Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain

Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain
Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic
Series Editors: Jonathan Barry, Willem de Blécourt and Owen Davies
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
Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic

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Urban Magic in Early
Modern Spain
Abracadabra Omnipotens
María Tausiet
Translated from Spanish by Susannah Howe
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
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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.
Relación de causa of Pedro Montalbán (Saragossa, 1631)

Contents
List of Illustrations viii
Note to the English Edition ix

Stuart Clark
Foreword x
James S. Amelang
Acknowledgements xiii
Prologue: Abracadabra Omnipotens 1
1 The Judicial Backdrop: Saragossa and the Three

Justice Systems 9
2 Magic Circles and Enchanted Treasures 30
3 Magic for Love or Subjugation 58
4 Saludadores and Witch-Finders 99
5 The City as Refuge 124
6 Rural versus Urban Magic 143
Epilogue: In Times of Plague 161
Notes 170
Saragossa in the Early Modern Period: Locations of the Places

Mentioned in the Text 214
Tables 219
Select Bibliography 232
Index 244
vii
Illustrations
0.1 Topographical map of the most noble, heroic and

loyal city of Saragossa (undated) 4
0.2 Devout profession (Capricho No. 70), Francisco de
Goya, 1799 6
1.1 Front cover of the Recopilación de Estatutos de la
ciudad de Zaragoza (1635) 16
1.2 & 1.3 Cover and fol. 79 from the record of the trial of
Dominga Ferrer, ‘The cripple’ (1535) 27
3.1 All will fall (Capricho No. 19), Francisco de
Goya, 1799 64
3.2 Plucked, they go on their way (Capricho No. 20),
Francisco de Goya, 1799 65
3.3 That dust (Capricho No. 23), Francisco de
Goya, 1799 67
3.4 Hush (Capricho No. 28), Francisco de Goya, 1799 71
3.5 Hunting for teeth (Capricho No. 12), Francisco de
Goya, 1799 95
6.1 Trials (Capricho No. 60), Francisco de Goya, 1799 146
viii
Note to the English Edition
Stuart Clark
María Tausiet is held in such high regard among historians of

pre-modern demonology, magic and witchcraft that it is astonishing
that a major work of hers has not been made available to English read-
ers before now. Whenever world experts in these subjects are brought
together, she is the automatic choice to represent the Spanish dimen-
sion. In the last two decades, inspired by the work and tradition of
Julio Caro Baroja, she has virtually single-handedly modernized the
history of witchcraft in Spain, both in and beyond the early modern
centuries. This is the achievement of her monograph on witchcraft
and superstition in Aragon, two studies of possession and magic in
Tosos and Saragossa respectively, and many scholarly essays. Ponzoña
en los ojos (2000), in particular, is a skilful blend of advanced treatment
of witchcraft prosecutions in the inquisitorial and secular courts with
broader studies of the wider cultural environment, both popular and
learned, that produced them. Alongside Gustav Henningsen’s Witches’
Advocate (1980), it is simply the best work on the subject. The editors of
the Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic are therefore to be
congratulated for now making the Saragossa study available in transla-
tion. It is a book full of human interest and fascinating local detail, made
all the more compelling by María Tausiet’s skill in letting the people and
practices of the past speak for themselves and her capacity for shrewd,
unforced historical arguments. Abracadabra Omnipotens is the work of an
innovative, courageous and, above all, compassionate historian, and it
deserves the wider audience it will now reach.
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
pains to underline the differences in the responses on the part of the

