Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
Titles include:
Edward Bever
THE REALITIES OF WITCHCRAFT AND POPULAR MAGIC IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE
Culture, Cognition and Everyday Life
Alison Butler
VICTORIAN OCCULTISM AND THE MAKING OF MODERN MAGIC
Invoking Tradition
Julian Goodare
SCOTTISH WITCHES AND WITCH-HUNTERS
Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin and Joyce Miller
WITCHCRAFT AND BELIEF IN EARLY MODERN SCOTLAND
Jonathan Roper (editor)
CHARMS, CHARMERS AND CHARMING
Alison Rowlands (editor)
WITCHCRAFT AND MASCULINITIES IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE
Rolf Schulte
MAN AS WITCH
Male Witches in Central Europe
Laura Stokes
DEMONS OF URBAN REFORM
Early European Witch Trials and Criminal Justice, 1430–1530
María Tausiet
URBAN MAGIC IN EARLY MODERN SPAIN
Abracadabra Omnipotens
Robert Ziegler
SATANISM, MAGIC AND MYSTICISM IN FIN-DE-SIÉCLE FRANCE
Forthcoming:
Johannes Dillinger
MAGICAL TREASURE HUNTING IN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA
A History
Soili-Maria Olli
TALKING TO DEVILS AND ANGELS IN SCANDINAVIA, 1500–1800
María Tausiet
Palgrave
macmillan
© María Tausiet 2013
Foreword © James S. Amelang 2013
Note to the English Edition © Stuart Clark 2013
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2013 978-1-137-35587-4
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2013 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-47031-0 ISBN 978-1-137-35588-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137355881
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
For Antonio and David,
sorcerer and apprentice
By writing on a parchment with the juice of nuts and milk
of mother and daughter the following words, Abracadabra
Omnipotens [ . . . ], and by carrying this on his person when
gaming, he would be sure to win.
Foreword x
James S. Amelang
Acknowledgements xiii
Notes 170
Tables 219
Index 244
vii
Illustrations
viii
Note to the English Edition
Stuart Clark
ix
Foreword
James S. Amelang
Why were there so few witches in cities? Given the nearly universal
belief in the existence of sorcery and diabolical witchcraft that led to the
trial and punishment of tens of thousands of individuals from the fif-
teenth to the later seventeenth centuries, why were witches found only
in the countryside? Historians have long recognized that witchcraft was
specifically, and almost exclusively, a rural crime. Why this should be so
has attracted much less attention, and even fewer attempts at explana-
tion. Only a handful of studies have touched on this issue, and there is
still no complete monograph devoted exclusively to this question any-
where in Europe. The existence of this historiographic vacuum makes
this book all the more welcome.
What María Tausiet’s patient research has turned up is a seeming para-
dox: while there were virtually no instances of persecution of diabolical
witchcraft in early modern Zaragoza, the city nevertheless housed a wide
range of magical practices. There were no aquelarres, then, but plenty of
encantos, hechizos, adivinaciones, círculos y cercos mágicos, numerología and
the like. Their practitioners comprised an equally wide range of colour-
ful characters, including hechiceros, saludadores, astrólogos, buscatesoros
and readers (and authors?) of magical texts. All told, the supernatural
underworld of Zaragoza was rich, varied and populated by a remarkably
heterogeneous cast of characters. So much so, in fact, that the only indi-
viduals missing from this roll call were the experts in diabolical magic
who filled the pages of the demonological treatises of the period. Their
absence specifically marks the city as a space replete with figures claim-
ing special access to magical powers, yet who were lucky – or cautious –
enough to escape prosecution as witches.
Which raises an obvious question: that of the local response to the
threat posed by the activities of these amateur and professional magi-
cians. The author of this study has long shown interest in the attempts
by both ecclesiastical and secular authorities to bring what they regarded
as magical activity under control. In her first major book, Ponzoña
en los ojos (2000) – by far the most detailed and sophisticated study
of witchcraft and magic in early modern Spain – María Tausiet took
x
Foreword xi
xiii
xiv Acknowledgements
María Tausiet
Madrid, January 2013
Prologue: Abracadabra Omnipotens
1
2 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
In Moorish times, the city then known as Saraqusta was also nick-
named ‘la Blanca’ (the white city) on account of the light in which it was
said to be bathed by both day and night, a sign of its singularity. Over
the years it continued to be idealized, a process that reached its zenith
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,3 when a series of apologists
devoted themselves to singing the praises of its land, architecture and
people, emphasizing above all its status as a centre of miracles, thanks
to two exceptional events which had taken place there. The first of these
was the appearance of the Virgin Mary, in the flesh, to the apostle James
on the banks of the Ebro, along with a pillar and a statue of herself,
which, so legend has it, led to the construction of ‘the first church in the
world’ after Christ’s death. The second miraculous happening concerns
the heroic defence of the Christian faith mounted against the Romans
by those who became known as the ‘Innumerable Martyrs’ and whose
remains lie buried deep beneath the present-day city.4
This was the perfect time for such traditions to take hold in the popu-
lar imagination: after all, it was at this moment that the Catholic world
was mounting its response to the Protestant Reformation, not only by
means of doctrinal argument but also by disseminating tales of all man-
ner of miracles in an attempt to prove on which side the revealed
truth was really to be found. From the end of the sixteenth century
onwards, Saragossa became a model Counter-Reformation city, expo-
nent of a Baroque religious sensibility which is still palpable today, as
perceptive visitors will note. Time has left many a scar on its architecture
over the last 2000 years, yet its most prominent and symbolic building
still stands tall and proud, its roots firmly planted in the Baroque even if
the construction itself was not completed until well into the twentieth
century – the legendary Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar (Our Lady of
the Pillar).
It was no coincidence that in the late sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies this Renaissance-Baroque city, its eminent sanctity celebrated by
poets, was to witness a flourishing of magic, or at least the height of a
campaign of persecution against something seen as a form of attack on
official religion in the shape of the Catholic Church. While Counter-
Reformation movements promoted authorized religious practice, at
street level an abundance of ways of making contact with the sacred
were to be found, methods that combined the new Christian rites with
ancient pagan customs. For some, therefore, the churches mentioned
in this book were centres of prayer and pilgrimage, holy buildings set
apart from any unorthodox belief, but for others they were storehouses
containing stockpiles of magical ingredients: fragments of altars or altar
stones, consecrated bread, holy water, candles, oil and so on.
Prologue 3
Illustration 0.1 Topographical map of the most noble, heroic and loyal city
of Saragossa (undated). By permission of the Archivo Histórico Provincial de
Zaragoza.
religion were two sides of the same coin, to the extent that it becomes
impossible to conceive of one without the other. Far from surprising us,
the knowledge that both were present within the urban environment
as parts of an inseparable whole helps us gain a better understanding of
certain forms of religious practice that were beginning to experience a
gradual decline. Although the representatives of official religion aimed
to isolate the world of magic by persecuting its many and diverse prac-
titioners, the fact is that the magical and the religious were intimately
interconnected and not easily discernible from one another. This inter-
mingling can be seen in the many charms that simultaneously invoked
celestial, intermediary and infernal beings (respectively, God, the Virgin
Mary, angels and saints; souls in purgatory; and demons or fearsome
bugs and beasts) for such varied ends as curing disease, acquiring instant
riches or winning an indifferent lover’s affections.
The subtitle of this book – Abracadabra Omnipotens – encapsulates
this absence of any real boundary between magic and religion, com-
prising as it does two theoretically opposing terms: ‘abracadabra’, the
magical word par excellence, and ‘omnipotens’, the essential attribute
Prologue 5
Illustration 0.2 Devout profession (Capricho No. 70), Francisco de Goya, 1799.
The artist’s harsh critique of the excesses of both magic and religion, responsible
in his eyes for the superstitious beliefs at the root of Spain’s cultural
backwardness. The headgear depicted on the upper two figures, with their
donkey’s ears, brings to mind both bishops’ mitres and the caps worn by those
tried by the Inquisition for heresy and witchcraft. By permission of the Fundación
Juan March (Madrid).
Prologue 7
9
10 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
fully effective until the second half of the eleventh century – in other
words, only shortly before the Christian reconquest of the area – four
centuries of Muslim rule were to leave an indelible trace not only on the
urban structure of Saragossa itself but also on its citizens’ mentality.4
After Saragossa had been reconquered in 1118 by Alfonso I (‘the
Battler’), its Christian, Jewish and Muslim populations were obliged
to share the space available. The city was therefore divided into three
clearly differentiated areas: the Christian nucleus, which was essentially
concentrated within the city walls; the Jewish quarter, which continued
to occupy the same land it probably always had – the south-east quad-
rant of the original Roman settlement; and the Moorish quarter, which,
in line with the conditions imposed by Alfonso, had to be located on the
outskirts, beyond the city walls. This residential layout did not, however,
mean an end to contact between the different religious groups: in fact
Jews, Muslims and Christians were all free to move around the city at
will, and their lives remained closely intertwined.5
It was the expulsion in 1492 of the Jews from the entire Iberian
Peninsula by the Catholic monarchs Fernando of Aragon and Isabel
of Castile that brought this situation to an end. Thereafter, however,
not only were the Jews no longer tolerated (being obliged either to go
into exile or to rapidly convert to Christianity, a course of events that
soon led to the persecution of the judaizantes, those who continued to
practise their former religion), but neither were the mudéjares – those
Muslims who had carried on living peacefully in Saragossa, without con-
verting, since the city’s Christian reconquest. Unlike the Jews, they were
not officially expelled from Spain until 1610, but the pressure on the
mudéjar population to abandon its beliefs and customs increased day by
day once Granada had been reconquered in 1492. In November 1525,
Charles V ordered the mudéjars of Aragon to embrace Christianity within
the space of a month. From that date onwards, the new converts, known
as moriscos, began to be watched and persecuted in Saragossa since, just
as the Valencian moriscos were suspected of maintaining close relation-
ships with Algeria and Constantinople, there was growing concern that
the Aragonese moriscos might be in league with the Protestants of the
French region of the Béarn, just the other side of the Pyrenees.6
The fifteenth century marked a turning point in Saragossa’s history
as the ancient medieval city moved into the early modern age. Con-
frontations between the different socio-religious communities were on
the rise and the sense of mutual suspicion was intensifying (fomented
by the activities of the Inquisition, which will be discussed later in this
chapter), at a time when the city was also experiencing major economic
The Judicial Backdrop 11
pillar of Spain’s faith’, ready to do battle with the ‘infernal dragon’ and
its many wiles. Firstly, the Virgin Mary was said to have come there in
person from Jerusalem in 40 AD, leaving as gifts a pillar and a statue
of herself for a church to be constructed in her honour, the first in the
world to be consecrated to the Marian cult. Secondly, the blood shed by
the so-called ‘Innumerable martyrs’ (more numerous even than those
of Rome, so legend had it), namely the Saragossa Christians killed by
the Romans in 303 AD, had sanctified the underground city that housed
their remains and was linked by a passageway to the chapel of Our Lady
of the Pillar.15
Just as the demonic spirits invoked by the cast of characters we shall
meet in the following pages as we journey through magical Saragossa
were present in nocturnal conjurations, so it was supposed that the mar-
tyrs’ spirits continued to rise from their tombs at midnight to visit the
miraculous sanctuary of the Basilica, as they had done in life. Confusion
and ambiguity reigned as far as anything to do with the supernatural
world was concerned. This being the case, and with a view to drawing a
clear distinction between the licit and the reprehensible, a doctrine con-
cerning those who followed the devil gradually took shape and became
manifest not only in a series of theoretical treatises, but in a process of
judicial persecution fought on various fronts.
From the late fifteenth century onwards, in Aragon, as in the rest of
the Iberian Peninsula, there were three judicial institutions responsible
for initiating legal proceedings against any kind of behaviour consid-
ered to be superstitious in nature: the secular, episcopal and inquisitorial
courts.16 All three systems operated within Saragossa, and documentary
evidence from each has survived. By far the greater part of the infor-
mation we have relating to alleged witches, wizards and sorcerers in
the city, however, comes from inquisitional sources. Why should this
be? The reasons are manifold, and all have to do with the nature and
objectives of the courts in question.
The secular courts, in theory controlled by the monarch, who was
acknowledged to be the supreme authority throughout the Spanish
territory, in practice constituted an utterly fragmented system. In the
Kingdom of Aragon, the decision-makers were town councils (munici-
pios) and local lordships (señoríos, administered by the nobility or the
Church). To varying degrees, both formed independent, autonomous
entities within the limits of their jurisdiction. While there was a supreme
royal court (the Real Audiencia) directly subordinate to the monarchy,
as well as the Justicia, the highest judicial figure in Aragon itself,17
most conflicts and cases were dealt with outside the auspices of these
higher institutions. Landowners wielded what was essentially absolute
14 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
Item, this Chapter and Council have deliberated that in order to rem-
edy the many deaths of and cases of harm done to various new-born
babies and other persons which are said to have taken place in the
city in recent times by reason and cause of the witches who have
fled from the mountains and other places and have come to reside
as exiles in the city, a statute should be passed which will allow
for such witches to be accused, punished, banished and for crimi-
nal proceedings to be brought against them incurring serious and
rigorous penalties at the request of the said city and of any private
individual.21
As the statute text makes all too clear, no written proof of any kind
was required to banish all those women held to be witches (brujas, the
feminine form of the word, appeared in the statute’s title, despite the
use of the neutral plural form brujos in the text itself), which explains
the lack of surviving evidence on such matters. Equally unsurprising is
the absence of witchcraft trials, bearing in mind the steps put in place
enabling legal proceedings to be carried out ‘swiftly’, ‘without the figure
of a judge’ and based only on ‘intimations, arguments, presumptions
or conjecture’. We do know, however, that the statute did have imme-
diate consequences for some, as shown by the only document so far
discovered to mention the imprisonment in Saragossa (‘carried out in
accordance with statutory provisions’) of two women accused in 1591
of witchcraft ‘and other crimes’, of which the details are unspecified.24
Also relatively scarce is evidence about the way in which the episcopal
courts dealt with cases of witchcraft and sorcery in Saragossa. The terri-
tory of Aragon was divided into seven dioceses (Albarracín, Barbastro,
Huesca, Jaca, Tarazona, Teruel and Saragossa), each responsible for keep-
ing watch over the spiritual well-being of its area. In practice, this meant
that bishops had the right to decide what was acceptable behaviour
for their flocks, not only by introducing legislation but also by sitting
in judgement over them in the episcopal courts. The legislative work
of each diocese was enshrined in so-called Synodal Constitutions, which
were approved every so often at the Provincial Synods, or meetings of
the key representatives of the clergy of each district. Throughout the
The Judicial Backdrop 19
That the inspectors should inquire about public sins and vices, and as to
whether there are Witches, Sorceresses and folk indulging in Superstitious
conduct.
The memorial for his Majesty is free from error, although if Your Wor-
ship has not yet given it to him, he may remove what is written
about witches because in this Archdiocese we do not understand there to
be any.27
Et cum his, before the said Lord Officer, appeared the said Pedro de
Salanova and María García, and they did promise to be from this day
forward good and true spouses, living as such and avoiding quarrels
and dissent and ad in vicem et viceversa all slanders brought up to
the present day were pardoned, ex quibus, etc.31
As for the remaining six cases, while they differ from one another in
various respects, they do have one characteristic in common, and this
explains the episcopal judges’ interest in them. Each was brought against
someone accused of sorcery, but what was continually emphasized was
the matter of the fraud involved, irrespective of the beliefs or supposed
evil inherent in the defendants’ magical activities. Constanza Rossa – an
elderly widow from the province of Burgos, from which she had been
exiled as a sorceress – had been living in Saragossa for eight months
when she was brought before the city’s archbishop accused both of using
both magic charms and threats to cure people, and of overcharging
for her services. She claimed that many of the sick people brought to
her were bewitched (‘The woman Constanza did say: – Look, this girl
[ . . . ] is not well and you know that the witches [ . . . ] are causing her
ill at night when she is sleeping [ . . . ] they have clear access to her and
do suck upon her lower parts’32 ) and would only be cured if they fol-
lowed her advice to the letter. In cross-examining her, the tribunal’s sole
objective was to get her to admit ‘that finding herself in need’ she had
‘induced some people to believe that which she told them’, that she
had done nothing ‘from understanding or knowledge of what she was
doing’ but rather, ‘out of necessity, so as to be able to survive and earn
22 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
what little money she could from her actions’, and so on.33 Once she
had acknowledged the complete lack of ‘magic’ in her actions, she was
found guilty of deception and sentenced to five years’ exile from the
area, on the understanding that she would face a more serious penalty
if she failed to comply with the court order.34
The same criteria were applied to the other defendants in these epis-
copal cases. Although the fiscal followed standard procedure, branding
them as sorcerers and charging them with having made a pact with
the devil, the ultimate goal of the investigations to which they were
subjected was to prove the usury and deception that lay behind their
activities. This attitude notably hardened in cases of love magic asso-
ciated with the business of procuring. One particularly illuminating
example is that of Isabel Gombal (also known by her husband’s sur-
name as Isabel Bibache), a morisca sorceress tried by the Archbishop of
Saragossa in 1605. Eight months earlier, she had been brought before
the city’s inquisitorial tribunal accused of ‘having been a Moor for ten
months or one year and having carried out Moorish ceremonies’, as
well as of having summoned demons, specifically ‘Satan, Barabbas and
Beelzebub’. She had been convicted and sentenced to be ‘reconciled’ ‘in
a public auto de fe, [to have her] goods confiscated, to wear sackcloth
and ashes, to spend four years in prison in Saragossa, and to receive one
hundred lashes in public’.35
The sentence passed by the episcopal court was to be no less severe:
she was to receive two hundred lashes, pay the court costs and be exiled
from the archdiocese for good. On this occasion, however, the accu-
sations were very different. While the Inquisition had emphasized her
morisca status, the episcopal judges stressed the deception on which
her work as a sorceress was based. The third article of the indictment
presented by the fiscal read as follows:
The eighth article again underlined the abuse of trust committed by the
defendant, stating that
The Judicial Backdrop 23
The rest of the total of 20 articles which made up the fiscal’s action
were devoted to a detailed description of the defendant’s various activ-
ities, all of which were summarized in the petition he drew up for the
Archbishop’s Vicar General to inform him about
In the eyes of the episcopal court, therefore, Isabel was guilty first and
foremost of swindling her clients. Hence she was dubbed an embaidera
(deceiver), derived from the verb embaír, the equivalent to the more
common modern Spanish equivalent embaucar, itself a partial synonym
for both embelecar (to deceive by means of artifice and false appearances)
and embelesar (to enchant). These words crop up time and again in epis-
copal trial records and highlight the fact that in these judges’ eyes at
least, magic was primarily a means of deception.
In contrast to the minimal surviving documentary evidence from the
secular and episcopal courts relating to magic in Saragossa, the inquisi-
torial system has provided us with exhaustive data. Although papers
relating to only a small number of trials for sorcery or other forms of
superstition have survived,39 we know of the existence of at least 121
more cases brought by the Holy Office against Saragossa residents for
such crimes, mainly thanks to the trial summaries drawn up by the
city’s inquisitorial tribunal.40 Known as relaciones de causa, these sum-
maries were introduced in 1540 as a result of orders given by the Consejo
de la Suprema y General Inquisición – the Suprema, or Supreme Council of
the Inquisition – to all the provincial tribunals in the country.41 One of
the reasons so much evidence of inquisitorial activity in Saragossa has
survived is precisely the fact that this Council, whose members were
directly appointed by the monarch, provided leadership and central
control over the administrative organization of the entire peninsular
territory.42
At this time, the Spanish monarchy ruled through a series of crown-
appointed councils, of which the Suprema was one. As Ricardo García
Cárcel points out, ‘the fundamental difference between the medieval
Inquisition and its early modern counterpart was its political function,
the Crown exercising a control over the latter that it never had over
24 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
and how the Venetian Inquisition chose to act against such offences as
witchcraft:
Although less than 5 per cent of the population of peninsular Spain lived
within the Kingdom of Aragon between 1540 and 1640, its tribunal was
the most active of the 20 that were set up nationwide: one in four of
those put to death or sent to the galleys by the Spanish Inquisition were
sentenced to such fates in Saragossa. After 1543, no one was executed
for Judaizing, but false converts from Judaism were soon replaced by a
26 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
new kind of converso, the moriscos, who appeared in notably high num-
bers before the tribunals of Granada, Valencia and Saragossa.49 Another
of the chief concerns of Saragossa’s Inquisition was the threat posed to
the region by its close proximity to the Lutheran State of Béarn, just
the other side of the Pyrenees. As well as fighting the three-pronged
heretical attack posed by Judaism, Islam and Protestantism, however,
the Aragonese inquisitors were also keen to extend their jurisdiction
to cover certain offences that were not, strictly speaking, heretical and
which had hitherto been dealt with by the secular and episcopal courts,
namely bigamy, blasphemy, sodomy, usury and, of course, witchcraft
and other forms of superstition.50
The death penalty was last imposed for witchcraft by the Aragonese
Inquisition in 1535. As on so many other occasions, the defendant was
an elderly woman (Dominga Ferrer, nicknamed ‘the Cripple’), who had
previously been tried and condemned to death by the local judge of
a small Pyrenean village but whose case was then handed on to the
Saragossa inquisitors. They accepted as valid the charges of poison-
ing, infanticide, flying, sabbath attendance, copulation with the devil,
and so on, that the secular judges had wrung from her by means of
torture. In fact, the inquisitors limited their part in proceedings to sub-
jecting her to their own interrogation so as to justify their intervention –
questioning which added nothing to what was already known – and to
imposing a sentence of so-called ‘relaxation to the secular arm’; in other
words, handing the defendant straight back to the secular authorities.
They could then impose the death sentence, something forbidden by
law to the Holy Office because it was an ecclesiastical tribunal which, in
theory, could hand down only spiritual penalties.51
When the members of the Suprema heard the news of Dominga
Ferrer’s execution, they reacted by immediately ordering Saragossa’s
inquisitors to send them the trial documents of any other woman who
faced being sent to the stake as a witch, thereby removing the decision-
making capacity the tribunal had thus far enjoyed.52 The Suprema’s
change of attitude towards witchcraft had come about a few years ear-
lier, in 1526 to be precise, at a famous meeting of inquisitors held in
Granada following the brutal witch hunt carried out by the secular
courts in Navarre.53 The ten delegates met to decide whether such cases
should be heard instead by inquisitional tribunals, but in order to do so,
they first had to pronounce on the reality of the acts attributed to sup-
posed witches. When they voted on the matter, six of the ten asserted
that these women attended sabbaths ‘in reality’ while the other four
held that they did so only ‘in imagination’. Nonetheless, the ten did
The Judicial Backdrop 27
Illustration 1.2 & 1.3 Cover and fol. 79 from the record of the trial of Dominga
Ferrer, ‘The cripple’ (1535). The hand drawn in the margin points to the words
with which she confessed, under torture, to having attended a sabbath and
paid homage to the devil. By permission of the Archivo Histórico Provincial de
Zaragoza.
ultimately agree that, since the possibility remained that the murders
confessed to by witches were illusory, these women should be judged
by the Inquisition and not by secular courts, unless the latter could
prove that the crimes had actually been committed. Most importantly
28 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
They dug for 17 days, more or less, but found no treasure, and
the said Sanz did say [ . . . ] that he wanted to go to Béarn in France
to seek out other persons who knew about demonic invocations
and spells used to uncover treasure.2
The utopian dream that magic could be used to make one’s every
wish come true found its ultimate expression in the idea of buried
treasure.3 A key characteristic of urban sorcery was its link to the sur-
vival instinct of men and women living in a strange and sometimes
hostile environment, to whom it made absolute sense to invest in get-
rich-quick schemes in the hope of overcoming their sense of dislocation
and escaping the everyday hardships of their new lives in the city.
Dreams of wealth were not exclusive to treasure seekers but common
to all those with some level of professional involvement in magic. It is
well known that there were two basic kinds of sorcery, divided along
clear gender lines: money-making magic, whose practitioners were pre-
dominantly male, and love magic, which was, again predominantly, a
female domain. This is not to say that the interests of the two sexes
were essentially distinct from one another, rather that men and women
approached the same goal of achieving material well-being in different
ways. Whereas men used direct methods such as gambling or treasure
30
Magic Circles and Enchanted Treasures 31
seeking to try and raise their standard of living, many women dreamt
of solving their economic problems by marrying, or entering into some
such other dependent relationship with a man they could subject to
their will.
Despite the undoubted gender-based division into two sociocultural
worlds, the line was often blurred when it came to the practice of
conjurations and enchantments. There are many examples of men
attracted to erotic magic, as well as of women involved in intrigues
with lucrative ends. Indeed Saragossa’s magical landscape seems to have
been a labyrinthine world of interwoven interests and illusions, into
whose twists and turns came both men and women from all walks of
life. As well as the universal desire to obtain material riches, the other
element common to all those who dedicated themselves to magical prac-
tices was the high value placed on fantasy, whether to nurture their
own beliefs or as a way of luring gullible customers. In the world of
male magic, which forms the focus of this chapter, believers and charla-
tans alike specialized in tracing magic circles, from which they invoked
demons, generally in a single-minded attempt to enlist their help in
finding buried treasure.4
The doctrine surrounding magic circles was just part of what was
considered ‘learned’ or ‘high’ magic, knowledge and practice of which
had undergone a dramatic increase across Europe since the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, owing to an influx of texts on the subject from
Byzantium and the Islamic world. Before this point, official teaching had
limited interpretations of the universe to the study of just two sources
(the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible, and Aristotelian logic), but now
a wide range of options began to open up, taking in everything from
Ancient Greek science and Alexandrian philosophy to the speculations
of Islamic and Jewish thinkers about the nature of the spirit world.5
After a long period of intellectual restriction, rediscovery of this corpus
of Eastern scholarship – writings on such virtually forgotten subjects
as numerology, astrology, Greek philosophy and mathematics, alchemy
and the Kabbalah – gave new stimulus to the cultivation of the imag-
ination. Many of these areas of learning were now incorporated into
university teaching and accepted as additional ways of understanding
and controlling the universe. Underpinning the ‘natural magic’ inher-
ited from the Neoplatonic philosophers was the basic conviction that
all things were intimately related to one another by means of a network
of bonds that attracted certain elements to others through similarity or
some kind of special harmony. Roger Bacon believed that magic resolved
the functioning of the universe via the formula of cosmic sympathy,
32 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
The magic circle is the shape traced by the conjurer on the ground in
the place chosen for the invocation; he then stands within it, there
being protected from the attacks of malevolent powers who might
come seen or unseen, since the magical might of the circle will ward
them off from its confines as if were built there the strongest and
highest of walls.14
Forbidden books such as this emphasized time and again that anyone
wanting to strike up a relationship with demons should first enclose
himself in a circle15 so as not to run the risk of exposing himself to
34 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
The magic circle may be traced in any place [ . . . ] because the magi-
cian may not always be able to choose that which most suits him for
the invocation. If the latter has to be done in the open air, he will
trace the circle on the ground with the tip of a sword or his magic
wand; but if the invocation be done in his or another’s home, he will
use chalk. And if the floor be of white marble, for example, where
chalk markings will not be easily discernible, he may use a lump of
coal which has first been purified by the sprinkling of holy water.17
The advice did not end there. Those who wished to make contact with
the afterworld (in theory, the number of participants in a circle was
not supposed to exceed four) had to make a full general confession
and receive communion two weeks before the invocation ceremony,
after which they were to fast and to meditate without the aid of any
reading material. At the same time, they had to prepare and sanctify
various tools and instruments (a sword, knives, a dagger, lancet, needle,
wand, quill, perfumes and so on) as well as their clothing for the day in
question (which had to be new, white and perfectly clean).19
To what extent were such doctrines, which were passed down in book
after book over the centuries, reflected in the actual practice of early
modern Saragossa’s sorcerers and necromancers? Although the sources
are patchy, owing to the loss of many trial documents, the surviving
material does support the claim that, during the sixteenth century at
least, and in the early 1500s in particular, people still believed in the
efficacy and spiritual significance of invocations and magic circles.20
While the desired results of such ceremonies were essentially material
in nature, the fact that practitioners continued to follow, to the letter,
traditional instructions as to how to perform these rituals implies that
they firmly believed it was possible to make contact with the spirits they
were invoking.
Evidence of this can be found in the papers relating to the inquisito-
rial trial brought in 1511 against Father (mosén) Joan Vicente, beneficed
priest of the church of San Pablo in Saragossa, but originally from
36 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
The importance of all things new, virginal and pure was not only
demonstrated in the clothing the participants had to wear (having ear-
lier had to make their confession, bathe themselves, fast and receive
communion). All the objects destined for use in the circle had to be
brand-new and, therefore, custom-made, some of them from the bod-
ies of unborn animals or by the hands of a young virgin. The following
items were considered essential: four knives (which would be used first
to cut and sharpen feathers and wooden staffs, then to trace the shape
of the circle, after which they would be stuck into the ground inside the
circle); four swords (also to be planted in the ground within the circle);
several staffs and canes (for preparing the animal skins used for parch-
ment); candles made of consecrated wax; aromatic substances (incense,
aloe, thymiama) placed in four dishes, with which to perfume the room;
fresh charcoal, fine silk cloths (gauze or sendal) woven by a young virgin;
parchments prepared from the skins of aborted animals (puppies, kids or
calves)26 on which to draw small circles or roundels and, finally, a bunch
of hyssop, with which to sprinkle holy water on everything else so that
all the objects used in the invocation ceremony would be consecrated
and acquire the power needed to attract spirits from the afterworld.
Returning to Jerónimo de Valdenieso, we learn that
From the testimony given at Joan Vicente’s 1511 trial28 we also know
that this collection of items was brought together in the clergyman’s
house, and that he confessed to the judges that he had later hidden
them in the vestment cupboard in his church in Saragossa. It transpired
that notary Miguel Sánchez (who was charged with transcribing the
books on necromancy that Vicente had brought with him from Rome)
was primarily responsible for all the preparatory work. In 1509, the day
before leaving for a journey to court in Madrid, he gave his servant
Valdenieso instructions to have the four knives and four swords made,
ready to be used on his return to Aragon. Valdenieso placed the order
with a cutler on Saragossa’s calle Mayor, who duly crafted four knives of
different sizes for him. According to the fourth associate, weaver Miguel
de Soria,
the knives were like this: one large, with two blades, and written
on it in red ink these names: alpha and omega and some names of
God which he cannot remember. And it had black handles, with cer-
tain characters written on them, engraved first with a needle and
then covered with red ink. And the other knife, smaller than the first
and inscribed in the same way [ . . . ] And the other knife was smaller
than either of the two mentioned and inscribed in the same way as
them. And the fourth knife was smaller than any of those mentioned,
and it was narrow and made with four corners, and no bigger than
a comb.29
For the swords, Valdenieso had sought out the man ‘who knew most
about this art and, among them, the one held to be a master [ . . . ]
maestre Joan, the swordsmith whose workshop can be found on the
way towards the Puerta del Carmen’. The four weapons were tempered
in accordance with the instructions given in the Clavicula – in other
words ‘with the blood of a gosling and juice of the pimpernel’30 . Obtain-
ing the parchments, meanwhile, was no less convoluted a task. This one
was entrusted to Miguel de Soria, who had
Sent word to Espinosa, the tailor, that he should kill a pregnant bitch
and should prepare the young from her body [ . . . ] to be used as
parchment and thus he did fetch them from the said Spinosa. And
these parchments, with others made from aborted kids, he did take
[ . . . ] to the parchment maker Luchas to be made into parchments
for use in different experiments and the said [Luchas] did so make
them.31
Magic Circles and Enchanted Treasures 39
The candles needed for the ceremony were sent to Miguel de Soria by
‘Brother Castanyeda, from the Gistain valley, and were from Sanz de
Rogel, a notary in that valley’. The aromatic substances were purchased
by the notary in person (‘Miguel Sanchez bought many materials for
burning at the house of Arrobia, on the edge of the Cedaceria neigh-
bourhood’). Then, once everything was ready, Valdenieso took it all to
Father Joan’s house where the two of them ‘put all the above men-
tioned in a chest and carried it to an upper chamber’. A little later,
Vicente himself took charge of inscribing the knives with the relevant
characters, using vermilion and needles he had brought with him from
Perpignan:
The said Father Joan, on the particular day and at the particular hour
specified for the said experiment, using some needles he had in his
possession, the which he did say he had brought from Perpignan,
carved certain characters on the handles of the said knives and then
wrote on them with vermilion ink using a quill he had taken from
a male gosling and which had to be clean and never used before for
any other purpose.33
The final step before the drawing of the circle was to bless and sanc-
tify all the elements. This involved, firstly, reciting specific psalms and
prayers and, secondly, saying nine Masses over the objects. This task,
naturally enough, fell to Father Joan who, according to Valdenieso,
did say over the knives, over the vermillion, over the perfumes and
over the said parchments and hyssop [ . . . ] some psalms specified in
the said experiment [ . . . ] wearing a stole about his neck [ . . . ] and also
afterwards over some canes [ . . . ] and over some staffs, which canes
and staffs the said Father Joan and this confessant did go and cut
one morning on a particular day and at a particular hour, and did so
in a single stroke, as instructed in the said experiment. And it was
40 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
There was clearly a close connection between astrology and the invoca-
tion of spirits or demons. Heavenly bodies and the souls of the dead were
the chief tools of the necromancer’s trade, so any practitioner worth his
salt had to know not only the names and innate qualities of each and
every spirit and demon but also the precise moment (time and date)
at which to fulfil the necessary conditions to lure them into his magic
circle.35
Numerology too played a key role: the very number of objects or facts
involved in the operation of drawing a magic circle was of great sig-
nificance to its makers and could, in and of itself, provide a route to
understanding all kinds of events. In the case of the experiment under-
taken by our Saragossan necromancers, the number four was of crucial
importance: not only were there four of them, but they collected four
knives, four swords, four dishes for perfume, and so on. In the same
way as a square or a cross, the number four symbolized totality, and also
all that was solid and earthly. Nine, by contrast, (the three times three
present in many magical rites, including the number of Masses to be said
over the items in this example), was considered circular and associated
with the idea of perfection and all things spiritual and celestial.36
The dialectic between the circular and the square, the celestial and
the terrestrial, was reflected in the two phases into which the prepara-
tions for Joan Vicente’s ‘general circle’ were divided. While Jerónimo
de Valdenieso, as a servant, was primarily responsible for gathering
together the necessary material objects (acquiring the four knives and
swords, and transporting everything else), Vicente, as a priest, attended
to the spiritual side of things (the blessings, prayers and, above all, the
‘nine Masses, in accordance with the words of the Clavicula Salomonis’).
To begin with, the servant had done as he was told, but when the others
failed to repay him for the cost of the swords (‘four ducats’), he refused
to hand them over to Father Joan. Furthermore, ‘the said Valdenieso and
Soria quarrelled most bitterly, coming to blows [ . . . ] because each man
claimed to have the better understanding of this art of necromancy’.37
It was this that made Vicente call a halt to the whole affair, afraid that
if these quarrels became public knowledge, their plans would soon be
discovered and they would all be reported to the Inquisition – which is
exactly what happened a short time later. The priest had already given
the blessings required, but had not said the much longer prayers and
Masses, because he wanted the swords brought to him so that he would
Magic Circles and Enchanted Treasures 41
not have to repeat the whole ritual again and again for each object in
turn. As we learn from Valdenieso’s testimony,
Father Joan told him that he wanted to say [the prayers and Masses]
over everything, so that he would not have to say them so many
times over single objects. And afterwards he said that he did not want
to say these prayers and Masses even if he were to bring the swords,
nor did he want any more to do with the said business, because he
had found out that this confessant had quarrelled violently with the
said Soria in the presence of the wife of Lamberto de Soria, his uncle,
and did not want the affair to come to light.38
A man named Father Joan Vicent, cleric of the church of San Pablo in
the city of Saragossa, who had been imprisoned in the great tower of
the Aljaferia [ . . . ] for the crime of necromancy [ . . . ] broke out of the
Aljaferia jail and did leave and flee the highest chamber in the great
tower of the said Aljaferia to which he had been taken and locked
away in this manner: that, at ora capta and by night, he had dis-
lodged some sturdy poles that were acting as a grate and holding
shut the window of said chamber, which did face the moat of the
Aljaferia. And with a cord which he tied to one of these poles, he
had lowered himself from the tower window and escaped and fled
wherever it may have suited him to go.39
The next morning, three jailers, ‘having taken up his food’, called to
him from outside the door as usual, ‘thinking he was there’, and when
‘he made no reply, unlocked the chamber door [ . . . ] and on not find-
ing the said Father Joan Vicente therein [ . . . ] were most astonished’.
