of the testimony that we have, particularly from Pierre de Lancre's account, comes from children and teenagers who act as accusers rather than the confessions of witches.
Jan Machielsen: But there are definitely some of them in the book. There is one particular moving example of, Pierre de Lancre does not name her, he describes her as a 40-year-old witch from Biarritz, Biarritz is a small town, and it's a seaside resort now on the Basque [00:12:00] coast. But back then it was a small seaside village and there was this, Pierre de Lancre describes this 40-year-old witch like crying and hitting her head against his desk, being so upset about what was happening. So there is some testimony there,but the bulk of the material that we have comes from accused, as well, than from witches.
Josh Hutchinson: And how were those who were convicted, how were they executed?
Jan Machielsen: So Pierre de Lancre doesn't bother to tell or describe the method of execution. I think we can take it for granted that they would be burned. It is possible, I would hope so, hopefully, likely, that they might have been strangled before their bodies were burned. That was common practice in French legal procedure at the time, for reasons that it makes it, makes the whole execution a bit more orderly and a bit more seemly. Sorry, that sounds really grim to say it in that way. [00:13:00] We have one example that he gives where a witch is executed by burning, but at that moment, a toad escapes from her body, and toads are also in the Basque country particularly associated with witchcraft, and he says that at that stage, the public gets so outraged that they start throwing stones at the dying person. And from that, I think it's, it is clear that there is death by burning.
Jan Machielsen: But that's about as close to him bothering to describe anything. As a source, he's really not interested in telling us anything in terms of chronology or detail. What he wants to convey is what he's discovered, which is the world of the Sabbath. And the book is really basically a extended description of the Witches' Sabbath, which he cobbled together from quotations from the witnesses that he had interviewed.
Sarah Jack: What was a Sabbat? And how did his [00:14:00] differ from other European Sabbats?
Jan Machielsen: Partly because of Pierre de Lancre, the Witches' Sabbath has always been associated with the Basque. In his, the second edition of his famous book, he even commissioned a Paris engraver to include an engraving of what the Witches' Sabbath looks like, which is quite an interesting thing to think about, because the Witches' Sabbath takes place at night, only witches are meant to be there, or witches and these witnesses then taken against their will, but in theory only witches are meant to be there and the devil, and it should not be accessible to normal, biased Christian eyes.
Jan Machielsen: And it's only really accessible to the judges, through the testimony of those who went there, and, and yet here, Pierre de Lancre even includes in engraving depicting what it is meant to have looked like. And Pierre de Lancre is really obsessed by the Sabbath, like when he finds out locations where the [00:15:00] Sabbath is meant to have been held, he goes there just to see if he can find any evidence. He claims at one point that he found from a marking that he can found where the pot of the witch's Sabbath, where the poisons and potions were cooked, that he couldn't find the pot where the Sabbath was held.So the Sabbath is really, really associated with the Basque Country, and that's also because the testimony that Pierre de Lancre then gathers up about the Sabbath is much more sensational than any other Sabbath testimony gathered from anywhere else.
Jan Machielsen: Stories about the Witches' Sabbath are often quite commonplace, but one story that you might know and that your listeners might know is that witches were meant to consume the bodies of dead babies at the Sabbath. But what the Basques do is that apparently they go into cemeteries and dig up the bodies of dead witches and that the devil gives them special [00:16:00] dentures, so that at the Sabbath they can eat the bodies of dead witches. So there's a lot of really bizarre graphic detail that's really highly unusual, and there's nothing really similar to it in what survives of sort of European Sabbath narratives.
Josh Hutchinson: That engraving is rather incredible of everything with all the different panels depicting everybody's different involvement. The children guarding the toads is probably my favorite piece of that.
Jan Machielsen: Yeah. Yeah. So I had a whole chapter in the book where, so basically I take every little fragment, every little vignette, and use it to decode the surviving testimony, then, and then by comparing the French material that Pierre de Lancre gathered up, we have the material that the Spanish inquisitors gathered up, you can actually see how much of this material comes from the Basque country. That's not to say that any of these stories were real, it's just is that [00:17:00] a lot of this is folkloric beliefs inside the Basque country.