three legal systems charged with vigilance over crimes of illicit magic.
Focusing on the available documentation from the kingdom of Aragon,
she demonstrated that the interests and approaches of municipal offi-
cials, ecclesiastical courts and the Inquisition diverged widely. Following
an initial period of uncertainty, both the church courts and the Holy
Office wound up devising a fairly lenient policy towards magical and
other practices that they demoted to the category of ‘superstitions’ and
eventually dismissed as mere fraud. Their reluctance to prosecute con-
trasted starkly with the eagerness with which secular officials persecuted
the crime of diabolical witchcraft, especially in the countryside. Clearly,
the powers that be were not of one mind on the subject of magic,
especially of the more malevolent sort. That episcopal judges showed
scepticism regarding the reality of diabolical witchcraft from the very
beginning betrayed a conservatism whose roots lay in the Canon epis-
copi and other expressions of unwillingness to lend credence to witch
beliefs that marked the official policy of the Church during the Middle
Ages. At the same time, the Inquisition showed a greater willingness
to prosecute and even execute suspects for the crime of witchcraft.
By the mid-sixteenth century, however, it had adopted a more cautious
approach. As Tausiet notes, this placed it in an intermediate position
between episcopal and secular justice. This stance of moderation would
only strengthen as time went by, and became the official policy of the
Holy Office throughout the Spanish monarchy following the spectacular
failure of the huge macro-trial of the Navarrese witches of Zugarramurdi
in 1609–1610. Clearly, what most merited a closer look was this curi-
ous inhibition on the part of both clerical institutions – and ‘inhibition’
is by far the best term with which to characterize an attitude widely
shared in much of the periphery of western Europe. Hence this book,
which focuses on the urban sphere, precisely the area where the most
active legal systems successfully resisted pressure to prosecute magical
practices as crimes of witchcraft.
Seen in the light of this longer trajectory, this book represents a fur-
ther step in Tausiet’s painstaking attempt to chart an important sector of
the religious and cultural history of early modern Spain. As before, her
focus is on Aragon. And once again, she brings to bear the same wide
and varied range of sources in her effort to bring to life a lost world of
beliefs and practices. Her imaginative and empathetic reconstruction of
urban popular culture exemplifies much of the history being written by
a new generation of young and highly talented historians. This project
of historiographic renovation has shown a distinctive willingness to
xii Foreword
pose new questions – and the open-ended nature of this questioning is

very much in evidence – that move in a broadly cultural direction. It has
also shown a proclivity for incorporating themes hitherto neglected in
traditional historiography; the gender dimension is one obvious exam-
ple. At the same time, its practitioners have made substantial efforts
to look outward to what is being done elsewhere; Tausiet is second to
none in her cosmopolitan spirit and commitments, as her publishing
record makes clear. She moreover brings to bear on her work a rich
background in folklore, literature and, above all, religion, of which she
shows a deep knowledge based on an enviable familiarity with tradi-
tional primary sources. Finally, Tausiet is an agile writer. The reader
of this book will appreciate in particular her capacity to evoke figures
who seem to walk out of the pages of picaresque novels, ranging from
Jerónimo de Liébana, a crafty embaucador who eventually made his way
up to the highest circles of the court under Olivares, to the truly unfor-
gettable Pablo Borao, whose career as an exorcist gave rise to countless
opportunities for indulging his remarkably uninhibited sexuality.
The history of magic and witchcraft contains many puzzles. It is lit-
tered with questions that historians have yet to answer, despite the
abundance of sources available for study. This short but effective book
brings one such puzzle into sharp focus. It invites its readers to join
the author in subjecting the rich evidence it examines to closer inspec-
tion. At the same time, in the best tradition of historical writing, it
challenges them to come up with explanations of their own. No small
achievement, that.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to Dries Vanysacker for the initial stimulus to write this