42 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
Having searched the tower from top to bottom and found no trace of the
escapee, they went back ‘to investigate and examine the said chamber
in which he had been held’, and discovered ‘on the floor a document
containing threats against the inquisitors [ . . . ] written in the hand of
the said fugitive Father Joan Vicent’. As it turned out, the priest did more
than threaten: having gained his freedom, he ended up in Rome where,
three years later, he succeeded in having the death sentence imposed at
his trial overturned. Not content with that, he launched his own legal
proceedings against the Saragossan inquisitors who had handed down
that sentence, with the result that they were ordered to pay him the
not inconsiderable sum of five hundred ducats, as restitution for the
sequestration of his estate. Not wanting to leave any loose ends, in July
1514 Vicente wrote a letter to a friend of his, Father Jerónimo Cristóbal,
another priest at the church of San Pablo in Saragossa, in which he had
the following to say about those inquisitors:
The last surviving piece of evidence is another letter, this one sent by
one of the inquisitors to a fiscal of the Holy Office in October of that
same year, 1514, part of which reads as follows:
You already know how Father Joan Vicente is proceeding most obdu-
rately in Rome and in truth that it burdens me how badly the affairs
of the Inquisition are being handled in that court of Rome. Our
Lord will right that one day, but in the meantime it is necessary
that we help ourselves by doing what we may to defend the honour
of God.43
Rich in detail and fascinating though they are, the papers relating
to Joan Vicente’s trial44 are just part of the picture of the magical
atmosphere that prevailed in Saragossa’s San Pablo district in the early
sixteenth century. Thanks to a final confession made by Miguel de Soria,
who before he died ‘said that he wished to unburden his conscience of
all that he remembered, both of himself and of other persons’, we know
of the existence of many other individuals in that same quarter of the
city who were directly connected to the world of magic. Several of them
were clergymen; there was Father García, for example, (who together
with Miguel de Soria and Jorge de Rodas ‘had agreed [ . . . ] to carry out
some experiments to find treasures’), and a certain Father Exe (who had
blessed some of the parchments for Vicente et al’s circle). The weaver’s
final testimony also makes mention of a monk known as Brother Miguel
Calderer, who had performed ‘certain experiments’ written on ‘virgin
parchments’, which were later perfumed, and had consecrated a ring
and some candles for the defendant as well. Similarly, Brother Ullate,
another monk, from ‘the order of Preachers’, had said three Masses
‘over some parchments on which some names had been written [ . . . ]
the which were taken from the said Clavicula’.45
As with every other case of magic-circle experimentation or treasure
hunting in Saragossa, all the efforts spearheaded by the restless Vicente
resulted in complete and utter failure. At no moment, however, was
anyone’s faith in the inherent efficacy of spells called into question.
A century later, that would not have been the case – as we shall see,
a perceptible shift in attitude was soon to take place, as a clear line
between deceivers and deceived was drawn in the sand. Although oper-
ations bearing all the hallmarks of ceremonial magic still went on, the
meaning behind them had now changed. Time and time again the same
pattern is repeated: a stranger arrives in the city and inveigles a num-
ber of locals into joining him and meeting in secret on one of the
44 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
nearby hills to conjure demons. Using all the cunning at his disposal,
he relieves his victims of their money but then, once arrested and fac-
ing the inquisitorial judges, confesses to having acted at all times in
the full knowledge that he was deceiving his fellow conspirators, and
admits that he never believed it was possible to make contact with the
devil or any other such thing. Seventeenth-century Saragossa saw a long
line of adventurer-charlatans parade through its judicial system: incom-
ers not only from the neighbouring kingdom of France but also from
Italy, Portugal and Austria, not to mention other parts of Spain such as
Mallorca or Cuenca.46
One of the most notorious of these men, on account of the serious-
ness and far-reaching impact of his deceptions (Philip IV himself and
his favourite, the Count-Duke of Olivares, were among those he man-
aged to fool), was a man named Jerónimo de Liébana.47 In 1620, at the
age of 31, he was tried and found guilty by the Saragossan Inquisition
of having passed himself off as a priest, under the name Juan Calvo,
and of having asserted ‘that he knew many curious things, and in par-
ticular how to bind familiar spirits for various purposes [ . . . ] and that
he had recipes to make himself invisible and to attract women to him
and to win at gambling’, among other things.48 In November 1618, this
pseudo-cleric managed to talk five other men (a real priest, a tailor, a
painter, a law graduate and a notary) into travelling with him by cart
up to the hills of Ejea, north of Saragossa, in order to trace a magic cir-
cle there, having promised to supply each of them with a demon or
‘familiar’ for his own personal use. His victims later admitted what had
motivated them to agree to the plan: the tailor wanted ‘to find the prop-
erty that had been stolen from him’; the painter, ‘to win at gambling’;
the graduate, to conquer ‘a woman whom [he] loved dearly’; the priest,
‘to become invisible [ . . . ], win at gambling and [ . . . ] obtain the favour
of the archbishop’; and, finally, the notary, ‘to win at gambling [ . . . ], to
learn sciences [ . . . ] that they might not harm nor kill him [ . . . ], obtain
women and [ . . . ] learn secret matters’.49
The six men stayed out in the hills for around ten days, their excur-
sion as fraught with danger as it was full of theatrical display. They
camped out in an apiary, sleeping there by night, and spending their
days listening to Masses and invocations performed by Liébana. His
ceremonies combined the sacred and profane, featuring such things
as ‘three he-goat’s horns’, ‘a mock serpent made from the skin of an
unborn pup’ into the mouth of which they put ‘a bone from a child
who had died before being baptized’, ‘a mirror’, ‘surplice and stole’,
Magic Circles and Enchanted Treasures 45
the five witnesses and the defendant went to the hill, where they did
stay for nine or ten days, during which time the defendant each day
said Mass in an apiary, placing a mattress upon some of the hives and
then upon that some cloths, and an altar stone and a cross. And [ . . . ]
on one day he had said three Masses and afterwards had drawn on
the ground a circle and some characters. And he bade them all stand
within the circle, giving each of them a paper bearing the name of
a spirit. And [ . . . ] the defendant did say, and did order all to say:
Vidi angelu descendentem de celo ligantem serpentem et draconem. And as
he said these words he placed a paper inscribed with certain charac-
ters within one of the horns he had blessed and buried it within the
circle [ . . . ].51
once the Mass was over, remained with his alb and stole in place,
and seated on a chair began to say the conjuration, which was very
long. And firstly he invoked Satan and recited more than two hun-
dred other names, which he said were those of demons, and he threw
incense on to the coals. And the substance of the conjuration was to
ask Satan to enter the form of the serpent and answer the questions
that the defendant would put to him. And [ . . . ] while he was reciting
the conjuration, he removed his cincture and whipped the earth with
it, and threw styrax resin on to the ground saying that it would mean
the downfall of the demons.52
that he had no other thought nor other aim than that of taking
money from the witnesses to ease his own poverty [ . . . ], that he
was neither a priest nor had been ordained [ . . . ] and that the titles
of ordination and benefice that he carried with him [ . . . ] were not
his because he had taken them [ . . . ] from a clergyman named Juan
Calvo [ . . . ] That he had said a number of Masses in different places
[ . . . ] where people had heard them and given him alms [ . . . ] And
that never, in all the ceremonies, superstitious acts and conjurations
that he carried out did he have the intention of invoking the Devil or
Magic Circles and Enchanted Treasures 47
Having abjured the said crimes and errors and a number of other
heresies [ . . . ], I do wholeheartedly say and declare and confess that
the invocation and worship of latria and all sacrifice is to be made
and given to Our Creator and the Most Holy Trinity, and the wor-
ship of dulia to saints and rulers, both ecclesiastical and secular [ . . . ]
And I say that the Devil is neither a saint nor a friend of God, but
obdurate in his mischief and wrongdoing. And he has no role in this
world governed by God, but is rather a slave and captive and a falsi-
fier and deceiver of human nature. And that giving him any honour,
sacrifice or worship, latria or dulia, or invoking him, is heretical and
condemned by Holy Mother Church.59
of the Trinitarians and Augustinians, who ‘with their stoles in place and
using holy water did carry out a number of exorcisms’71 , the virgin girl72 ,
the gypsies (renowned for their ability to unearth Moorish treasures)73
and a zahorí 74 from Saragossa, who used a rosary in place of a divin-
ing rod and was able, by naming the figure of 4000 escudos, to get it
to come to a standstill and thus indicate the unequivocal presence of
treasure.75 He had assured the others that there were ‘three earthenware
jars full of money’ somewhere in the house, and his explanation for
their fruitless search was ‘that the jars had moved themselves from that
place’76 . A statement as astonishing as this suggests his fellows must not
only have been incredibly patient but also have had great faith both
in him and in magic. They must have been fairly convinced that what
they were looking for was truly an enchanted treasure or, to use Galician
writer Álvaro Cunqueiro’s wonderful description, some sort of animate
being, which could act of its own free will, even eat or drink, although it
spent most of its time asleep, trusting in its guard and its enchantment
to keep it safe.77
The imagination clearly played a vital role in treasure hunting.78 As
well as bringing purity and virginity (qualities whose importance in
magical operations are discussed above) to the proceedings, the young
girl was also required as a witness to a series of apparitions in a water
bottle (specifically, in this case, a urine flask), as prescribed by manuals
of magic. The girl, ‘named Luisa, [then] 13 or 14 years of age’, was the
daughter of the mistress of the house,
the which said she could see in the urine flask stones of different
colours and some little shapes like worms, and she did see one which
grew larger, with horns on its head and with its genital member erect,
and which looked at her.79
because of her condition, they said would work as well as the girl’.83
However, after they had repeated the ‘urine flask experiment’ more than
30 times, the treasure still remained obstinately hidden.84 According to
one of those who took part in the ceremonies (another Saragossan man,
weaver Agustín Sanz), ‘they dug for 17 days, more or less, but found no
treasure’.85 Agustín was originally in favour of waiting for the Portuguese
man to carry out ‘other measures’, but when doubts were expressed by
two friends of his who were members of the clergy, although he waited a
little longer and never lost hope, ‘once around 10 days more had passed’,
he decided ‘he wanted to go to Béarn in France to seek out other per-
sons who knew about demonic invocations and spells used to uncover
treasure’.86
Like so many other professional fraudsters, Don Luis Gama y
Vasconcellos ultimately confessed to the inquisitors that, in spite of hav-
ing believed for a while – as had ‘the Duke of Savoy, Marquis of Espinola
and other great leaders’ – in the innate powers of the cloth of Cardinal
Bellarmino, ‘that he later was disabused of this’ and, after carrying out
an experiment in which he wounded himself (‘with a dagger blow,
not very hard, to the hand’) to test out the curative powers of his
relic, ‘he ceased to believe in [them]’.87 This acknowledged loss of faith
notwithstanding, he was sentenced to abjure de vehementi, to appear ‘as
a penitent in a public auto de fe [ . . . ] with the insignia of a sorcerer’,
‘to serve at the oars of his Majesty’s galleys without pay for a period of
five years’ and to be permanently exiled from the Saragossa inquisitorial
district.88
Similar cases continued to occur throughout the rest of the century.
In 1642, for example, a Mallorcan man, Jerónimo Juan Ferrer, who was
eventually convicted of being ‘a heretic, diviner and sorcerer’ and sen-
tenced to ten years in the galleys, asserted that in a certain house in
Saragossa there was treasure, including ‘a gold imperial crown, but that
this had to be offered to Our Lady of the Pillar, and he added that
the souls in purgatory had to have part of it’.89 Having extracted pay-
ment from various curious parties, Ferrer decided to draw ‘a round circle,
about a palm and a half wide’, again in the cellar of the house ‘where
he said the treasure lay’ and where there lived a duende, the supposed
guardian of this hoard:
This accused did say that it was true that there was a duende there
[ . . . ] and indicated a wall close to the well in the courtyard, and said
that there was the duende and spirit, and that it was named Burnot,
and that the said spirit was baptized, and that when alive he had
52 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
That he did not know how to remove [the treasure], nor did he
know if it were there. And that he only did these things in order to
retain the friendship of the said people who were asking him to and
were present, in order to get from one the clothing and money he
has already declared; and from the other, the daughter, with whom
the defendant had established a friendship and whom he wished to
marry.91
‘on bread and water’96 and take his place as the lowest member of the
community. The humiliations heaped on those found guilty, who were
frequently scorned and treated as laughing stocks by fellow monks lack-
ing in both compassion and vocation, was probably sufficient penance
for many.
Some succeeded in avoiding, or at least deferring, their court-decreed
fate. Eugenio Bamalera, a Franciscan priest from Oloron (France) who
was tried and sentenced in 1668 to three years’ reclusion in a monastery
of his own order for treasure seeking and possession of forbidden books,
managed to escape and returned to Aragon dressed as a secular cleric and
going by the name of Don Francisco de la Rosa. Having been tempted
by the Clavicula to return to treasure hunting, however, in 1674 he was
sentenced to a further two years’ reclusion in a Franciscan monastery,
this time with the additional ruling that he would be the lowest mem-
ber of the community, deprived of both active and passive voice and
restricted to bread and water every Friday for a year.97
By the mid-seventeenth century, Spain boasted such an abundance of
churchmen expert in the magical arts – particularly treasure-seeking –
that the figure of the clerical necromancer had become a powerful
stereotype, one used as ammunition whenever certain interests were at
stake. In 1641, Pedro Moliner, a Trinitarian monk and professor of theol-
ogy, was tried by the bishop of Lérida for having preached in a personal
and courageous manner. When the details of his case were sent to the
Inquisition in Saragossa, the tribunal acquitted him and set him free,
recognizing ‘the passion with which the bishop had proceeded against
him and that, since he had not erred [ . . . ] the long period he had spent
in prison was sufficient penance’.98 According to the charges brought
against Moliner, he had transgressed the Sixth Commandment by assert-
ing that ‘a man kissing a woman’ or ‘a man looking at a woman’s feet or
legs’99 did not constitute a sin, and on one occasion had also been heard
to say:
You, labourers, what sins can you have! You are not moneylenders or
people involved in dishonest business. Your only sins are those of the
flesh, and those are nothing.100
Graver still, perhaps, was the accusation that he had claimed ‘that the
sacraments of Holy Mother Church were eight [ . . . ] and that the poor
man was the eighth sacrament’.101 The monk himself explained that
what he had meant by this was that alms were to be seen as something
sacred,
54 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
that the Masses said at privileged altars had no determined nor cer-
tain effect, nor did the souls of those for whom Masses were said go
straight to heaven, but required divine acceptance.103
It seems obvious enough that these and other such claims would have
made for uncomfortable listening in certain circles. In any case, accord-
ing to the prosecutor, Moliner’s guilt lay in the fact that he had uttered
‘heretical, erroneous, scandalous, sacrilegious and reckless propositions,
and that he [had] used prohibited superstitions and conjurations’.104 One wit-
ness for the prosecution said Brother Pedro had claimed that people
could have familiar demons and that they were good
[Brother Pedro] had said to him: See now, what first is needed is a
virgin linen garment and a knife made at a particular time and par-
ticular hour [ . . . ] And that also necessary was the hide of a lamb torn
from its mother’s belly. And that the knife had to lie for two weeks
upon an altar and they all had to say Masses over it. And they were
to choose somewhere outside the city, such as a large country house
or tower, where several large circles had to be drawn. And then he
Magic Circles and Enchanted Treasures 55
would say some names from the Clavicula and would invoke some
gods, such that by their power a familiar would appear and would
do his will [ . . . ] And, to make things more certain, he had said that
those who were to be present had to fast for several days. And there
would be thunder, lightning and violent winds. And when this hap-
pened [success] would be more certain, because this was a sign that
everything had been done well and nothing had been overlooked.
And that the way to invoke and summon the familiar was to use a
rod, and certain characters [ . . . ].106
if the Devil knows that a treasure lies hidden beneath the ground of a
certain plot of land or vineyard, and also knows that a poor labourer
has been hired to dig over that plot or that vineyard, he may therefore
think that on such a day that worker would find that treasure.110
Despite the fact that many people were denounced to the courts for hav-
ing found a fortune somewhere and told no one so as to avoid having
to declare their findings to the authorities, the amount of actual trea-
sure ever unearthed must have been negligible. As on so many other
occasions, most, if not all such accusations were false, the result of sup-
position, a fertile imagination, or, most commonly of all, envy of a
friend or neighbour’s prosperity.111 Above and beyond the actual trea-
sure itself, the saga of hunting it down was a chimera, a challenge
fraught with risk, whose reward hardly ever lived up to the dream.112
Folk belief had it that duendes’ treasure hoards were merely illusory –
they might be discovered, but as soon as anyone touched them they
would vanish into thin air.113 Another variation on this theme that
gained widespread currency and was, in effect, a warning against the
perils of avarice, was that when treasure was discovered it would either
turn to coal or take the form of a dragon, giant, lion or some other
terrifying monster.114 Falling somewhere between courageous feat and
injudicious exploit, the tale of most treasure seekers turned out to be
the chronicle of a failure foretold. As Sebastián de Covarrubias wrote in
the prologue to his famous dictionary:
If magic could bring you untold material wealth, it could also bring
you love – or so many believed. And if not love, at least obedience
and compliance. Finding treasure by magical means was a formidable
task, but did just about lie within the realm of the achievable. Attempt-
ing to subjugate another person’s will to one’s own, however, was nigh
on impossible. Nevertheless, there is far more surviving evidence relat-
ing to what is known as erotic or love magic than to any other type of
money-making magic. So widespread were practices designed to obtain
love through enchantment that, as reflected in many literary works of
the age,3 people began to think in terms of the duality of love. On the
one hand, there was pure or idealized love, based on generosity and
respect, in which spiritual communion between lovers was understood
as a joining together, and not as possession; this was a love that would
bring happiness, sometimes even a contemplative and ineffable state of
constant renewal. On the other, there was the tormented, discordant,
impatient love that held one in thrall to needs and impulses not met or
reciprocated by the object of one’s affections. The anxiety and despair
caused by this form of love led many to seek help by magical means.
58
Magic for Love or Subjugation 59
The idealized love known as fin’ amors or courtly love had made its first
appearance in Western culture in the mid-twelfth century, when the
troubadours of Provence began to laud a kind of relationship between
a man and a woman far more sophisticated than that which had gov-
erned the norms of chivalric love hitherto. As their lyrics became known
across Europe, people became aware of the concept of an abstract, intel-
lectual form of love that could prevail over physical desire, and of the
possibility of achieving a state of exaltation inspired not so much by
the beloved as by love itself, which would at times require a lover to
show huge self-restraint before allowing him moments of shared delight
with his lady. Despite placing such high value on personal virtue, in
1277 the troubadours’ amorous doctrine was condemned by the Church
as heretical: its glorification of desire, together with a notion of an
all-encompassing love that acknowledged the mutual tolerance of con-
tinence and lust, was simply irreconcilable with a Christian morality
based on the total denial of sensuality.4
Ecclesiastical opposition notwithstanding, the new ideas about love
expressed in troubadour lyrics continued to take root and spread across
Europe, to the point that with time they became commonplace in any
work of art dealing with matters of the heart. With this in mind, it is
fascinating to observe how in the Tragicomedia de Calixto y Melibea, bet-
ter known as La Celestina (regarded by many as the first Spanish, and
probably the first European novel5 ), the two varieties of love – the pure
and the tormented – are constantly pitted against one another. Despite
declaring an idealized or courtly love for his lady at the start of the book
(‘Melibean am I and I adore Melibea and believe in Melibea and love
Melibea’6 ), Calixto himself soon ends up seeking out a sorceress who
may be able to provide relief for his all-consuming passion. As noted
by Otis H. Green, ‘courtly love permitted and expected the mediations
of the friend or confidant, but not of the pander’.7 Calixto fails to resist
the temptation to avail himself of Celestina’s evil arts to compel Melibea
to love and surrender herself to him, and therefore not only employs
means forbidden by Christian morality but also commits the gravest of
offences against the code of courtly love, namely giving in to his des-
perate lovesickness. This, for many scholars, is the cause of the novel’s
tragic ending and the destruction of the lovers’ happiness.
Be that as it may, perhaps the most surprising thing from our perspec-
tive is that at no time are the procuress’s powers and the efficacy of her
work called into question. Leaving aside the disastrous consequences
that ensue from Calixto’s recourse to magic, Celestina’s enchantment
works like a charm: in line with the belief in philocaptio (a spell to induce
60 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
I very well know that no sorcery in the world can affect or force the
will, as some ignorant credulous persons fondly imagine: for our will
is a free faculty, and no herb nor charms can constrain it. As for
philtres and such like compositions which some silly women and
designing pretenders make, they are nothing but certain mixtures
and poisonous preparations, that make those who take them run
mad; though the deceivers labour to persuade us they can make one
person love another; which, as I have said, is an impossible thing, our
will being a free, uncontrollable power.14
And to the question about the things she had done and her credence
in them, she said she had not believed in any of them.19
And to the question of credence [she said] that she had never believed
nor understood that the effects the accused promised by her words
and deeds might be worked, but that she said them to deceive and
obtain money, and that she had always believed and still believed
that only God could do and dispose that which might be in his
greater service.20
That [all] was false and that only to please and because she feared the
graduate Estampa [ . . . ] had she done it.21
That on many occasions she had read the palms of different persons
as a form of entertainment [ . . . ] but that she had never believed there
was any truth in it.22
That she had never believed that the devil had the power to control
anyone’s will, nor that the said matters could take effect, nor did
she know there to be any pact, implicit or explicit, about them, for
before she had held them to be vain and without foundation, and
she always did them with the intent to deceive the said woman.23
That she had held and believed, and does believe as a good Catholic,
that all the things mentioned were bad and superstitious, and that
only with the grace of God and his help can she find peace with the
said man, her husband.24
Despite affirmations such as these, the truth is that people clearly did
have considerable faith in erotic magic in sixteenth- and seventeenth-
century Saragossa, as is revealed by the quantity of legal evidence that
has survived to the present day.25 Although it impinged on the lives
Magic for Love or Subjugation 63
of both men and women, here as in the rest of Spain and elsewhere,26
the majority of those who practised this kind of magic were female
(of the 56 defendants whose cases are referenced here, only eight were
male). In a male-dominated society, the emphasis within female magic
on subjugating men represented in essence a form of revenge, or at
least a way of counterbalancing male violence. The fact that this exer-
cise of retaliation took place more often in the realm of the imaginary
than in the real world does not necessarily detract from its ultimate
effectiveness.
The efficacy of erotic magic did not hinge on the success of its spells.
As many of its practitioners recognized, just as treasure-seeking expe-
ditions proved fruitless, the many charms and formulas designed to
lure a new lover or recapture a straying spouse also ended in failure,
however many times they were put to the test. Love magic’s principal
functions were, in fact, to enable people to give free expression to their
cravings and desires, to provide a form of catharsis for the desperate
and, above all, to create an emotional support network among members
of one gender facing the insoluble problems of communicating with
those of the other. As far as women were concerned, female solidarity
and complicity could be accessed via a whole host of their sisters with
expertise in all kinds of charms and spells – enchantments which could
be employed as a last resort in the most desperate of situations. Very
often the reason for resorting to love magic was not so much to attract
the sexual attentions of a new man, but simply to re-establish friendly
relations between husbands and wives. The 1651 case of Jerónima de
Torres, who was so determined to be reconciled with her husband that
she consulted a number of different women across the city of Saragossa
in the hope of finding a solution to her problems, speaks volumes on
the subject:
Illustration 3.1 All will fall (Capricho No. 19), Francisco de Goya, 1799. A scene
linked to the world of prostitution and love magic. The bird-woman acts as a lure
to the bird-men of all kinds (soldiers, peasants and monks) who flutter around
the tree. While the procuress prays for them to fall, the other women pluck
their victim, make him vomit and remove his innards, just as hunters do with
game birds. A clear allusion to the desire of many women to exploit the material
fortune of the men they seek to seduce. By permission of the Fundación Juan
March (Madrid).
65
Illustration 3.2 Plucked, they go on their way (Capricho No. 20), Francisco de Goya,
1799. A companion piece to the previous work: once the bird-men have been
plucked – or fleeced – they are swept out by two women while a pair of rosary-
telling monks look on in approval. By permission of the Fundación Juan March
(Madrid).
66 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
After this experience with the beans, Jerónima decided to move back
in with her husband, placing her faith in the sorceress’s arts, but before
long she was suffering ‘the same bother with him’, and so returned ‘to
talk to the said Ana [ . . . ] and tell her her troubles that she might be able
to offer her a remedy, even were it to prove most laborious’. This time,
Jerónima was advised to feed her husband ‘a small portion of donkey
brains’, but husband and wife remained at daggers drawn.28 By her own
account, however, Jerónima’s determination never faltered. Setting out
on a kind of pilgrimage, she first sought out the help of another woman
(‘Ana Francisca told her that she would give her some holy water from
the fonts of San Pablo, [Our Lady of] the Pillar, La Seo and San Gil to
make her husband love her and do what she wished’). After ‘having
given that water to the said man her husband to drink, and thrown dust
on his head without his seeing, the water and dust did seem to have
had an effect on him, because her husband had been more peaceable
[ . . . ] until new quarrels had arisen between them’.29 This time Jerónima
took herself off to the home of a certain Magdalena ‘who had a great
friend who knew a great deal [ . . . ] thanks to charms or the devil’s art,
and the said Magdalena and this woman went to see her, and her name
was Isabel Francisca’.30 Nor did the matter end there because, according
to Jerónima’s own confession, ‘the other day her curiosity had impelled
her to speak’ to another woman named Elena, to whom she ‘revealed
the quarrels she was having with the said man her husband and that
she longed for peace, by whatever means that might be achieved’.31
Elena’s response had been to give her ‘a small piece of a consecrated
altar stone and a scrap of consecrated bread from the midnight Mass
[ . . . ] the which she told her to give her husband to eat with the rest of
his meal’.32
Leaving aside for now the symbolic significance of the substances con-
tained in the charms and rituals that women hoped would bring them
love, what really lay behind the fact that so many defendants had been
caught up in endless comings and goings around Saragossa in search of
a cure for their unhappiness was a kind of socially acceptable inability
to understand the opposite sex. This lack of fellow feeling can also be
seen in the men involved in love magic, although, as has been noted
in other studies on the subject, there was an obvious and fundamental
difference between what men and women wanted. While women were
looking to hold on to or boost their partners’ love for them, most men
wished to arouse sexual desire in women and then sleep with them as
soon as possible.33 Male love magic abounds in references to women in
the plural – in other words it was, generally speaking, the opportunity
Magic for Love or Subjugation 67
Illustration 3.3 That dust (Capricho No. 23), Francisco de Goya, 1799. A sorcerer
tried by the Inquisition. One of Goya’s own explanatory comments reads as
follows: ‘Perico, the Cripple, who gave dust to lovers’. By permission of the
Fundación Juan March (Madrid).
for sex itself that mattered, rather than sex with a particular chosen
partner (‘the said defendant had told him how he had some remedies
written in a notebook that would make women love him’34 ; ‘that in
order to obtain women and bring about other amatory consequences he
68 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
Having made his conquest, however, Aguado found himself faced with
a mistress who now wished to marry him, and so decided to come up
with a new magic-based ruse to extricate himself from the situation. All
the while continuing the sexual relationship with his lover, the young
surgeon pretended to cast certain spells to try and murder his wife so
that he would be free to marry again:
And [ . . . ] the said woman having persuaded this man that he should
kill his wife so that he could marry her, he had told her that he would
do it, and that by throwing a little alum and salt from [the hide of] a
piglet into the fire, his wife would die of a fever. And [ . . . ] he threw it
into the fire in the presence of the said woman whom he desired in
order to deceive her. And [ . . . ] on another occasion, when this man’s
wife was sick with the croup, he told the said woman that he would
make a wax figure which he would garrotte, and this would kill her,
but he had had no other intent but to deceive her in order to get
what he wanted.39
By contrast with the episodic nature of male erotic magic, the love
rituals carried out by women involved their protagonists living out
genuine personal dramas. Take, for example, the brief missive sent by
one woman to a morisca sorceress named Isabel Gombal (who lived in
the Las Doncellas alleyway in the heart of Saragossa’s Moorish quar-
ter, and had a constant queue of clients at her door, despite the fact
that she had been sentenced by the Holy Office in 1597 to wear
the penitential sanbenito for several years thereafter).44 In this anony-
mous letter, the sender underlined the terrible unhappiness she was
experiencing:
As we are about to see from an analysis of the key rituals of female love
magic, externalizing one’s own anxieties came to be the first step in find-
ing a cure for the disease of ‘lovesickness’, seen by doctors at the time
as a genuine illness, with its own specific symptoms and remedies.46
Although most treatise writers of the day advocated simply partaking in
sexual relations with the man in question as the safest form of treatment
(as long as one abided by the restrictions imposed by Christian mores
as regards the monogamous, heterosexual and indissoluble nature of
marriage), other, more widely recommended remedies encompassed all
kinds of distractions and therapeutic activities, including baths, good
food and drink, refreshing sleep, games, travel, conversations with close
friends and, above all, the cultivation of music as the ideal means by
which to restore harmony to both body and mind.47
And yet, although these were the treatments emphasized by official
medicine (whose representatives considered lovesickness to be a vari-
ant of the wider malaise of melancholy48 ), none of them had any place
in the world of female magic. Instead, the latter came to represent an
active alternative to the passive acceptance implicit in official medical
advice. Echoing the widespread belief among folk healers and sorcer-
ers that it was possible to free oneself from any ill by transferring it to
other people,49 devotees of love magic were set on transmitting their
Magic for Love or Subjugation 71
Illustration 3.4 Hush (Capricho No. 28), Francisco de Goya, 1799. A respectable
lady employs the services of a procuress, a seemingly devout old woman whose
rosary dangles from her wrist. By permission of the Fundación Juan March
(Madrid).
symptoms to the men they desired, because they saw this as the only
way to alleviate their own suffering.50
With this in mind, then, just as medical discourse referred to the
symptoms of melancholy presenting themselves as sleeplessness, loss of
72 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
The said Francisca did say that [ . . . ] she would give sleepless nights
for fifteen dineros, three times a week for anyone who asked her to
do so, and that this defendant did this so that any man who had left
a woman would speak to that woman again [ . . . ] and that when she
cast the spell the man would be raging all night long, thinking of her
and craving the sight of her.54
The defendant did cast spells for sleepless nights on many occasions,
standing at a window, between eleven and twelve at night, and would
say: ‘So-and-so, giving the name of the man she was bewitching, you
shall have bad nights, I send you them from God, the bed in which
you lie shall be made of thorns, your sheets made of nettles, from
below the bed you shall hear a thousand whistling creatures’, and
other words that were not heard, in order to make a man go to a
particular woman.55
Magic for Love or Subjugation 73
the said Teresa did also say that the window had to be slammed shut
in anger.56
The dramatization of desire was not always played out by the inter-
ested parties themselves. Other objects, such as beans or cards, were
often used to portray the protagonists in failed love affairs. One of the
most frequently used charms, known as the ‘spell or casting of beans’ –
seemingly a simple method of divination – possessed a undeniably
propitiatory character, revealing once again magical practitioners’ deep-
rooted belief in the power of representing human emotions in some
sort of material form. As mentioned above, in 1651, Jerónima de Torres
visited a woman named Ana de Cartagena, who was herself ill in bed
at the time, in order to consult her about her emotional troubles. As
Jerónima’s testimony relates, Ana had cast the beans and treated them
as if they were characters in a kind of puppet show:
Before her, without any other person being present, the said Ana did
take some beans that she had with her in her sickbed, she did not
know how many in number, although it seems to her it could have
been two dozen. And that they all had different meanings, the which
she did not know [ . . . ] and the said Ana told her that one signified
this woman’s husband; and another his lover; and another a table;
and another a bed. And in this way she named all of them. And that
before throwing them she spoke to the beans in secret and [the wit-
ness] did not hear nor know what she said to them, and she threw
them on to the bed in the same way as one throws dice [ . . . ] And after
having thrown them she did explain each one and point to them
with her finger [ . . . ] interpreting the meaning of each one in turn.58
Although the witness could not say for sure exactly how many
beans had been involved, we know that among sorceresses in the
Mediterranean region it was common practice to throw exactly 18,
split into two handfuls of 9.59 The number 9, of course, had particular
74 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
and she did give her eighteen, which she said were nine male and
nine female; and half a bean which represented the bed; and a scrap
of bread, which she said stood for food; a little cochineal, for blood; a
little alum, for sorrow; some coal, for the night; some wax, for belong-
ings; a little silver coin, for abundant riches; a copper coin, for lack
of money; a little salt, for taste; a blue cloth, for the heavens; and a
little palm leaf, for good luck.64
Individual diviners would follow this basic pattern, but incorporate their
own personal touches. So, for example, Gracia Andreu, who preferred
her 18 beans to be black,
would take the beans, nine male and nine female, which she could
tell apart because the male were pointed and the female blunt, with a
dimple on the blunt end, and, putting them in her left hand, would
cup her right hand and fill it with holy water, and throwing it over
the beans would say: I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And when she had done this with the
Magic for Love or Subjugation 75
water three times and repeated those words the same number of times
after baptizing them, she would indicate the beans representing the
gentleman and lady for whom she was casting them, and if there were
more people, she indicated more beans to learn if they were loved, if
they would come into possession of money and other things.65
The fact that such humble objects as beans could determine the emo-
tions and expectations of countless women with an unwavering belief
in their oracular power brings us back to the fundamental role played
in magic by the imagination. In the specific case of female erotic magic,
the use made of all kinds of domestic elements (be it a door, window,
hearth, bed, broom or even the beans themselves, the utmost example
of simplification) shows just how strong a desire there was to invest the
home, that limited space in which women rather than men held sway,
with some level of enhanced significance.66 There was, clearly, an entire
culture at work here, separate from if coexisting with its ‘official’ coun-
terpart, a culture far more complex than it might at first sight appear.
