There are novels, films and documentaries about the Witches of Zugarramurdi. Historical investigations and mythologized accounts of their covens and their convictions by the Inquisition. And yet, it is not known with certainty the place where they were sentenced to death at the stake or the location where the burning took place. The Auto de Fe of Logroño of 1610 turns 414 years old between November 6 and 8 and in the city, beyond an annual recreation and the fact that 11 elm trees remember these 11 people in the Forest of Memory, little is known of the historical significance it entails.
The Auto de Fe of Logroño was the last burning of witches and warlocks of the Spanish Inquisition, but not in the rest of Europe or in the United States or in civil courts, where they continued. “It is true that there is a before and after the intervention of the inquisitor Salazar and this Order and, however, in the municipal minutes of the City Council, it went almost unnoticed, there is very little information,” explains Isabel Murillo, responsible for the municipal archive. from Logroño and chronicler of the city.
The Tribunal of the Holy Office was in Logroño since 1570 and had jurisdiction in the areas of La Rioja, Navarra, the Basque Country and part of the Archbishopric of Burgos, according to researcher Gustav Henningsen in the work The Witches’ Advocate. Again, “the border between the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Navarra marks the history of the city,” says Murillo. And after years in various parts of Navarra and Calahorra, in 1570 the Court settled in 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, and although at this moment they are buried in this parking lot that was built as a temporary site, the ruins remain, specifically, remains of the foundation. Despite popular beliefs about other locations, the place where the Court was always was this. “Sometimes documents that speak of “the Inquisition’s own house” have led to confusion, but this does not mean that it is the Court, but rather assets that the Institution had. That led us to think that it was located next to the Convent of San Francisco or even that it was in the building of the College of Architects because they once held an exhibition,” clarifies the municipal archivist.
As Henningsen notes, when the Auto de Fe of Logroño is celebrated, “the city had not seen a public auto for 11 years, the burning of heretics had declined since the end of the 16th century and auto de fes were increasingly rare.” ”. In this relevant process, more matters were tried in addition to witchcraft, there were accused of Judaizing, bigamy or heretical or blasphemous propositions. For witchcraft, there were 31 people. Of them, 19 declared themselves confidants and saved their lives, except for María Zozaya, who they decided to burn alive despite declaring herself a witch because they considered that she had been a great spreader of witchcraft, also among children and young people. The rest, six women and five men, were sentenced to the stake and burned, five of them in effigy because they had died in prisons.
Even at the time it had a lot of notoriety. It is said that 30,000 people from other places attended, although researchers question this. Isabel Murillo agrees: “There is not room for so many people in the places where it is believed to have occurred.” 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 talk about the Town Hall House, which was located on Portales Street, where the opening of the current Juan Lobo street. The minute books do record that a platform was built, but they do not say where. There is also no security of the place where the burning occurred. Some voices suggest that in the same place and others that it was on the outskirts of the city, after being taken out in a procession amidst ridicule. “It doesn’t seem strange to think that for a reason we have a term called Los Quemados on the other side of the Ebro.”
Few vestiges of the Inquisition in Logroño
And why is there so little information? “We must know that the Inquisition ends between different avatars of History and in the final moment the documentary heritage is not controlled. The funds from the Inquisition have arrived in a very fragmentary way and very little remains of those from the Court of Logroño,” points out the person in charge of the archive. Furthermore, he points out: “We have to have another perspective, we read with the mental schemes of the 21st century, trying to make the documents tell us things that they did not say, because it was not necessary to say them.”
Thus, this fact, despite the fact that “it changed the modus operandi of the Spanish Inquisition,” says Murillo, has gone largely unnoticed and there are hardly any vestiges of the Inquisition left in the city. In addition to the ruins of the court and some documents of lesser importance (because the archive of the Inquisition is in the National Historical Archive), there is an 18th century painting of the shields of the Inquisition in the Casa Mateo de Nuevas, where the Dialnet headquarters. “But it is not the Inquisitor’s house,” clarifies Isabel Murillo, “it was a worker of the Inquisition who decided to paint the shields in his house.”
However, the IV 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 the mea culpa and establish ties of brotherhood with Zugarramurdi,” recalls the municipal chronicler. Within the framework of this anniversary, a complete exhibition was held, a plaza was set up and recreations of the Auto de Fe were promoted, which have been celebrated every year since then. Also in 2010, the Memory Forest was created in the Ebro Park, the area closest to the Court. In that forest, 11 elm trees were planted, with the presence of people arriving from Zugarramurdi, that since then and forever remember the last 11 people burned by the Spanish Inquisition.
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