Jan Machielsen: And that, to me, really explains why someone like Pierre de Lancre ended up writing this book, because he didn't arrive in the Basque Country with preconceived ideas that are that specific, like he presumably had read his Malleus Maleficarum before traveling to the Basque Country. Certainly, he knows books like the Malleus and Martin Delrio's book,the person I wrote on before I worked on Pierre de Lancre. He certainly knows those books, but then he arrives in the Basque Country, and then he has all these witnesses tell him these extraordinary stories that, you know, that as he himself said were never reported in any of the literature that he'd read.
Jan Machielsen: And that's part of his motivation to write his book is basically to show his readers look at what I found here, which is a very different, I think, reason for writing and what most authors or most historians have said about Pierre de Lancre, that he [00:18:00] wrote this book as a way of justifying his witch hunt. So that's not what he is interested in. It's more like this is amazing material, and everyone needs to know about this.
Josh Hutchinson: You wrote about a debate that was going on about whether the Sabbath was a real physical event or whether it was more an illusion or imaginary. Can you explain that?
Jan Machielsen: This is particularly the case in Spain, inside the Spanish Inquisition. And that the Spanish inquisitors really argued amongst themselves whether or not the Sabbath that they were exploring, whether or not that was a real thing or whether or not it was entirely imaginary, and when I say imaginary, I mean that what they were wondering whether or not had happened or whether or not the devil made them think it happened,and that if the devil made them think it happened, so for instance, they were sleeping, and in their sleep, the devil made them think that they traveled to the Sabbath, whether or not these people were then [00:19:00] still legally responsible. Are you still a witch if you dream that you went to the Sabbath, rather than if you actually flew to the Sabbath from on a goat, and these are the types of like really vexing legal questions that the Inquisition, in particular, got really obsessed by. And on the Spanish side, it really seems that those types of debates ultimately frustratedany further action against the witches.
Jan Machielsen: Pierre de Lancre seems not to be interested in this at all. For him, the Sabbathwas a real thing, andwitches deserve to die for going to the Sabbath, but the Spanish Inquisition is a very bureaucraticinstitution. It's also very legally minded. They were also saying, "we cannot prosecute these refugees from France, these people accused of witchcraft who fled into Spain, because they haven't committed any witchcraft here in Spain," which is quite a fun sort of thing to think [00:20:00] about, if you think about it, becauseif you made a pact with the devil, why does it matter that you made a pact with the devil in France as opposed to Spain? But that is the sort of like legal consideration that they really thought about in the Inquisition.
Sarah Jack: And is there anything we need to understand about the French legal framework with witch trials?
Jan Machielsen: That's a really good question, because it gets to the reason why Pierre de Lancre was sent in. The thing about the French legal system is that it's highly bureaucratic in a different way and that they have lots of appeals processes. And that if you are accused of witchcraft or of any other crime, then there would be a trial in Bayonne, but that trial could then be appealed to Bordeaux.
Jan Machielsen: In Bordeaux, you'd have maybe 15 judges looking over your case, and all of those judges needed paying. [00:21:00] And one of the things that's so interesting about the surviving material, the few surviving archival materials, is that a lot of them are invoices and a lot of them are like account books, listing the costs and it really brings out the high cost of French justice.
Jan Machielsen: So one of the reasons then why the Basque communities on the French side really wanted this outside commission was because it would make witch hunting a lot cheaper, because it meant that you didn't have to transport your witches from the Basque Country to Bordeaux, which was about a five days travel at the time,and you wouldn't have to house them and feed them there. You wouldn't have to pay all of those judges, you only needed to pay the two judges on your witchcraft commission. There were actually some strong financial motives for creating a witchcraft commission, because it meant that they could act, the judges could act in the Basque country, and they could act without any possibility of [00:22:00] appeal.So the main thing to notice about the French side is it's just like the high cost of justice in France.
Josh Hutchinson: The commission you mentioned before, they worked for four months. How were they able to work so much more quickly than regular justice?