As Guido Ruggiero has highlighted in his fascinating study of love magic
in late sixteenth-century Venice,
many Saragossan households, often for reasons other than the purely
decorative.70 According to Isabel Francisca de Mota’s trial summary,
The decoration mentioned was, in fact, one of the many services offered
by experts in love magic to their desperate female clients. One witness
in the case of Felicia Figueras accused her of having
planted valerian with coral, gold and silver at the roots so that
women would have good fortune with men.72
As with most of the spells aimed at subjugating a man’s will, the sor-
ceress’s preparation and embellishment of a valerian plant was only the
first step in the process. Equally important was its subsequent care by
the woman who acquired it, for which the instructions varied from case
to case. According to Felicia’s own statement, a friend of hers,
so that a man with whom she was having relations would love her
and so that he would continue those relations, grew some valerian
plants for her and told her that they were male and female and that
as long as the male shrub did not become female, the man would
continue the relations. And that she had to give them white wine on
Mondays and water on the other days. And [ . . . ] the defendant kept
these plants for many days.73
Valerian plants were just one of the many everyday items in women’s
lives whose symbolism outweighed the practical use for which, in the-
ory, they were designed. Something as simple as a few scraps of food
(usually bread, cheese or meat) could be a sacrilegious offering to the
demons who, taking the form of dogs, came to eat them before offering
their services to one in need.76 Shoes, with their erotic connotations,
were another form of offering frequently used by sorceresses,77 as were a
whole range of household items associated with the idea of coercion
(needles, nails, ribbons, ropes and so on)78 . Similarly, anything that
could be related to the concepts of binding, subjugation or restraint was
considered especially useful when it came to the tricky task of reunit-
ing something that had been broken or divided, whether physically or
psychologically, while any element that had either been in contact with
the person in question (items of clothing, generally speaking) or, better
still, had actually been part of that person’s body (hair, nails, semen,
menstrual blood) was assumed to possess a special power that could be
used, if need be, to enslave his will. Indeed a fundamental belief shared
by practitioners of all kinds of magic was that two beings or objects
that had once been connected would continue to exert an uninterrupted
influence on one another.79
When looking at cases of ‘image magic’, the documentary evidence
provides numerous examples not only of the needles and other such
objects mentioned above which were used in spells of coercion of or
injury to another but also repeated allusions to fire and flames, into
which would be thrown all kinds of objects (wax figures, pieces of
fruit, eggs and so on), the idea being the blaze that caught hold of
them would also capture the heart of the man at whom the magic was
aimed:
She made a wax image in the name of the said Father Miguel and
stuck needles [ . . . ] into the said image’s head and all its limbs and a
piece of wire into its neck [ . . . ] The same Aznara made another image
[ . . . ] in the name of the same Father Miguel [ . . . ] and broke it into
pieces and threw them into the fire, and there they did burn.80
78 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
So that certain persons would love them well [ . . . ] she threw the eggs
into the fire and they burst. And they said that the heart of the person
for whom they were blinded would burn as that egg had burned.83
Allusions to erotic passion were sometimes far more explicit, with the
genitals themselves, rather than the heart, appearing as symbols of
uncontrollable desire:
This accused did burn many and repeated times alum and flasks [ . . . ]
with the aim of arranging friendships and other effects [ . . . ] and [ . . . ]
would indicate some objects related to the people on whose account
she was burning them. And she formed a man’s genital member with
testicles red in colour and other things it has. And the defendant
said it was a sign that the man wanted to have carnal relations with
the woman or that he loved her [ . . . ] and that the bubbling in the
flasks signified the feelings of the lover which were boiling in the
same way.84
As for ‘contact magic’, most of its practitioners used parts of their own
bodies, rather than of those they were trying to attract. Since most of
these charms were worked by women, their formulas tend to list hair
(especially from the armpits or pubic areas), nails and menstrual blood,
all of which were added to the food or drink of the man in question.
Acording to Ana de Yuso, both María de Espinosa (her mistress) and
Jerónima de San Miguel
had washed their chemises, and they mixed the menstrual blood that
came from them with pepper and gave it to the men who came to
their homes, so that they would love them well.85
From Felicia Figueras’s trial summary, we learn that she had asked a
certain woman
to give her the clippings of her fingernails and toenails, her menstrual
blood, hair from her upper and lower parts, and the defendant would
Magic for Love or Subjugation 79
prepare it all to be put into the food and drink of a man to whom the
said woman was talking so that he would love her very well.86
Men’s erotic magic was based on exactly the same principles. Carlos
de Federicis, as we saw earlier, advised a client to add his semen to
a woman’s food if he wanted to sleep with her, as well as claiming
that anointing a woman’s clothes with holy chrism was a surefire way
of obtaining her favours.87 Male charms, however, employed conse-
crated objects far more often than did the female equivalent, and nearly
always in conjunction with the written word, something almost entirely
absent from female spells. Hence, for example, Antonio Poyanos, a priest
at the church of San Juan el Viejo in Saragossa, was denounced for
fabricating
Jorge Nuñez, a Portuguese physician and expert in love magic, also used
to avail himself of all kinds of documents for his own purposes (‘a little
document tied to the right arm’, ‘a prayer’, ‘a prayer card’). Furthermore,
according to the witnesses who gave evidence against him,
Male practitioners of magic had learned more from books than circle-
drawing and treasure seeking. As part of his campaign to win the
affections of his future mistress, Miguel Melchor Aguado, the Saragossan
surgeon we met earlier trying to convince the lady in question that
he had the power to become invisible, had used ‘a little book by
Albertus Magnus, De secretis et virtute plantarum et lapidum’. Having
read this,
he had taken a henbane root and carried it with him for some two
months. And [ . . . ] he had also taken a sieve and, hanging it from his
fingers in the air, he had said to it: ‘I exhort you [ . . . ] to tell me the
80 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
that, when this witness gave her a strand of hair from the girl he
loved, she would use it to perform a novena to Our Lady of the
Pillar, and would make the girl whose hair it was love the witness
dearly.100
Despite the Virgin’s favoured status among the people of Saragossa, how-
ever, there were several saints who played a much more prominent
role in love magic, as they did in other parts of the Iberian peninsula
as well. The most notable addressees of the orations quoted in court
(as noted by François Delpech, many love charms adopted the falsely
innocent appearance of pseudo-prayers101 ) were St Martha, St Helen and
St Christopher. This is by no means coincidental – these martyrs’ life
stories singled them out as suitable mediators. St Martha, for example,
had developed a strangely ambivalent reputation in Iberia. Legend had
it that she had defeated and captured a dragon – the Tarasque – in a
wood near the River Rhône, thereby liberating the local community
from a constant threat of death and destruction, but whereas Provençal
tradition, in which the story was deeply rooted, made a clear distinc-
tion between Martha and the dragon, in Hispanic culture many of the
monster’s malign qualities were somehow attributed to the saint instead.
And it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Martha also became
confused with the sinner Mary Magdalene, that most erotic figure in
the Christian pantheon, who was sometimes thought to be Martha’s
sister.102
Hence, on the one hand, some ‘prayers’ invoke Martha’s power for
good, a force capable of mastering demons:
Martha, Martha,
’tis to the wicked one I speak,
not the holy one:
she who flies through the air,
she who was put in chains
and because of whom our father Adam sinned,
and we all have sinned;
to the demon of the bench,
the demon of the stump,
the demon of the well,
and to he who frees the prisoner
and accompanies the hanged man,
to the lame devil,
to the devil of the meat market
and the slaughterhouse devil,
may you all gather together
and enter the heart of X,
or fight him with blood and fire,
that naught may he do
till he come and find me [ . . . ].104
At the trial of Saragossan woman Gracia Andreu, the court heard how
she would recite, while chewing nine mouthfuls of bread and nine of
cheese,
I am not eating bread and cheese, but the heart and feelings of
so-and-so [ . . . ] and she would put them beneath her right foot, and
she would say three Our Fathers and three Ave Marias and three
Gloria Patris. And while she was speaking, she would tread on these
mouthfuls three times and continue by saying:
and she would throw them out of the window, the bread to one side
and the cheese to the other, saying: I am not throwing bread and
cheese, but the heart and feelings of so-and-so. And then she would
call on Barabbas, Satan and Lucifer: Let them come and eat up this
bread and this cheese, if so-and-so is to come or to love so-and-so,
and if not, may no one come. And the dogs would either come or
not, and the defendant does not know whether they were dogs, or
demons.105
when speaking with another person [ . . . ] the said defendant had said
that he had certain remedies written in a notebook that would make
women love him. And when the said other person replied that he
had other such remedies, they did share their knowledge and did give
each other the notebooks in which these were written [ . . . ] and that
to work this love magic he had a prayer card of St Martha the size of
half a sheet of paper and, on the other side, handwritten, a prayer to
St Martha.109
that when she wanted some man with whom she had had relations
to speak to her again, she should go and perform a novena before a
portrait of St Christopher which is in a chapel of the Basilica of Our
Lady of the Pillar. And that she had to take two candles and leave
them lit until they burned out. And that on each day of the novena
she had to recite thirty-three credos: the thirty for the time that he
had spent in the desert, and the three for the three cries uttered by
86 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
This unusual novena (with the requirement to recite 297 credos: nine
times 33, a number used in many rituals because it was the age at
which Christ had died and thus had special significance) was inspired
by the key legend associated with St Christopher, which tells of how
after speaking with a Canaanite king he had the idea ‘of going in quest
of the greatest prince in the world and staying with him’.113 Having
entered the service of a powerful king who then proved to be afraid of
the devil, he set out once more in search of the latter, and eventually
found him in a desert. He agreed to serve this new master with all his
might, but before long discovered that Satan too lived in fear of a more
powerful man named Christ. Leaving Satan, in search of this Christ, he
met a hermit who advised him to serve the Lord by helping travellers
cross a perilous river (Christopher was a man of gigantic stature). This
he did, and one day heard the sound of a child’s voice calling out for
help three times (the ‘three cries’ mentioned at Felicia’s trial). At the
child’s request, Christopher lifted him on to his shoulders to carry him
to the far bank, ‘but little by little the water grew rougher and the child
became as heavy as lead’.114 Nonetheless, Christopher summoned all
his strength and managed to carry his charge, none other than Christ
himself, to dry land and safety. The Lord then told him to plant in the
earth the staff he used to help him cross the river, and the next day
Christopher discovered it had blossomed and borne fruit: testimony to
his having found and served the greatest master in the world.
There is no way of knowing how much of the detail of this story was
known to the accused, but there is certainly a striking parallel between
the ‘three cries’ uttered by Christ to the saint and the instruction to ask
Christopher to utter three cries ‘within the heart of the man [ . . . ] that
he might come and speak to her’, in an attempt to end the metaphorical
deafness of someone ignoring a lover’s request for contact.
While some called on the saints, however, far more people chose
to invoke the spirits of the underworld, home to Satan and his infi-
nite cohort of demons, but also to various other figures who enjoyed
less than savoury reputations but were thought to be highly versed in
Magic for Love or Subjugation 87
that when she was working magic with the hearts she would say:
I conjure you by Doña María de Padilla and all her company and by
the lame devil, who is a good companion.122
88 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
Despite his disability, or perhaps precisely because of it, the lame devil
was said to be the fleetest demon in hell. He was therefore seen as the
ideal messenger for anyone wishing to attract the attentions of some-
one far away. There was moreover a widespread association between
lameness and lechery in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which
undoubtedly had much to do with this particular spirit’s inclusion in
the vast majority of love-inspired demonic conjurations.123 Other infer-
nal beings feature heavily too, however, particularly those seen as being
among the ranks of senior demons, such as Satan, Barabbas, Lucifer or
Beelzebub (who were, in spite of this status, still treated as servants
or familiar spirits bound to do the will of the person invoking them).
According to one of the accusations levelled at Ana de Yuso during her
trial by Saragossa’s inquisitorial court, she had stood by the fireplace and
recited a spell to make a man return home, assuring her client
that she would not be hurt, that good pages had sent her, that her
lover, with whom she had quarrelled, would soon return. And she
declared that the pages were Satan, Barabbas and Lucifer, and the
other demons of their company.124
Specifying particular spirits in this way was rare, however, and it is far
more common to find allusions to demons in general or, in line with
the polarizing logic of erotic magic and its tendency to assign a gender
to both animate and inanimate objects, to such ambiguous figures as
the so-called diablesa, or ‘she-devil’.128 There was also, as noted earlier,
a very widespread belief that demons were in the habit of adopting the
form of stray cats or dogs, meaning there was always the chance that one
Magic for Love or Subjugation 89
might just run into them,129 or that one could summon them without
even leaving the house, luring them to a window by the simple means
of scattering scraps of food – an offering in exchange for which these
animal-demons would lend their services to the woman who had cast
the spell. Ana de Yuso, for instance, had recommended to one of her
clients that
in order to make a man love her well, she should take a little cheese
and bread and meat and chew them all together in her mouth and
make three mouthfuls. And between the hours of eleven and twelve
at night she should throw them out into the street and say some
words that she knew. And she would see a large goat or dog come,
and when it came that would be a sign that the man would then rise
from his bed and come to her house.130
are suffering, and the impossibility of their providing for themselves the
remedy they require’.133 Other writers were also keen to underline the
great favours that grateful souls in purgatory would dispense in return
for the prayers said on their behalf. José Pavia, for example, assured his
readers that any souls ‘who, by our intercession, have risen from the
torments of Purgatory to enjoy the joys and delights of Glory [ . . . ] shall
not stint in their gratitude, nor cease in their entreaties to God that he
deliver us from the ills of body and soul’.134
The widely held belief that souls in purgatory were powerless, forsaken
and needy lay at the heart of the many petitions made to them, ask-
ing them to resolve love-related problems as thorny as that affecting a
certain Father Francisco Jinober. This clergyman, according to Jerónima
Torrellas, had come to her house to tell her
that he felt himself bound, that he could not have [carnal] access to
a woman with whom he had had relations, [at which] the defendant
told him he should say a Mass to the souls in Purgatory and should
take a gold ring like those given by bridegrooms to brides when they
hear the nuptial Mass and should urinate through it, and that by
doing so he would feel well again.135
Offering Masses for souls in purgatory was, in fact, the suffrage usu-
ally recommended by the representatives of the Church as part of
their counter-reformist campaign of promoting the Eucharist. As has
already been seen, however, the popularity of said sacrament was
spreading into areas where it was used for less spiritual ends, here
echoed in Jerónima’s mention of a ring blessed as part of the wed-
ding Mass, but which in this particular case is clearly being used
to represent the female genitals and thus apparently assuming a
symbolic-therapeutic function.
that she should stand at the window before the bell tolled for the
souls in purgatory and, while fixing her gaze on one of the stars,
should say: I am come to seek you that you may fulfil my need. And
she should say five Our Fathers and five Ave Marias, and five Salves,
Magic for Love or Subjugation 91
with five Credos, and offer them up for all souls in purgatory. And
then she should say: Blessed souls, I neither give these [prayers] to
you nor do I take them away, but do leave them among the skirts
of the Most Holy Virgin until I hear tell of my husband. And that
this woman had to do this three times each week, on Mondays,
Wednesdays and Fridays.136
The connection drawn in this testimony between a star and the souls
of the dead harks back to one of the concepts of Classical Antiquity,
namely that the stars were home to divine beings. Such pagan rem-
iniscences were common in love magic, and are very evident in this
particular context given how many women casting spells of this type
clearly believed that souls in purgatory lived in the stars.137 It is also
worth remembering that this notion did not contradict the official
ecclesiastical definition of purgatory, which held that it could be as
much a state of mind as it could an actual place, as yet undefined
despite the brave attempts of many theologians to give it material form
and locate it geographically somewhere in the depths of the earth,
close to hell itself, as if it were some kind of remand centre for the
underworld.138
An ambiguity similar to that which shrouded the dividing line
between official and popular religion emerges when we consider one
of the ‘characters’ most frequently cited in love spells. This was the
so-called ‘Anima sola’, or ‘lonely soul’; in other words, the most
neglected and helpless soul in purgatory, one to whom no one paid
any attention at all and who, as a consequence, might well turn out
to be the most grateful to anyone who chose to offer her their prayers
of intercession.139 According to what Gracia Andreu told the Saragossa
inquisitors when she appeared before the tribunal, she had
said a prayer to the Anima Sola, all of which is very good and in
which nothing bad is said, and which has always to be recited at the
hour of eleven o’clock at night and goes as follows:
advised [that woman] to say a novena for the loneliest soul in the
larger chapel of the church in this city, and that she should offer it
by saying that just as she wished to see herself in the skirts of the
Virgin, so she wished for that man to come and speak to her again.
And that on the last day she should give a real for a Mass to be said
for the loneliest soul and that when she went to hear the said Mass,
she was to say: Lonely soul, help me and I shall help you.142
Such practices were not so very far removed from those that appeared
in the pages of certain treatises on purgatory sanctioned by due eccle-
siastical licence, such as that of Brother José Pavía, which stated that
it was permissible to offer ‘the holy sacrifice of the Mass, or commu-
nion, or any good work, for five kinds of souls, the which will often
intercede on our behalf’. The first of these five was ‘the most lonely and
forsaken soul’. And, according to the subsequent commentary, ‘having
been deserted, she is most inclined towards charity, and thus also clearly
will be grateful to us in heaven’.143 It is also worth noting that among
Magic for Love or Subjugation 93
the cycles of Masses said for the dead listed in wills of the period, there
was one expressly dedicated to the ‘Anima sola’.144
Official Catholic theology held that the geography of the afterworld
was divided into heaven, hell, purgatory and limbo,145 and in no way
countenanced the idea that the souls of the dead might go anywhere
other than one of these four destinations. The imagination of the faith-
ful, however, was open to a far wider range of possibilities.146 In fact, the
most popular souls among magical practitioners in general (and those
who dealt in love magic in particular) were those of the hanged, whose
journey’s end was by no means certain in the minds of the majority.
While hell was assumed to be the natural destination of both those who
voluntarily chose to put an end to their own lives147 and those con-
demned by the courts, there was also a centuries-old belief that those
who met a violent death remained linked for a long time to the earthly
world and, especially, to their corpses, which were impervious to any
expiatory funeral rites.148 Hence many enchanters’ interest in getting
hold of some object that had been in contact with a gallows victim
while he or she was still alive, whether it be the noose itself or, bet-
ter still, actual body parts – teeth, fingers, bones – in which, it was
believed, the deceased’s spirit remained, making them very useful ingre-
dients for all kinds of spells. In the case of love magic, there was also
a concomitant association with the symbology of subjugation linked to
death by asphyxiation and embodied in the hangman’s noose, which
had the ultimate control over another person’s will, ending the life of
those unfortunate enough to find themselves having it slipped around
their necks.
There are a plethora of references in Saragossan testimony to this
thirst for victims’ heads, fingers and teeth or lengths of rope from the
scaffold, the procurement of which often proved no easy task.149 When
Ana de Yuso made her confession to the city’s inquisitorial tribunal in
1586, she told how she and a certain Jerónima de San Miguel
had gone one night to a hanging and the said Geronima had asked a
man who went with them to cut her a piece of rope or a finger from
the body and, when he had unsheathed his sword to do so, another
man arrived and prevented him.150
Far simpler then, to pray to the souls of those who had met their end
in this way, in the hope of obtaining their favours in exchange (one
of the commonest pieces of advice received by unsuccessful gamblers
hoping for a change of fortune was to say a prayer for the soul of a
94 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
hanged man before their next game or bet, the theory being that the
dead man would repay the favour with immediate effect).151 One of the
women who gave evidence at the trial of Gracia Andreu, for example,
stated that
this defendant was boasting that she had been to the scaffold of this
city and had taken the heart from a hanged man. And that another
night she had gone to the market square in this city and had prayed
to a man hanging from the gibbet, doing both these things in order
that a man with whom she had had relations but who had left her
would speak to her again, and that he had spoken to her again [ . . . ]
And that the defendant was in the company of other women at the
scaffold one morning and was unable to cut the hand from a dead
man who was hanging there because people had come past, and that
they did take some of the rope [ . . . ] And that she used rope from a
hanging and carried it with her to lure men’s wills.152
There is one final immaterial being who has a place in this section
on spirit invocation – a being whose ubiquity also meant it had no
place in any of the Church-recognized kingdoms beyond the grave –
the ‘shadow’.153 In a true display of split personality, many sorceresses
spoke to their own reflections, asking them to travel to the man of
their dreams and bring him back to them. As noted by Sebastián Cirac
Estopañán, those who invoked their shadow (either by the light of the
full moon or, if this was not possible, by candlelight) did so naked and
with their hair loose, as if wanting to project their actual alter ego (‘my
true shadow’) without the artifice or confusion that clothes or any other
kind of adornment might produce.154 The idea of a spirit double could
also take material form in the shape of a broom, an item customarily
associated with the recital of spells addressed to the shadow.155 Here,
by contrast, clothes played a key role, being used to ‘dress’ the broom,
which was then placed behind the door and thus symbolically sent off
in place of the woman it was representing to find the man she wanted.
We know from the episcopal case brought against Catalina Aznar in
Saragossa in 1511 that she had asked a woman whose husband had gone
away to Castile to take up
Illustration 3.5 Hunting for teeth (Capricho No. 12), Francisco de Goya, 1799.
A familiar scene to those who practised love magic: surviving documents contain
many references to such gruesome visits to the scaffolds. By permission of the
Fundación Juan March (Madrid).
96 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
and the said Aznara told her that she would send the said broom thus
adorned to one whom she knew to carry out the said binding.156
Such practices reveal, once again, that primitive pagan beliefs associated
with a concept of the soul as a plural and mobile entity that could move
of its own accord, leave its body far behind to travel to far-off places
(a witches’ sabbath, the kingdom of the dead and so on) and return once
its mission was complete, were still very much alive in Spain.157 As high-
lighted by François Delpech in his indispensable article on the Hispanic
mythology of love charms, this is clearly reminiscent of the ecstatic
shamanic journey, and shows just how deeply rooted certain agrarian
myths and rituals remained in a culture in which the organization of a
person’s erotic life continued to play a crucial role.158
This notwithstanding, as we turn once again to one of the mat-
ters of key concern to the judges charged with pursuing early mod-
ern Saragossa’s practitioners of love magic (in other words, to what
extent the latter actually believed they could perform the miracles they
promised to deliver), the fact is that for most defendants, the majority
of whom were women, the charms they offered their clients represented
first and foremost a means of survival – whether or not they believed in
their efficacy was of lesser importance. It is impossible to carry out a full
assessment of the social status of those brought to trial from the inquisi-
torial summaries on which this work is primarily based, but what we do
find are constant allusions to defendants’ impoverished circumstances,
which might have arisen because they had been orphaned or widowed,
were suffering from bad health, or simply because they were unmar-
ried (in which case virtually the only option for women was to enter
domestic service). There are also a number of cases on record in which
the defendants openly confessed to begging for a living. One such was
Isabel Francisca de Mota, whose biographical details paint a fairly typical
portrait of the kind of life led by most of the women tried for sorcery:
That up to the age of 8 when her mother died she had lived with her,
and then with an uncle another 2 and another 4 with Magdalena
Segura, and afterwards another 6 as a servant, and another 8 in Calle
Castellana of this city. And while she was a maidservant in the house-
hold of the widow of Maymon, where she remained 2 years, she
married, and 10 years later her husband died. And then she served
different people in this city whom she named, and [ . . . ] after being
crippled she had made a living by asking for alms.159
Magic for Love or Subjugation 97
And yet despite the fact that ‘magic professionals’ were primarily con-
cerned with earning their daily bread (a necessity which frequently
involved attempts to acquire clients by means of deception, if with
varying degrees of intent), a belief in all kinds of magic was ingrained
in society as a whole – after all, had this not been the case, such lines
of business would have been unsustainable. As far as love magic is con-
cerned, not only were many women (as we have seen) credulous enough
to visit sorceresses in search of cures or consolation for their despair,
there was also a widespread belief among men that women had the
power to influence anything connected with love and sex: for exam-
ple, most cases of impotence were blamed on the evil eye of a witch
or on spells cast by a woman with a grudge against the man in ques-
tion, as a protective measure against potential love rivals.160 The fear
of women inherent in this belief affected men of all statuses and social
classes, including some members of the clergy, who at times were the
prime movers behind the unjustified persecutions of supposed witches
and sorceresses.
One such case was that of Lucía de Soria, an orphaned 25-year-old
who had spent five years working as a maid in Saragossa and was
brought before the Inquisition accused of having cast a spell on the wife
of a painter named Marcos González, with whom the young woman
had ‘been having dealings’ for some time. According to Lucía’s trial
summary, this painter,
the said monk encouraged them by saying: Well then, it must be her!
Take her [ . . . ] out to the countryside and threaten her severely as if
you want to kill her, and without your harming her further, she will
confess.162
99
100 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
he had held the office of saludador for many years, pretending he had
the virtue to cure the bites of rabid dogs, and to cure other sicknesses
Saludadores and Witch-Finders 101
He would put one of those caterpillars born in the pine trees in his
mouth, and let it be thought by some who had been touched by rabid
dogs that this had left a caterpillar in their body, and that he was a
saludador and would remove it from them. And [ . . . ] he would have
a surgeon pierce the skin, removing a little blood from the person,
and [ . . . ] when he arrived he would suck that blood, and afterwards
put it in a bowl of water and, having stirred the two together, would
add the caterpillar from his mouth, and as it was mixed with the
blood he had sucked, people thought and believed that he had taken
it from the man’s body, and they gave him money and held him to
be a saludador, who by the grace of God could cure people thus.14
The fact was that these healers and diviners supposedly endowed with
a God-given special virtue or power tended to boast of having a wide
range of characteristics, some of which were so contradictory that theo-
retically they cancelled one another out. According to various witnesses,
the same Gabriel Monteche had claimed to have made a pact with the
devil, as a result of which he was able not only ‘to cure illnesses by recit-
ing incantations’ but also to obtain women, reveal ‘the location of lost
and stolen things’ and see ‘in a mirror anything he desired, however far
distant it might be’.15
Putting the matter of divine or diabolical patronage to one side,
Gabriel certainly had no qualms when he made his statement to the
inquisitors of Saragossa about blaming his excessive claims on alcohol
(‘as saludadores ordinarily do drink much, so do they say more than they
should after having taken a drink’16 ). Furthermore, he openly acknowl-
edged that everything he did was fraudulent, done to cheat and make
102 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
money, and that all those who went around healing were doing the
same thing, deceiving people and pretending they had a special gift
from God. And he declared that he would also go into a hot oven, and
that he would go in very quickly, his face covered, his body clothed, and
on his knees and elbows, and then he would come out, and in this way
he did not burn and only his clothing would get hot, the fire not injur-
ing him, and he allowed people to think this was a miracle and that he
did it as a saludador.17
Once his confession had been heard, Gabriel was sentenced by the
inquisitors to 100 lashes and a two-year banishment from the district.
He was not condemned, however, for having worked as a saludador,
but for having knowingly cheated large numbers of people by taking
advantage of a belief shared by most of the population. What, then,
was the Church’s and, more specifically, the Inquisition’s stance on
the saludadores? The first point to make is that, even among those
theologians seen as experts on the subject, opinions varied widely and
were generally ambiguous. So, for example, in around 1530 Martín de
Castañega and Pedro Ciruelo, authors of the first two treatises on super-
stition written in Castilian, took entirely different views on it. As far
as Castañega was concerned, the power to heal could be explained by
the ‘virtue’ of saludadores, and this in turn came from their natural
complexion and the balance of the four humours within it:
Pedro Ciruelo, on the other hand, was adamant in his censuring of those
who called themselves saludadores, labelling them ‘men of superstition,
sorcerers and ministers of the Devil’. In his view, they were, funda-
mentally, impostors (‘cheaters of simple folk’, ‘cursed deceivers of the
world’, ‘contemptible drunks who travel the world proclaiming them-
selves to be saludadores’19 ), whose true baseness was concealed by the
signs they themselves marked on their bodies to attest to their kinship
Saludadores and Witch-Finders 103
We ordain that priests and their regents must not tolerate saludadores
in their parishes, unless the latter be bearers of our written licence
permitting them to discharge this role, on pain of a fine of fifty reals
104 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
each time, and we ordain that secular judges and council officials do
not allow this either, on pain of the same fine.22
the office of saludador, and as such had travelled around the villages
of the Kingdom of Aragon. And that he had chosen to pursue this
occupation because other saludadores had told him that he possessed
the gift to heal and to cure rabies, and that he had the wheel of
St Catherine beneath his tongue, because he had told them he was
his mother’s seventh son.23
Whether or not such claims were true, when he was brought before the
judges Andrés presented various licences signed by different bishops,
including the archbishop of Saragossa. Paradoxical as it may seem, how-
ever, he was arrested by the Holy Office because of a denunciation that
came from another bishop (of Barbastro, in the diocese of Huesca), who
had written to the inquisitors accusing the novice saludador of causing
the deaths of various women in the Pyrenean village of Bielsa (also in
Huesca) after naming them as witches. It turned out that Andrés had
been employed by the village council and had issued a proclamation
summoning all the people of Bielsa to come to the village square. When
everyone had gathered, Andrés
did greet them all, and give them an image of Christ to be kissed, and
did blow upon them, and he said to the court and council officials
that the person on whom he blew hardest was a witch or a sor-
cerer, and that the notary should register them as such, assuring them
that those women to whom he pointed could be punished without
scruple as witches, and they did arrest some women on his word
alone.24
Saludadores and Witch-Finders 105
There being a man of the said village who had had no fever nor other
infirmity [ . . . ] there was suspicion in the village that the said Bárbara
Blanc had bewitched him [ . . . ] and they brought in a man from out-
side, who was renowned for finding witches, and in the time that the
latter was in Peñarroya, this defendant did not appear nor did she go
into the house where the sick man lay, though it was her custom to
do so.26
When the gentlemen inquisitors came to visit the area, since it was
proclaimed in Herrera that the inquisitors were bringing with them
a sorcerer to hunt out witches, the said Pascuala left Herrera for the
village of Azuara, where she did stay until the inquisitors had gone
away again.27
When men who lead good lives, who are pious and close to God,
men who are believed to have a special gift from God to heal, do heal
and cure and profess a life of sanctity and recite holy prayers, then in
such men can our trust be placed.28
This idea was also defended by Jaime de Corella in his manual for
confessors:
Penitent: Father, I confess that once I was bitten by a rabid dog and
I called on a saludador, who healed me with his breath and by
making the sign of the cross.
Confessor: And this saludador, was he a virtuous person and a man of
good character?
Penitent: Father, yes he was an honest man and renowned as such.
Confessor: The truth is that although the common people say that
saludadores have virtue, this is still an area of great doubt [ . . . ] What
the Doctors of the Church say on this subject is that if the person
who heals is pious and virtuous, and there is no vain circumstance
in his manner of healing, it can be permitted.29
at the age of eight, being in the city of Saragossa, began to work for
a soldier named Morales, corporal to a captain named Felipe de Vera,
and for a year and a half he travelled with him through Castile, and
they went to board ship in Cartagena, where he did remain.34
he took his leave of the said Morales and began to practise the occu-
pation of saludador, making use of the said documents and patent
of the Holy Office. And thus wherever he went people gave him
whatever he needed in the way of food and money. And he travelled
around the kingdom of Valencia, Aragon, Navarre and Catalonia as
a saludador, healing men, women and livestock, and then he did go
to France, and Italy, and Sicily, and in all those places did present the
said documents and carry out healing and was given everything he
required.35
In the wake of his European travels, the young Francisco began to work
in ‘the mountains of Jaca’, more specifically in the villages of El Pueyo de
Jaca, Sallent de Gállego, Panticosa, Búbal, Biescas and Yésero, all situated
in the Tena Valley (Huesca). From there he went on to the nearby Broto
Valley, but soon had to abandon his itinerant life when he was brought
before the inquisitors, charged with having abused the goodwill of many
people by threatening to denounce them to the Inquisition if they did
not give him everything he asked for. According to the judge and two
council officials from El Pueyo de Jaca,
108 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
in the month of May 1623 this defendant went to the said village
of El Pueyo and did present himself before them [ . . . ] and told them
he was a saludador and showed them some documents and a patent
saying that they had been granted by the inquisitors of Aragon [ . . . ]
and he required them to show him favour and help him to carry out
his work as a saludador and to give him food and a mount on which
to travel to another village. And since the witnesses believed these
documents to be lawful, they obeyed them and called a public meet-
ing. And when the people had gathered, this defendant did enter and
there did publicly present the said documents, saying that if the offi-
cials and all those gathered did not do what was contained therein,
they would incur the wrath of the inquisitors and would be subject
to their penalties and censure.36
Similar threats were issued in all the other villages mentioned above.
The rector of Yésero, for example, testified that Casabona had ‘asked for
his favour and help, and for food’, by virtue of the licences which he
showed him, and that,
Casabona’s choice of the Tena Valley as the focus of his activities was
no accident. Rather than ‘healing’ in the strict sense, his speciality lay
in discerning the witches in a community, and local people at the time
believed there to be many such women among their number. His modus
operandi was to ask for the names of all the women in a particular town
or village who were suspected of witchcraft, or, if these were not forth-
coming, simply for a list of all its female inhabitants. He would then put
a cross beside the names of those he considered to be witches, in order
to distinguish them from the rest. We know from his trial documents,
for example, that in Panticosa the young man had asked a council offi-
cial to give him the names in writing of all the women of the village
so that he could mark those who were witches, and the witness did not
want to give him such a list.38
Saludadores and Witch-Finders 109
Nevertheless, Casabona must have got hold of the names in the end,
since according to the testimony given by the village’s rector, he pre-
sented himself at his house one day, bearing not only the licences
supposedly granted by the Inquisition but also a catalogue and doc-
ument in which were written the names of 36 women from the said
village of Panticosa, and told him to guard himself against those women,
since all were witches, claiming that it was through his powers as a
saludador that he had recognized them.39
According to the evidence given by the judge of Búbal, Casabona him-
self had confessed to him that he wanted to go around all the villages
in those mountains to discover those women who were witches, and
that he would send reports on those who were, so that they could be
punished in accordance with the statutes.40
In fact, as noted in the opening chapter of this book, there was a
proliferation of anti-witchcraft laws and statutes in Aragon’s Pyrenean
valleys during the early modern period, making it all too easy for
many women to be condemned to death, without proof or proper
regard for statutory time limits, or indeed for standard legal proce-
dures in general. Specifically, the desaforamiento statutes relating to the
Tena Valley, initially approved in 1525, are known to have remained
in force throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thanks
to the discovery of documents relating to trials conducted in accor-
dance with a similar statute promulgated in 1691.41 As also mentioned
in Chapter 1, evidence of the ferocity with which witchcraft was pur-
sued in these valleys is very scarce, and we therefore have to make do
with a number of disparate accounts in order to form an approximate
idea of what went on at the time. One such report appears in Francisco
Casabona’s trial summary, mentioning how, when he was arrested by
the Saragossa inquisitors, seven notebooks were confiscated from him.
Six contained the ‘names of women’ which ‘had been given to him in
certain places in the mountains of Jaca [ . . . ] because they told him in
those villages that the women named therein were suspected of being
witches’.42
While the Bishop of Barbastro would no doubt have been scandal-
ized by the behaviour of this young saludador, who had managed to
build a career based on institutionalized misogyny, the inquisitors’ sen-
tence stressed the (in their eyes more serious) crime of falsifying and
abusing the good name of the Holy Office. The truth was that the iniq-
uitous practice of claiming to know who was a witch and who was not
was not limited to indigent vagabonds such as Casabona, but was also
one of the skills associated with medical professionals supposedly well
110 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
from Ballestar del Flumen (Huesca) who claimed to possess all sorts of
curative and divinatory powers, was treated with a leniency which can-
not be solely attributed to his youth.50 Apart from the 50 lashes that
were to be administered ‘in his prison’, his only punishment was to
receive six years’ education at a monastery in the city, followed by a
year-long exile from the bishoprics of Huesca, Jaca and Saragossa. The
reprimand he was given at his trial, warning him of more serious con-
sequences if he did not serve out his sentence, gives us an idea of
his principal activities, notable among them being his self-proclaimed
ability to recognize witches and sorceresses:
all could be given. His activities were therefore condemned as false and
superstitious. Venegas himself claimed that his faith was strong, since
not only had he been ‘baptized and confirmed in the church of St Peter
in Toledo by the archbishop of that city’, but he also ‘confessed and
received holy communion every two weeks, the last time having been
at Our Lady of the Pillar in Saragossa’.54 Nonetheless, according to the
formal report read out prior to sentencing, Venegas was no more than
‘a man of superstition, and the more so for being a new convert, and
was a deceiver and was suspected of having formed a deliberate pact
with the Devil’.55 He was then sentenced to appear at a public auto de
fe wearing the insignia of an enchanter, to abjure de levi, to receive 100
lashes in the city streets and, lastly, to be exiled from the inquisitorial
district for eight years, five of which he would serve in the royal galleys
without pay.