book. In 2002 he suggested that I carry out research on urban magic in
Saragossa for a future comparative work on that city and Bruges. With
that in mind, I decided to complete the material I had already published
on sixteenth-century Aragon, and to broaden its temporal scope to cover
the whole of the early modern period. The kindness of the staff at
Madrid’s Archivo Histórico Nacional made my job far simpler. Librarians
Matilde and Inmaculada Cantín helped me track down books with their
habitual dedication and helpfulness, and Luis Miguel Ortego played a
key role in reconstructing a map of the early modern city. Meanwhile,
the opportunity to present my early conclusions at a Cultural History
Seminar coordinated by James S. Amelang and María José del Río at the
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid provided fresh motivation, thanks to
the comments and ideas contributed by those who attended. I’m espe-
cially grateful to Hugh Sadleir and Adam Beaver: their interest in and
willingness to discuss the subject and the encouragement they gave me
were a real boost in the final stages of elaborating the book. I also thank
William Christian and François Delpech for their unconditional support
and their advice over the years. Without the detailed readings, critiques,
suggestions and constant inspiration provided by James S. Amelang, this
book would not be what, little by little, thanks to his collaboration, it
has turned out to be: the foreword he agreed to write is just the final
fruit of his long involvement in this project. Words cannot express my
gratitude for the assistance and enthusiasm of Luis Gago in Madrid and
Antonio Tausiet in Saragossa.
Finally, as this book now embarks upon a new life in English, I express
my sincere thanks to series editors Owen Davies, Willem de Blécourt
and Jonathan Barry for their support and encouragement, and to Jenny
McCall at Palgrave Macmillan for her understanding and profession-
alism. As a long-time reader and admirer of Stuart Clark’s writings, a
continuous source of inspiration and insights during my career as a his-
torian, I feel it a rare privilege to be able to include a note to this edition
from him. And my last acknowledgement must go to Susannah Howe.
She has worked indefatigably to make this book readable and compre-
hensible to an English-speaking audience, and we both know that this
was often anything but an easy task. Her quest for accuracy and her
xiii
xiv Acknowledgements
outstanding linguistic skills have been a continuing source of wonder,

and no author could ever dream of working with a better translator or
companion in learning.
María Tausiet
Madrid, January 2013
Prologue: Abracadabra Omnipotens
Wherever there is religion there is magic [ . . . ]; wherever there is

magic there is religion1
Visitors arriving in Saragossa today will find themselves in a modern

city, but one steeped in centuries of history, much of which now lies
hidden. Although it suffered terrible destruction during the Peninsular
War and – in more recent times – was further damaged by misguided
ideas about what constituted ‘progress’, it nevertheless retains signifi-
cant traces of its Roman origins: several sections of the city walls, an
impressive amphitheatre, the thermal baths and, most notably, the rect-
angular perimeter of its old town and the two main streets that run
north-south and east-west through its centre, forming the shape of a
cross, a layout still clearly visible today, unusually so for a city of this
size. The majestic Aljafería Palace, built in the eleventh century and con-
verted into a Christian fortress after the Reconquest, bears witness to the
rich Islamic culture that established deep roots in the city and whose
influence continued to be felt for centuries. Stroll through the historic
heart of Saragossa and you will see some of the loveliest examples of
Mudéjar architecture to be found anywhere in the Iberian peninsula: the
soaring towers of the churches of Santa María Magdalena, San Miguel,
San Gil and San Pablo serve as vivid reminders of the minarets that were
once such a defining feature of this urban landscape.2
Saragossa’s cathedral, oriented north-south rather than east-west as
are the vast majority of Christian churches, was built on the ruins of the
city’s oldest mosque, situated in what had been the forum of the Roman
city of Caesar Augusta, close to the old river port. The entrance to the
mosque was in the same place as the main cathedral door is now, and
the current tower incorporates elements of the original minaret.
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
Whatever the beliefs of those who frequented the churches, whether

