There are novels, films and documentaries about the witches of Zugarramurdi. Historical investigations and mythologized stories of their clans and their condemnations by the Inquisition. And yet, we do not know with certainty the place where they were condemned to death at the stake nor the place where the fire took place. The Auto de Fe de Logroño of 1610 celebrates its 414th anniversary between November 6 and 8 and in the city, beyond an annual recreation and the fact that 11 elms remember these 11 people in the Forest of Memory, little is known about the historical significance. this implies.
The Auto de Fe de Logroño was the last burning of witches and sorcerers of the Spanish Inquisition, but not in the rest of Europe, nor in the United States, nor in the civil courts, where they continued. “It is true that there is a before and after the intervention of Inquisitor Salazar and this order and, however, in the municipal minutes of the municipal council this has gone almost unnoticed, there is very little information”, explains Isabel Murillo, responsible for the municipal archives of Logroño and city chronicler.
The Tribunal of the Holy Office had been in Logroño since 1570 and had jurisdiction over the regions of La Rioja, Navarre, the Basque Country and part of the archbishopric of Burgos, according to researcher Gustav Henningsen in the work The Witches’ Lawyer. Once again, “the border between the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Navarre marks the history of the city,” explains Murillo. And after years in various regions of Navarra and Calahorra, in 1570 the Court moved to Logroño until the end of the Inquisition in 1834.
The Court of Logroño was located outside the walls, in front of the Cubo del Revellín, in the current parking lot. In fact, although they are currently buried in this parking lot built as a temporary site, the ruins remain, precisely, remains of the foundation. Despite popular beliefs about other places, the place where the Court always stood was this one. “Sometimes, documents that speak of “the house of the Inquisition” have caused confusion, but this does not mean that it is about the Tribunal, but rather about the assets that the Institution owned. This led us to think that it was next to the convent of San Francisco or even that it was in the building of the College of Architects, because they once organized an exhibition,” specifies the municipal archivist.
As Henningsen notes, during Logroño’s Auto de Fe celebration, “the town had not seen a public automobile for 11 years, heretic burnings had declined since the end of the 16th century, and autos fes were increasingly rare.” . In this relevant process, other cases were judged in addition to witchcraft, there were accusations of Judaization, bigamy or heretical or blasphemous propositions. For witchcraft, there were 31 people. Among them, 19 declared themselves confidants and saved their lives, with the exception of María Zozaya, whom they decided to burn alive although they declared themselves witches, because they considered that she had been a great propagator witchcraft, also among children and young people. The others, six women and five men, were condemned to the stake and burned, including five in effigy because they had died in prison.
Even at the time he enjoyed great notoriety. It is said that 30,000 people from other places took part, although researchers question this assumption. Isabel Murillo agrees: “There is no room for that many people in the places where this happened. » And there are different theories: there are those who say that it was in the Plaza del Mercado, in front of the co-cathedral of La Redonda, other chronicles speak of the Town Hall House, which was located in Portales Street, where the current Juan Lobo Street opened. The court records indicate that a platform was built, but they do not specify where. There is also no security at the location where the fire took place. Some voices suggest he was in the same location and others that he was on the outskirts of the city, having been taken out in procession amid ridicule. “It doesn’t seem strange to think that for some reason we have a term called Los Quemados on the other side of the Ebro.”
Some vestiges of the Inquisition in Logroño
And why is there so little information? “You should know that the Inquisition ends between different avatars of History and that at the last moment the documentary heritage is not controlled. The funds of the Inquisition arrived in a very fragmentary manner and very few of those of the Court of Logroño remain,” underlines the person in charge of the archives. Furthermore, he emphasizes: “We have to have another perspective, we read with the mental patterns of the 21st century, trying to make the documents tell us things that they did not say, because that there was no need to say them. »
So while “it changed the modus operandi of the Spanish Inquisition,” Murillo says, it went largely unnoticed and virtually no vestiges of the Inquisition remain in the city. Besides the ruins of the tribunal and some documents of lesser importance (as the archives of the Inquisition are in the National Historical Archives), there is an 18th-century painting of the shields of the Inquisition in the Casa Mateo de Nuevas, where Dialnet Headquarters. “But it’s not the Inquisitor’s house,” explains Isabel Murillo, “it’s a worker from the Inquisition who decided to paint the shields of his house.”
However, the 4th centenary of the Auto de Fe in 2010 was decisive in the memory of the Witches of Zugarramurdi. “The Tomás Santos corporation decides to sing mea culpa and establish ties of fraternity with Zugarramurdi,” recalls the municipal chronicler. As part of this anniversary, a comprehensive exhibition was created, a square was developed and re-enactments of the Auto de Fe were promoted, celebrated every year since then. Also in 2010, the Forest of Memory was created in the Parc de l’Ebre, the area closest to the Tribunal. In this forest 11 elm trees were planted, with the presence of people arriving from Zugarramurdi, who since then have forever remembered the last 11 people burned by the Spanish Inquisition.