It seems highly likely that Saragossa provided a temporary home for
many other saludadores during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
men whose itinerant lives took them from one place to the next in
search of new venues in which to perform the tricks of their trade. Less
common, if equally representative, were figures such as Pablo Borao, a
man born and bred in the Aragonese capital who held the dual profes-
sion of saludador and exorcist. Like others of his calling he had led the
kind of eventful life that taken him from pillar to post over the years.56
At 21, however, he made what proved to be a fateful decision to return
to Saragossa. His fall from grace came just a few years later, when he
was condemned by the inquisitorial tribunal after it had heard evidence
from a total of over 100 people, most of whom testified against Borao,
accusing him of all kinds of crimes and misdemeanours.57
Pablo Borao lived near the city’s Holy Sepulchre convent and had been
denounced to the Inquisition by the archbishop’s fiscal in 1653, accused
of performing exorcisms on women without having taken minor orders.
This information had been provided by the vicar of the monastery, who,
because ‘he lived opposite the house in which the defendant lived’, wit-
nessed on a daily basis ‘the commotion there was made in Saragossa by
many people coming to seek out the defendant to perform such acts’.58
Before denouncing him to the Holy Office, the fiscal had summoned
the saludador to be brought before him so that he could interrogate him
personally. During this interview, Borao had presented himself as a most
devout man and had defended himself by asserting
that he did not hold orders nor did he carry out exorcisms, but
that through the mental prayers which he used to say and which
Saludadores and Witch-Finders 113
he advised the possessed also to say, he did cure them. And that he
confessed and received communion every day.
Nevertheless, according to the fiscal, the defendant had also said ‘things
that seemed to him less than true and had been caught out in lies, there-
fore he had arrested and informed Canon Perad, adviser of this Holy
Office, of his action’.59 It was at this point that Saragossa’s inquisito-
rial tribunal instigated judicial proceedings that were to last five years;
a detailed summary of these proceedings has survived, giving us a
virtually unprecedented insight into certain aspects of urban magic.
Like his fellow saludadores based in rural areas, Pablo Borao regularly
showed off his supposedly extraordinary powers, not to mention the
marks on his body that proved his special status:
the said defendant boasted of having a Christ figure on his palate, the
wheel of St Catherine on his right hand and on his back a picture of
the Most Holy Trinity, so say eighteen witnesses.60
Borao also used to claim that his ‘saliva had the power to cure all
ailments’61 , which in practice meant that he would suck and lick his
patients, having asked them to show him the affected body part. Accord-
ing to one witness’s statement, he had once asked a sick woman to reveal
her illness, and [told her] that he would cure her. And when she showed
him a very horrible wound that she had near her ankle, the defendant
bent down and sucked and licked at the wound without any change of
expression. And [ . . . ] she did not see him spit.62
The witness had asked the defendant how he could do this, to which
Borao replied ‘that [he did it] by gazing on God who by his immensity
was intimately present within that substance, and by his love’. The same
witness went on to say that he had seen Borao repeat this same act the
following day, and he knew not if he had done it more times, until the
defendant told him that by repeating this cure he had healed the woman
and that in the same way he had brought about other cures.63
Borao did not, however, restrict himself to licking his patients’ cuts
and bruises. According to other witness statements, he was in the habit
of making crosses with his tongue on the abdomen of many supposedly
bewitched women, having first anointed them with oil. And one ‘older
woman’ reported that Borao had also ‘made a cross with his tongue
on the genitals of a woman who was possessed in order to free her of
the enchantment’.64 Whether or not this was true, there is no doubt
that he took a sexual interest in the women he claimed to be curing,
114 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
on one occasion, having made spirits come to her head, when she
recovered her senses, after they had lain her down, she found herself
in a bed that was in the chamber and that the defendant was having
carnal relations with her. And that when she reprimanded him for
using that means of exorcizing and curing her, the defendant replied
that she should let him be for he knew what he was doing. And that
the same night the defendant took her to his bed telling her it was
right that she should be with him. And that, while he was having
carnal knowledge of her, and [she was] telling him that it was not a
good way of enchanting and curing her, he told her to let him be,
that he was doing with her what he had done with many others he
had exorcized, because he had experienced with them that he had
the grace in his semen as in the rest of his body to lift the curse and
cure them.65
that the defendant around this time had made her drink his urine,
telling her it had the power to vanquish demons and that indeed he
made her drink it. And the witnesses, once examined, confirmed that
they had seen her drink urine and that the defendant had said that,
as demons were disgusting, with such an act would they be brought
down.66
had cursed her using some carnations [ . . . ] and that having experi-
enced no other malady other than being pale, after the defendant
had exorcized her, she had felt pain in her heart and head, and that
she was possessed.71
As part of this fervent admission of guilt, Borao emphasized the fact that
he had deceived all his confessors ‘by keeping silent about these sins
out of shame, and that he would confess only when he felt so inclined,
without examining his conscience’. He then continued to add to his
litany of misdeeds by confessing that he had also
kept silent about his liking for a nun and his sin with her of eight
voluntary pollutions. And that he had enjoyed a female dog or cat
with a stick in the genitals, and that he had done the same with
his member three times more or less. And that he had also failed to
confess that he had forced a niece of his to let him enjoy her. And
that he had also said nothing out of shame about having enjoyed a
116 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
young servant girl and sworn many oaths that it was a lie. And that,
as a youth, he had enjoyed a sheep. And he had known a woman
from behind six times, although in her genitals, and that he had not
confessed it. And that he used to solicit one of his sisters when he was
young. And that he had had carnal knowledge of a nun, she using
her hands through a grille and in the church, and that this nun, she
having got down on all fours and moved her buttocks closer, [he had
known] four or six times, and other times in the confessionals. And
another time he had put his semen into her mouth, all this inside the
church, and two or three times while the Most Holy Sacrament was
being raised. And that he had not confessed to those acts, and that
he had had another one hundred and three pollutions in his own
hands.73
Among the diabolical snares Borao claimed had been set for him were
certain illusory visions, such as one of the crucified Christ which
Saludadores and Witch-Finders 117
was then transformed into an erotic scene in order to lead him into
temptation:
[ . . . ] the defendant also told the witness that the Devil once had
wanted to deceive him by transforming into Our Lord on the cross
who in the middle of a great sphere of light received and absorbed
a great multitude of smaller lights that came from rainfall. And that,
wanting to come and worship him, he instead found himself before
a naked woman who sinfully lured him into impurity, because the
Devil wanted to conquer him and join him to this woman. And that
into that conflict he approached God and invoked His Mother most
pure, and that she appeared to him, banishing the demons, and left
him comforted and consoled.76
Visions of this type had not sprung fully formed from Borao’s imag-
ination: they were common currency in the panorama of Baroque
spirituality, as we know from biographies of certain seventeenth-century
nuns for whom contemplation of the half-naked Christ on the Cross
became the equivalent of contemplating the ideal male body.77 Borao,
however, as befitted a self-respecting mystic, had not just been party
to these overtly sensual visions, he had also been visited by the Virgin
Mary (‘who appeared to him banishing demons’78 ), various saints,79 a
good number of angels80 and even souls in purgatory, claiming to be
able to tell which among them were more likely either to be raised up
to heaven or condemned to hell.81
With this kind of spiritual baggage weighing him down, it comes as
no surprise to find that as part of his sphere of operation, Borao’s regular
visits to various of Saragossa’s nunneries and convents took on particular
significance for him. As is well known, in the mid-seventeenth cen-
tury, there were more reports of evil spirits appearing in female religious
houses than anywhere else. The life of seclusion led by these women
inevitably resulted in tension and confrontations affecting both individ-
uals and the wider monastic community, and was in general conducive
to all kinds of upsets and disturbances, all of which it was customary to
attribute to demonic possession or to evil spells of unknown origin.
From the information provided in Pablo Borao’s trial summary, we
know that he frequented three nunneries relatively close to his place
of residence. They were the above-mentioned Holy Sepulchre convent,
a community of ‘shod’ Augustinian sisters; the Franciscan convent of
St Catherine; and the so-called ‘College of Virgins’, an Ursuline lay com-
munity which had been established during the reign of Charles I to
118 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
provide a home for unmarried and widowed noblewomen (who did not
take religious vows or shut themselves away from the outside world).82
While most of the evidence regarding Borao’s activities in these commu-
nities refers to cures and exorcisms, there are also plenty of statements
dealing with his entanglements with some of the nuns (‘the defen-
dant had boasted of having an illicit friendship with a nun from the
Sepulchre convent in this city and that through the church screen he
had experienced pollutions with her’83 ), as well as references to his hav-
ing performed abortions in ‘some convents on nuns who were with
child’.84
The sex lives, revealed in varying degrees of detail, of the nuns whom
Pablo Borao claimed to be curing become something of a leitmotif in
his trial summary. At the St Catherine convent, for example, he was
said to have succeeded in curing one of the sisters ‘who suspected she
had been bewitched [ . . . ] and was almost beyond believing that God
might have mercy on her [ . . . ] but who had been convinced by the
defendant’s persuasive words’.85 In this case the treatment itself (‘a drink
of rosemary and rue and white wine’) seems to have been less important
than Borao’s diagnosis: he had told his patient ‘that she was possessed
and had many impure thoughts’. The nun herself states in her testimony
that the defendant had divined in her these ‘impure thoughts [ . . . ] and
that she had them with repeated pollutions’ and that in the end ‘she
had become good’.86
References also abound in Borao’s trial documents to the fear of being
bewitched that was common to many nuns. A number of different wit-
nesses declared that he had been in the habit of giving some of the
nuns ‘gold, incense and myrrh’ as protective talismans, ‘so that by car-
rying these things with them they would be freed from evil spells’.87
An obsession with the idea that ‘witches’ might be hiding themselves
away within convent walls is reflected in an episode that speaks vol-
umes about the way Borao practised his ‘healing arts’ in an environment
in which he felt entirely at ease. The incident in question relates to the
ritual exorcisms he carried out on Jusepa Pomares, a sister in the order
of St Catherine, who was said to be possessed. Several of her fellow nuns
witnessed the events that took place, and reported that
seen and these must be borne with fortitude, giving them to under-
stand [ . . . ] that if they could not do this they should leave the cell.
And that then he had begun to exorcize her, placing a stole on her in
which he tied three knots and that [ . . . ] on that occasion the spirits
did not manifest themselves.88
And he went with the procession censing the passageways and some
of the cells in the convent, and [ . . . ] they put myrrh and incense into
the censer, and he said he was doing it because it would mean they
would find no witches in the convent.89
as he went past each window and cell the defendant placed there a
cross of rue [ . . . ] and [ . . . ] the defendant bore a stole on his arm,
looking very sorrowful, showing every sign of being a holy man, and
[ . . . ] the procession lasted more than three hours, during which time
he placed more than fifty crosses. When the procession was over they
went down to the choir where, with a book he had with him, he
blessed the seat of the said Pomares and performed an exorcism. And
after having dined the defendant did leave the said convent.90
This most solemn of ceremonies did not end there, however, despite
the fact that not even the nun for whose benefit it had been organized
120 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
The description of the events that followed this decision calls to mind
the kind of scene that used to play out in villages when an itinerant
saludador arrived and, after the town crier had summoned all the local
women to the square, pointed to the ‘witches’ at the root of whatever
problems were troubling that particular community. In Borao’s case,
One day after vespers they rang the bell to summon all the sisters to
the choir (and indeed all of them did come and not one was allowed
to leave). And having arranged them in order of seniority and occu-
pation, the defendant had sat down at the head of them all, most
upright and grave of expression. And [ . . . ] as he sat there, the women
went one by one to kneel before him so that he could look upon
each of them and seek out any curse, beginning with the rectoress.
And [ . . . ] the defendant (as they came to him and knelt before him
as if they were kissing the feet of the Pope) very circumspectly did
bless each one of them and blew on her three times. And in this way
all the women went before him. And [ . . . ] when it was over and done
with, the defendant had risen from his chair and said none of them
was cursed.93
such that he did cause her concern, and since it seemed to her that
he had paid her particular attention, she had felt her heart afflicted.
And that because of this the following day at around the hour of
Saludadores and Witch-Finders 121
ten she felt such a terrible pain in her stomach that she thought she
was dying, and that when she told the defendant this he had given
her a little white wine, which did not help her, but rather it had
increased her pain, therefore the defendant placed his mouth upon
her stomach and she did feel greater pain and the spirits did mani-
fest themselves. And [ . . . ] when one of the nuns present asked the
defendant [ . . . ] what kind of demon it could be that tormented her
so, he replied it was one of those from the mercury mines, and that
this was why it was disturbing her so greatly [ . . . ] and [ . . . ] when the
spirits manifested themselves to this woman Marin, the defendant
blew on her and her whole body did sway, and she did make strange
movements.94
In rural areas, the popular belief in witchcraft provided the ideal cover
for the malpractice of many a wandering saludador who earned his
living by identifying ‘hidden’ witches: those purportedly treacherous
individuals who were living among their neighbours, masquerading
as ordinary women, and who had to be unmasked to prevent further
misfortune being visited upon the community. The urban parallel can
be seen in the episodes of supposed demonic possession (particularly
prevalent in convents) that affected countless women suffering from all
kinds of physical and mental illnesses – and which offered rich pick-
ings for other saludadores, those less willing to travel from place to
place and whose prime source of income came from identifying and
neutralizing the demons in question. This is not to say that all such
healers (rural or urban), whose holiness was seen as opposed – and in
a sense complementary – to magic, were necessarily engaging in delib-
erate fraud. As far as individuals such as Pablo Borao are concerned,
rather than ‘feigned holiness’,95 or deception pure and simple, it would
be more accurate to think in terms of his suffering from an exagger-
atedly unhealthy religiosity that led him to inflict on himself some of
the same remedies he used on his patients. Whatever the degree of chi-
canery involved in his work, he did genuinely believe that he was under
ceaseless attack from demons, who were tormenting him because of the
many sins he had committed. He therefore lived in a constant state of
fear, even if the inquisitorial prison’s assistant governor, whose job made
him a fairly regular visitor to Borao’s cell, believed that he was merely
pretending to be enchanted or possessed, making faces and claiming
that cruel demons were attacking him ‘because he had made many false
and sacrilegious confessions and had deceived the world [ . . . ] and [ . . . ]
he wept as he said all this’.96
122 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
although he had wanted to, and had been faced with the temptation
to do so on twelve or fourteen occasions [ . . . ] and that where the
devil had most tempted him was with the idea of becoming invisible
and being able to escape from the law and do other things that he
wished to do. And that after he had been arrested and was in prison,
while he slept they would tell him [ . . . ] that he was a sorcerer and
that they had marked him [ . . . ] and that he could perform sorcery
with the Gloria Patri and the name of Jesus. And that when he awoke
he tried to put such thoughts from his head.97
that he had written on some rags the Latin and Greek names of Christ
Our Saviour, as protection against demons, and had cut these scraps
from the lining of his undergarments, and that he had also written
them on the corners of his sheet.98
Having sent the assistant governor to his cell to look for these rags,
the inquisitors interrogated the prisoner as to the meaning of certain
Saludadores and Witch-Finders 123
crosses and strange characters that were included in his writings. Borao
defended himself by saying that
he had written all in his own hand and with sincerity, and in the
belief that he was not at fault in any way. And that the said names
and crosses [which] he had found in the Malleus Maleficarum were
good for this purpose. And that he also had writings on his shirt
on the part covering his stomach and on the shoulders: Jesus, Mary,
Joseph, Joachim and Anna, help me and rescue me from the travails
in which I find myself. And in response to a question put to him, he
said his only intention in placing words of such veneration in these
places was that of godly devotion.99
In spite of this intense level of piety, and Borao’s stated belief in the
his own curative gifts, it is hardly surprising that his crimes of decep-
tion and abuse proved more than sufficient motive for the Saragossa
tribunal to sentence him to appear at an auto de fe ‘wearing the insignia
of a deceiver’, as well as ordaining that he should receive 200 lashes
and be exiled from the inquisitorial district for a period of ten years, six
of which were to be spent in the royal galleys.100 The fact that Pablo
Borao had destroyed a number of women’s reputations by ‘recogniz-
ing’ them as witches (‘the defendant said witches and sorceresses would
faint on seeing him’101 ) was of less importance to those judging him,
a state of affairs reflected in the trials of other saludadores at the time.
As we shall see in the next chapter, by the mid-seventeenth century the
Spanish Inquisition had already begun to lose interest in taking action
against those accused of witchcraft. This change of stance did not, how-
ever, mean that the Holy Office openly declared an end to its belief in
witchcraft, nor that it was about to begin treating as criminals those who
enabled this myth to persist within the collective imagination for many
years to come.
5
The City as Refuge
With a migratory pattern the mirror image of that of the saludadores who
travelled to rural areas in search of potential victims, many women iden-
tified as witches in their home villages ended up moving to Saragossa
to avoid persecution. Not, of course, that the capital was some kind of
‘lawless city’ as far as magical practices were concerned. As we have seen,
cases of witchcraft and sorcery could be heard by any of three different
court systems, and, in the face of an influx of fugitive women coming to
the city to escape their neighbours, Saragossa’s city council had in 1586
drawn up its own desaforamiento statute – legislation more characteris-
tic of the mountainous areas of Aragon – which enabled it to impose
sentences, up to and including the death penalty, without the need for
proof, on ‘the abovementioned persons, witches and sorceresses, who
are fleeing other places to come here to the great detriment of this
Republic’.3
124
The City as Refuge 125
Such laws obviously posed a new threat to the recent arrivals, some of
whom were arrested and sentenced by the municipal judge (zalmedina)
just as they would have been in their native villages.4 However, the
anonymity of urban life undoubtedly offered many of these women
the chance to begin a new life, safe from their persecutors. Naturally
enough, the surviving evidence relates to those who fell into the hands
of the law, rather than to those who managed to make a fresh start, but
it is fair to say that Saragossa provided a refuge for the majority, even for
those who were brought before one of the two ecclesiastical tribunals
(episcopal or inquisitorial), about whose activities a good deal is known.
A classic case is that of an elderly widow named María Sánchez, of
Sallent de Gállego (Huesca), who, having been subjected to endless
threats in her own village, moved to Saragossa, where she managed to
earn a living as a midwife. According to the archbishop’s fiscal, who
accused her of witchcraft and instigated trial proceedings against her
in 1574,
while this criminal and defendant was living in the village of Sallent,
the council officials and courts of the Tena Valley brought [ . . . ] crim-
inal proceedings against the witches of the said valley. And [ . . . ]
this defendant, being afraid that they would arrest her, did flee at
a hidden hour and secretly, without anyone knowing where she had
gone [ . . . ], and she came to live in the present city.5
According to the third article of the fiscal’s statement, after the trials
brought by the court of Panticosa (Huesca) in around 1570 against var-
ious Tena Valley women accused of witchcraft, two of them were put
to death, although in fact the key perpetrator had been María Sánchez,
since in their confessions the arrested women had stated that
this woman María Sánchez [ . . . ] was the head witch and leader of
them all, and had taught them to make some dust which, when scat-
tered on the people the women loved, when they stood in the sun
would consume them and cause them to die within a short time. And
that, at her command, and she being their accomplice and supporter
of all of them, they did kill many and diverse persons.6
she came to live in the present city of Saragossa with the intention of
being with two sons of hers who live in the present city, from whom
she receives money and shelter, and not for the causes and reasons
contained within the said article.7
Nonetheless, all the witnesses at the trial agreed that the accused’s life
had been saved thanks to the warnings she had received from her
brother, Jaime Sánchez, one of the court officials responsible for organiz-
ing the local witchcraft trials. He had ‘given notice and warning to the
said Maria Sanchez that information had been gathered about her, and
thus she fled from that land [ . . . ] which is why she was not arrested’.8
Despite the vehemence with which these witnesses emphasized the fact
that she was renowned as a witch both in her home village and through-
out the Tena Valley, the episcopal judges dismissed her case on the
grounds of insufficient evidence, and María was allowed to go free.
An examination of the other trials brought by the episcopal court in
early modern Saragossa for matters relating to magic shows the extent of
the scepticism with which its judges now viewed the classic accusations
of witchcraft that were still wreaking such havoc in rural communi-
ties. Evidence has survived, for example, from another trial held at the
Saragossan court, in 1581, in which the accused was a woman who had
been exiled from Burgos as a sorceress and who was still working as a
healer and enchantress in Saragossa. At no point, however, does it seem
that the episcopal judges gave any credit whatsoever to her supposed
powers. On the contrary, it was she herself, as a poor and elderly widow,
who was using the ‘fear of witches’ to try and scare potential clients into
paying her to help them. According to the archbishop’s fiscal, she had
intimidated one witness, a woman who was unwell, by saying ‘that the
witches would come and kill her, that she knew this to be true’.9 Another
witness declared that she had tried to convince him to avail himself of
her services in similar fashion:
Look, this girl you have at home is not well and you know that the
witches by force are causing her ill at night when she is sleeping [ . . . ]
they have clear access to her and do suck upon her lower parts and
this is the reason for the pain she feels there.10
Despite reports that the defendant was forever threatening and cursing
other people (‘to those who want to persecute her she says she will do
them much harm . . . ’11 ), the fiscal came to the conclusion not that she
actually was a witch, but that ‘she was using the ways of a witch’, and
The City as Refuge 127
When she was taken prisoner by the officials of this city, under whose
jurisdiction she comes, she confessed that for ten or eleven years she
had been a witch and that certain women had taught her this and
had taken her one night to the countryside and presented her to a
gentlemen saying: Behold, here we bring you a vassal. And he said:
You are welcome. And he asked her if she wanted to be his vassal. And
she replied that she did. And he told her that she had to renounce
God and Our Lady [ . . . ] And the Devil, who was within the person of
128 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
that gentleman, kissed her on the mouth and had wicked intercourse
with her. And [ . . . ] whenever the Devil ordered her to do evil and she
did not do it, he punished her with an iron rod. And [ . . . ] since she
had become a witch she had killed many animals and people.15
In this case it was the fact that she had admitted renouncing God that
laid her case open to inquisitorial intervention, since apostasy was con-
sidered the most serious form of heresy and, therefore, fell exclusively
within the remit of the Holy Office. However, once the transfer order
had been made, the tribunal’s calificadores (theologians whose job it was
to examine crimes committed against the Catholic faith) drew up a new
version of the case in the defendant’s favour:
The order went out to bring the prisoner to this Holy Office and [ . . . ]
when theologians had seen the said confession, they said that the
words of renunciation, etc. were apostasy, though it seems there was
a lack of intent on her part.16
she was subjected to the pulley torture and, when she was hanging
with her toes on the ground, she fainted and was sent to sit on the
bench. And having returned to her senses, she said that she could say
nothing about the aforementioned accusations. And because she was
weak and old and had asthma, the torture was suspended.23
When her case was reviewed, María (like other women accused of witch-
craft who were not even working as sorceresses) was ordered to appear at
the auto de fe held in Saragossa on 16 November 1609, as well as receiv-
ing a sentence of 100 lashes and a four-year exile from the inquisitorial
district.
This change of attitude towards witchcraft on the part of the
Saragossan inquisitors did not come about by chance. It was part of
130 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
the Inquisition had reached the conclusion that witchcraft was virtu-
ally a delusion, or that incriminating testimony was perjured. This
could not be openly published; the belief was of too long stand-
ing and too firmly asserted by the Church to be pronounced false;
witchcraft was still a crime to be punished when proved but, under
the regulations, proof was becoming impossible and confessions were
regarded as illusions.26
religious instruction and, it was hoped, have the truths of the faith
instilled in them. Conveniently, early modern Saragossa saw a prolif-
eration of institutions in which women could spend such a period of
reclusion – establishments that were founded with the dual aim of pro-
viding shelter to those in need and, at the same time, correcting their
delinquent tendencies.27
So although the Inquisition continued to try alleged witches for
heresy, as the seventeenth century wore on the Saragossa tribunal began
to show them rather more mercy, recognizing that these incomers, most
of whom were poor and homeless women, were going to add to the
already high number of indigent folk packing the city. As noted by José
Luis Gómez Urdáñez, ‘charitable Saragossa was always swarming with
the poor and needy, something of which the authorities were all too
aware’.28 Given both the wide range of welfare assistance available in the
city and, between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, an increasingly
firm grip on public order (the line between repression and benevolence
being blurred in the extreme), it was hardly surprising that Saragossa
should have stood as a beacon for those in need. Among its best-known
charitable providers were the so-called ‘Father of Orphans’, the House
of Penance, the House of Our Lady of Mercy, the House of the Galley,
the Convalescents’ Hospital, the Pilgrims’ Hospital, the ‘Brotherhood of
Soup’, the Fraternity of the Blood of Christ, the Brotherhood of Refuge,
St Michael’s House of Correction for Delinquent Children, the city’s
eight hospices and finally, of course, the Hospital of Our Lady of Grace,
renowned for its lunatic asylum.29
According to a 1577 statute relating to the role of ‘Father of Orphans’30
(the kind of religious and euphemistic name common at the time31 ),
one of its holder’s functions was ‘to make a sweep by going into any
house [ . . . ] to investigate its vagabonds, young men or women or other
idlers, ruffians, procurers or criminals and any other persons who might
do harm within the republic’.32 It was a position with responsibility for
clamping down on any potential cause of disorder within the city, which
was why women accused of both witchcraft and sorcery – many of them
procuresses by trade – fell within its remit. That said, no evidence has yet
been found of any direct intervention in this sphere. We do, however,
know that two alleged witches were admitted to the House of Penance,
founded in 1585 alongside the Convent of Holy Faith and Penance, an
establishment which had long provided a haven for any woman ready
to repent of her previous way of life. According to the city councillors,
who in founding this home were supporting the Church’s zealous wish
132 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
it seemed that for the service of God and indeed the universal service
of this kingdom it would be right for a home with suitable enclosure
to be built beside the said convent, into which could be welcomed all
those women who have gone astray and who throughout the king-
dom had been converted to serve the Lord and would live there as
in a house of probation until they were well enough instructed to
be received into the convent itself. And the said home should be
governed by those who run the latter.33
The city council was clearly principally concerned with prostitution and
offering these wayward women a chance to start a new and decent way
of life in respectable surroundings. In the seventeenth century, how-
ever, the House of Penance also opened its doors to another group of
women, namely those whose cases were transferred to the Holy Office
on the grounds of suspected apostasy (including those named as witches
in their home villages). Having examined the papers and brought the
women to trial, the Saragossa tribunal might well find them not guilty
of the nefarious crimes of which their fellow citizens had accused them,
yet still decide that their offences warranted some level of punishment,
and that they needed somewhere to live where they would be safe from
the threats of the outside world. Hence some of those who confessed
to witchcraft and were then ‘reconciled’ to the Church ended up tak-
ing refuge within convent walls. Two such were 70-year-old widows
Margalida Escuder and Juana Bardaxi, neighbours from the village of
Tamarite de Litera (Huesca), who in 1626 were transferred to Saragossa
from their local jails, where they had been imprisoned and charged with
witchcraft. Hauled up before the secular court and subjected to torture,
both had admitted to various sexual encounters with the devil, which
in their fantasies was linked to a stated desire to take vengeance on
those who had rejected them for being old and useless. According to
the inquisitorial trial summary relating to the case of Juana Bardaxi, at
her first hearing the defendant had claimed that
one day when she was sitting outside the door of a mill and sewing,
before she went to eat [ . . . ] a certain woman (who had since been
hanged as a witch by the secular court) said to her that if the defen-
dant wanted to do ill to her daughter and to her son-in-law because
they had thrown her out of their home, she should go with her
The City as Refuge 133
Afterwards, at night, when she had locked the door of her house,
around the hour of ten, and was lying naked in bed, and did not
know whether she had fallen asleep or not, the said woman called to
her from the door, saying to her: Juana, come along, come with me!
And [ . . . ] then the defendant got out of bed and put on her clothes.
And when she reached the door she found it locked but without the
key in the lock, although she had left the key there [ . . . ] Thus the two
women went alone to an orchard outside the town where they found
a dog of moderate size [ . . . ] which was the Devil and [ . . . ] the woman
said to the Devil that she was bringing him a vassal and [ . . . ] he
replied that this was very good [ . . . ] Eight or ten days later [ . . . ] they
went in the same manner by night to a certain field where the Devil
was waiting among the vines, with many women dancing and jump-
ing, and the Devil was in the form of a man on a black horse [ . . . ] and
he then tried to have intercourse with her from behind [ . . . ] And that
having rolled up her skirts he touched her genitals with something
cold, although he did not enter her, because she did not want to be
taken and therefore he beat her. And [ . . . ] then they caused hail to
rain down, all the women urinating on the ground and taking up that
earth and throwing it through the air. And then the sky clouded over
and it began to thunder, and the next morning there was another
hailstorm, and it did much damage to some of the fields, and when
it thundered all the women left [ . . . ]36
As if this were not enough, the tale went on, Juana accepting responsibil-
ity not only for these hailstorms but also for the death of various mules
and a child’s illness. It was presumably for these reasons primarily that
her neighbours denounced her to the secular judges:
Finally, the matter of apostasy – the offence for which she had been
brought before the inquisitorial tribunal – was broached:
When she was asked if she knew or could guess the reason why she
was in prison, she replied that she assumed it was because at the
secular court of Tamarite she had confessed under torture, out of fear
and not because it was true, that she had renounced God and that the
devil had had intercourse with her from behind, but that nothing had
happened other than what she had declared to the Holy Office.38
In both her case and that of Margalida Escuder, however, the least of the
inquisitors’ worries was whether or not one or both women confessed
again to them to having indulged in sex with the devil and renounced
God. According to Margalida,
her mistress made her renounce God and the mother who bore him
and the father who begat him [ . . . ] and [ . . . ] the Devil had also had
intercourse with her from behind.39
a very good remedy to reveal the future and what will befall a per-
son [ . . . ] by taking a urine bottle and filling it half with holy water
and half with fresh water and an egg white, as midnight chimes and
saying some prayers that she knew [ . . . ]43
infirmorum urbis et Orbis, its patients coming not only from the Kingdom
of Aragon but also from the rest of Spain63 and even further afield.64
The patients were housed in quarters consisting of two large wards, one
for men and the other for women, who were in the care of the so-
called ‘Father’ and ‘Mother of the Insane’, respectively. These two were
responsible for the inmates’ hygiene, food, work activities (where appro-
priate), attendance at religious services and the time they spent outside
the hospital either begging for alms or taking part in certain feast-day
celebrations and processions.65
Surviving testimony about the treatment received by these patients is
extremely scarce. According to the protagonist of the 1646 anonymous
picaresque novel Vida y hechos de Estebanillo González, the Saragossa hos-
pital was ‘one of the richest in Spain, [ . . . ] and the one in which the
patients are tended with the most love and attention, and cared for
with the greatest generosity’.66 Royo Sarrià’s claim that ‘the insane of
Saragossa were never held in chains’67 should be treated with some cau-
tion, given that in other similar establishments at the time the most
violent patients, known as ‘furious madmen’, were habitually restrained
using shackles, handcuffs, chains and even iron muzzles.68 On the other
hand, according to some sources (whose reliability again is not beyond
doubt), in 1516 there was public uproar in Saragossa when the asy-
lum inmates did not appear to take their traditional part in the Corpus
Christi procession – some people believed their absence was a protest on
the part of the patients, because several of their number had died after
being ill-treated by the ‘Father of the Insane’.69
Be this as it may, the truth lies somewhere between the exagger-
ated plaudits and malicious rumours, in that the hospital’s two-pronged
approach to dealing with its patients consisted, on the one hand, of
monitoring and watching over a social group that had been seen as a
threat to public order since the fifteenth century and, on the other, of
caring for and trying to cure those whose conditions were treatable. Few
details are known about the actual medical attention they were given,
but the intention was evidently to try and stabilize patients in line with
current concepts of madness and its potential cures. One of the most
revealing paragraphs in the regulations drawn up for the hospital in
1655 reads as follows:
cures might take and the remedies that should be applied, and the
time limits within which these must be put in place, because in
accordance with the diversity of illnesses and humours, ardent or
melancholic, it seems that remedies have to be applied at different
moments. And those things that result from that discussion the gov-
ernors will order to be put into practice, by housing the insane in
some separate infirmary, where they may be locked up and do no
harm. And there they will be provided with all the medicines and
remedies ordered by the physicians.70
As for treatment, baths of fresh water are used, but these methods are,
generally speaking, unproductive. It is also difficult to apply remedies
to patients during the peaks of their illness, especially blood-letting,
since they may remove their bandages. But long experience has
shown in this hospital that the most effective method is for patients
to lead physically active lives by involvement in some form of work
or occupation. Most of those who are employed in the workshops or
offices of the hospital are more or less cured. Experience shows that
those kept apart and not employed like the others doing menial tasks
or manual labour are rarely cured.74
It was to this hospital that Estefanía Lázaro was sent in 1676 to be cured
of her supposed frenetic madness. Lázaro, a woman of 40 who had been
born in Mainar (Saragossa) and now lived in the Aragonese capital, had
been brought before the inquisitorial tribunal after 13 people accused
her of witchcraft and sorcery. One of these witnesses stated that she had
once led him
out of the city, on the pretext of looking for some herbs, when it
was already night-time. And that, when they were sitting down, she
let out a huge snort. And immediately there arose a whirlwind full
of black visions like the bodies of children. And the witness being
140 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
the defendant had left the House of Our Lady in which she was living
from so high a point that it would have been impossible had the
devils not aided her.82
The main charges brought against Jusepa related to her alleged activi-
ties as a sorceress specializing in love magic. One of the witnesses, for
The City as Refuge 141
example, said that the defendant was in the habit of boasting about
having used ‘a love charm made from an artichoke, with some magic
powder’, and of having cut
some very short hairs from her genital area, and wetted them and
coated them in the said powder, [so that] when she said a prayer
to San Onofre [ . . . ] and touched the man she wanted with the said
artichoke thus prepared, [he] would go after the woman until he had
carnal knowledge of her. And he would give her all the money she
asked for.83
carrying with her for many days in a tobacco box the host received
at communion which she had taken out of her mouth and [ . . . ] a
day after making her confession, taking communion herself with that
host.85
she had been angry with another woman [ . . . ] and from the pain of
this ailment the defendant had gone mad, and they took her to this
hospital, where she lived for nine months and assumed the lunatic’s
garb.88
Unlike the supposed witches of rural Aragon who had found a perma-
nent refuge in Saragossa despite having had to face the Inquisition,
Jusepa was reprimanded and threatened with banishment from the city
if she did not amend her strange behaviour. How far the inquisitors
would actually have taken this threat is impossible to say, as is the truth
about Jusepa’s state of mind. By contrast, it is certain that, whether she
was truly insane or not, for nine months at least she escaped the dire cir-
cumstances which may well have led to her to resort to magic, among
other imaginary forms of consolation, and found some protection in
wearing the multicoloured uniform that distinguished the asylum’s
inmates from the wider population.89 At a time of widespread poverty,
when people faced the constant risk of ending up at the mercy of a court
that devoted much of its energy to condemning those who sought out
such forms of consolation, acquiring the status of acknowledged lunatic
not only gave the individuals concerned a kind of protective shield,
it was also the most humanitarian way of integrating certain forms of
behaviour that had previously been proscribed and condemned.
6
Rural versus Urban Magic
When she was at the washing place for those infected with the
plague, they said [that] this defendant was a witch and sorceress,
and that she gave enemies to some women. And when she was
asked what motive they had, she said that they knew [that] her
mother, Isabel Andreu, had been one such, and a minister of jus-
tice who led her to the washing place had said so. And [ . . . ] she
did not know [that] her mother was a witch, nor did she see her
come or go by the chimney, as witches are commonly said to do.