devout worshippers or magical practitioners in search of supplies, the
idea of the physical embodiment of the sacred in all kinds of symbols
(statues, crucifixes, talismans, magic circles and so on) is essential to
an understanding of the mindset of the period. Saragossa’s own coat of
arms, for example, a crowned lion rampant on a red field,5 provides an
example of the need to translate into material form ideas which to our
eyes seem entirely abstract. For this emblematic lion (associated with the
qualities of a Christian monarch: proud, but merciful) later materialized
into an actual wild beast which the city council kept on display until
1584 in an enclosure open to the public, enabling citizens to come and
see the animal and wonder at its physical presence.6
A sinister parallel can perhaps be drawn between the lion as the incar-
nation of all the city’s virtues and the witch, another flesh-and-blood
creature, as the embodiment of all its worst vices, not to mention the
cause of any misfortune that befell its citizens. In the pages that follow,
readers will be introduced to a number of women who were incarcerated
in various prisons across Saragossa because of the threat they supposedly
posed society. That said, it will also become clear that the city (with its
codified laws and institutions) did in fact offer asylum in most cases,
becoming a place of refuge for the many women accused of witchcraft
who went there to escape the persecution they had faced in their rural
communities.
Although witchcraft proper was scarcely present in early modern
European cities, magic, understood in a more general sense as any-
thing contrary to religion, did play a significant role in the daily lives
of city-dwellers. Judging by the volume of documentation relating to
Saragossa – particularly the papers dating from the sixteenth and sev-
enteenth centuries – its adepts there must have been many in number.
A multitude of sorceresses, necromancers, folk healers, exorcists, seers,
demon-invokers, alchemists, astrologers and so on appear to have been
caught up in all kinds of trade and business. At first glance, the concept
of a city steeped in magic may seem surprising. Even today, many stud-
ies continue to link superstition solely with the rural environment, as
if urban living and irrationality were somehow mutually exclusive, or,
in the words of Karl Marx, as if urbanization rescued people from ‘the
idiocy of rural life’.7 This perspective is based on a common assump-
tion, namely the idea that the magical constituted a territory apart, on
the margins of the civilized world: something essentially mysterious,
secretive, primitive, forbidden and, above all, immoral.
This view is, however, at odds with the panorama presented in the
following pages. As numerous examples will demonstrate, magic and
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
of divinity. According to one of the central tenets of Christianity, God

alone is almighty. And yet, for those who chose to turn to the unlimited
world of the supernatural, there were an endless number of beings capa-
ble of satisfying any whim or desire. It has traditionally been accepted
that there exists a basic division between magic and religion, based on
the supposedly different frames of mind of those who rely on one or the
other. Those who have faith in religion can be distinguished by their
belief in God’s omnipotence (and hence by the qualities of resignation,
passivity and meekness), as opposed to those who, in resorting to magic,
put their trust in the limitless power of human thought, capable of mak-
ing any wish come true by willpower alone. For Freud, it was precisely
that which he called the ‘omnipotence of thoughts’ that defined magical
as opposed to religious thinking, which would attribute omnipotence
only to God.8 It has therefore been usual to claim that while the religious
attitude is characterized by dependence on an all-powerful being who,
at most, might be influenced by prayers, penance, tears and so on, the
magical attitude is characterized by rebellion, independence and a desire
to dominate and manipulate the world. Another of the most common
preconceptions of Western culture is that religion is concerned with the
transcendental and the common good, while magic seeks only to fulfil
utilitarian and individual needs.9
In reality, however, it is virtually impossible to draw such a clear dis-
tinction between the two. A closer examination of the behaviour and
beliefs of this book’s protagonists shows just how difficult it is to deter-
mine what levels of initiative or passivity, pride or submission, not to
mention self-interest or altruism, came into play for those seeking a cure
for their ills from either side of the divide. One thing beyond doubt
is that, from the late Middle Ages onwards, the figure of the magus
began to be viewed as increasingly arrogant and self-sufficient, in con-
trast with the ostensibly humble figure of the priest, whose function
was limited to that of intermediary between God and mankind.10 The
bifurcation or dichotomy between magic and religion grew more and
more pronounced throughout the early modern age as the persecution
of witchcraft, sorcery and so-called superstition intensified. And, given
that the period was also witness to a serious schism in the Church, both
Catholics and Protestants were now required to redefine the very notion
of religion.
The new model of piety fostered from that point onwards – less ritual-
istic and outward-looking, more inward-looking and, at the same time,
more controlled – found in magic its ideal antithesis. The spectre of the
magical and demonic was used to promote an idealized image of religion
6
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
to counter the excesses and abuse denounced by reformers. This is the