Jan Machielsen: There are a few factors there, I think. The main thing is that, that there was no possibility of appeal. And this is something that the Bordeaux Parlement, which is the court that Pierre de Lancre himself was part of, that's the appeals court in Bordeaux, the Bordeaux Parlement really resisted registering the King Henry IV's edict setting up this witchcraft commission, because I think they were like, we want to get paid? And it can be maybe that, yeah, it can be that crude. So the fact that there was no longer any forms of appeal meant that they could act more quickly. The fact that they literally traveled from community to community. And I don't know [00:23:00] how accurate or complete my reconstruction has been, but like looking at these invoices and comparing it with dates that Pierre de Lancre casually mentioned, I've been able to create a map as to where they were at any given point in time, I think. And then you can get a sense as to they travel to a village, they would prosecute the witches there, and then they would execute them there, and then they would move on to the next village. And that obviously went a lot quicker than having to send all of those witches and the witnesses accusing them, sending all of them to Bordeaux. And therefore, it's quite plausible to me that they actually did end up executing 50, 60, maybe morepeople in that four months period.
Sarah Jack: You had mentioned that there was a history of witchcraft accusations in the Basque Country.
Jan Machielsen: How is that a perfect expression of the conflicts there?
Jan Machielsen: So a [00:24:00] big part of my argument about this witch hunt is that it's really significant that it took place in a border region. France and Spain in the early 17th century were the two major European powers, and they were almost always at war with one another. Spain at the time had a vast empire, and of course, from an American context, you will know about the Spanish Empire in the Americas. But in Europe, the kings of Spain were also the dukes of Milan, so northern Italy. They also were in charge of what was then called the Spanish Netherlands, which is now Belgium. There were a number of territories to the east of France that owed their allegiance to Spain. So as you can see that Spain almost encircled France at that time. So Spain and France did not reallyget along, and the Basque Country in particular, the [00:25:00] town of, city of Bayonne really is like the entry point between France and Spain, because France and Spain are separated by the Pyrenees.
Jan Machielsen: So this tiny territory of the Pays de Labourd is part of the Basque country that is in France. It's like the first French line of defense against Spain, which makes it really importantfor the French monarchy that people in the Pays de Labourd are all happy and harmonious and working together, just in case the Spanish invade.
Jan Machielsen: But what then also happens is that because of that, and because Paris is so far away, it also means that actually, it's very difficult for the kings of France to assert their authority in a territory like the Pays de Labourd, because they need to keep everyone happy. It's far away. How do youassert your authority?
Jan Machielsen: So there's actually, as a result, constant conflict between the communities and towns of the [00:26:00] Pays de Labourd, where they all argue about scarce resources and also between the nobles and the towns, where it's really clear that the towns are, by French standards, they have a lot of rights, they're incredibly independent, and the nobles are like, they look at what nobles in other parts of France are getting away with, and they're like, we want that too.
Jan Machielsen: So there's actually a lot of conflicts, and it's quite difficult to see how that conflict links to the witch hunt, except that it's clear that it did, in the sense that you can see how people from one faction accuse other people from the opposite faction of witchcraft. So again, there is maybe a parallel there with some of the stuff that's been written about Salem.
Jan Machielsen: But I think it's really important to say that we should never see witchcraft accusations as just a tool of, a cynical tool of accusing the other. I think it's also very natural to believe the worst of an enemy and that if you [00:27:00] are engaged in a long-running dispute that you would be willing to believe that your enemy would make a pact with the devil.
Jan Machielsen: But these conflicts are really gradually tearing this territory apart, and actually then sending a group of commissioners in from the outside, seems like the best way of solving this problem. But then, of course,one of the commissioners is Pierre de Lancre, and he is a rather sex-crazed maniac, who is fascinated by the devil. So he's rather the wrong person to sort out the many different conflicts that exist in this territory.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. On the subject you got into at the end, his sex obsession.
Josh Hutchinson: What's the deal with that? Why was he so utterly obsessed with the sex lives of especially the beautiful women and the teenagers?
Jan Machielsen: It's really rather striking [00:28:00] isn't it? When you read his descriptions, he constantly like talks about how bewitching the Basque women are. And he also really represents the Basque country as a feminine space. And to some extent, he's actually justified by doing that because the main economic foundation of the Basque Country is fishing and whaling. And so the menfolk are all off. Actually, some of them go as far away as like the Canadian Maritimes to go hunt for whales.So in Pierre de Lancre's imagination, that means that the women and old men and priests are just all that's left in the Basque country. And, as a result, the devil finds it very easy to infiltrate this space and seduce the women. So yeah, so the Basque Country and its women folk are clearly like an obsession of his. And he describes the Basque women and their dress, that included two contemporary engravings of Basque [00:29:00] women and how they dressed, and it's quite unusual. So if people buy the book, they can look at some images there. So it's clearly taken by how they looked.