The pages of this book are populated by a motley cast of characters, all of
whom found themselves living, whether on a temporary or permanent
basis, in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Saragossa. We know some-
thing of their lives because a common thread bound them together:
they all had to defend themselves against charges of practising what
we today would call ‘magic’, a word encompassing a whole range of
activities known at the time by different names – witchcraft, sorcery,
charms, enchantments, conjurations, divination, superstition and so
on. Beneath all such practices lay the desire to achieve the impossible,
to perform miraculous feats that contravened the laws of nature (fly-
ing, becoming invisible, transforming men and women into animals,
accurately predicting the future, and other such wonders). In order to
differentiate more precisely between magic and religion, it should be
added that, in a Christian context, magical practitioners do not, in the-
ory, call on God and other heavenly beings (the Virgin, angels, saints),
instead addressing their invocations to supernatural forces from the
opposite end of the spectrum (in other words, Satan and his cohorts).
That said, if there is one thing that all experts in this field agree on, it is
that despite the inevitable definitions, the boundaries between science,
143
144 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
magic and religion were completely artificial in both medieval and early
modern times.2 Much the same can be said about the line between rural
and urban magic. In those days, city and country life were still very
closely linked, despite the building of city walls, the drawing up of elab-
orate urban statutes and the attempts to transform every city into a
paradise (a ‘New Jerusalem’) far removed from the hardships of rural
life. The Saragossan model analysed here does, however, enable us to
identify some basic differences between the two kinds of magic which
may perhaps apply to other areas too.
The first of these to note is that witchcraft – a belief in which is
found predominantly in rural areas, as noted by Julio Caro Baroja3 –
is often embodied by quasi-mythical and powerful beings, able to fly
and metamorphose into other creatures who act against the forces of
good, although during the early modern ‘witch craze’ those beings took
on the guise of flesh-and-blood individuals, almost always women.4 By
contrast, sorcery is represented by men and women with names and
surnames, subject to human limitations: people living in essentially
urbanized areas who need to master a series of techniques and skills in
order to perform their operations successfully. Throughout the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, therefore, most rural magic was seen as a
supernatural threat which had to be countered with weapons that were,
if not actually supernatural themselves, at least something out of the
ordinary, whereas urban magic, its heretical character aside, was simply
seen as one crime among many, a kind of proscribed occupation, com-
parable in certain respects to others such as prostitution, procuring and
illegal trading.
Once we start to see witchcraft as a threat experienced by those living
in the rural world, it becomes easier to understand why the myth would
have grown up that certain deviant individuals (women, by their very
nature) could wield unlimited evil powers. In concrete terms, this meant
they could not only damage crops (by means of hailstorms, drought
or flood) but also bring about illness and death (in livestock and in
people, above all children, hence the frequent accusations of infanti-
cide). Seen as the root cause of virtually any misfortune that might
strike a community, witches were also assumed to be responsible for
instances of paralysis or other such conditions, including barrenness,
male impotence, nursing mothers’ inability to breastfeed, and so on.
In the Christian context of early modern Europe, churchmen came
to believe that witches’ pernicious powers were attributable to the fact
that these women had renounced God (in other words, committed apos-
tasy) in order to worship his adversary, Satan, with whom, in depraved
Rural versus Urban Magic 145
fashion, they were in the habit of copulating. Many thinkers took this
as proof positive of both a mental and carnal connection between
the women and an immaterial being on whom these accusations then
conferred an air of reality.5 Continuing along the lines of a logic in
which Christian doctrine and liturgy are inverted, there was also a belief
that devil worship, like the worship of God, was taking place on not
merely an individual but a collective level. Just as Christians congregated
weekly at church, so witches (male and female) came together at their
sabbath. These gatherings in turn, from the theologians’ perspective,
constituted a monstrous parody of Christian ceremonies (associated
with both Jewish tradition and local feast days), whose participants, so
it was thought, as well as eating, drinking, dancing and playing certain
games, also indulged in all kinds of sexual orgies in Satan’s honour.6
Witchcraft as a manifestation of evil appeared time and time again
in the accusations levelled in court against women from rural areas,
especially in isolated and mountainous communities. Alongside this
catastrophist interpretation of magic, there are also examples of benef-
icent magic, intimately bound up with an economy based largely on
agriculture and livestock farming. In particular, some individuals were
believed to have the power to make it rain (either water or grain7 ), to
gather in the harvest more quickly (with the help of magical herbs and
demons8 ) or to cast spells on wolves to keep them away from livestock.9
Whether its effects were beneficial or harmful, however, rural magic
was not linked to specific occupations. Accusations of witchcraft were
directed against supposedly disreputable individuals, people who, gen-
erally speaking, were simply made scapegoats for a range of endemic ills
and were offered up as propitiatory victims. They were usually picked
from among the weakest members of the community, which, given their
social status, generally meant women, and preferably old, widowed and
poor women at that. The leading characters in tales of beneficial magic,
meanwhile, tended to be peasants whose resorting to the imaginary
reflects their aspirations for a better life.
The more urbanized a population centre was, the more closely its mag-
ical practices were associated with specific professions. In the city of
Saragossa, the men involved in the magical arts were most likely to be
members of the clergy (priests, friars or even choirboys10 ), medical pro-
fessionals, astrologers and executioners.11 The former, of course, were on
very familiar terms with the world of spirits, both good and bad, as well
as coming into daily contact with all things holy. They therefore also
had direct access to a wide range of much sought-after material – altar
stones, holy oil, consecrated hosts, holy candles, and so on – items of
146
Illustration 6.1 Trials (Capricho No. 60), Francisco de Goya, 1799. Novice
witches are initiated, overseen by Satan in the form of a gigantic he-goat. A satire
on superstitious beliefs, the work nonetheless clearly illustrates the mentality of
those who endorsed the myth of witchcraft. By permission of the Fundación Juan
March (Madrid).
Rural versus Urban Magic 147
any such offence, because they were committed ‘by night and in
secret’.45
In the realm of the verifiable, urban sorcerers and necromancers chose
to perform their invocations and experiments after dark. Spells cast
by women on errant lovers, wishing them ‘bad nights’, were recited
between eleven and midnight;46 windows were opened ‘at odd times’
for demons to be summoned;47 duendes, Moors and other guardians
of treasure materialized ‘at midnight’, the hour at which the hopeful
went in search of buried riches in cellars or among the ruins of ancient
fortresses;48 and the same is true of other hallucinations, some aural
rather than visual, such as those experienced by the witness who stated
he had heard ‘a noise like an owl near his bed’ in an attempt to con-
firm his neighbour’s reputation as a sorceress.49 The night is a constant
presence in these trials – it is when the stars are to be consulted,50
when people go to cemeteries or scaffolds to collect dead bodies,51
even when some prisoners manage to abscond from their inquisitorial
cells.52
Just as night was preferred to day, the peripheries rather than centres
of cities, towns and villages were often favoured when it came to magi-
cal events and operations, either as a setting for sabbath fantasies (which
were almost always said to take place on the ‘outskirts’, either of the
local village itself, or somehow associated with the mythical ‘outskirts
of Toulouse’53 ) or as somewhere for people living in more densely pop-
ulated areas to come and pick herbs with magical properties or to trace
out magic circles. In the Saragossa testimony, we find frequent mentions
of a number of different areas of high ground that stand at various dis-
tances from the city centre, such as the hills of Ejea and Mallén, the
Monte de Torrero and the ruined Castillo de Miranda. While these were
seen as ideal places for working magic, common sense came into play
too, which is why certain sites within the city ended up forming thresh-
olds between the spheres of the real and the extraordinary. One example
was the River Ebro (into whose waters offerings could be thrown, mak-
ing it a favourite spot for demon-conjuring), but there was no shortage
of other such liminal spaces: there was the area alongside the market
square, for instance, where the bodies of the hanged were put on public
display, or the gardens and orchards of the numerous monasteries and
convents that stood within the city walls.
Adapting certain magical traditions to urban life sometimes resulted
in conflict, as we can see from the 1646 inquisitorial trial of a young
woman named Agustina who was charged with sorcery. A woman who
lived in the same street as her testified that the defendant had asked her
152 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
‘to bring her a little bone from a hanged man, one of those that fall from
the bodies of the hanged’ – an item she wanted for a love charm. Instead
of going to the scaffold, however, the witness had decided to walk ‘to
the Capuchins’, pick some celery and give her that instead. That had
caused a row ‘with the said Agustina, because she had not brought her
the hanged man’s bone’. On another occasion, meanwhile, a midwife
had assured the young woman ‘that she would go to the Torrero tower
and bring her some herbs’, to which another neighbour had replied
that it was not necessary, ‘for she would send her son to the Huerto
del Nuncio, which is close to Santa Engracia, for there they would give
her for eight or ten dineros all the herbs she might need [ . . . ] at which
the said midwife said that the herbs of the Torrero tower, because they
grow on the hillside, were more powerful’. In the end, the midwife did
not go and pick the herbs, claiming that that day she had been ‘occu-
pied in swaddling some children’, sparking further arguments with the
defendant which would come to light during her trial.54
When it came to buildings, rather than open spaces, within the city,
the two kinds most often cited by magical practitioners are firstly pri-
vate homes and monasteries, and secondly churches which, as places
frequented by both clergy and lay people of different ranks and posi-
tions, witnessed all kinds of exchanges. As we saw in the chapter on love
magic, the rituals of female sorcery were primarily concentrated in the
domestic sphere. Every part of the house (doors, windows, hearth, chim-
ney, bed, cellar and so on) became a symbolic space endowed with its
own meaning, not to mention a hiding-place for objects of various sorts
employed for specific purposes (wax figures stuck with pins and needles
and placed behind doors, flasks hidden beneath beds, garters tied by
windowsills, treasures supposedly buried in cellars . . .). As for churches,
far from being sacrosanct and untouched by illicit beliefs, they were
targeted by many a magical adept in search of supplies of holy water,
candles, altar stones and consecrated hosts, or perhaps, in times of cri-
sis, looking for the ideal place in which to invoke the help of particular
saints.
Despite the enormous volume of documentation relating to the legal
and judicial action taken by the Inquisition against magic in Aragon,
and more specifically in the city of Saragossa, it is worth emphasizing
the fact that after the execution of a local man accused of necromancy
in 1537, the death penalty was never again imposed on anybody con-
victed of witchcraft or sorcery throughout the remaining years of the
tribunal’s existence.55 The last woman sentenced to death for witchcraft
by the Aragonese Inquisition had been executed a year and a half
Rural versus Urban Magic 153
if that soul were prepared to pray for him, he could obtain from God
the grace of winning.
And to a response made to him that [if] this power lay in prayer, it
was superfluous to carry the altar stone and rope with him, he said
that he had put his faith and credence in prayer alone, as was stated
in his confessions, but that in his ignorance he had carried about his
person the rope and the stone.63
to the question of credulity, she said she never believed [ . . . ] that the
Devil could control [ . . . ] free will, nor that by the words and deeds
she had said and done could the results be achieved by the devil’s
work.65
Many other similar cases could be mentioned, but the list would get a lit-
tle monotonous (‘that she did it all out of curiosity, but not because she
gave it any credence’,66 that she never believed in the spells but ‘rather
held them to be laughable and without foundation’,67 ‘that she did not
believe that the Devil could force men’s will so that they would come to
her or to any other person, nor that the things she had mentioned and
had used for that purpose had any power’68 and so on). Next to igno-
rance, the most oft-cited motive of those in the dock was poverty. With
this as the basis of their defence, some of the accused did admit to the
deliberate fraud involved in using spells as a way of earning a living at a
time when hardship and deprivation were widespread, thereby making
it more likely that those in direst need would put their faith in magical
solutions.
156 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
she had consulted the cards [ . . . ] and did not know well how to do
this, and pretended she knew how to do so [ . . . ] and put them in rows
and made some crosses and pretended to say some words, and with
dissimulation put the knight of coins with a knave, and said that
her lover was with another woman [ . . . ] and that she also saw the
flasks on fire [ . . . ] and pretended that she knew how to burn magical
substances. . . 69 .
After admitting that she had practised all kinds of magic rituals (wishing
people sleepless nights, putting men’s pubic hairs in food, using earth
taken from graveyards, divining with sieves, preparing valerian plants
and so on), as is noted in her trial summary,
to the question of credulity [she said] that she had never believed
nor understood that the effects she promised could be brought
about [ . . . ], but that she said these things to defraud and make
money, and that she had always believed and did still believe that
only God can do and dispose that which He wills.70
A few days later, having been assigned a defence lawyer, the defendant
adduced
that she was a good Christian and Catholic and that she had believed
and did believe all that Our Most Holy Catholic Church preaches and
teaches. And that she had not carried out the superstitious acts testi-
fied to by the witnesses because she believed in them but, driven by
poverty and need, she had in order to sustain herself used deception
to take money from people who trusted in her, as she had confessed.
And that, for this reason, she must be presumed innocent of the crime
of heresy and ignorance, since in her ignorance she could not have
known anything of malevolence, as it is recognized by learned men,
and that therefore she should be given a lesser punishment. And that
she was crippled and sick throughout her body, and unable to earn
money with which to support herself.71
Rural versus Urban Magic 157
Reading between the lines, we can see the lawyer’s influence on her later
statement, a document which tells us a great deal about the general
attitude of the Holy Office towards those accused of sorcery. In Isabel’s
case, the sentence imposed was undoubtedly on the lenient side: a
straightforward six-year exile from the inquisitorial district, with a threat
of that period doubling if she reoffended. While the judges saw her
deception for what it was, they also took into account the extenuating
circumstances of her poverty and ill health. It is clear from other cases,
however, that the Inquisition was imposing harsher sentences (not just
exile, with or without a flogging, but other penances as well, such as
obliging people to wear penitential garments, or even sending them to
the galleys) when it found defendants guilty of fraud, taking advantage
of others’ gullibility and, above all, falsifying and abusing the sacred.
Those to whom the severest penalties were applied were professional
fraudsters, of no fixed abode, who based themselves in the city for a
limited period with the aim of making as much of a profit as possible
from its inhabitants.
The Inquisition’s scepticism as regards the supposed powers of magic
and the spiritual threat it posed, and its (more significant) interest in
keeping an eye on the abuse and swindles associated with its practice,
help explain both the abundance of documentation and the contrast
between the theoretical gravity of the crimes committed and the tol-
erant treatment of wrongdoers. The relatively lenient attitude of the
Saragossa judiciary towards urban magic echoes in essence the pol-
icy observed in other European cities such as Venice,72 Augsburg,73
Rothenburg74 and, to a lesser extent, Bruges.75 How did such modera-
tion come to prevail when witch-hunts continued in many rural areas
of Europe throughout the seventeenth century and beyond, indeed until
quite recent times? What was it that changed so significantly in the city?
Any attempt to answer these questions needs to bear in mind the
research into traditional African witchcraft and the way in which it
adapted to the processes of rapid urbanization which took place in
that continent during the twentieth century. In the early 1970s anthro-
pologist Max Marwick posed this question: ‘When African villagers are
uprooted to become either temporary migrant labourers or permanent
settlers in urban areas, how do their beliefs change?’76 The answers pro-
vided by those who subsequently studied this subject on the ground
are varied, owing to a lack of conclusive evidence. That said, the major-
ity do highlight the way in which the personal relationships of those
who leave their villages for life in the city are transformed.77 Chang-
ing jobs and place of residence determines not only a new form of
158 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
a woman had come to him most distressed because a young man had
called her a witch, later, when he preached on this matter, he said that
just because some women spoke ill of others at ovens and washing
places, the latter were not dishonoured by this [ . . . ] and that calling
women at ovens or washing places whores or hussies, or pulling their
hair, or even calling them witches [ . . . ] was not a sin either.84
This message from the pulpit reveals a change in mindset that was tak-
ing place at all levels of urban society in the mid-seventeenth century,
even if its clarity owes much to a cleric’s realization of the damage cer-
tain beliefs could still cause. For him, calling a woman a witch did not
imply that she actually was such a thing, nor that the imputation should
be interpreted literally, which was why the notion of its being a ‘sin’
had to be ruled out. This deliberate attempt at demystification speaks
of an increasingly sceptical attitude towards classic witchcraft or, to put
it another way, of a process of acculturation whereby elements of the
rural environment are replaced once they have lost their meaning in
the new urban context.85 One of the best examples of this is to be found
in the case of the Saragossan woman Gracia Andreu, tried for sorcery in
1656, part of whose response ‘to the question that was put to her about
credulity’86 appears at the head of this chapter.
Gracia, a consummate expert in love charms, claimed not to believe
in any of the magic she practised. As a consequence, she did not under-
stand why she had been imprisoned, unless it had something to do
with her late mother Isabel Andreu (arrested by the Inquisition 11 years
earlier87 ), renowned across the city as a witch. In Gracia’s words, ‘she
did not know [that] her mother was a witch, nor did she see her come
160 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
on one occasion speaking of herbs [she said] that God had freed her
from the herb of joy that other souls were accustomed to offering the
Devil, and that her mother [ . . . ] used it and was hired to the Devil,
for which reason she was able to do that which she wished [ . . . ], and
that this defendant did not use this herb, but valerian, which was
good for gaining happiness and with it she did not offer her spirit to
the devil.89
This ‘herb of joy’ was black henbane,90 traditionally associated with the
diabolical visions and hallucinations to which so many witches con-
fessed under torture. According to Gracia, her mother would gather it
161
162 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
with the poor, and thus reducing the risk of contagion, and at ensuring
that good, God-fearing folk would not have to pay for the actions of
sinners.10 According to José Estiche, one of the many wise decisions
made by Saragossa’s councillors, in addition to holding ‘large and pub-
lic prayer services’ all around the city and banning begging, was that
they had
As is well known, the chief way in which people tried to stop the infec-
tion from spreading was to burn any clothing found in the homes of
plague victims and purify everyone else’s. According to the so-called
Certification of the way in which Saragossa has effected a purification of
the contagion, some clothes were boiled in cauldrons with a powerful
bleaching agent, others burned in stoves or braziers, the rest taken to
‘the washing place where clothing is purified’.12 This was not a single
location, but rather a number of different ‘suitable sites on the banks of
the Ebro’, where clothing would be beaten over and over again, then left
to dry in the sun.13 It must have been at one such place on the outskirts
of the city that the scene related by Gracia Andreu to the inquisitors
in 1656 had taken place (see also previous chapter). She explained to
them that she had been taken there by a minister of justice and accused
of being a witch and a sorceress, although there is nothing to indicate
that she had been arrested by the municipal court before falling into the
hands of the Inquisition.
Another significant aspect of her story, as noted in her trial summary,
is the fact that
when this defendant left the hospital in the year of the contagion,
suffering from paralysis, Beatriz Laudes took her into her home for
a period of six or eight months, and when she quarrelled with a
man with whom she had had relations she asked the defendant if
there were something she could do to make the said man return to
her [ . . . ]14
From this moment onwards Gracia had done everything she could for
Beatriz. Specifically, she had burned alum on numerous occasions, as
well as other substances in flasks, crossing herself and as she did so
calling on ‘St Peter and St Paul’, ‘the apostles of Rome’, ‘the Crucified
Christ’, ‘the three Masses said by the priest on Christmas Night’, ‘the
staff of Abraham’, ‘the staff of Moses’, ‘as many evil bugs and beasts as
164 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
there are in the world’, and so on, all to make the man in question come
back, although none of her experiments achieved the desired effect.15
Love magic practices of this kind, common as they were at all times and
in all places, did seem to intensify in parallel with the spread of the
disease and its consequences, judging by inquisitorial trial summaries
dating from 1654 onwards (there is no surviving evidence of any sorcery
trial for the two years following the outbreak of plague in Saragossa).16
According to Felicia Figueras, a Valencian woman who had been living
in the city for seven years when she was exiled from the district in 1654,
at the time when the plague was upon this city, she came across
Josepha Cardona setting fire to a flask. And the said Josepha told her
[that] she would half fill it with boiling water and then would set fire
to it from within and that if a blue flame issued from it that was a sign
of jealousy, and if the flask broke, that was a sign [that] the woman
would not see again the man for whom she was doing this. And that,
when this defendant saw a friend of hers in great distress because she
had no news of a man whom she loved and from whom she had been
parted, she used flasks in the same way and for the same amount of
time on around twelve occasions, more or less. And that although
sometimes the flasks broke, the said woman did see her lover again.17
As Porcell stated, because so many men turned away from their partners
during that outbreak, some women resorted to soliciting strangers walk-
ing past their houses.22 No such evidence has been found relating to the
seventeenth-century plague, although there is an echo in the demonic
invocations that women recited at their windows and which involved
an indirect and imaginary form of summoning the men they desired.
By contrast, some reports have been uncovered regarding the attribution
of some men’s deaths to their sexual activity. For example, the death
of one youth thought to have succumbed to the plague in 1652 was
blamed on the fact that he had stayed out in the fields with a number
of women who had been banished by the ‘Father of Orphans’ and had
had sex with one of them.23
Surviving testimony suggests that women’s use of magic during the
epidemic was not only a way of trying to attract men physically but
also of clinging on to the hope that those who had disappeared from
their lives would one day come back or, sometimes, simply of establish-
ing whether or not a spouse was still alive before they remarried.24 The
summary of the trial of María García, originally from Villena (Alicante)
but resident in Saragossa for two years, tells how a woman named María
Martínez
was weeping because she had no news of her husband, who had
gone away. This defendant told her not to upset herself, that her hus-
band was well, although he was not thinking much about her. And
when she asked how she knew this, this defendant told her that if
she wanted news of her husband, the two of them would stand at
a window one night and recite certain words for three nights, and
with that he would have to come and see her, though he would then
have to leave again. And that if they heard people talking it would
be a sign that he would come soon, and that if [they heard] horses
166 Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
neighing, [it would be] a sign that he was going further away. And the
words were: Demon, I summon you; demon, I summon you; demon,
I summon you; my body and soul I give you; my body and soul I give
you; my body and soul I give you; I shall not deliver it to you or give
it to you until you bring me so-and-so in person.25
As the statement goes on, we learn that when María Martínez was
in Valencia, and her husband in Borja, during the plague, she wanted
to see him and did the abovementioned. And she saw him with two
children in his arms, whom he was taking away to bury. And then
her husband came in and she asked him if he had been in Borja and
if he had carried away two children to bury them, he said yes. And
that had happened on the day the defendant saw him.26
(especially the Diablo Cojuelo), she had equally frequently addressed her
pleas to God, the Virgin Mary, saints, angels, souls in purgatory and
even certain supposedly sacred animals. Here, for example, is the prayer
María García advised those undertaking dangerous journeys to say:
I commend myself to God and to the Virgin Mary, and to the first
garment worn by the Virgin. I commend my soul to St Sylvester
of Monte Mayor, and to the five thousand angels in his company.
And to that lioness and that lion, and to those seven bulls that kneel
before him. And to all those men and women who would harm me
and keep harming me, may they have eyes but see me not, may they
have feet that bear them not. May they have no more power to injure
or touch me, for I cannot give the blood of my Lord Jesus Christ.28
she knew a prayer that went: St Anne gave birth to the Virgin, St
Elizabeth to St John, the Virgin to Jesus Christ. This being true, lift
this evil from this person in the name of the Most Holy Trinity [ . . . ]
And that she had been taught this four years ago and for two years
had used those words with many sick people and that some had said
they felt better because of it.29
would make the sign of the cross over the sick and over caps, sashes
and belts of the sick [and say] the following prayer: Good Friday at
midday, as clear as daylight, when my Lord Jesus Christ was placed
on the cross. He chose to die to give us salvation [ . . . ] just as these
words are true, whoever may say them three times a day [may he
not suffer from] either tertian, quartan or quotidian fever [ . . . ] And
that while she uttered the said prayers, she would make the sign of
the cross over the sick person or over his or her belongings which
she was blessing [ . . . ] and that many people came to the defendant’s
house to ask her for remedies.31
170
Notes 171
11. See Stuart Clark, ‘Inversion, Misrule and the Meaning of Witchcraft’, Past
and Present, 87, 1980, pp. 98–127, and Thinking with Demons. The Idea of
Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997.
12. See Walter Stephens, Demon Lovers. Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief,
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2002.
means a step towards the simpler, purer religion that reformers wished for.
On the contrary, the many campaigns to foster more devotion among the
people led inexorably in the opposite direction.’ (The Phoenix and the Flame.
Catalonia and the Counter Reformation, New Haven & London, Yale University
Press, 1993, p. 136.)
15. See María Tausiet, ‘Zaragoza celeste y subterránea . . .’, in François Delpech,
L’imaginaire du territoire . . ., op. cit., p. 141.
16. See María Tausiet, Ponzoña en los ojos. Brujería y superstición en Aragón en el
siglo XVI, Madrid, Turner, 2004.
17. The office of the Justicia in Aragon enjoyed a judicial status unique in early
modern Spain. The role’s origins can be traced back to the royal Curia: in
Castile, this developed into the Court Tribunal, a permanent, collegiate insti-
tution; in Aragon, on the other hand, its powers over time devolved to
a single judge, or justicia, who dealt with cases involving members of the
nobility, as well as lawsuits arising between nobles and the monarch. From
the mid-fourteenth century onwards, however, this judge was also responsi-
ble for pronouncing upon the correct interpretation of the Kingdom’s laws
and customs and, through the court system, for preventing their abuse or
violation.
18. See Gregorio Colás Latorre and José Antonio Salas Auséns, Aragón en el
siglo XVI. Alteraciones sociales y conflictos políticos, Saragossa, Universidad de
Zaragoza, 1982.
19. ‘Estatuto contra los broxos y broxas, y hechizeros y hechizeras, y contra los com-
plizes en dichos casos’ (1592), in Archivo Municipal de Daroca, Estatutos de la
comunidad de Daroca (siglos XIV–XVI), fol. 348r.
20. Statuto de la bal d’Aysa (1530), Archivo Histórico Provincial de Huesca,
Protocolo 8146, notario Orante, fol. 24.
21. Libros de Actas del Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza (September 1584), Archivo
Municipal de Zaragoza (AMZ), 34 B-30, fol. 65v.
22. The zalmedina or zabalmedina (from çahalmedina, itself derived from the
Hispanic-Arabic term sâhib al-madina, meaning chief of police: sâhib –
chief/inspector – and madina – city) was a municipal judge with both civil
and criminal jurisdiction. He was appointed by royal decree and selected
from those citizens who were entitled to be chosen as city councillors. He
was expected to visit the local prison every Friday and to hold court on
designated juridical days. If he wanted to leave the city he had to obtain
permission from the councillors (for periods of a six days or less) or from the
presiding judge of the Audiencia (for longer periods).
23. ‘Estatuto hecho a seys de Deziembre de mil quinientos ochenta y seys
contra las Brujas y Hechizeras’, in Recopilacion de los estatutos de la ciudad
de Zaragoza . . ., op. cit., pp. 291–294.
24. Their names were Magdalena Ortiz and María de Val and their cases are men-
tioned in the Bastardelo y y borrador de los actos y eventos de los señores jurados
en 1590, 1591, 1592 y 1593, AMZ, 34 B-30, fols. 60–63.
25. Constituciones Sinodales del Obispado de Teruel (1627), Saragossa, Pedro
Cabarte, 1628, fol. 248. For more on the episcopal courts’ involvement in
persecuting magic, see José Pedro Paiva, Práticas e crenças mágicas. O medo e a
necessidade dos mágicos na diocese de Coimbra (1650–1740), Coimbra, Minerva,
1992, pp. 44–50.
Notes 173
an exact number on how many men and women of the city were brought
to court by the Inquisition for such crimes given that no records survive for
any of the trials that took place before 1540.
41. See Jaime Contreras and Gustav Henningsen, ‘Forty-Four Thousand Cases of
the Spanish Inquisition (1540–1700): Analysis of a Historical Data Bank’, in
Gustav Henningsen and John Tedeschi (eds.), The Inquisition in Early Modern
Europe: Studies on Sources and Methods, De Kalb (Illinois), 1986, pp. 100–129.
According to the authors’ preliminary estimates, reports on around 44,000
cases tried before the 20 peninsular tribunals have survived.
42. See José Ángel Sesma Muñoz, El establecimiento de la Inquisición en Aragón
(1484–1486), Saragossa, IFC, 1986.
43. Ricardo García Cárcel, La Inquisición, Madrid, Ed. Anaya, 1990, p. 14.
44. See Gustav Henningsen, The Witches’ Advocate. Basque Witchcraft and the
Spanish Inquisition (1609–1614), Reno, Nevada, University of Nevada Press,
1980.
45. Ricardo García Cárcel, op. cit., p. 47.
46. Ruth Martin, Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice. 1550–1650, Oxford and
New York, Basil Blackwell Ltd/Inc., 1989, p. 218.
47. Pilar Sánchez López, Organización y jurisdicción inquisitorial: el Tribunal de
Zaragoza, 1568–1646. Unpublished doctoral thesis. Barcelona, Universidad
Autónoma, 1989, p. 31.
48. William Monter, Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisition from the Basque
Lands to Sicily, Cambridge, CUP, 1990, pp. 79–80.
49. See Antonio Domínguez Ortiz and Bernard Vincent, Historia de de los
moriscos. Vida y tragedia de una minoría, Madrid, Ed. Alianza, 1985.
50. William Monter, op. cit., p. 53.
51. Record of the trial of Dominga Ferrer (Pozán de Vero, Huesca, 1535), AHPZ,
C. 31–2.
52. William Monter, op. cit., p. 83.
53. See Florencio Idoate, La brujería en Navarra y sus documentos, Pamplona,
Institución Príncipe de Viana, 1967 and William Monter, ‘Witch Trials in
Continental Europe’, in Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark (eds.), Witchcraft
and Magic in Europe. The Period of the Witch Trials, London and Philadelphia,
The Athlone Press, 2002, pp. 44–49.
54. A summary of the discussions held at the 1526 meeting in Granada can be
found in AHN, Inq., Lib. 1231, fols. 634–637 under the title ‘Dubia quae in
causa praesenti videntur diffinienda’.
4. See María Tausiet, Ponzoña en los ojos . . . op. cit., pp. 474–507.
5. See Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1989.
6. The antecedent of this principle is what the Greeks of third-century
Alexandria had called the ‘science of Hermes Trismegistus’ (‘the Thrice-
Great’), whose teachings came to form an encyclopedia of all universal
knowledge based on the observation of natural processes. See Frances
A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, London, Routledge, 2001
and Brian Vickers (ed.), Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984.
7. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy or Magic. Book
One: Natural Magic, New York, Cosimo Classics, 2007, p. 40.
8. Ibid., p. 119.
9. See Edmond Doutté, Magie et Religion dans l’Afrique du Nord, Paris,
J. Maisonneuve, 1994, and Michel Gall, Le secret des mille et une nuits (Les
Arabes possédaient la tradition), Paris, Robert Laffont, 1972.
10. On the close connection between magic and holiness in the Renaissance,
see Bruce Gordon, ‘The Renaissance angel’, in Peter Marshall and Alexandra
Walsham (eds.), Angels in the Early Modern World, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 2006, pp. 41–63.
11. In 1277, and despite the fact that some members of the Church were
far from convinced of the matter, Pope John XXI, the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Bishop of Paris condemned ritual magic as demonic.
Then, in 1320, Pope John XXII, obsessed by the fear that he was the target
of conjurations aimed at eliminating him for one reason or another, again
condemned it, but this time assimilated its practice into the crime of heresy,
meaning that it could now be prosecuted by the Inquisition.
12. Constitución de S. S. El Papa Sixto V, dada en Roma el 5 de enero de 1585 contra
cierta clase de magia (Constitution of his Holiness Pope Sixtus V, issued in
Rome on 5 January 1585 against a certain class of magic), Spanish trans-
lation in Rafael Gracia Boix, Brujas y hechiceras de Andalucía, Córdoba,
2001.
13. See François Delpech, ‘Grimoires et savoirs souterrains. Éléments pour une
archéo-mythologie du livre magique’, in Dominique de Courcelles (ed.), Le
pouvoir des livres à la Renaissance, Paris, École des Chartes, 1998, pp. 23–46,
and ‘Biblioteca de Magos, Astrólogos y Hechiceros’ in Sebastián Cirac
Estopañán, Los procesos de hechicerías en la Inquisición de Castilla la Nueva,
Madrid, CSIC, 1942, pp. 1–38.
14. El Libro Magno de San Cipriano o Tesoro del Hechicero, Madrid, Humanitas,
1985, p. 229. This book, whose origins appear to lie in the eleventh cen-
tury, although the version we know of dates from the sixteenth, includes,
in addition to a chapter about ways to lift the enchantments from buried
treasure, a list of 174 hoards hidden in the Kingdom of Galicia (see Álvaro
Cunqueiro, Tesoros y otras magias, Barcelona, Tusquets, 1984, pp. 69–72).
See also Bernardo Barreiro, Brujos y astrólogos de la Inquisición de Galicia y
el famoso libro de San Cipriano, La Coruña, 1885, republished in Madrid by
Akal in 1973.
15. Jesuit theologian Martín del Río thought that demon-invokers had two
main reasons for choosing a circle: firstly, it had no beginning or end,
176 Notes
27. Record of the trial of Joan Vicente (Saragossa, 1511), AHPZ, C. 28–7, fol. 69.
28. Although we know that his three fellow conspirators (Miguel de Soria,
Miguel Sánchez and Jerónimo de Valdenieso) were also accused of
necromancy and brought to trial, only Vicente’s record has survived.
29. Record of the trial of Joan Vicente (Saragossa, 1511), AHPZ, C. 28–7,
fol. 4.
30. Both the gosling and the pimpernel had great symbolic value. Geese had
since ancient times been linked to certain esoteric traditions associated with
alchemy. The popular ‘game of the goose’ recalls the labyrinthine stages
that alchemists had to work through in order to achieve their goal. The
pimpernel is a plant with reddish stalk and flowers which gave rise to its
Latin name, Sanguisorba (blood-sucking/absorbing).
31. Record of the trial of Joan Vicente (Saragossa, 1511), AHPZ, C. 28–7, fol. 8.
32. Ibid., fol. 8.
33. Ibid., fol. 16.
34. Ibid., fol. 16.
35. According to the evidence given by Miguel de Soria, as well as using the
Clavicula Salomonis, the conspirators had also drawn on other such texts
when planning their experiments, including the so-called Clavicule of Virgil.
See the record of the trial of Joan Vicente (Saragossa, 1511), AHPZ, C. 28–7,
fol. 63.
36. For more on the different interpretations of the meaning of numbers, see
Vincent Foster Hopper, Medieval Number Symbolism. Its Sources, Meaning and
Influence on Thought and Expression, New York, Columbia University Press,
1938, and Christopher Butler, Number Symbolism (Ideas and Forms in English
Literature), London, Routledge, 1970.
37. Record of the trial of Joan Vicente (Saragossa, 1511), AHPZ, C. 28–7, fol. 31v.
38. Ibid., fols. 16v.–17r.
39. Ibid., fol. 48.
40. Ibid., fol. 52v.–53r.
41. Ibid., fol. 53.
42. Ibid., inserted document, no folio number.
43. Ibid., inserted document, no folio number.
44. To quote William Monter: ‘a huge dossier of over 100 folios, probably our
best source on high magic in Renaissance Spain’. (Frontiers of Heresy, op. cit.,
p. 258.)
45. Record of the trial of Joan Vicente (Saragossa, 1511), AHPZ, C. 28–7,
inserted document, no folio number.
46. A case case bearing many similarities to those described in this chapter is
that of Pier Giacomo Bramoselli (archpriest of Brignano, in the diocese of
Cremona). Born in Milan but a resident of Madrid, he was tried by the
Toledo tribunal between 1660 and 1663, charged with being a ‘heretic,
apostate, impenitent, incorrigible, dogmatizing [and] superstitious [and of
having committed] a form of idolatry, sacrilege, entering into an explicit
pact with and invoking the Devil, etc.’ He eventually confessed to having
done all these things not because he believed in them but because of ‘his
greed for money’. See ‘Vida y milagros del doctor Milanés’, in Julio Caro
Baroja, Vidas mágicas e Inquisición, vol. II, Barcelona, Círculo de Lectores,
1990, pp. 260–335.
178 Notes
47. See ‘Proceso de Jerónimo de Liébana’, in Sebastián Cirac Estopañán, op. cit.,
pp. 160–180.