only way to understand the myth of witchcraft: as a perfect parody of
religion, based on the logic of opposites. The witches’ sabbath is sim-
ply a mirror image of the real world, constituting a genuine forest of
symbols that echo the Christian equivalents (unction/magic ointments;
baptism/demonic pact; mystical ecstasy/flight to the sabbath, and so
on).11 The myth of witchcraft represented one end of a spectrum, the
other being a supposedly intellectual, devout and pure religion. The
presence of Satan, an immaterial being, at the witches’ sabbath ended
up being portrayed with such verisimilitude that he was even alleged
to copulate with its participants, a claim that conferred reality not only
on him but also on God the Almighty, whose ultimate victory over the
forces of evil was never a matter of doubt.12
In a period characterized by crises of faith, the persecution of magic
would endorse the validity of a series of dogmas by accentuating
the contrast between legitimate religion and the innumerable crimes
attributed to witches and sorcerers. The myth of witchcraft proper was
confined almost exclusively to the rural environment, where many
women – most of them old, widowed and poor – were executed for
imaginary offences that were impossible to prove. In the city, magic was
primarily associated with certain socially alienated individuals, most
of them immigrants. That tells us something about the fear of public
disorder and an inability to control those living on the edges of soci-
ety. It is worth remembering that while religious rites were considered
solemn, public, obligatory and normal, in other words, fundamentally
collective and inclusive, magical rites were performed clandestinely –
after all, it was the very fact of their being proscribed that defined
them as magical. Those accused of practising magic in sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century Saragossa certainly had no community institution
that bound them together, since many of the practices considered
magical in nature were part of the beliefs and customs shared by the
vast majority of the population. However, as certain unorthodox ways
of behaviour began to invite increasing suspicion, practitioners chose
secret, out-of-the-way places for their activities, either in private homes
or on the outskirts of the city, as well as almost always operating under
cover of darkness. Thus magic became that which was anti-religious,
that which occurred away from organized worship: a hidden threat to
the social order.
We also have to remember, however, that, just like the rites of offi-
cial religion, magical acts were a response to various states of emotional
tension, forms of expression whose aim was to deliver individual and
collective catharsis, whatever their actual margin of success or failure.

Certainly, given the widespread credulity of the day, many people chose
to try and profit from the misfortune of others. For the representatives
of the Church (bishops and inquisitors), such conduct in itself justified
the persecution of superstitious practices, given their inherent trickery
and illusion. But again, as we shall see, the boundary between true faith
and deliberate deception was not always easily delineated, since magic –
like religion – constituted a symbolic interpretation of reality, as well as
a system of representation aimed at transforming it.
1
The Judicial Backdrop: Saragossa
and the Three Justice Systems
A number of citizens were recently appointed to see and ordain

the statute which it appeared was necessary in order to deal with
witches.1
The city of Caesar Augusta was founded in around 14 BC by the emperor

Augustus on the ruins of the ancient Iberian city of Salduie. Later
dubbed ‘the most noble, most loyal, most heroic, ever heroic, most
beneficent and immortal city of Saragossa’2 , it is today the very embod-
iment of uninterrupted historical continuity, having survived sieges,
warfare and many another misadventure over the centuries. From its
very foundation it was designed to be a special enclave, with an unmis-
takably colonizing mission. Its geographical position at the heart of the
Ebro basin, where the Ebro itself meets the Gállego and the Huerva, with
a fourth river (the Jalón) not far distant, made it the obvious local ‘capi-
tal’ of an extensive territory: the place to which all roads led. As a centre
of, initially, Romanization, and then Christianization, it also became an
innovative and pioneering cultural hub.3
Yet if one thing characterizes Saragossa’s cultural evolution, it is
the city’s apparent capacity to absorb all incomers. The process of
Romanization was still under way when the Christianizing of the cap-
ital and its outlying areas began; similarly, the Moors started to arrive
there before the latter was complete. In neither case did the introduc-
tion of new beliefs result in the eradication of earlier ones: instead, new
and old settled into a coexistence that may at first sight seem surprising,
bearing in mind that Islam had been officially adopted throughout the
greater part of Spain towards the end of the eighth century. Although
Islamic control over the population of the Ebro basin did not become
9
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
and demographic growth (the population is reckoned to have reached