Jan Machielsen: I think there is also maybean important factor here that he doesn't speak Basque. He uses interpreters, so he cannot actually get to what these people are saying except, through an interpreter, but he can scrutinize the bodies ofthe witnesses and witches, and they give him some sort of like direct access to this demonic story that the testimony in some sense doesn't.
Jan Machielsen: So I think there are a number of factors there that sort of come together. But yeah, as I write in the book, we know he has an illegitimate son, so it's he's already married to his wife. So there is definitely evidence that he is a bit of a sex pest. Let's put it that way, the very least.
Sarah Jack: [00:30:00] These demonology books and their authors, other men were reading these, other people, other authorities involved in convicting witches were reading these. And so I just think that impact must have really trickled through the communities, the world, the ages.
Jan Machielsen: Yeah,it's interesting cause there is actually a relatively, contemporary German translation of Pierre de Lancre's book, and it has the sort of the, I think quite revealing,title of The Wonderful Secrets of Witches, and that sort of I think really like testifies to what Pierre de Lancre is revealing here is like this exotic,often quite sexually explicit, like he also talks a great length about the size and shape of the devil's penis,like this really like a strange, remarkable worldthat he's uncovered.
Jan Machielsen: But it's also like fair to say that the Tableau, which, so that's the main text that Pierre de Lancre writes, it goes only through two editions. So it's not the Malleus [00:31:00] Maleficarum, where it's not Martin Delrio's Disquisitiones, like it's, as far as early modern demonological texts goes, it's actually not really quite a bestseller. So it's quite, and I don't quite, can't quite explain why it wasn't more successful at the time.
Jan Machielsen: But at the same time, Pierre de Lancre keeps on writing about witches. So after his Tableau, he writes two more books about witches, the last, apparently for his own personal entertainment, and that's literally what the contract with the publisher says, and it's only, it was only printed in 40 copies, and therefore only three or four copies still survive to this day, but if you put all the pages of those books together, you get to about 1700 pages about witches and demons and other sort of related supernatural things. And that does make him, I would argue, I haven't found anyone [00:32:00] else, maybe in response to this interview, someone will come up with a counter example. But I think he may very well be the person who has filled the most pages on demonology in the entire early modern period, because 1700 pages is a lot.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, when books of that time were generally pretty short, that, these were some real opuses.
Jan Machielsen: Yeah, very much Yeah.
Jan Machielsen: The only other thing I would bring up is that I also want to spend some time about the way this witch hunt ends, because I think often people think that witch hunting ends once the witch hunter packs up his bag and leaves. And that's like the traditional story that has been told about the witch hunt in the Basque Country. It's like Pierre de Lancre and his colleague, their four months are over, they return to Bordeaux, and then that's [00:33:00] that, basically. Butthe evidence that survived shows that there is substantial panic about witches persisting in the Basque Countryacross the 1610s, almost like a full decade after the judges leave, there's still people being panicked about witches, people going to, visiting missionaries and confess that they were witches.There's lots of stuff still happening. So my book doesn't end in 1609, my book ends in 1619, and it ends there because it's at that moment where I think that the witch hunt really ends, because one thing that happens with the border is that there is another group of refugees, but this time fleeing from Spain into France rather than witches fleeing from France into Spain. And these refugees are religious refugees. They are new Christians, so these are people whose ancestors have been forced to [00:34:00] convert from Judaism and Islam, but were suspected by the Inquisition of having reverted to the faith of their ancestors. And they flee across the border and obviously the Basque country, because it's just across the border, is a place where a lot of them settle. And it seems like a lot of these fears about witches are displaced. They're moved from witches to these new, these refugees.