48. AHN, Inq., Lib. 991, fol. 522r.
49. Ibid., fols. 525r., 530r., 531v., 534r. and 536v.
50. Ibid., fols. 522v., 523r.
51. Ibid., 522v., 523r.
52. Ibid., 523r.
53. Ibid., fol. 535v.
54. The belief that it was possible to command demons by means of a magic
ring comes from legends surrounding King Solomon made known not only
by the Bible but also, and more importantly, by a large number of Arab,
Turkish and Persian writers, as well as Talmudists. These stories portrayed
Solomon as the richest, wisest and most powerful man of all time. Among
the many powers attributed to him was that of dominating all earthly, celes-
tial and infernal spirits. The tales told how he was able to capture and
enslave demons using a ring on which was engraved the secret name of
God. Hence many books of magic attributed to Solomon explained how to
obtain this ring. See Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, The Jewish
Publication Society/Princeton University Press, 1987.
55. AHN, Inq., Lib. 991, fol. 534v.
56. Ibid., fol. 530r.
57. Ibid., fols. 524v.–525r.
58. In the words of Pedro Ciruelo, ‘In the First Commandment God speaks to us
of the faith, love and loyalty with which as good vassals we are to honour
him. And the Greeks call this latria or theosebia; the Latins call it religion or
devotion. The sin against it is idolatry or betrayal of God, by making a bond
of friendship with the Devil, His enemy.’ (See Pedro Ciruelo, Reprobacion de
las supersticiones y hechizerias [1530], Valencia, Albatros, 1978, p. 32.)
59. Record of the trial of Pedro Bernardo (Saragossa, 1510), AHPZ, C. 28–5,
fols. 28v–29r.
60. AHN, Inq., Lib. 991, fol. 525r. This sentence was never imposed in its
entirety. In fact, Jerónimo ‘appeared at an auto de fe held at the church
of San Francisco in the year 1620, in penitent’s habit, wearing the coroza
[conical hat], carrying a candle, in person [ . . . ] and was then given one
hundred lashes in the city streets [ . . . ], and when he was serving in the gal-
leys of the Principality [of Catalonia] he falsified some papers of the Holy
Office so that the part of his sentence still to be served was commuted’,
which meant he was tried again in 1623 by the Inquisition of Barcelona.
(See Sebastián Cirac Estopañán, op. cit., p. 162.)
61. Record of the trial of Pedro Bernardo (Saragossa, 1510), AHPZ, C. 28–5,
fol. 32v.
62. On the belief in magic and its efficacy, see the classic studies by Bronislaw
Malinowski, Magic, Science and Religion, New York, Doubleday Anchor
Books, 1954, and Marcel Mauss, A General Theory of Magic, trans. Robert
Brain, London/New York, Routledge Classics, 2001.
63. In general terms, this meant fairies, though they had acquired different
names and characteristics in each region (Basque lamias, Galician donas,
Asturian xanas and so on). See Julio Caro Baroja, Algunos mitos españoles,
Madrid, Ed. Nacional, 1941.
Notes 179
72. For more on the role played by young virgins in treasure seeking in
seventeenth-century Spain, see ‘Tesoros ocultos’, in Rafael Martín Soto,
Magia e Inquisición en el antiguo reino de Granada (siglos XVI–XVIII), Málaga,
Arguval, 2000, pp. 196–202.
73. See Maria Helena Sánchez Ortega, La Inquisición y los gitanos, Madrid, Ed.
Taurus, 1988, pp. 193–243 and 323–349.
74. A seer or diviner, from the Arabic zuharí (geomancer), itself an adjective
deriving from azzuharah (Venus), to whose influence the gift of divination
was attributed. Generally applied to those believed to be able to find what
is hidden, water sources in particular.
75. The man in question was Antón Lozano, whose career as a zahorí who spe-
cialized in treasure seeking in Saragossa and the surrounding area is detailed
in his inquisitorial trial summary, as is his sentence to appear at a pub-
lic auto de fe, abjure de levi and then be exiled for three years from the
inquisitorial district (AHN, Inq., Lib. 992, fols. 57v.–59r.).
76. Ibid., fol. 59r.
77. Álvaro Cunqueiro, op. cit.
78. See Gilbert Durand, The Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary, Mount
Nebo (Queensland, Australia), Boombana Publications, 1999.
79. AHN, Inq., Lib. 992, fols. 97r. and v.
80. According to a rite associated with a treasure-seeking spell that was included
by Ibn el H’âdjj in a treatise entitled Choumoûs el Anouâr, the magical work
relating to this enchantment had to be carried out in a deserted place over a
period of many days. After 21 days, the practitioner would see a black slave
riding an enormous lion; after 42, 70 men dressed in green would greet
him; after 47, a white city would appear before him, and so on. Finally, he
would find himself in the presence of the imam Et’-Tâoûs, the man who
knew the secret of the enchantment protecting the hidden treasure. (See
Edmond Doutté, op. cit., pp. 266–268.)
81. See Vicente Risco, op. cit., p. 17.
82. AHN, Inq., Lib. 992, fol.97r.
83. Ibid., fol. 97v.
84. Ibid., fol. 97v.
85. Ibid., fol. 104v.
86. Ibid., fol. 105r.
87. Ibid., fols. 103r. and v.
88. Ibid., fol. 104r.
89. AHN, Inq., Lib. 992, fols. 639v.–648v.
90. Ibid., fols. 643 r. and v.
91. Ibid., fol. 646v.
92. See Helena Sánchez Ortega, op. cit., pp. 233–238.
93. AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fol. 404.
94. The girl, born in Ponzano (Huesca) and a resident of Saragossa, was known
as Manuela de Biescas and went from place to place indicating the loca-
tion of hidden treasures, based on her skills as a clairvoyant. According to
her own statement, ‘when she was in her parents’ house [ . . . ] a serpent
appeared to her and she heard a voice which told her not to be afraid, for
the serpent would not harm her’; she also said she had seen other angelic
and demonic apparitions (AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fol. 380).
Notes 181
12. ‘Thomas was in bed for six months [ . . . ] and although they gave him all the
treatment they could, they only managed to cure his bodily complaints,
but not his mind. He got better but remained possessed by the strangest
madness anybody had ever seen. The poor wretch imagined that he was all
made of glass, and under this delusion, when someone came up to him, he
would scream out in the most frightening manner, and using the most con-
vincing arguments would beg them not to come near him, or they would
break him; for really and truly he was not like other men, being made of
glass from head to foot.’ (Miguel de Cervantes, The Glass Graduate, op. cit.,
p. 128).
13. Cervantes held that such enchantments were nothing but poison (‘Those
who give these aphrodisiac drinks or foods are called “poisoners”: because
all they do is to poison those who take them, as experience has shown on
many and varied occasions.’). See Miguel de Cervantes, op. cit., p. 128.
14. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (Part 1, Book III, Chapter VIII), op. cit.,
p. 131.
15. AHN, Inq., Lib. 989, fol. 214.
16. Ibid., fol. 213v.
17. AHN, Inq., Lib. 990, fol. 13v.
18. Record of the trial of Gracia Tello (Saragossa, 1605), ADZ, C. 22–7, fol. 11.
19. AHN, Inq., Lib. 995, fol. 461v.
20. AHN, Inq., Lib. 997, fol. 477r.
21. AHN, Inq., Lib. 995, fol. 459r.
22. AHN, Inq., Lib. 994, fol. 290v.
23. Ibid., fol. 433v.
24. Ibid., fol. 537v.
25. Specifically, the full records of three trials brought by the city’s episcopal
court (against Joanna Polo in 1561, María Rodríguez in 1604 and Isabel
Gombal in 1605) and of a further three brought by the inquisitorial tribunal
(against Catalina Aznar in 1511, Agustina in 1646 and Catalina Baeza in
1648), as well as 50 trial summaries relating to cases heard by the Saragossa
Inquisition involving people accused of practising love magic in the city
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
26. See Sebastián Cirac Estopañán, op. cit., pp. 105–159; Noemí Sánchez
Quezada, Amor y magia amorosa entre los Aztecas, Mexico City, Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de México, 1975 and Sexualidad, Amor y Erotismo.
México Prehispánico y México Colonial, Mexico City, Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México, 1996; Francisco Fajardo Spinola, Las Palmas en 1524:
Brujería y sexualidad, Madrid-Las Palmas, Patronato de la ‘Casa de Colón’,
1985; María Helena Sánchez Ortega, La mujer y la sexualidad en el Antiguo
Régimen. La perspectiva inquisitorial, Madrid, Ed. Akal, 1992 and Ese viejo
diablo llamado amor. La magia amorosa en la Edad Moderna, Madrid, UNED,
2004.
27. AHN, Inq., Lib. 994, fols. 533r. and v.
28. Ibid., fol. 534v.
29. Ibid., fols. 535r. and v.
30. Ibid., fol. 536r.
31. Ibid., fol. 536v.
32. Ibid., fol. 537r.
184 Notes
33. Christopher A. Faraone, in Ancient Greek Love Magic (Cambridge & London,
Harvard University Press, 1999) offers a fascinating view of love magic in
Ancient Greece using a bipartite system of classification based primarily on
the gender of its practitioners. In the words of the author, this allows a
clear distinction to be drawn between ‘those rituals used mainly by men to
instill erotic passion (erôs) in women and those used primarily by women
to maintain or increase affection (philia) in men.’ (Preface, p. ix)
34. AHN, Inq., Lib. 992, fol. 235r.
35. Ibid., fol. 232v.
36. AHN, Inq., Lib. 994, fol. 432r.
37. Ibid., fols. 432r and v.
38. Ibid., fol. 432v.
39. Ibid., fol. 433r.
40. Carlos de Federicis was one of the 17 conspirators tried between 1690 and
1693 by the inquisitorial tribunal in Saragossa for having made ‘a league
and a union to undertake treasure-seeking’, specifically among the ruins of
the Castillo de Miranda. See Chapter 2.
41. AHN, Lib. 998, Inq, fol. 334r.
42. Ibid., fol, 335r.
43. Ibid., fol. 371r.
44. Isabel Gombal, born in Benalguacil (Valencia), whose indisputable success
in the sphere of love magic allowed her to enjoy a level of prosperity
unusual among sorceresses, was tried by Saragossa’s Inquisition in 1597,
and was sentenced to ‘reconciliation, penitential habit and prison for
four years, and to one hundred lashes in Saragossa’s streets’. (AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 990, fol. 34r.) This did not stop her practising her craft, with the result
that she faced another trial in 1605, on this occasion at the episcopal court.
According to the confession she made to the vicar-general of the archbishop
of Saragossa, ‘she was imprisoned by the Holy Office and punished with the
sanbenito, which she wore for four years’. Furthermore, one of the women
who gave evidence at the episcopal trial stated that she herself had thought
of paying for her services and that ‘at the time Isabel was being made to pay
penance by the Holy Office and was wearing the habit.’ (ADZ, C. 44–27,
fol. 39v.)
45. Record of the trial of Isabel Gombal (Saragossa, 1605), ADZ, C. 44–27,
inserted document, no folio number.
46. ‘Lovesickness’, or amor hereos (a hybrid term deriving from both the
Greek ‘eros’ and Latin ‘heros’, suggesting that love was a noble dis-
ease that only affected heroes) had been thought since ancient times to
be caused by the five external senses but also by the so-called internal
senses, or ‘faculties of the soul’ (common sense, imagination and mem-
ory). In around 1260, Arnaldo de Villanova was the first European to write
a treatise that dealt specifically with this condition (Arnaldi Villanovani,
De amore heroico, in Opera Omnia, Basle, 1585). From the fifteenth cen-
tury onwards, an increasing emphasis was placed on the role of evil spells
as a direct cause of lovesickness. Hence the practice of philocaptio (spells
cast to win another person’s love) was condemned as superstitious in
the 1600s by writers such as Saragossan canon Bernardo Basin and Juan
Nider, both of whom held that the devil was primarily to blame for
Notes 185
was bound in Pilate’s house’. See the record of the trial of Catalina Aznar
(Saragossa, 1511), ADZ, C. 28–6, fol. 24v.
100. Relación de causa of María Romerales (Saragossa, 1609), AHN, Inq., Lib. 991,
fol. 134v.
101. See François Delpech, ‘Système érotique . . .’, op. cit., p. 217.
102. See François Delpech, ‘De Marthe a Marta ou les mutations de une
entité transculturelle’, in Culturas populares, Madrid, Ed. Universidad
Complutense, 1986, p. 67.
103. See Sebastián Cirac Estopañán, op. cit., p. 131.
104. Ibid., pp. 131–132.
105. Relación de causa of Gracia Andreu (Saragossa, 1654), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995,
fol. 460v.
106. A reproduction of a St Martha prayer card seized by the Inquisition from
a Lanzarote woman accused of sorcery in 1624 can be seen in Francisco
Fajardo Spínola’s book Hechicería y brujería en Canarias en la Edad Moderna,
Las Palmas, Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria, 1992, p. 157.
107. Relación de causa of Petronila Sanz (Saragossa, 1635), AHN, Inq., Lib. 992,
fol. 193.
108. Relación de causa of Ana María Torrero (Saragossa, 1636), AHN, Lib. 992,
fol. 229.
109. Relación de causa of Jorge Núñez Piñeiro (Saragossa, 1636), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 992, fols. 234 and 235.
110. Sebastián Cirac Estopañán quotes a prayer said to St Helen, which demon-
strates a clear link between her life story and the reason for which she is
being called upon: ‘Helen, Helen, / daughter of King and Queen, / ’t was
you discovered the cross of Christ, / and with three nails you found it. / One
you threw into the sea / and with it you were blessed; / another you gave to
your brother Stephen, / and with it he fought, defended and won; / and the
third you kept yourself. / With it, Helen, I wish / that you would pierce So-
and-so’s heart, / so that you render him / unable to eat or drink, / until he
return to my door.’ (See Sebastián Cirac Estopañán, op. cit., pp. 134–135.)
In Saragossa, references to prayers addressed to St Helen can be found in
the trial summaries of Isabel Teresa Castañer (1663, AHN, Inq., Lib. 997,
fol. 322) and Ana Tris (1663. AHN, Inq., Lib. 997, fol. 356).
111. See François Delpech, ‘Système érotique . . .’, op. cit., p. 225.
112. Relación de causa of Felicia Figueras (Saragossa, 1654), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995,
fol. 459.
113. See Jacobus de Voragine The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints (transl.
William Granger Ryan), Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2012, p. 397.
114. Ibid., p. 398.
115. See Luis Coronas Tejada, ‘Hechicería y brujería ante el Tribunal de la
Inquisición de Córdoba’, I Congresso Luso-Brasileiro sobre Inquisição, Lisbon,
Sociedade Portuguesa de Estudios do Século XVIII, 1986.
116. See Francisco Fajardo Spínola, op. cit., p. 163.
117. Peter did in fact marry María as well, and they had four children together:
Alfonso (who was declared the legitimate heir to the throne, but prede-
ceased his father), Beatriz, Constancia and Isabel. For more on María and
her associations with the underworld, see Bernard Leblon, ‘María de Padilla
aux enfers’, Bulletin Hispanique, 83, 3–4, 1981, pp. 463–465.
Notes 189
to carry it with him whenever he needed its luck. And first he was to say an
Our Father and an Ave Maria for the soul of the man who had died with it
around his neck.’ (AHN, Inq., Lib. 995, fol. 234).
152. Relación de causa of Gracia Andreu (Saragossa, 1654), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995,
fol. 454v.
153. For more on the shadow as an expression of the belief in an external soul,
thought to be a double or a hidden aspect of the personality, see Sir James
Frazer, op. cit.; Claude Lecouteux, Fées, Sorcières et Loups-garous au Moyen
Âge. Histoire du Double, Paris, Imago, 1992, and Victor I. Stoichita, Breve
historia de la sombra, Madrid, Ed. Siruela, 2000.
154. For examples of the kind of erotic charms addressed to the shadow, see
Sebastián Cirac Estopañán, op. cit., p. 112 and Francisco Fajardo Spínola,
op. cit., p. 182.
155. See Sebastián Cirac Estopañán, op. cit., p. 113 and Francisco Fajardo
Spínola, op. cit., p. 111.
156. Record of the trial of Catalina Aznar (Saragossa, 1511), ADZ, C. 28–6, fol. 37.
157. See Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles. Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1983; Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, La sorcière de Jasmin, Paris, Ed. du
Seuil, 1983; Wolfgang Behringer, Shaman of Oberstdorf. Chonrad Stoeckhlin
and the Phantoms of the Night, Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia,
1994.
158. See François Delpech, ‘Système érotique . . .’, op. cit., pp. 221–222.
159. Relación de causa of Isabel Francisca de Mota (Saragossa, 1665), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 997, fol. 475.
160. See María Helena Sánchez Ortega, ‘Sorcery and Eroticism in Love Magic’,
in Mary Elizabeth Perry and Anne J. Cruz (eds.), Cultural Encounters. The
Impact of the Inquisition in Spain and the New World, University of California
Press, 1991, pp. 79–83.
161. Relación de causa of Lucía de Soria (Saragossa, 1642), AHN, Inq., Lib. 992,
fols. 672–673.
162. Ibid., fol. 676v.
43. Relación de causa of Jacinto Vargas (Saragossa, 1636), AHN, Inq., Lib. 992,
fol. 251r.
44. Ibid., fol. 251v. (The monochord, as its name suggests, was a single-stringed
instrument. The string was stretched across two fixed bridges, and a move-
able bridge was placed beneath it, enabling it to be used, primarily, as a
tuning device.)
45. Ibid., fol. 251v.
46. Ibid., fol. 251v.
47. Ibid., fol. 252r.
48. Ibid., fol. 252v.
49. Incidentally, after being denounced, Jacinto was called to appear before the
Saragossa tribunal, whereupon he fled to France and ‘was absent for a period
of five months’. After this, however, he returned ‘of his own volition’,
which was viewed in a positive light by the inquisitors. (Ibid., fols. 252
r. and v.)
50. On age and its relationship with inquisitorial jurisdiction, see Henry
Charles Lea, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 3–4 and Haim Beinart, ‘El niño como tes-
tigo de cargo en el Tribunal de la Inquisición’, in José Antonio Escudero
(ed.), Perfiles jurídicos de la Inquisición española, Madrid, Universidad
Complutense, 1989, pp. 391–400.
51. Relación de causa of Juan de Mateba (Saragossa, 1658), AHN, Inq., Lib. 998,
fol. 94r.
52. Relación de causa of Juan José de Venegas (Saragossa, 1685), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 998, fol. 279r.
53. Ibid., fol. 279r.
54. Ibid., fol. 278v.
55. Ibid., fol. 279r.
56. ‘He said that [ . . . ] he had been brought up in his parents’ house until the
age of eight or ten years, when he was taken away by Don Braulio de Funes,
an archdeacon of Huesca, with whom he stayed for around three years.
And afterwards he spent another three years with Don Felipe Poman, prior
of Monte Aragon, and that from there [ . . . ] he went to Valencia, where he
had been [ . . . ] until he returned to Saragossa in 53, that he had not left this
Kingdom until he went to Madrid to cure a daughter of the Marquesa of
Guadalcazar.’ Relación de causa of Pablo Borao (Saragossa, 1658), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 996, fols. 86v.–87r.
57. According to his trial summary, of the 114 witnesses who appeared at Pablo
Borao’s trial, 68 were women and 46 were men, among them 17 priests.
(AHN, Inq., Lib. 996, fol. 67r.)
58. Ibid., fol. 67r.
59. Ibid., fol. 67v.
60. Ibid., fol. 69r.
61. Ibid., fol. 69r.
62. Ibid., fol. 75v.
63. Ibid., fol. 75v.
64. Ibid., fol. 69v.
65. Ibid., fol. 68r.
66. Ibid., fol. 68v.
Notes 195
Sluhovsky, ‘The Devil in the Convent’, American Historical Review, vol. 107,
no. 5, 2002, pp. 1398–1399).
78. Relación de causa of Pablo Borao (Saragossa, 1658), AHN, Inq., Lib. 996,
fol. 74v.
79. Ibid., fol. 77v.
80. Ibid., fol. 75r.
81. Ibid., fol. 76r.
82. See Ángela Atienza López, Propiedad, explotación y rentas. El clero regular
zaragozano en el siglo XVIII, Saragossa, Departamento de Cultura, 1988,
and Antonio Beltrán Martínez, Zaragoza: calles con Historia, Saragossa,
Ediciones 94, 1999.
83. Relación de causa of Pablo Borao (Saragossa, 1658), AHN, Inq., Lib. 996,
fol. 71v.
84. Ibid., fol. 69v.
85. Ibid., fols. 77r. and v.
86. Ibid., fols. 71v.–77v.
87. Ibid., fols. 77v.–78r.
88. Ibid., fol. 79r.
89. Ibid., fol. 79r.
90. Ibid., fol. 79v.
91. Ibid., fol. 79v.
92. Ibid., fols. 79v.–80r.
93. Ibid., fol. 80r.
94. Ibid., fols. 80r. and v.
95. On this subject, see Donald Weinstein and Rudolph M. Bell, Saints and Soci-
ety: Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000–1700, Chicago, University of
Chicago Press, 1982; Isabelle Poutrin ‘Souvenirs d’enfance: L’apprentissage
de la sainteté dans l’Espagne moderne’, Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez,
23 (1987), pp. 331–354, and Anne Jacobson Schutte, Aspiring Saints: Pre-
tense of Holiness, Inquisition and Gender in the Republic of Venice, 1618–1750,
Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
96. Relación de causa of Pablo Borao (Saragossa, 1658), AHN, Inq., Lib. 996,
fol. 90r.
97. Ibid., fol. 93r.
98. Ibid., fol. 95v.
99. Ibid., fol. 95v.
100. Ibid., fols. 267v.–268r.
101. Ibid., fol. 69v.
29. See José Luis Gómez Urdáñez, ‘La Real Casa de Misericordia . . .’, op. cit., and
Asunción Fernández Doctor, El Hospital Real y General de Nuestra Señora de
Gracia de Zaragoza en el siglo XVIII, Saragossa, IFC, 1987, p. 27.
30. In the words of Ángel San Vicente Pino, ‘The Father of Orphans was, over
a period of three centuries, an officially and legally appointed local func-
tionary who worked in the urban centres of Valencia, Navarre and Aragon.
The job involved dealing with young people and criminals, with a particular
emphasis on the discipline of servants and apprentices, within the context
of a set of socially approved norms. Elsewhere in Spain, some of these func-
tions were undertaken by the Corredor de Mozos, the Acomodadora de Mozas
and the Alguacil de los Vagabundos.’ The earliest surviving Saragossan statutes
relating to the role date back to 1475. Abolished in 1708, it was reinstated
ten years later and only finally disappeared in the late eighteenth century.
See Ángel San Vicente Pino, El oficio del Padre de Huérfanos . . ., op. cit.
31. ‘Father was a generic name for anyone involved in working for the public
welfare – a Roman custom imitated by Spain’s fifteenth-century humanist
men of politics.’ Hence in Saragossa, for example, it was applied to the man
responsible for caring for the insane at the Hospital of Our Lady of Grace
(where, as in other asylums, such as that in Valencia, there was both a Father
and a Mother of the Insane). There also existed at this time a Father of the
Brothel, whose role was to maintain discipline among the city’s prostitutes,
but who often forced them to work very long hours. This role was not well
regarded, and in 1579 the city councillors had no hesitation in bringing the
then incumbent to trial charged with being a thief and an accessory to theft.
(Ibid., pp. 18–19.)
32. Libro de Actos Comunes del Capitol y Consejo de la ciudad de Zaragoza, 21
de marzo de 1577, AMZ, fol. 145r. (See ibid., pp. 290–291.)
33. Libro de Actos Comunes del Capitol y Consejo de la ciudad de Zaragoza, 18
de septiembre de 1585, AMZ. (See ibid., p. 163.)
34. Relación de causa of Juana Bardaxi (Saragossa, 1626), AHN, Inq., Lib. 991,
fol. 897r. and v.
35. See James S. Amelang, ‘Durmiendo con el enemigo: el diablo en los sueños’,
in María Tausiet and James S. Amelang (eds.), op. cit., pp. 327–356.
36. Relación de causa of Juana Bardaxi (Saragossa, 1626), AHN, Inq., Lib. 991,
fol. 898r.
37. Ibid., fol. 898v.
38. Ibid., fol. 898v.
39. Relación de causa of Margalida Escuder (Saragossa, 1626), AHN, Inq., Lib. 991,
fol. 896r.
40. Relación de causa of Juana Bardaxi (Saragossa, 1626), AHN, Inq., Lib. 991,
fol. 898v.
41. Relación de causa of Margalida Escuder (Saragossa, 1626), AHN, Inq., Lib. 991,
fol. 896r.
42. ‘The Casa de Nuestra Señora de la Misericordia para prostitutas arrepentidas or
Casa de Recogidas [House of Our Lady of Mercy for repentant prostitutes
or Home for Withdrawn Women] was established under the auspices of
the Count of Sástago in 1594. It was founded as part of the process of
creating ‘Houses of work and labour’ in which [ . . . ] women who had for-
merly been involved in prostitution or vagrancy would spend some years of
Notes 199
España (siglos XIII al XVII), tomo I, Madrid, Temas de Hoy, 1994, p. 154, and
William J. Callahan, La Santa y Real Hermandad del Refugio y Piedad de Madrid.
1618–1832, Madrid, Instituto de Estudios Madrileños-CSIC, 1980.
64. Calling the hospital one of the wonders of Saragossa, Father Diego Murillo
said ‘it had two large rooms for male and female lunatics. The patients came
from all nations.’ (See F. Diego Murillo, Fundacion Milagrosa de la Capilla
Angelica y Apostolica de la Madre de Dios del Pilar, y Excellencias de la imperial
ciudad de Çaragoça, Barcelona, 1616.)
65. For more on the Our Lady of Grace Hospital, see Asunción Fernández Doctor,
op. cit. and Aurelio Baquero, Bosquejo histórico del Hospital Real y General de
Nuestra Señora de Gracia de Zaragoza, Saragossa, IFC, 1952.
66. See Antonio Carreira and Jesús Antonio Cid (eds.), La vida y hechos de
Estebanillo González, hombre de buen humor, compuesto por el mesmo Estebanillo
González, Madrid, Cátedra, 1990.
67. See J. M. Royo Sarrià, El manicomio de Zaragoza (Seis siglos de su fundación).
Trabajos de la Cátedra de Historia Crítica de la Medicina, 1935–36, VII,
p. 79.
68. See Hélène Tropé, op. cit., pp. 239–241. Around 70 wooden cages are known
to have existed in the eighteenth century in which the most seriously
afflicted were placed in isolation. These were fitted with small iron grilles
through which food and drink could be passed; patients had to urinate and
defecate through a hole in the cage floor. See Asunción Fernández Doctor,
op. cit., pp. 267–272.
69. See the 1929 issue of the journal Aragón, p. 26 (cited in Ángel San Vicente
Pino, El oficio del Padre de Huérfanos . . ., op. cit., p. 18).
70. Ordinaciones del Hospital Real y General de Nuestra Señora de Gracia de la ciudad
de Zaragoza [1655], reprinted in Saragossa, Imprenta de la Calle Coso, 1836,
p. 46. (See Asunción Fernández Doctor, op. cit., p. 274.)
71. See Joaquín Gimeno Riera, La casa de Locos de Zaragoza y el Hospital de Nuestra
Señora de Gracia, Saragossa, Librería de Cecilio Gasca, 1908, p. 24.
72. As stated in the 1655 regulations, ‘within the hospital, the male lunatics will
be put to work, carrying out all tasks of which they are capable, according
to their condition. And the female lunatics will be given the work of spin-
ning, sewing, basket weaving and other such tasks.’ (See Asunción Fernández
Doctor, op. cit., p. 288.)
73. For more on this debate, see Hélène Tropé, op. cit., pp. 271–285. She dis-
agrees with the idea that as early as the seventeenth century setting the
insane to work was seen as therapy, but also underlines the fact that in the
mindset of the day work was believed to have a redemptive aspect. Physician
Philippe Pinel (1745–1826), famous for having advocated a humanitarian
treatment of the mentally ill in revolutionary Paris and for supposedly hav-
ing freed the patients at the asylums of Salpêtrière and Bicêtre from their
chains, said that Saragossa’s Hospital of Our Lady of Grace was one of the
best such institutions in Europe and that it placed particular emphasis on
occupational therapy. (See Philippe Pinel, Tratado médico-filosófico de la ena-
jenación del alma o manía, Madrid, Imprenta Real, 1804 and Peter K. Klein,
‘Insanity and the Sublime: Aesthetics and Theories of Mental Ilness in Goya’s
Yard with Lunatics and Related Works’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld
Institutes, 61, 1998, pp. 198–252.)
202 Notes
2. See Richard Kieckhefer, op. cit.; Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons, op. cit.
and Randall Styers, op. cit.
3. Julio Caro Baroja, The World of the Witches, trans. Nigel Glendinning,
London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964, p. 100.
4. See María Tausiet, ‘Avatares del mal. El diablo en las brujas’, in María Tausiet
and James S. Amelang (eds.), op. cit., pp. 45–66.
5. See Walter Stephens, op. cit. and Lyndal Roper, Witch Craze. Terror and Fan-
tasy in Baroque Germany, New Haven and London, Yale University Press,
2004.
6. For a summary of what its author terms ‘the cumulative concept of
witchcraft’, see Brian P. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe,
London and New York, Longman, 1987, pp. 27–45.
7. See relación de causa of Pedro Solón (Saragossa, 1581), AHN, Inq., Lib. 988,
fol. 492v.
8. See relaciones de causa of Juan de la Marca (Saragossa, 1585), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 989, fols. 140v.–141r. and Pascual Clemente (Saragossa, 1609), AHN,
Inq., Lib. 990, fol. 645r and Lib. 991, fols. 118v.–119r.
9. See relación de causa of Guillén de Tolosa (Saragossa, 1603), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 990, fols. 307r. and v.
10. See relación de causa of Father Diego de Fuertes, priest at the Basilica of Our
Lady of the Pillar (Saragossa, 1653), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995, fols. 21v.–22r.
11. It is impossible to give a statistically reliable tally of the occupations of
the men brought to trial (a detail not always included in inquisitorial
summaries), but those highlighted here are the most frequently mentioned.
12. A huge number of clerics were involved in demonic conjurations. See
Chapter 2 of this book (‘Magic Circles and Enchanted Treasures’).
13. In early modern Spain, medical services were provided by a disparate bunch
of practitioners, including university-trained physicians (who were in the
minority), surgeons, bone-setters, barber-bloodletters, midwives and other
‘empirical’ healers. See Luis S. Granjel, El ejercicio de la medicina en la sociedad
española del siglo XVII, Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca, 1971.
14. See relaciones de causa of surgeons Miguel Melchor Aguado (Saragossa, 1651),
AHN, Inq., Lib. 994, 432r.–433v., and Francisco Ortiz (Saragossa, 1661), AHN,
Inq., Lib. 997, fol. 169r.
15. The ‘calendars’ in question were almanacs of calcuations and predictions,
very popular during this period. Covarrubias defined them as ‘tables of obser-
vation of the days of the month’ (see the Tesoro de la lengua castellana o
española, Barcelona, Altafulla, 1993, p. 269) and they undoubtedly inspired
the Saragossan almanac El firmamento, founded in 1921 and still well known
today. See relaciones de causa of Juan Antonio del Castillo y Villanueva,
‘The Astrologer’ (Saragossa, 1693), AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fols. 389–395,
and Jerónimo Oller, a priest from Manresa who, having been banished
by the Inquisition from Barcelona in 1612, made a living from astrol-
ogy in Saragossa thereafter (Saragossa, 1617), AHN, Inq., Lib. 991, fols.
334r.–337r.
16. See relaciones de causa of the alchemist monk Eugenio Bamalera (Saragossa,
1674), AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fol. 160r. and v., his accomplice Felipe Estanga
(Saragossa, 1666), AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fols. 5v.–6v., and Félix Cortinas
(Saragossa, 1692), AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fols. 376–380.
204 Notes
17. While no trials of executioners have been discovered among the cases stud-
ied, men of this trade are frequently mentioned in the trials brought against
sorceresses specializing in love magic (as a source of gallows rope) and those
charged with superstition for claiming they could win at gambling thanks
to so-called ‘hangman’s coins’. See relaciones de causa of Juan de Berges
(Saragossa, 1654), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995, fols. 111r.–113v.; Jerónima Torrellas
(Saragossa, 1654), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995, fols. 284r–287v.; Ana Tris (Saragossa,
1663), AHN, Inq., Lib. 997, fols. 335r.–347v. and Jusepa Clavería (Saragossa,
1666), AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fols. 13r and v.
18. See relación de causa of courtesan Miguela Condón (Saragossa, 1680), AHN,
Inq., Lib. 998, fols. 220r.–238v., as well as the record of the episcopal trial
of Jerónima Fernández, dubbed a ‘profane and worldly woman’ who lived
‘by giving her body [ . . . ] to anyone who asks for it’ (Saragossa, 1581), ADZ,
C. 28–15. In general, the term ‘women of ill repute’ is used rather than
that of ‘prostitute’, thereby covering any kind of sexual conduct considered
immoral, such as extra-marital sex or adultery (see Ruth Martin, op. cit.,
pp. 235–237). The only time the word ‘puta’, or ‘whore’, appears is in the
margin of the relación de causa of Isabel Teresa Castañar in reference to an
insult uttered by the defendant to the people she thought had denounced
her: ‘That the defendant did threaten the witnesses she suspected of testify-
ing against her by saying that the first whore [underlined] who had spoken
against her in this Holy Office would have to pay’ (Saragossa, 1663, AHN,
Inq., Lib. 997, fol. 321r.).
19. See the episcopal cases brought against Joanna Polo (Saragossa, 1561), ADZ,
C. 1–41; María Rodríguez (Saragossa, 1604), ADZ, C. 23–13 and Isabel
Gombal (Saragossa, 1605), ADZ, C. 44–27. In all three cases, the line between
the practice of love magic and procuring was as blurred as that between
procuring and prostitution.
20. Many of the women who appeared before the courts had been servants
before their marriages. Later, widowed and often in poor health as well, they
ended up dependent on alms. See relaciones de causa of Isabel Francisca de
Mota (Saragossa, 1665, AHN, Inq., Lib. 997, fols. 467r.–477v.) and Francisca
Abat (Saragossa, 1668, AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fols. 107r. and 122r.). By contrast
with the world of female beggars, many men involved in magic were termed
‘vagrants’, who earned a living by means of defrauding (in various ways) the
people of the towns and villages they travelled through.
21. This relates to four significant cases: firstly that of the fake cleric Jerónimo de
Liébana, from La Ventosa (Cuenca), and his four accomplices, Francisco de
Alós, Hernando de Moros, Alonso Torrijos and Agustín Leonardo (Saragossa,
1620, AHN, Inq., Lib. 991, fols. 522r.–536r.); secondly, that of the charlatan
Luis Gama y Vasconcellos, from Lisbon (Portugal), whom the inquisi-
tors dubbed a ‘dogmatizing master’, and his seven accomplices, Pedro
Montalbán, Miguel Calvo, Antón Lozano, Juan Izquierdo, Vicente Ferrer,
Agustín Sanz and María Luisa Monzón (Saragossa, 1631, AHN, Inq., Lib. 992,
fols. 94r.–106r.); thirdly, that of Franciscan monk Eugenio Bamalera, from
Oloron (France) and his accomplice Felipe Estanga (Saragossa, 1666 and
1674, AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fols. 5v.–7v. and 160r. and v.); and lastly,
that of the Austrian healer and charlatan Carlos de Federicis and his
ten accomplices: José Ferrer, Antonio Poyanos, Mateo de Albalate, Félix
Notes 205
38. Record of the trial of Catalina Aznar (Saragossa, 1511), AHPZ, C. 28–6,
fol. 36v.
