Research Catalog

Title

Invoking the Akelarre : voices of the accused in the Basque witch-craze, 1609-1614 / Emma Wilby.

Author

Wilby, Emma

Publication

Eastbourne ; Chicago : Sussex Academic Press, 2019.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 451 pages : illustrations, map; 26 cm

Summary

"With their dramatic descriptions of black masses and cannibalistic feasts, the records generated by the Basque witch-craze of 1609-14 provide us with arguably the most demonologically-stereotypical accounts of the witches' sabbath - or akelarre - to have emerged from early modern Europe. While the trials have attracted scholarly attention, the most substantial monograph on the subject was written nearly forty years ago and most works have focused on the ways in which interrogators shaped the pattern of prosecutions and the testimonies of defendants. Invoking the Akelarre diverts from this norm by employing more recent historiographical paradigms to analyze the contributions of the accused. Through interdisciplinary analyses of both French- and Spanish-Basque records, it argues that suspects were not passive recipients of elite demonological stereotypes but animated these received templates with their own belief and experience, from the dark exoticism of magical conjuration, liturgical cursing and theatrical misrule to the sharp pragmatism of domestic medical practice and everyday religious observance. In highlighting the range of raw materials available to the suspects, the book helps us to understand how the fiction of the witches' sabbath emerged to such prominence in contemporary mentalities, whilst also restoring some agency to the defendants and nuancing the historical thesis that stereotypical content points to interrogatorial opinion and folkloric content to the voices of the accused"--

Subject

• 1600-1699
• Witchcraft > Spain > País Vasco > History > 17th century
• Sabbat > Spain > País Vasco > History > 17th century
• Witch hunting > Spain > País Vasco > History > 17th century
• Inquisition > Spain > País Vasco
• Inquisition
• Sabbat
• Witch hunting
• Witchcraft
• Spain > País Vasco

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 429-446) and index.

Contents

The Basque world -- The gleeful executioners -- The witch's voice -- The black winds -- The bloodletting bruja -- "Powders and poisons" -- "Man's grease" -- Hidden healers -- Familiar demons -- Milking the toad -- Jeannette's imagination -- The Akelarre -- Dancing with the devil -- Dark banquets -- "There is no sin in it" -- "Be nothing to God" -- Theophilus and the stage -- The first altar of hell -- Mass and misrule -- The malevolent mass -- De Lancre's imagination -- The cultic template.

Call Number

JFF 20-40

ISBN

• 9781845199692
• 1845199693

LCCN

• 2019012494
• 40029519561

OCLC

1069717515

Author

Wilby, Emma, author.

Title

Invoking the Akelarre : voices of the accused in the Basque witch-craze, 1609-1614 / Emma Wilby.

Publisher

Eastbourne ; Chicago : Sussex Academic Press, 2019.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 429-446) and index.

Chronological Term

1600-1699

Other Standard Identifier

40029519561

Research Call Number

JFF 20-40