Jan Machielsen: And in 1619, one of these refugees, a Portuguese woman called Caterina Fernandez, ends up being lynched by a mob in the small town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and the way that event is described, to me, sounds very similar to the fears that surround witches a decade earlier.We can have a really, I think, interesting discussion as well, as to like, how do witch hunts end? Because I don't think they end simply because a judge leaves. Because they cause so much [00:35:00] panic in the territory and that lingered. And I think those fears were transferred onto another group of victims who were then ultimately cast out and expelled from the Basque country.
Sarah Jack: I'm really glad that you wanted to speak about that. It's, your book really is going to expand people's understanding of humans and witchcraft fears put on innocent people. But I think the ending thing, they haven't ended in our world, and they don't just have that final chapter. So we do need to get there, but it, when you. Thank you for sharing that, because it's an example of how communities have that panic. And it doesn't just, it's not just over because the judge left, as you said, and how that fear can be transferred.
Jan Machielsen: Yeah, as [00:36:00] I write in my epilogue, I didn't want to write a full conclusion, but I wrote a short epilogue. But as I write there, I think witchcraft is still with us, right? I think previous historians even just five or ten years ago, people would, those historians would all be writing about witchcraft as a thing that's like in the past. And yet, I think these days, I think we're so much more aware about how there are different ways in which people think about witches, like how witchcraft was fuelled by fears about the other that transcends like just the category of witch and how conspiracy theories are not something that is just, just belong to the past. They are very much present in the present as well. And we should never see these stories as I think the witch hunt has often been portrayed as a story of like reason triumphing over superstition. Because that's not how these witch hunts ended.
Jan Machielsen: There is, at least the Basque Witch Hunt did not [00:37:00] end because people woke up and looked around and thought to themselves like, what are we doing? It's like it seems to have ended in a form of transference of fears of one group of outsiders to another group of outsiders. And it seems to have ended because of an act of like popular violence rather than like an act of radical enlightenment of whatever shape. And I think that's probably true for the witch huntwrit large in the early modern period. I don't think witchcraft beliefs were ever defeated by rational argument.
Josh Hutchinson: Right, that whole enlightenment ended the witch trials narrative has prevailed for a long time, and I'm finding myself growing out of that, that realizing that witch trials just went underground and became these extrajudicial actions, and that has continued around the [00:38:00] world.
Jan Machielsen: Yes, a colleague of mine here in the UK, Bill Pooley, who's at the University of Bristol, I don't know if you've had a chance to interview him yet, but he works on witchcraft beliefs in 19th century France, and there you can see how it's, it's no longer than like the witches who appear in front of a judge. It is people who have killed witches who appear in front of judges. And then in many instances, actually, it's like they are let go or they're released, or there's a jury who refuses to convict.The story of like how the witch hunt ends is a story that is continuing in the present day, I think, and it's not a story that has a very neat and uplifting ending either.
Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Certainly not yet.
Jan Machielsen: Yeah. I think that we're all working towards that ending though in one way or another. I think that's one of the really important ways that your podcast contributes to those [00:39:00] discussions.
Sarah Jack: Thank you. I. It is uplifting to see that from academics and from people who are literally advocating and rescuing folks, there's space for this conversation now, and there's lots of conversation to have. Looking at the history gives us an opportunity to ask important questions about humanity, ones that are, questions that are relevant today that were relevant then too so thanks for. Your book is so enjoyable to read. it really brought questions to mind of other witch hunt histories that I read and study on. So I just, it's a really great tool, but it tells a story that people need to hear about the Basque Country and its people as well. Thank you.
Jan Machielsen: Well, thank you so much again for having me. It's been a real pleasure to speak to the two of you and it's also been an honor to [00:40:00] be invited onto this podcast, because I know you've interviewed quite a number of very famous people already. So it's, it's honor, it's an honor to join that particular list as well.
Jan Machielsen: So
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you. And, when is your book available and how can people get their hands on it?
Jan Machielsen: It's on sale now. I haven't checked the price in dollars, but I think in, at least in pounds and euros, it's quite reasonably priced. I'm hoping that it would reach a wider audience and that people who are interested in finding out more about the Basque Witch Hunts and try and, as the two of you did, try and place that into a wider history,that they'll be interested in in buying it. Yeah, I'm not sure it will hit every bookstore in, in the world, but it's certainly accessible on all the major online retailers at a, I think, a quite affordable price.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Jan. Now Mary Bingham returns with an all new Minute with Mary.