39. In the relación de causa of Catalina Fuertes, who was accused of witchcraft in
Fago (Huesca) and later moved to Saragossa, the devil is described as ‘a man
wearing a biretta and with four horns and cloven hoofs’ (Saragossa, 1658,
AHN, Inq., Lib. 996, fol. 150 r. and v.).
40. See relaciones de causa of Joanna Bruxon (Saragossa, 1581, AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 988, fol. 486r.) and Isabel Alastruey, alias ‘la Luca’ (Saragossa, 1604, AHN,
Inq., Lib. 990, fol. 309r.). The latter told how the devil had had ‘carnal knowl-
edge’ of various witches ‘by the rear’ and on one occasion, having appeared
in the form of a wolf, had ‘lifted their skirts and entered all of them the back
way, putting something cold and hard in them’. See also relaciones de causa of
Margalida Escuder and Juana Bardaxi (Saragossa, 1626, AHN, Inq., Lib. 991,
fols. 894v.–899v.). In all these cases, the women confessed under torture to
the secular judges in small Pyrenean villages, the inquisitors doing no more
than transferring the trials to their own jurisdiction.
41. See the relación de causa of Cándida Gombal, according to which, ‘when
the defendant was alone in her house, her husband being away, she used
perfumes and invoked the devil to come, and indeed he did come in the
shape of a tall and handsome man, dressed in blue, and with the defen-
dant’s consent did sleep with her and know her carnally as if she had been
with a real man, and thus she did give him her body over a period of
three years’ (Saragossa, 1597, AHN, Inq., Lib. 990, fol. 14v.). According to
a statement in another summary in the same volume, the defendant had
assured a witness who had seen her faint, that ‘Maymon, with whom she had
had carnal relations, was taming her’ (Saragossa, 1697, AHN, Inq., Lib. 990,
fol. 209r.).
42. See relaciones de causa of Jerónima de San Miguel and Ana de Yuso (Saragossa,
1586, AHN, Inq., Lib. 989, fols. 211r.–214r.); and of Isabel Gombal and
Cándida Gombal (Saragossa, 1597, AHN, Inq., Lib. 990, fols. 13r.–15v.)
43. See chapter entitled ‘Sex with the Devil’, in Lyndal Roper, op. cit.,
pp. 82–103.
44. See ‘Terrores nocturnos’, in María Tausiet, Ponzoña en los ojos . . ., op. cit.,
pp. 346–368, and James S. Amelang, ‘Durmiendo con el enemigo: el diablo
en los sueños’, in María Tausiet and James S. Amelang (eds.), op. cit.,
pp. 327–356.
45. As seen in Chapter 1, according to part of the text of the Constituciones
Sinodales del Arzobispo de Zaragoza (Saragossa, 1656, fol. 141), when it came to
deciding whether or not there were ‘Witches, Sorceresses or folk indulging in
superstitious conduct’, the episcopal visitadores had to keep in mind the fact
that, ‘as crimes of this sort are always committed by night and in secret, they
are very difficult to verify’. Even though it went on to add that ‘according
to the law, strong indications and conjecture are sufficient for punishment
to be meted out’, the episcopal court demonstrably did not believe in the
reality of witchcraft.
46. See relaciones de causa of Isabel Francisca de la Mota (Saragossa, 1665,
AHN, Inq., Lib. 997, fol. 468r.); Elena Sánchez (Saragossa, 1654, AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 995, fols. 288r.–291v.); and Ana María Mateo (Saragossa, 1656, AHN,
Inq., Lib. 995, fols, 413r.–415v.).
208 Notes
47. Relación de causa of Mariana Berona (Saragossa, 1658), AHN, Inq., Lib. 996,
fols. 7r.12v.
48. Relación de causa of Miguel Francisco de Pedregosa (Saragossa, 1693), AHN,
Inq., Lib. 998, fols. 399r.–403v.
49. Relación de causa of Isabel Francisca de la Mota (Saragossa, 1665), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 997, fol. 469v.
50. See the record of the trial of Catalina Aznar (Saragossa, 1511, AHPZ, C. 28–6,
fols. 10 and 11), and the relación de causa of Gracia Andreu, who was said by
several witnesses to have boasted that ‘she had been to the scaffold of this
city and had taken the heart from a hanged man. And that another night she
had gone to the market square in this city and had prayed to a man hanging
from the gibbet [ . . . ]’ (Saragossa, 1656, AHN, Inq., Lib. 995, fol. 454v.)
51. See relaciones de causa of Isabel Teresa Castañer (Saragossa, 1663, AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 997, fols. 320r.–324r.), Isabel Francisca de la Mota (Saragossa, 1665, AHN,
Inq., Lib. 997, fol. 468.) and Carlos Federicis (Saragossa, 1690, AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 998, fol. 334).
52. A reference to the cases of Father Joan Vicente and the saludador Pablo
Borao. We saw in Chapter 2 how the former, having ‘been imprisoned in
the great tower of the Aljaferia [ . . . ] at ora capta and by night [ . . . ] had
lowered himself from the tower window and escaped and fled wherever it
may have suited him to go’ (Saragossa, 1511, AHPZ, C. 28–7, fols. 16v.–17r.).
As for Pablo Borao, we learn from his relación de causa, that he ‘escaped from
the prisons of this Inquisition at half past six at night, and a careful search
had been made but there had been no news of the defendant in the city or
surrounding area, and when letters had been despatched to all appropriate
comisarios and familiares, the following morning the defendant did appear.’
(Saragossa, 1658, AHN, Inq., Lib. 996, fol. 85r.)
53. See María Tausiet, Ponzoña en los ojos . . . , op. cit., pp. 276–301.
54. Record of the trial of Agustina (Saragossa, 1646), AHPZ, no. 11, fols. 11–18.
55. That last victim was ‘Father Joan Omella, alias Blanca, citizen of Saragossa,
necromancer, relaxed in person on 13 March 1537’, as listed in the notorious
Green Book of Aragon, in the section headed ‘Memorial of those burned at the
stake up to the year 1574 in the Inquisition of the residents of this city of
Saragossa’. See Isidro de las Cagigas, op. cit., p. 130.
56. Catalina de Joan Diez, from Salinas de Jaca (Huesca), who was ‘relaxed in
person on 10 October 1535’. See Isidro de las Cagigas, op. cit., p. 116.
57. The Suprema drew up the new norms, aimed at putting an end to witch
hunts, in the aftermath of the Granada meeting of 1526, but they were
not sent to the Saragossa tribunal until 1536. See William Monter, op. cit.,
p. 264.
58. See Henry Kamen, op. cit., p. 237–238, and William Monter, op. cit.,
pp. 265–267.
59. ‘Thirteen had died in prison and six died at the stake.’ See Gustav
Henningsen, The Witches’ Advocate, op. cit., p. 197.
60. Ibid., op. cit., pp. 322–332.
61. See Francisco Fajardo Spínola, op. cit., pp. 407–414.
62. See Rafael Martín Soto, op. cit., p. 417.
63. Relación de causa of Diego de Fuertes (Saragossa, 1653), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995,
fol. 25v.
Notes 209
64. Contrary to what was happening in Northern Europe, in Spain the inquisi-
tors seemed to see suspected heresy as nothing more than a symptom of
the true disease, namely a lack of religious instruction. See Henry Kamen,
op. cit., pp. 84–88.
65. Relación de causa of Ana Tamayo (Saragossa, 1666), AHN, Inq., Lib. 998,
fol. 31r.
66. Relación de causa of Mariana Berona (Saragossa, 1658), AHN, Inq., Lib. 996,
fol. 13v.
67. Relación de causa of Jerónima Moliner (Saragossa, 1658), AHN, Inq., Lib. 996,
fol. 16v.
68. Relación de causa of Isabel Teresa Castañer (Saragossa, 1663), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 997, fol. 324r.
69. Relación de causa of Isabel Francisca de la Mota (Saragossa, 1665), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 997, fol. 467v.
70. Ibid., fol. 477r.
71. Ibid., fol. 477v.
72. Ruth Martin’s study of the Inquisition and magic in Venice between 1550
and 1650 reveals that the most serious punishments meted out were exile,
imprisonment and flogging (op. cit., pp. 219–224).
73. According to Bernd Roeck, of all the witchcraft trials brought in Augsburg
between 1590 and 1650, only one saw the death penalty imposed (op. cit.).
74. As Alison Rowlands highlights in her study of witchcraft and sorcery in the
city of Rothenburg and its immediate area of influence, only three people
are known to have been sentenced to death for these crimes throughout
the entire early modern era. See Witchcraft Narratives in Germany; Rothenburg,
1561–1652, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2002, pp. 206–211.
75. Dries Vanysacker has shown that 66 individuals were tried for witchcraft in
the city of Bruges between 1468 and 1687, 18 of whom were condemned to
death. See ‘The Impact of Humanists on Witchcraft Prosecutions in 16th - and
17th -century Bruges’, Humanistica Lovaniensia, vol. L, 2001, pp. 393–434.
76. See Max Marwick (ed.), Witchcraft and Sorcery, London, Penguin, 1982,
p. 377.
77. See W. D. Hammond-Tooke, ‘Urbanization and the Interpretation of Misfor-
tune’, in Max Marwick (ed.), op. cit., pp. 422–440.
78. See Marc J. Swartz, ‘Modern Conditions and Witchcraft/Sorcery Accusations’,
in Max Marwick (ed.), op. cit., pp. 391–400.
79. Ibid., p. 396.
80. See Max Gluckman, ‘The logic of African Science and Witchcraft’, in Max
Marwick (ed.), op. cit., pp. 443–451.
81. See J. Clyde Mitchell, ‘The meaning of Misfortune for Urban Africans’, in
Max Marwick (ed.), op. cit., pp. 381–390.
82. See John Putnam Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of New
England, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 275.
83. See Julio Caro Baroja, De los arquetipos y leyendas, Madrid, Istmo, 1989, p. 89.
84. Relación de causa of Pedro Moliner (Saragossa, 1641), AHN, Inq., Lib. 992,
fols. 608r. and 613r.
85. On the transformation of myths and legends, see Arnold van Gennep, La for-
mation des légendes, Paris, Flammarion, 1910, and Vladimir Propp, Morphology
of the Folktale, trans. Laurence Scott, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1968.
210 Notes
86. Relación de causa of Gracia Andreu (Saragossa, 1656), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995,
fol. 459v.
87. According to Gracia Andreu, her mother Isabel Andreu ‘was wounded when
this Holy Office came to take her and she died from the loss of blood’ (ibid.,
fol. 456v.).
88. Ibid., fol. 459v.
89. Ibid., fols. 459v–460r.
90. Henbane is commonly said to induce both lightheadedness and a sense
of weightlessness, to the extent that one might believe one was flying
through the air ‘like a witch on her broomstick’. See Luis Otero, Las plan-
tas alucinógenas, Barcelona, Paidotribo, 1997. See also Michael J. Harner
(ed.), Hallucinogens and Shamanism, London and New York, Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1973, and Michel Meurger, ‘Plantes à illusion: interprétation
pharmacologique du sabbat’, in Nicole Jacques-Chaquin and Maxime Préaud
(eds.), Le sabbat des sorciers (XVe–XVIIIe siècles), Paris, Jérôme Millon, 1993,
pp. 369–382.
91. Relación de causa of Gracia Andreu (Saragossa, 1656), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995,
fol. 460r.
92. Three examples of the connection between henbane and magical powers in
the Pyrenees are to be found in the cases of Bernard Correas and Juan de la
Marca (both originally from the Béarn but now living across the border in
the Huescan villages of Nocito and Belea respectively) and that of Pascual
Clemente, a peasant from Embún, also in Huesca. We learn from Correas’s
trial summary that he had asked various clerics to take ‘the said herb, also
known as henbane’ and to put it ‘beneath the altar’ so that ‘nine Masses
[could be said over it] without the priest who said them knowing it was there
[ . . . ], and this having been done, the person who brought it there would
have whatever he wished for’. The other two men meanwhile, according to
a number of witnesses, had claimed that with ‘five grains of a herb they call
henbane [ . . . ] on the handle of their sickles, they could harvest a large field
in no time at all.’ (See AHN, Inq., Lib. 989, fols. 140v. and 751v., and Lib. 991,
fol. 118v.)
93. Relación de causa of Isabel Andreu (Saragossa, 1645), AHN, Inq., Lib. 993,
fol. 262v.
Grace Hospital. They were more likely to be successfully cured, unless they
were ‘of weak constitution [ . . . ] caused by their having had many dealings
and conversations with women (on account of the great number and abun-
dance of women usually to be found at times of plague and who were present
on this occasion, even calling from their windows to men passing by in the
street)’, op. cit., fol. 22v.
23. Relacion de medicos y cirujanos del 24 de abril de 1652 (Report of surgeons
and physicians made on 24 April 1652). ACA, Secretaría de Aragón, leg. 96,
without folio number. (Cited in Jesús Maiso González, op. cit., p. 40.)
24. ‘A woman who wished to know whether her husband was dead or alive so
that she could marry again, asked her to do something to find this out.’ See
the relación de causa of María García (Saragossa, 1656), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995,
fol. 442r.
25. Relación de causa de María García (Saragossa, 1656), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995,
fol. 439r.
26. Ibid., fol. 439v.
27. Ibid., fols. 439v.–440r.
28. Ibid., fols. 443r. and v.
29. Relación de causa of Jerónima Torrellas (Saragossa, 1654), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995,
fol. 235r. and v.
30. See Rafael Martín Soto, op. cit., pp. 251–253.
31. Relación de causa of Elena Sánchez (Saragossa, 1654), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995,
fol. 288r.
32. See Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, London, Penguin, 1971,
pp. 27–57.
33. See Pedro Ciruelo, op. cit., pp. 129–136.
34. According to Pedro Ciruelo, public prayer gatherings organized by the clergy
in order to ask for help in the face of storms and other misfortunes had
to be very careful not to stray into superstitious practice. So, for example,
when conjuring storm clouds priests were not allowed ‘to leave the church
to speak with the evil cloud’, nor to take out holy relics, ‘far less the Most
Holy Sacrament into the storm, since they will speak to God with more devo-
tion within the church than without, and their prayer will more quickly be
heard by God in heaven’.That said, if we read the charms contained in a
treatise written by Brother Diego de Céspedes, we can deduce that even well
into the sixteenth century many clergymen were still practising all kinds of
propitiatory rituals, seemingly with few restrictions. (See Diego de Céspedes,
Libro de coniuros contra tempestades, contra oruga y arañuela, contra duendes
y bruxas, contra peste y males contagiosos, contra rabia y contra endemoniados,
contra las aves, gusanos, ratones, langostas y contra todos qualesquier animales
corrusivos que dañan viñas, panes y arboles de qualesquier semilla, ahora nue-
vamente añadidos, sacados de Missales, Manuales y Breviarios Romanos y de la
Sagrada Escritura, [Book of conjurations against storms, against caterpillars
and mites, against evil spirits and witches, against plague and contagious
disease, against rabies and against the possessed, against birds, worms, rats,
locusts and all other destructive creatures who damage vines, crops and trees
of any sort, now newly added, taken from Roman Breviaries, Missals and
Manuals and from Holy Scripture], Pamplona, Heredera de Carlos de Labay,
1626.)
Notes 213
Sitting on the banks of the River Ebro and its tributaries the Huerva, Gállego and
Jalón (the last of which forms a natural boundary on the west with the neighbour-
ing municipality of Alagón), Saragossa has been called ‘the city of four rivers’. Its
historic Moorish and Jewish quarters (the Morería and Judería) are shaded on the
map; the remaining urban area was occupied by the Christian population.
The eleventh-century Castillo de Miranda is in the village of Juslibol, a short
distance north of the city centre. The Monte de Torrero rises on the southern
outskirts of Saragossa, while the Monte de Ejea lies 30 miles to the north, and the
Monte de Mallén 45 miles to the northwest.
(a) San Salvador Cathedral (La Seo). The cathedral sits between Calle Pabostría
and Calle Deán and Plaza San Bruno and Plaza La Seo. The same site
was once home to the temple of the Roman forum, the earlier Visigothic
cathedral and the city’s oldest mosque.
(b) Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar. Built on the banks of the Ebro, on the site of
the city’s oldest Christian church, the Basilica houses the pillar supposedly
revealed by the Virgin Mary to St James the Apostle in the year 40 AD. Work
on the current building began in the mid-1600s.
(c) Church of San Pablo. Located between Calles San Blas and San Pablo, more
or less at the heart of the so-called ‘King’s settlement’, a new district
constructed on a grid pattern during the thirteenth century.
(d) Church of San Juan. The church of San Juan el Viejo (later dedicated to both
St John and St Peter) used to stand on the corner of Calle de San Juan y San
Pedro and Calle del Refugio. It was demolished, complete with its Mudéjar
tower, in the mid-twentieth century. Until the nineteenth century, there
were two other St John’s churches in Saragossa. The medieval church of San
Juan del Puente, which was built close to one of the city gates, the Gothic
Puerta del Ángel (and next to the home of the parliamentary institution
known as the Diputación del Reino de Aragón), disappeared in the aftermath
of the First and Second Sieges of Saragossa (1808 and 1809). The Baroque San
Juan de los Panetes, meanwhile, still stands on the site of an earlier twelfth-
century church, adjacent to the great tower known as the Torreón de la Zuda
in the northwest of the city.
(e) Huerta de Santa Engracia. A large green space between the church of Santa
Engracia and the River Huerva, extending to the corner where the church
of San Miguel de los Navarros stands. The Huerto del Nuncio lay within its
boundaries.
(f) Hospital of Our Lady of Grace. Founded in the fifteenth century under the
auspices of Alfonso V of Aragon, the original hospital faced the southern
214
215
216 Saragossa in the Early Modern Period
ends of Calle de San Gil and Calle Mártires but was destroyed during the
sieges of 1808/9. Its activities later transferred to the present-day Provincial
Hospital on Calle Madre Rafols/Calle Ramón y Cajal.
(g) Aljafería Palace (the Inquisition jail). The palace of the Islamic ruler Ahmad
al-Muqtadir, built in around 1066, and later used by the Christian monarchs
until the early 1500s. During the sixteenth century, it became the headquar-
ters of the Inquisition and, after the Saragossa risings of 1591, a military
fortress.
(h) Archbishop’s Palace (the ecclesiastical jail). Mentioned in the sources as
‘Palace of the kings in Saragossa, occupied by the Archbishop’. In the
mid-seventeenth century, it underwent considerable alterations at the
behest of John of Austria, illegitimate son of Philip IV and viceroy of
Aragon.
(i) Puerta de Toledo (north tower: Royal Prison; south tower: Manifestation Prison).
The Puerta de Toledo was another of the city gates, close to various pub-
lic buildings and spaces, including the city marketplace (after Jaime I
granted permission for an annual fair) and scaffold. Its towers housed the
Royal Prison and the Manifestation Prison (whose inmates were held under
the protection of the kingdom’s supreme judge, safe from the rest of the
judiciary, while their cases were investigated).
(j) Bridge over the Ebro (Puente de Piedra). The city’s main bridge, the Puente
de Piedra (Stone Bridge), was completed in the mid-fifteenth century and
renovated at various points thereafter.
(k) Church of San Gil: Built in the street of the same name (present-day Calle
Don Jaime I) soon after the Christian reconquest in 1118, although the
current structure is a fourteenth-century building updated in the early
1700s.
(l) Church of San Felipe: Located between Calle Gil Berges and the Plaza de San
Felipe. Founded in the twelfth century, it was rebuilt in the late 1600s/early
1700s by the Marqués de Villaverde, who also commissioned the adjacent
Palacio de Argillo.
(m) Church of San Miguel de los Navarros. Built at the end of Calle San Miguel,
close to the Puerta Quemada (then called the Puerta del Duque). Founded
in the 1200s, the Mudéjar-style building that can be seen today dates from
a century later.
(n) Sanctuary of the Innumerable Martyrs (Church of Santa Engracia). Since the
fourth century, this church has housed the remains of St Engracia and other
Christians martyred during the persecutions of Diocletian. In the early mod-
ern period it was flanked by the gate of the same name. It was at its most
celebrated during the sixteenth century.
(o) Holy Sepulchre convent. Located between Calles Don Teobaldo and Coso, the
convent was established in 1276 by the Marquesa Gil de Rada, daughter of
Theobald II of Navarre, and dedicated to the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.
The present edifice dates from the 1300s–1400s.
(p) St Catherine convent. Today the convent of St Lucy, located where Calles Isaac
Peral and San Miguel meet, near the Plaza de los Sitios.
(q) College of Virgins. Formerly located between the present-day Calles de las
Vírgenes, Méndez Núñez (previously Torre Nueva) and Jusepe Martínez.
Saragossa in the Early Modern Period 217
(r) St Inés convent. Built at the end of Calle San Pablo, on the corner with Calle
Santa Inés.
(s) Mercedarian monastery. This was the San Lázaro monastery on the far bank
of the Ebro, near the Puente de Piedra. In the late nineteenth century, there
was another Mercedarian community at the San Pedro Nolasco college in
the square of the same name.
(t) Our Lady of Victory monastery. Formerly located in the present-day Plaza de
la Victoria, on the corner of Calles Ramón y Cajal and Ramón Pignatelli.
(u) Carmelite monastery. Home to the ‘shod’ Carmelites, this monastery stood
between the Puerta del Carmen and the present Calle Capitán Portolés.
There was also an order of ‘unshod’ Carmelites at the St Joseph monastery,
on the other side of the Huerva; its building later became a prison.
(v) Unshod Augustinian monastery. Originally located close to the city walls,
where the Avenida de Madrid (then the Camino de Madrid) now meets the
Paseo de María Agustín, opposite the Puerta del Portillo, it was demolished
during the sieges of 1808/9.
(w) Capuchin monastery. Established in 1602 outside the city walls, opposite the
Puerta del Carmen (in today’s calle Hernán Cortés), it boasted extensive
grounds which ran as far as the present-day Avenida Goya.
(x) House of Penance. Founded in 1585 alongside the Convent of Holy Faith and
Penance, in the square of the same name (today’s Plaza de Salamero, known
as the ‘Plaza del Carbón’), it disappeared in the early 1800s.
(y) House of our Lady of Mercy. A correctional facility housed in a building at
the end of Calle del Portillo. This later became a prison and the institution
moved to the former convent of Santo Tomás de Villanueva (now the church
of la Mantería, Calle Palomeque).
(z) Scaffold. This stood in the Plaza del Mercado, still home to the city’s central
market.
8. Calle Torre Nueva. Although this street still exists, it used to include what
is now Calle Méndez Núñez. It was named after a sixteenth-century
Mudéjar tower that stood in Plaza San Felipe (demolished in 1892).
9. Washing place for plague victims. At one point, the San Lázaro monastery
offered refuge to lepers, apparently not generally treated at the Our
Lady of Grace Hospital. It therefore seems likely that the washing place
for those infected by the plague was somewhere downstream from this
monastery.
Tables
Table 1 Individuals tried by the Inquisition for crimes relating to magic in Saragossa (1498–1693)
(in person)
220
Table 1 (Continued)
Table 1 (Continued)
1642 Idem Jerónimo Juan Inca (Majorca) No fixed Necromancy Flogging and a term
Ferrer abode in the galleys
1642 Idem Lucía de Soria Soria Saragossa Sorcery Trial suspended
1644 AHN (Inquisition) Francisco Álvarez Darque Saragossa Fortune-telling Reprimand, prayer
Relaciones de (Portugal) and fasting
causa Lib. 993
(1644–1648)
1644 Idem Ana Ángela La Valencia Saragossa Sorcery Flogging and exile
Mata
1644 Idem Agustina Sáenz Saragossa Acts of Reclusion in the
superstition Hospital of Our Lady
of Grace
1646 Idem Isabel Andreu Saragossa Witchcraft and Trial suspended on
sorcery the death of the
accused
1646 AHPZ Inquisition Agustina* Saragossa Sorcery
trial records
1647 AHN (Inquisition) Isabel de la Cruz Barbastro Saragossa Sorcery Reclusion in a home
Relaciones de (Huesca) for withdrawn
causa Lib. 993 women
(1644–1648)
1648 AHPZ Inquisition Catalina Baeza* Saragossa Sorcery
Trials
1649 AHN (Inquisition) Francisco Beltránc Mallorca Saragossa Judicial astrology Reprimand
Relaciones de
causa Lib. 994
(1649–1652)
1649 Idem Juan Serranoc Graus (Huesca) Saragossa Judicial astrology Reprimand
1651 Idem Miguel Melchor Saragossa Saragossa Necromancy and Reprimand
Aguado deception
1651 Idem Jerónima de Torres Alcira (Valencia) Saragossa Sorcery Reprimand
1653 AHN (Inquisition) Diego de Fuertes Saragossa Saragossa Necromancy Reclusion in a
Relaciones de monastery
causa Lib. 995
(1653–1657)
1654 Idem Juan de Berges Saragossa Saragossa Necromancy Reprimand
1654 Idem Ana Merino Pérez Nájera (La Rioja) Saragossa Sorcery Reprimand
1654 Idem Jerónima Torrellas Illueca Saragossa Sorcery Flogging and exile
(Saragossa)
1654 Idem Elena Sánchez Valencia Saragossa Sorcery Exile
1654 Idem Ana Francisca de La Muela Saragossa Sorcery Exile
Torres (Saragossa)
1656 Idem Ana María Blasco Saragossa Saragossa Sorcery Reprimand
1656 Idem Ana María Mateo Bárboles Saragossa Sorcery Flogging and exile
(Saragossa)
1656 Idem Martina Saragossa Saragossa Sorcery Flogging and exile
Coscullano
1656 Idem María García Villena Saragossa Sorcery Flogging and exile
(Alicante)
1656 Idem Felicia Figueras Albalate Saragossa Sorcery Flogging and exile
(Valencia)
1656 Idem Gracia Andreu Saragossa Saragossa Witchcraft and Flogging and exile
sorcery
225
Table 1 (Continued)
226
1656 Idem Juana María de Saragossa Saragossa Sorcery Flogging and exile
Aguerri
1657 Idem Ana Pérez Tarazona Saragossa Sorcery Exile
(Saragossa)
1657 Idem Jusepa Ponz Saragossa Saragossa Sorcery Trial suspended
1658 AHN (Inquisition) Mariana Berona Barcelona Saragossa Sorcery Reprimand
Relaciones de
causa Lib. 996
(1658–1660)
1658 Idem Jerónima Moliner Saragossa Saragossa Sorcery Reprimand
1658 Idem Francisco Moreno Castile Saragossa Healing and Exile
blasphemy
1658 Idem Pablo Borao Saragossa Saragossa Exorcism Flogging, exile and a
term in the galleys
1658 Idem Catalina Fuertes Fago (Huesca) Saragossa Witchcraft Reprimand and
acquittal
1659 Idem Miguel Nuevosc Calatayud Saragossa Acts of Reprimand
(Saragossa) superstition
1661 AHN (Inquisition) Maria Angela Tarazona Saragossa Sorcery Flogging and exile
Relaciones de causa Madruga (Saragossa)
Lib. 997
(1661–1665)
1661 Idem Francisco Ortiz La Muela Saragossa Necromancy Reprimand
(Saragossa)
1661 Idem Jusepe Bernués Graus (Huesca) Saragossa Healing Reprimand
1663 Idem Isabel Teresa Barbastro Saragossa Sorcery Exile
Castañer (Huesca)
1663 Idem Quiteria Pascual Nocito (Huesca) Saragossa Witchcraft Trial suspended
1663 Idem Ana Tris Saragossa Sorcery Trial suspended
1665 Idem Isabel Francisca de Saragossa Saragossa Sorcery Exile
Mota
1666 AHN (Inquisition) Juan de Santa Navarrete (La Saragossa Defending Reprimand
Relaciones de Teresac Rioja) astrology
causa Lib. 998
(1666–1700)
1666 Idem José de Jesús Lisbon Saragossa Necromancy Reprimand
Maríac (Portugal)
1666 Idem Felipe Estanga Saragossa Saragossa Necromancyco Reprimand
1666 Idem Jusepa Clavería Saragossa Saragossa Sorcery Reprimand
1666 Idem Ana Tamayo Socobos Saragossa Sorcery Reprimand
(Murcia)
1667 Idem Ana Cotillas Salillas (Huesca) Saragossa Sorcery Reprimand
1668 Idem Juan de Mateba Ballestar del No fixed Healing Exile
Flumen (Huesca) abode
1668 Idem Francisca Abat Jaca (Huesca) Saragossa Sorcery Reclusion in the
Hospital of Our Lady
of Grace
1668 Idem Francisca Pérez Tudela Saragossa Sorcery Exile
(Saragossa)
1669 Idem Gracia Montiela Gascony Saragossa Sorcery
(France)
1673 Idem Carlos Fabaroc Palermo (Italy) Saragossa Necromancy Exile
1674 Idem Eugenio Bamalerac Oloron (France) Saragossa Necromancy Reclusion in a
monastery
227
228
Table 1 (Continued)
1674 Idem María Laudes Saragossa Saragossa Sorcery Flogging and exile
1679 Idem Estefanía Lázaro Mainar Saragossa Sorcery Trial suspended
(Saragossa)
1679 Idem Susana Raedor Saragossa Saragossa Sorcery Reprimand
1679 Idem María Domínguez Lumpiaque Saragossa Sorcery Exile
(Saragossa)
1679 Idem Pedro de Pedinal Béarn (France) Saragossa Sorcery Reprimand
1680 Idem Miguela Condón Saragossa Saragossa Sorcery Exile
1685 Idem Juan José Venegas Istanbul (Turkey) No fixed Healing Flogging, exile and a
abode term in the galleys
1689 Idem María de Torres Saragossa Sorcery Reprimand
1689 Idem Jusepa Aínda Saragossa Saragossa Sorcery Exile
1690 Idem Carlos de Federicis Austria Saragossa Necromancy Exile
1691 Idem José Ferrer Tamarite de Necromancyco Reprimand
Litera (Huesca)
1692 Idem Antonio Poyanosc Saragossa Saragossa Necromancyco Reclusion in a
monastery
1692 Idem Mateo de Albalatec Albalate del Saragossa Necromancyco Reclusion in a
Arzobispo monastery
(Teruel)
1692 Idem Félix Cortinas Saragossa Saragossa Necromancyco Exile and a term in
the galleys
1692 Idem Manuela de Ponzano Saragossa Necromancyco Exile
Biescas (Huesca)
1693 Idem Jusepe Fernández Belchite Saragossa Necromancyco Exile
(Saragossa)
1693 Idem Miguel Francisco Alcalá la Real Saragossa Necromancyco Reclusion in a
de Pedregosa (Jaén) monastery
1693 Idem Juan Clavero Saragossa Saragossa Necromancyco Flogging and exile
1693 Idem Pedro Antonio Bielsa (Huesca) No fixed Necromancyco Reclusion in a
Bermardc abode monastery
1 Where a trial record survives, either in full or partially, the individual’s name is marked with an asterisk. In all other cases, the evidence comes either
from a relación de causa (trial summary) or from other, isolated, documentary sources. Clerics are indicated by a superscript letter ‘c’.
2 The vast majority of men and women whose stories appear in this study were residents of Saragossa, but a number of individuals of no fixed abode
are also listed here.
3 The superscript letters ‘co’ indicate crimes in which the individuals concerned were complicit, having actively collaborated with others. Residents of
Table 2 Individuals tried by the episcopal court for crimes relating to magic in Saragossa (1561–1605)
Table 3 Individuals tried by the secular court for crimes relating to magic in
Saragossa (1591)
Adell, José Antonio and García, Celedonio: Brujas, demonios, encantarias y seres
mágicos en Aragón, Huesca, Pirineo, 2002.
Amelang, James S. and Torres, Xavier (eds.): Dietari d’un any de pesta. Barcelona,
1651, Barcelona, Eumo, 1989.
Amelang, James S.: Parallel Histories. Converted Muslims and Jews in Early Modern
Spain, Baton Rouge, Louisiana University Press, 2013.
Amorós, José Luis: Brujas, médicos y el Santo Oficio. Menorca en la época del Rey
Hechizado, Mahón, Institut Menorquí d’Estudis y Torre del Puerto, 1990.
Andolz, Rafael: De pilmadores, curanderos y sanadores en el Alto Aragón, Zaragoza,
Mira, 1987.
Ankarloo, Bengt and Clark, Stuart (eds.): The Athlone History of Witchcraft and
Magic in Europe, 6 vols., London, Athlone Press and Philadelphia, University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1999–2002.
Ankarloo, Bengt and Henningsen, Gustav (eds.): Early Modern European Witchcraft.
Centres and Peripheries, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1990.
Armillas, José Antonio and Solano, Enrique: Historia de Zaragoza. II. Edad Moderna,
Zaragoza, Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza, 1976.
Barandiarán, José Miguel de: Brujería y brujas en los relatos populares vascos, San
Sebastián, Txertoa, 1989.
Id.: Brujería y brujas. Testimonios recogidos en el País Vasco, San Sebastián, Txertoa,
1989.
Id.: Mitología vasca, San Sebastián, Txertoa, 1991.
Barreiro Vázquez de Varela, Bernardo: Brujos y astrólogos de la Inquisición de Galicia
y el famoso libro de San Cipriano, Madrid, Akal, 1973.
Barry, Jonathan, Hester, Marianne and Roberts, Gareth (eds.): Witchcraft in Early
Modern Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Barry, Jonathan and Davies, Owen (eds.): Palgrave Advances in Witchcraft Histori-
ography, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Barry, Jonathan: Witchcraft and Demonology in South-West England, 1640–1789,
Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Behringer, Wolfgang: Shaman of Oberstdorf: Chonrad Stoeckhlin and the Phantoms
of the Night, Virginia, University of Virginia Press, 1998.
Id.: Witchcraft Persecutions in Bavaria: Popular Magic, Religious Zealotry and Reason
of State in Early Modern Europe, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Beltrán, Antonio: Leyendas aragonesas, León, Everest, 1990.
Bennassar, Bartolomé: La Inquisición española (siglos XV–XIX), Barcelona, Crítica,
1982.
Bethencourt, Francisco: O imaginário da magia. Feiticeiras, saludadores e
nigromantes no século XVI, Lisboa, Universidade Aberta, 1987; São Paulo,
Companhia das Letras, 2004.
Id.: L’inquisition à l’époque moderne, Paris, Fayard, 1995.
Blanco, Juan Francisco: Brujería y otros oficios populares de la magia, Valladolid,
Ámbito, 1992.
232
Select Bibliography 233
Cervantes, Fernando and Redden, Andrew (eds.): Angels, Demons and the New
World, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.
Ceballos Gómez, Diana Luz: Hechicería, brujería e Inquisición en el Nuevo Reino de
Granada: Un duelo de imaginarios, Bogotá, Universidad Nacional, 1994.
Christian, William A. Jr.: Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain, Princeton,
Princeton University Press, 1989.
Id.: Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain, Princeton, Princeton
University Press, 1987.
Id.: Divine Presence in Spain and Western Europe, 1500–1960, Budapest and
New York, Central European University Press, 2012.
Cirac Estopañán, Sebastián: Aportación a la historia de la Inquisición. Los procesos
de hechicería en la Inquisición de Castilla la Nueva (Tribunales de Toledo y Cuenca),
Madrid, CSIC, 1942.
Clark, Stuart: «Inversion, Misrule and the Meaning of Witchcraft», Past and
Present, 87 (1980).
Id.: Thinking with Demons. The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe, Oxford,
Oxford University Press, 1997.
Id.: Vanities of the Eye. Vision in Early Modern Culture, Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 2007.
Clark, Stuart (ed.): Languages of Witchcraft. Narrative, Ideology and Meaning in Early
Modern Culture, London and New York, Mcmillan and St Martin’s Press, 2001.
Closson, Marianne: L’Imaginaire démoniaque en France (1550–1650). Gènese de la
littérature fantastique, Genève, Droz, 2000.
Cohn, Norman: Europe’s Inner Demons. An Inquiry Inspired by the Great Witch-
Hunt, Sussex and London, Sussex University Press and Heinemann Educational
Books, 1975.
Colás Latorre, Gregorio and Salas Auséns, José Antonio: Aragón bajo los Austrias,
Zaragoza, Librería General, 1977.
Id.: Aragón en el siglo XVI. Alteraciones sociales y conflictos políticos, Zaragoza,
Universidad de Zaragoza, 1982.
Contreras, Jaime: «La Inquisición aragonesa en el marco de la Monarquía
autoritaria», Jerónimo Zurita, 63/64 (1991), pp. 7–50.
Id.: «La Inquisición de Aragón: estructura y oposición (1550–1700)», Estudios de
Historia Social, 1 (1977).
Id.: El Santo Oficio de la Inquisición en Galicia (1560–1700). Poder, sociedad y cultura,
Madrid, Akal, 1982.
Contreras, Jaime and Henningsen, Gustav: «Forty-four thousand cases of the
Spanish Inquisition (1540–1700): Analysis of a Historical Data Bank», in Gustav
Henningsen and John Tedeschi (eds.), The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe.
Studies on Sources and Methods, Dekalb, Illinois, Northern Illinois University
Press, 1986.
Cordente Martínez, Heliodoro: Brujería y hechicería en el Obispado de Cuenca,
Cuenca, Diputación Provincial, 1990.
Coronas Tejada, Luis: «Hechicería y brujería ante el tribunal de la Inquisición de
Córdoba», I Cogresso Luso-Brasileiro sobre Inquisiçâo, Lisboa, 1986.
Cruz, Anne J. and Perry, Elizabeth (eds.): Culture and Control in Counter-
Reformation Spain, 1992, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1992.
Culianu, Joan P.: Éros et magie à la Renaissance.1484, Paris, Flammarion, 1984.
Cunqueiro, Álvaro: Tesoros y otras magias, Barcelona, Tusquets, 1984.
Select Bibliography 235
Gentilcore, David: From Bishop to Witch. The System of the Sacred in Early Modern
Terra d’Otranto, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1992.
Id.: Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy (Social and Cultural Values in
Early Modern Europe), Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press,
1998.
Gibson, Marion: Reading Witchcraft. Stories of Early English Witches, London,
Routledge, 1999.
Gijswijt-Hofstra, Marijke and Frijhoff, Willem (eds.): Witchcraft in the Netherlands.
From the Fourteenth to the Twentieth Century, Rotterdam, UP, 1991.
Gijswijt-Hofstra, Marijke; Marland, Hilary and De Waardt, Hans (eds.): Illness and
Healing Alternatives in Western Europe, London, Routledge, 1997.
Ginzburg, Carlo: I Benandanti. Ricerche sulla stregoneria e i culti agrari tra
Cinquecento e Seicento, Turin, Einaudi, 1966.
Id.: Il Formaggio e I Vermi. Il cosmo di un mugnaio del ‘500’, Turin, Einaudi, 1976.
Id.: Storia notturna, Turin, Einaudi, 1989.
Godbeer, Richard: The Devil’s Dominion. Magic and Religion in Early New England,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Golden, Richard M.: Encyclopedia of Witchcraft. The Western Tradition, 4 vols.,
Santa Bárbara, California, ABC-CLIO, 2006.
Gómez de Valenzuela, Manuel: «El Estatuto de Desaforamiento del Valle de Tena
de 1525 por delitos de brujería y hechicería», Boletín de los Colegios de Abogados
de Aragón, 115 (1989).
Id.: Documentos del Valle de Tena (siglos XIV y XV), Zaragoza, Librería General,
1992.
Id.: Documentos del Valle de Tena (siglo XVI), Zaragoza, Librería General, 1992.
Id.: Documentos del Valle de Tena (siglo XVII), Zaragoza, Librería General, 1995.
Id.: Estatutos y Actos Municipales de Jaca y sus montañas (1417–1698), Zaragoza,
Institución Fernando el Católico, 2000.
Goodare, Julian (ed.): The Scottish Witch-Hunt in Context, Manchester, Manchester
University Press, 2002.
Goodare, Julian, Martin, Lauren, and Miller, Joyce (eds.): Witchcraft and Belief in
Early Modern Scotland, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Gracia Boix, Rafael: Autos de fe y causas de la Inquisición de Córdoba, Córdoba,
Diputación Provincial de Córdoba, 1985.
Id.: Brujas y hechiceras de Andalucía, Córdoba, Real Academia de Córdoba de
Ciencias, 1991.
Guillamet, Joan: Bruixeria a Catalunya, Barcelona, Ed. del Cotal, 1983.
Hagen, Rune: «The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Finnmark», Acta Borealia, 1
(1999), pp. 43–62.
Hall, David D.: Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgement. Popular Religious Belief in Early
New England, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1989.
Harley, David: «Historians and Demonologists: The myth of the Midwife-Witch»,
Social History of Medicine, 3 (1990), pp. 1–26.
Henningsen, Gustav: The Witches’ Advocate. Basque Witchcraft and the Spanish
Inquisition, Reno, University of Nevada Press, 1980.
Homza, Lu Ann: Religious Authority in the Spanish Renaissance, Baltimore, Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2000.
houdard, Sophie: Les Sciences du diable. Quatre discours sur la sorcellerie, Paris, Ed.
du Cerf, 1992.
238 Select Bibliography
Hunter, Michael (ed.): The Occult Laboratory. Magic, Science and Second Sight in Late
Seventeenth-Century Scotland, Woodbridge, The Boydell Press, 2001.
Hutton, Ronald: The Triumph of the Moon. A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft,
Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 1999.
Idoate, Florencio: La brujería en Navarra y sus documentos, Pamplona, Aranzadi,
1972.
Jacques-Chaquin, Nicole and Préaud, Maxime (eds.): Le sabbat des sorciers en
Europe (XV e –XVIII e siècles), Grenoble, Jerôme Millon, 1993.
Id. and id. (eds.): Les sorciers du Carroi de Marlou. Un proces de sorcellerie en Berry
(1582–1583). Grenoble, Jerôme Millon, 1996.
Kagan, Richard L.: Lucrecia’s Dreams. Politics and Prophecy in Sixteenth-Century
Spain, Ewing, University of California Press, 1990.
Kamen, Henry: Inquisition and Society in Spain, London, Weindenfeld and
Nicolson, 1965.
Id.: The Phoenix and the Flame. Catalonia and the Counter Reformation, New Haven
and London, Yale University Press, 1993.
Kieckhefer, Richard: Magic in the Middle Ages, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1989.
Klaniczay, Gábor: The Uses of Supernatural Power. The Transformation of Popular
Religion in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1990.
Klaniczay, Gábor and pocs, Eva (eds.): Witch Beliefs and Witch-Hunting in Central
and Eastern Europe, Budapest, Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 37 (1991–1992).
Knutsen W., Gunnar: Servants of Satan and Masters of Demons, Oslo, University of
Oslo, 2004.
Labarta, Ana: «Supersticiones moriscas», Awraq, Instituto Hispano-Árabe de
Cultura, 5–6 (1982–83), pp. 161–190.
Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy: La sorcière de Jasmin, Paris, Seuil, 1983.
Langé, Christine: La inmigración francesa en Aragón (siglo XVI y primera mitad del
XVII), Zaragoza, Institución «Fernando el Católico», 1993.
Larner, Christina: Enemies of God. The Witch-Hunt in Scotland, Baltimore, The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.
Id.: Witchcraft and Religion. The Politics of Popular Belief, Oxford, Basil Blackwell,
1984.
Lea, Henry Charles: A History of the Inquisition of Spain, 4 vols., New York,
American Scholar Publications, 1906–07.
Id.: Materials toward a History of Witchcraft, New York, Yoseloff, 1957.
Levi, Giovanni: L’eredità immateriale. Carriera di un esorcista nel Piemonte del
seicento, Turin, Einaudi, 1985.
Lisón Tolosana, Carmelo: Brujería, estructura social y simbolismo en Galicia, Madrid,
Akal, 1979.
Id.: La España mental, 2 vols., Madrid, Akal, 1990.
Id.: Las brujas en la historia de España, Madrid, Temas de Hoy, 1992.
Macfarlane, Alan D. J.: Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England, London, Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1970.
Maggi, Armando: Satan’s Rhetoric. A Study of Renaissance Demonology, Chicago and
London, University of Chicago Press, 2001.
Maiso González, Jesús: La peste aragonesa de 1648 a 1654, Zaragoza, Universidad
de Zaragoza, 1982.
Select Bibliography 239
Pearl, Jonathan: The Crime of Crimes. Demonology and Politics in France, 1560–
1620, Waterloo, Ontario, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1999.
Pedrosa, José Manuel: Entre la magia y la religión: oraciones, conjuros, ensalmos,
Oiartzun, Sendoa, 2000.
Pérez Villanueva, Joaquín (ed.): La Inquisición española. Nueva visión, nuevos
horizontes, Madrid, Siglo XXI, 1980.
Perry, Mary Elizabeth and Cruz, Anne J.: Cultural Encounters. The Impact of the
Inquisition in Spain and the New World, Berkeley, University of California Press,
1991.
Pladevall i Font, Antoni: «Persecuciò de bruixes a les comarques de Vic a principis
del segle XVII», Monografies del Montseny, 1 (1986).
Pocs, Eva: Fairies and Witches at the Boundary of South-Eastern and Central Europe,
Helsinki, Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, 1989.
Id.: Between the Living and the Dead. A Perspective on Witches and Seers in the Early
Modern Age, Budapest, Central European University Press, 1999.
Prohens Perelló, B.: Inquisició i bruixeria a Mallorca (1578–1650). Contra invocadors
de dimonis, fetilleres i llurs filtres amotoris, nigromants i cercadors de tresors, Palma
de Mallorca, Lleonard Muntaner, 1995.
Prosperi, Adriano: Tribunali della coscienza: Inquisitori, confessori, missionari, Turin,
Einaudi, 1996.
Quaife, G. R.: Godly Zeal and Furious Rage. The Witch in Early Modern Europe,
Beckenham, Kent, Croom Helm Ltd., 1987.
Raiswell, Richard and Dendle, Peter: The Devil in Society in Premodern Europe,
Toronto, Centre for Reformation and Rennaissance Studies, 2012.
Reis, Elizabeth: Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England,
Cornell, Cornell University Press, 1997.
Riera i Montserrat, Francesc: Remeis amatoris, pactes amb el dimoni, encanteris, per a
saber de persones absents, cercadors de tresors, remeis per a la salut. Bruixes i bruixots
davant la inquisició de Mallorca en el segle XVII, Barcelona-Palma de Mallorca,
Calamus Scriptorius, 1979.
Rodríguez – Vigil Rubio, José Luis: Bruxas, lobos e Inquisición. El proceso de Ana
María García, La Lobera, Oviedo, Nobel, 1996.
Romeo, Giovanni: Exorcisti, confessori e sessualitè femminile nell’Italia della
Controriforma, Florence, Le Lettere, 1998.
Roper, Lyndal: Oedipus and the Devil. Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early
Modern Europe, London, Routledge, 1994.
Id.: Witch Craze. Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany, New Haven, Yale
University Press, 2004.
Roth, Cecil: The Spanish Inquisition, Nueva York, W. W. Norton, 1986.
Rowlands, Alison: Narratives of Witchcraft in Early Modern Germany. Fabrication,
Feud and Fantasy, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2002.
Ruggiero, Guido: Binding Passions. Tales of Magic, Marriage, and Power at the End of
the Renaissance, New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993.
Sallmann, Jean-Michel: Chercheurs de trésors et jeteuses de sorts. La quête du
surnaturel à Naples au XVIe siècle, Paris, Aubier, 1986.
San Vicente, Ángel: Colección de Fuentes de derecho municipal aragonés del Bajo
Renacimiento, Zaragoza, Universidad de Zaragoza, 1970.
Id.: El oficio de padre de huérfanos en Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Universidad de Zaragoza,
1963.
Select Bibliography 241
Vickers, Brian (ed.): Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Violant i Simorra, Ramón: El Pirineo español. Vida, usos, costumbres, creencias y
tradiciones de una cultura milenaria que desaparece, Barcelona, Alta Fulla, 1986.
Waardt, Hans de, Schmidt, Jürgen Michael and Bauer, Dieter R. (eds.): Dämonische
Besessenheit. Zur Interpretation eines kulturhistorischen Phänomens, Bielefeld,
Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, 2004.
Waite, Gary K.: Heresy, Magic and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe, London,
Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Walker, Daniel Pickering: Spiritual and Demonic Magic. From Ficino to Campanella,
London, Warburg Institute, 1958.
Id.: Unclean Spirits: Possession and Exorcism in France and England in the Late
Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Century, London Scholar Press, 1981.
Weber, Alison: «Saint Teresa, Demonologist», in A. J. Cruz and M. E. Perry (eds.),
Culture and Control in Counter-Reformation Spain, Minneapolis, University of
Minnesota Press, 1992, pp. 171–195.
Willis, Deborah: Malevolent Nature. Witch-Hunting and Maternal Power in Early
Modern England, Cornell, Cornell University Press, 1995.
Zabala, Mikel: Brujería e Inquisición en Bizkaia, siglos XVI y XVII, Bilbao, Doniena
Bilduma, 2000.
Zambelli, Paola: L’ambigua natura della magia: filosofi, streghe, riti nel Rinascimento,
Milan, Il Saggiatore, 1991.
Zika, Charles (ed.): No Gods Except Me. Orthodoxy and Religious Practice in Europe,
1200–1600, Melbourne, University of Melbourne, 1991.
Zika, Charles and Kent, Elizabeth: Witches and Witch-Hunting in European Soci-
eties. A Working Bibliography in Melbourne Libraries, Melbourne, University of
Melbourne, 1998.
Zika, Charles: «Images of Circe and Discourses of Witchcraft, 1480–1580», in
Zeitenblicke, 1 (2002), pp. 1–20.
Id.: Exorcising Our Demons. Magic, Witchcraft and Visual Culture in Early Modern
Europe, Leiden, Brill, 2003.
Id.: The Appearance of Witchcraft. Print and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century
Europe, London and New York, Routledge, 2007.
Index
244
Index 245
Blasphemy, 26, 140, 173 n. 39, charms, 4, 21, 23, 59, 61, 63, 66, 69,
219–20, 226 72–3, 76, 78–9, 81–2, 85, 87, 96,
blessings, 33, 37, 39–40, 43, 45, 58, 141, 143, 149, 152, 154, 159,
84, 89–91, 119–20, 167–8 168–9, 189 n. 137, 191 n. 154,
bones, 44, 68, 93, 152, 203 n. 13 212 n. 34
Borao, Pablo, 112–23, 194 n. 56–66, chastity, 33, 182 n. 3
195 n. 67–9, 71–6, 196 n. 78–81, cheese, 73, 77, 83–4, 89
83–94, 96–101 children, 15, 44, 86, 118, 131, 133,
Broom, 75, 94, 96, 210 n. 90 136, 139, 144, 152, 166,
Bruges, xiii, 135, 157, 209 n. 75 188 n. 117
Bruxon, Joanna, 127, 197 n. 15, chimney, 143, 152, 160
207 n. 40 Christ, 131, 163, 167–8, 187 n.
Burgos, 21, 126, 182 n. 5, 230 97 & 99
Byzantium, 31 Christianism, 132, 143–5, 155–6, 161,
163, 168
Calderer, Miguel, 43 Cipolla, Carlo Maria, 162
Calixto, 59–60 Cirac Estopañán, Sebastián, 94
Calvin, 61 Ciruelo, Pedro, 55, 102–3, 178 n. 58,
candles, 2, 33, 37, 39, 43, 49, 85, 87, 212 n. 34
94, 128, 145, 152, 166, 178 n. 60 clothing
Canon law, 19 alb/stole, 39, 44–5, 119
Cardinal Bellarmino, 49, 51, 179 n. 68 bonnet, 94
cards, 69, 73, 84, 87, 149, 156, garments, 35–6, 54, 157, 167
206 n. 36 shawl, 94
Caro Baroja, Julio, ix, 144, 177 n. 46, shoes, 36–7, 77, 89, 150
178 n. 63, 190 n. 137, 203 n. 3, coercion, 60, 77
209 n. 83 coins, 36, 52, 74, 148–9, 156, 204 n.
Cartagena, 107 17, 206 n. 35–6
Cartagena, Ana de, 73 commerce, 11, 76
Casabona, Francisco de, 107–9, 193 n. communion, 35, 37, 92, 112–13,
33–40 & 42, 222 115, 141
Castanyeda, 39 confession (sacrament and judicial),
Castañega, Martín de, 102, 192 n. 18 27, 35, 37–9, 41, 43–7, 51–2, 66,
Castañer, Isabel Teresa, 80, 188 n. 110, 80, 85, 87, 93–4, 96, 98, 100, 102,
206 n. 35, 208 n. 51, 209 n. 106, 109, 110, 112, 113, 115–16,
68, 227 121, 125, 127–30, 132, 134, 137,
Castile, 10, 24, 94, 107, 172 n. 17, 192 141, 147, 149–50, 153, 155–6,
n. 11, 226 160, 167, 177 n. 46, 184 n. 44,
Catholicism/Catholic church, 2, 5, 187 n. 87, 205 n. 22–3, 206 n. 35,
24–5, 48, 61–2, 89, 93, 110, 128, 207 n. 40
156, 179 n. 68 conjurations, 13, 29–34, 36, 44–7, 54,
cats, 68, 88, 150 56, 60, 62, 74, 87–8, 98, 143, 148,
Cebrián, Juan, 19, 173 n. 26 150–1, 160, 169, 175 n. 11, 203 n.
Celestina, 59–60, 87, 182 n. 8–9 12, 212 n. 34, 223
Cervantes, Miguel de, 60, 181 n. 113, consecration, 2, 36–7, 43, 66, 79, 145,
182 n. 1, 183 n. 12–14 152, 154, 160, 190 n. 151
Charlatans, 31, 44, 48, 52, 158, Constantinople, 10, 111
204 n. 21 converts/conversion, 10, 24–6, 49,
Charles I of Spain, 10, 117 111–12, 132, 173 n. 40
246 Index
112–14, 121, 126, 143, 148, 175 France, 12, 21, 30, 36, 44, 51, 53, 107,
n. 14, 180 n. 80, 183 n. 13 148, 176 n. 21, 194 n. 49, 204 n.
enlightenment, 161 21, 205 n. 23, 219–20, 223,
envy, 56 227–8, 230,
episcopal justice/courts, xi, 13, 18–23, Béarn, 10, 21, 26, 30, 51, 176 n. 21,
26, 94, 125–7, 172 n. 25, 183 n. 187 m. 87, 210 n. 92, 228–30
25, 184 n. 44, 204 n. 18–19, 207 Gascony, 176 n. 21, 227, 230
n. 45, 230 Oloron, 53, 204 n. 21, 205 n. 25,
Escuder, Margalida, 132, 134, 198 n. 220, 227
39 & 41, 207 n. 40 Perpignan, 36, 39, 219
Estiche, José, 162–3, 213 n. 40 Provence, 59
Eucharist, 90 Toulouse, 151, 205 n. 22, 220
evil, 7, 21, 33, 55, 59, 83, 87, 97, 99, Fraud, xi, 21, 47–8, 51, 85, 103, 121,
117–18, 128, 137, 141, 144, 145, 155, 157
159, 161, 163, 166–7, 184 n. 46, free will, 50, 55, 60–1, 63, 153, 155,
185 n. 49, 212 n. 34 187 n. 97
exile, 10, 17, 21–2, 48, 51–2, 74, 85, Freud, Sigmund, 5
105, 107, 111, 112, 123–4, 126, Fuertes, Catalina, 136, 207 n. 39, 226
128–30, 135–6, 153, 157, 164, Fuertes, Diego de, 154, 203 n. 10, 225
167, 180 n. 75, 209 n. 72, 220–30
exorcism, xii, 3, 29, 50, 112, 114, Galbe, Miguel de, 41
118–19, 122, 226 galleys, 25, 48, 51, 60, 107, 112, 131,
135–6, 54, 157, 178 n. 60, 220,
faith, 2, 5, 7–8, 13, 24–5, 36, 43, 46, 222–4, 226
48, 50, 61–2, 66–7, 103, 110, 112, gallows, 93, 120, 147, 154, 190 n. 151,
128, 131, 153, 155, 161, 168–9, 204 n. 17
178 n. 58 Gama y Vasconcellos, Luis, 49, 51, 179
Fajardo Spínola, Francisco, 87, 92, 188 n. 68, 204 n. 21
n. 106 gambling/gamblers, 30, 44, 93, 149,
Federicis, Carlos de, 69, 79, 184 n. 40, 154, 204 n. 17, 206 n. 32
187 n. 87, 204 n. 21, 206 n. 31, García Cárcel, Ricardo, 23
208 n. 51, 228 García, María, 21, 90, 165–6, 167, 205
Feigned holiness, 121 n. 23, 212 n. 24, 225
Ferrer, Dominga, 26, 27, 197 n. 13 García, Pascuala, 105
Ferrer, Jerónimo Juan, 51, 224 garters, 152
Figueras, Felicia, 74, 76, 78, 80, 85, 92, genitals, 50, 78, 90, 113, 115–16,
164, 225 133, 141
fingers, 69, 73, 79, 93, 110 Giginta, Miguel, 135, 199 n. 47
fire, 56, 69, 77–8, 83, 89, 98, 100, 102, Gluckman, Max, 158
156, 164, 182 n. 9, 189 n. 37, 190 God, 4–5, 7, 24, 33, 35, 38, 43, 47–8,
n. 38 54, 61–2, 72, 81, 90, 101–3, 106,
flanders, 135 113, 117–18, 127–8, 132, 134,
flasks, 50–1, 78, 152, 156, 163–4 143–5, 150, 154–6, 160–3, 167–8,
flight/flying, 7, 15, 24, 26, 130, 141, 176 n. 21, 178 n. 54, 187 n. 97,
143–4, 150, 160, 210 n. 90 212 n. 34
flogging, 128, 130, 135, 153–4, 157, gold, 29, 51–2, 69, 76–7, 90, 118,
209 n. 72, 220–6, 228–9 147–9, 169, 179 n. 66, 181 n. 112,
fortune-tellers, 29, 224 206 n. 35–6
248 Index
lashes, 22, 48, 74, 85, 102, 107, Marwick, Max, 157
111–12, 123, 129, 178 n. 60, Marx, Karl, 3
184 n. 44 Mascarón, Andrés, 104, 106, 222
Lázaro, Estefanía, 139–40, 228 mass/masses, 37, 39–40, 41, 43–6, 49,
Lea, Henry Charles, 130, 194 n. 50, 52, 54, 66, 79, 90, 92–3, 136, 154,
213 n. 36 160, 163, 190 n. 151, 210 n. 92
Lent, 19 communion, 35, 37, 92, 112–13,
letters, 20, 42–3, 70, 80, 115, 155–6, 115, 141
208 n. 52 consecrated bread, 2, 66
licking, 113 Eucharist, 90
Liébana, Jerónimo de, xii, 44, 46, 48, Holy Sacrament, 54, 116, 212 n. 34
204 n. 21, 222 Mediterranean area, 12, 73, 148, 205
limbo, 93, 190 n. 145 n. 23
lion, 3, 56, 167, 170 n. 5, 180 n. 80 melancholy, 70–1, 102
Lisbon (Portugal), 49, 204 n. 21, Melibea, 59–60
223, 227 menstrual blood, 77–8
Livestock, 15, 107–8, 144–5 merchants, 11–12, 47, 13 n. 39
London, 161–2, 200 n. 62 Merino Pérez, Ana, 149, 225
love metamorphosis, 24, 144, 150, 160
love charms, 72, 79, 81–2, 87, 96, Mexico, 74
141, 149, 152, 159 miracles, 2, 96, 102–3, 106, 129, 168,
love magic, 21, 22, 30, 58, 61, 63–4, 213 n. 36
66, 70, 75–6, 79–82, 84–5, 91, mirror, 21, 44, 68, 101, 192 n. 15
93, 95–8, 140, 149, 152, 155,
misanthropy, 72
164, 167, 173 n. 39, 182 n. 3,
misfortune, 3, 8, 121, 144, 158, 162,
183 n. 25, 184 n. 33 & 44, 186
168–9, 212 n. 34
n. 70, 204 n. 17 &19
Mohammed, 32
lovesickness, 59, 70, 184 n. 46
Moliner, Pedro, 53–4, 159, 223
Llull, Raimond, 32, 69
money, 11, 22, 30, 42, 44, 46, 50, 52,
Luther, 61
54–5, 58, 62, 74–5, 101–2, 107,
114, 126, 141, 147, 148–50, 156,
Madruga, María Ángela, 149, 226
177 n. 46, 206 n. 28, 35 & 36
Magdalena, 66, 149
Montalbán, Pedro, vi, 223
magic
Monteche, Gabriel, 100–1, 222
beneficial, 145
Monter, William, 25
circles, 3, 30, 31, 33–7, 39, 40, 43–5,
moon, 76, 94, 213 n. 40
47–9, 51, 52, 54, 79, 149, 151,
175 n. 15 Mota, Isabel Francisca de, 76, 80, 96,
contact, 78, 80 156, 227
erotic, 31, 58, 62–3, 70, 75, 79, 88 mountains, 14, 17, 82, 98, 107, 109,
formulas, 29, 31, 48, 61, 63, 78, 119, 124, 145, 153, 195 n. 70
122, 169 municipal authorities, xi, 11, 15, 161
learned, 31, 148 municipal laws, 15
maidservant, 96, 137, 147 murders, 27, 69, 127, 169
Maiso González, Jesús, 164, 211 n. 16
marriage, 68, 70 nails, 77–8, 85, 87, 188 n. 110
Martin, Ruth, 24, 204 n. 18, 206 n. 27, Navarre, xi, 26, 107, 110, 130, 153,
209 n. 72 198 n. 30, 220, 223, 227, 230
Martínez, María, 165–6 Navarro, Gaspar, 106
250 Index
necromancy, 3, 21, 35–6, 38, 40–1, perfumes, 35, 37, 39–40, 43, 87,
47–8, 53–4, 151–2, 173 n. 39, 176 207 n. 41
n. 21 & 24, 177 n. 28, 208 n. 55, Peter of Castile, King, 87
219–30 Philip IV of Spain, 44, 192 n. 11, 216
needles, 35–9, 77, 94, 101, 152 piety, 5, 123
neighbours, 15, 29, 56, 128, 133, pilgrimage, 2, 66
151–2 pimps, 12, 61
neoplatonism, 31–2 plagues, 15, 100, 143, 161–9, 211 n. 8,
night, 13, 14, 19, 20–1, 35, 41, 44, 50, 211 n. 16, 18, 21 & 22, 212 n. 34,
57, 66, 68, 72–4, 80, 89, 91, 93–4, 213 n. 40, 218
114, 116, 126–7, 133, 135, 139, Plutarch, 164
141, 150–1, 156, 160, 163, 165, Pluto, 60, 182 n. 9
189 n. 129, 207 n. 45, 208 n. 52 poisons, 15, 17, 26, 60–1, 162, 182 n.
nine, 39, 40, 45, 73–4, 83, 86, 134, 3, 183 n. 13, 211 n. 8
142, 187 n. 87, 210 n. 92 Pomares, Jusepa, 118–20
nobility, 11–13, 172 n. 17 Porcell, Juan Tomás, 164–5, 211 n. 22,
numerology, 31, 40 213 n. 40
nuns, 115–21, 195 n. 70 & 77 Portugal, 44, 204 n. 21, 223–4, 227
Núñez Piñeiro, Jorge, 79, 84, 223 possession, ix, 33, 115, 117, 121,
195 n. 70
official religion, 2, 4, 7, 149 potions, 23, 58, 60, 182 n. 3
ointments, 7, 23, 133 poverty/poors, 12, 46, 81, 135, 142,
omnipotens, 4–5 147, 155–7, 181 n. 113
order /disorder, 7, 12, 15, 20, 131, 138 powders, 21, 23, 141
Poyanos, Antonio, 52, 79, 228
Padilla, Juan de, 87 prayers, 2, 5, 12, 33–4, 37, 39–41,
Padilla, María de, 87 79–80, 82, 84–5, 90–3, 106, 112,
paradise, 12, 144 116, 122, 129, 135, 140, 141, 149,
paralysis, 114, 144, 163 153, 155, 163, 167–8, 187 n. 97,
parchments, vi, 33, 37–9, 43, 49, 52, 188 n. 106 & 110, 190 n. 141, 212
176 n. 26 n. 34, 219, 224
parody, 7, 145 prison/prisoners, 3, 12, 22, 36, 41–2,
Pascual, Quiteria, 137, 227 53, 83, 89, 105, 111, 121–2,
Pavía, José, 90, 92 127–8, 130, 134, 140, 151, 159,
pearls, 149 172 n. 22, 184 n. 44, 200 n. 62,
Pedregosa, Miguel Francisco de, 56–7, 206 n. 36, 208 n. 52, 208 n. 58,
205 n. 22, 229 209 n. 72, 216–17
penalties, 17, 21–2, 47, 108, 111, 124, procuress, 59, 64, 71, 124, 131,
128–9, 153, 157 136, 147
death penalty, 20, 26, 48, 124, 130, prostitutes, 12, 64, 132, 134, 136, 140,
152, 209 n. 73 144, 147, 198 n. 31 & 42, 204 n.
imprisonment, 18, 140, 209 n. 72, 18 & 19, 230
219–21 protestant reformation, 2
spiritual penalties, 26, 135 protestantism/protestants, 5, 10, 24–6
penance, 5, 53, 116, 131–2, 134–5, providence, 61, 103, 168
137, 153, 157, 162, 184 n. 44, psalms, 19, 37, 39, 79
217, 223 punishments, x, 17, 19, 87, 111, 124,
penitence, 134 128, 132, 135–7, 140, 154, 156,
Pérez de Herrrea, Cristóbal, 135–6 162–3, 207 n. 45, 209 n. 72
Index 251
52, 57, 151, 184 n. 40, 205 n. sucking, 21, 101, 113, 126
22, 214; Cuenca, 44, 202 n. 79; supernatural world, x, 5, 13, 60–1,
Ejea de los Caballeros 100, 103, 143–4, 159
(Saragossa), 44, 151, 214; Fago superstition, ix, xi, 3, 5, 20–6, 46, 54,
(Huesca), 136, 207 n. 39, 226; 87, 102–3, 112, 134–5, 137, 143,
Grado (Huesca), 127–8; 147, 153–4, 168, 204 n. 17, 223–4,
Granada, 10, 26, 153, 174 n. 54; 226
Herrera de los Navarros suspicion, 7, 10, 15, 103, 105, 115,
(Saragossa), 105; Jaca (Huesca), 140, 154
18, 107, 109, 111, 137, 193 n. Swartz, Marc J., 158
31, 227; Lérida, 53, 159, 223; swords, 34–5, 37–8, 40–1, 49, 88, 93,
Logroño, 130, 153, 197 n. 24; 137
Madrid, 20, 38, 134–6; symbols, 2–3, 7–8, 36, 40, 57, 66,
Mallorca, 44, 51, 225; Nocito 74–8, 81, 90, 93–4, 100, 119,
(Huesca), 137, 210 n. 92, 227; 149–50, 152, 176 n. 15 & 26, 177
Panticosa (Huesca), 107–9, 125; n. 30, 202 n. 89
Peñarroya de Tastavins (Teruel),
105; Salamanca, 58, 60; Sallet talismans, 3, 118
de Gállego (Huesca), 20, 107, Tamayo, Ana, 155, 205 n. 23, 227
125, 230; Salvatierra de Escá tears, 5
(Saragossa), 104; Sesa (Huesca), teeth, 56, 93, 95
108, 197 n. 18; Tamarite de tempests, 30
Litera (Huesca), 132, 134, 228; Tena Valley, 20, 107–9, 125–6, 195 n.
Tarazona (Saragossa), 18, 226; 70
Tauste (Saragossa), 45; Teruel, Tetragrammaton, 34
18; Toledo, 112, 177 n. 46, 200 Torrellas, Jerónima, 90, 167, 190 n.
n. 62, 221; Tosos (Saragossa), ix; 151, 225
Valencia, 10–11, 26, 88; Torrero, Ana María, 84, 87, 223
Valladolid, 136; Villena Torres, Jerónima de, 63, 66, 73, 225
(Alicante), 165, 225, 107, 137, torture, 14, 26–8, 100, 127–9, 132,
148, 164, 166–7, 193 n. 21, 194 134, 150, 160, 207 n. 40
n. 56, 198 n. 30–1, 200 n. 62, treasures, 21, 29–31, 33, 43, 47–58, 63,
202 n. 89, 205 n. 23, 220, 69, 79, 147–8, 151–2, 154, 175 n.
223–5; Zugarramurdi (Navarre), 14, 180 n. 72, 75, 80 & 94, 181 n.
xi, 130 107, 112, 113 & 115, 184 n. 40,
Spanish America, 74 205 n. 22
spells, 12, 19, 30, 43, 48, 51–2, 57, 60, troubadours, 59
63, 68–9, 72, 76–7, 79, 81, 84–5,
87, 91–4, 97, 117–18, 141–5, 148, underworld, x, 29, 86, 91, 188 n. 117
151, 154–5, 169, 184 p. 46 urine, 50–1, 114, 135
spirits, 13, 29–30, 32–7, 39–40, 44, 49, usury, 22, 26
80, 86, 88–9, 92, 114, 117, 119,
121, 145, 150, 166, 178 n. 54, 212 Vaca, Francisco, 153
n. 34 vagrants, 12, 110, 135–6, 162, 198 n.
statutes, 9, 14–18, 109, 124, 131, 144, 42, 204 n. 20, 229
197 n. 18, 198 n. 30 Valdenieso, Jerónimo de, 36–7, 40–1,
Desafueros, 14–15, 109, 124, 219
197 n. 18 valerian plants, 75–7, 149, 156, 160,
Fueros, 14, 17–18, 55 186 n. 70, 206 n. 35
254 Index
Valero Martín, Catalina, 120 window, 41, 72–3, 75, 84, 89–90, 92,
Vargas, Jacinto de, 110, 223 119, 122, 151–2, 165, 212 n. 22
Venegas, Juan José de, 111–12, 228 witchcraft, ix-xii, 3, 5–7, 14–15, 18,
Vera, Felipe de, 107 20, 24–6, 28, 98–100, 105–6,
Veruela, Monastery of (Saragossa), 52 108–10, 121, 123–32, 136–7,
Vicente, Joan, 35, 38, 40–3, 45, 149, 139–40, 143–6, 148, 150, 152–3,
176 n. 24, 219 157–9, 173 n. 40, 176 n. 21, 197
Villanova, Arnaldo de, 32, 184 n. 46 n. 13, 18 & 24, 199 n. 50, 200 n.
vine, 56, 133, 212 n. 34 60, 203 n. 6, 207 n. 39 & 45, 209
Virgil, 100 n. 73–5, 219, 224–7, 230–1
Virgin Mary, 2, 4, 13, 80–2, 91–2, 106, witches, x-xii, 7, 9, 13, 15, 17–21,
117, 140, 143, 167, 187 n. 99, 214 26–7, 96–7, 99–100, 104–6,
virgins/virginity, 37, 43, 49–50, 54, 108–11, 118–21, 123–6, 128,
115, 180 n. 72 131–2, 140, 142–6, 150, 153,
158–60, 200 n. 60, 207 n. 40 &
virtue, 54, 59, 99–102, 106, 114
45, 212 n. 34
visions, 50, 116–17, 133, 139–40, 160,
witch-finders, 29, 99, 105
195 n. 77
witch hunts, 15, 26, 110, 127, 153,
Vives, Juan Luis, 135
157, 160
witch’s mark, 100
wax figures, 52, 69, 77, 152, 155 wizards, 13, 15, 17
widows, 7, 20–1, 96, 118, 125–6, 129,
132, 137, 140, 145, 156, 204 n. 20 Yuso, Ana de, 78, 81, 88–9, 93, 221