Mary Bingham: Here is a brief [00:41:00] regarding three women over a span of 82 years, all accused of witchcraft, who boldly defended themselves, standing in the truth and though they knew that death was their outcome.
Mary Bingham: María de Echachute, from Navarre, northern Spain, repeatedly denied that she was a witch, though making a false confession would have most likely resulted in a pardon for her. Maria paid with her life in 1610.
Mary Bingham: Ann Hibbins, a well-educated woman who was tried twice and boldly declared her innocence. Ann was hanged at Boston Neck in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1656.
Mary Bingham: Mary Esty, a pillar in her Topsfield, Massachusetts community, was arrested, released, and then yet arrested again in 1692. She never wavered while being badgered by the magistrates, even authoring two petitions, [00:42:00] one advising the magistrates how to proceed with the trials after her death.
Mary Bingham: The strength of character of these three women is inspiring beyond anything that I could ever imagine. Thank you.
Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
Josh Hutchinson: And now Sarah has this week's edition of End Witch Hunts News.
Sarah Jack: On our End Witch Hunts news segment today, we're highlighting a crucial human rights issue affecting persons with albinism. The Africa Albinism Network is campaigning to have sunscreen added to the World Health Organization's essential medicines list. This campaign is driven by compelling evidence from the 2023 report by Maluka Ann Middy Drummond, the UN independent expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism.
Sarah Jack: Her findings underscore a critical truth. For people with albinism, sunscreen isn't merely a cosmetic luxury, it's a vital, life-saving medical [00:43:00] necessity that can significantly extend and enhance their quality of life. We strongly support the rights and protection of persons with albinism. Ending their persecution and ensuring their safety is fundamental to upholding human dignity and rights. Making sunscreen more accessible by including it on the world Health Organization's essential Medicines List would significantly improve affordability and access for those who need it most. Do you want to learn about this issue or get directly involved in supporting persons with albinism? Here's an excellent opportunity. On Thursday, October 24th, at 2 p. m. GMT time, there's an important webinar you should know about. Sunscreen as Essential Medicine, a Climate Justice Webinar. It's being hosted by CBM Global Disability Inclusion, the Africa Albinism Network, the Fund for Global Human Rights, and Climate Action Network Europe. This virtual event will dive into the crucial campaign to add sunscreen to WHO's essential medicines [00:44:00] list for persons with albinism, framing it as both a human rights and climate justice issue. You can learn how you can actively support this vital campaign. It's a chance to engage in a critical conversation on human rights and climate justice, particularly for one of the most vulnerable populations affected by climate change.
Sarah Jack: We've included the registration link in our show notes. Remember, your participation can make a real difference in this important cause. Recently, Josh and I had the privilege of meeting and engaging with Muluka-Anne Miti-Drummond at the Witchcraft and Human Rights Conference in Lancaster. During our interactions, we gained valuable insightsinto the critical importance of ensuring the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism. Muluka-Anne's expertise and passion for this cause left a lasting impression on us. Following the conference, she shared a powerful statement that directly relates to our End Witch Hunts mission.
Sarah Jack: She said, quote, "This week, I was at Lancaster University attending a conference on the UN resolution on the elimination of [00:45:00] harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks. Around the world, people continue to lose their lives and livelihoods due to witchcraft accusations, or in the case of persons with albinism, for example, witchcraft-related practices. Ultimately, whether you believe in witchcraft or not, it cannot be denied that people are dying because of it.And we cannot continue to relegate the topic to the aisles of history and fiction while the rights of so many are violated," end quote.
Sarah Jack: Our conversation with Muluka-Anne reinforced our understanding that protecting the rights of persons with albinism is not just a matter of policy but a fundamental aspect of human dignity. It's clear that addressing harmful practices and ensuring full human rights for persons with albinism are interconnected and crucial goals.
Sarah Jack: How will you use your unique skills, authority, agency, and platform to advocate for persons with albinism? Your collaboration is needed now.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you, Sarah. [00:46:00]
Sarah Jack: You're welcome.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Witch Hunt.
Sarah Jack: Join us every week.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.