around 20,000 by 1495). Moreover, the new political concept of the
State – increasingly understood as an authority moving beyond localism
and tending instead towards centralization – proved attractive to what
had hitherto been a predominantly rural nobility. From the late fifteenth
century onwards, that nobility became urban, as families started to set
up home in the Aragonese capital. With their arrival, the face of the city
began to change: whereas at the end of the Middle Ages its streets had
been narrow and twisting – the legacy of its Islamic past – by the turn of
the sixteenth century they had become straighter, wider and more open,
in order to accommodate the nobles’ grand new mansions and palaces,
not to mention their fine four-wheeled carriages.7
To begin with, these new residences looked more like rural fortresses,
reflecting a feudal mentality still based on ideas of self-sufficiency,
localism and military strength. Over the course of the sixteenth cen-
tury, however, Saragossa’s aristocracy built magnificent urban mansions
in full Renaissance style. These, in conjunction with the sumptuous
grandeur of the city’s new churches and monasteries, created a sense
of monumentalism much admired by visitors,8 although a concen-
trated architectural heart – something that would have proved easier
to conserve in years to come – was never really established, because
the members of the wealthy elite with money to spend on mansions
and palaces were dispersed across such a wide area. These agents of
architectural change were in fact no more than a tiny but privileged
social minority whose fortunes continued to be based on their owner-
ship of vast rural estates, when land was still seen as the most precious
of commodities. Even though some of Saragossa’s artisans and mer-
chants were enjoying growing levels of prosperity, their wealth was
not reflected in the construction of grand urban residences, because
their chief aspiration remained that of acquiring land, and with it
the social status that would put them on some kind of par with the
nobility.9
This, then, was in some ways a modern city, but one that remained
socially and economically anchored in the feudal past. Not only did
merchants and artisans see the capital they accumulated from com-
merce end up being controlled by the nobility while they themselves
were deprived of the security and prestige conferred by land owner-
ship, they were also barred from all positions of municipal authority.
Although this exclusion did not lead to popular uprisings in Saragossa
as it did in Barcelona and Valencia at around the same time, there were
constant calls for change via institutional routes.10
It is worth noting here that while Saragossa’s population included

members of the two most privileged groups in Spanish society (the
nobility and high clergy) and a number of merchants, artisans and
liberal professionals, many of its inhabitants were still employed in agri-
culture. The boundaries between city and countryside were by no means
clearly defined at this time and there existed a substantial mass of agri-
cultural workers, most of them day labourers who had absolutely no
chance of ever owning the land they worked. Therefore, even during
times of greater economic prosperity there were high levels of structural
poverty, leading to sporadic outbreaks of violent disorder which were
soon suppressed by the authorities.11
The city also had a considerable marginal and floating population of
poor people – vagrants, gypsies, prostitutes, pimps, slaves, prisoners,
beggars, patients housed in charitable institutions and so on.12 More-
over, as the only major political and economic centre for miles around,
Saragossa attracted a high number of immigrants, drawn to the city
for many different reasons, some simply hoping to find work there,
others on the run from the law elsewhere and seeking refuge in an
atmosphere of urban anonymity which inspired many to change not
only their place of residence but also their job, spouse, name and even
personality.13 As we shall see, the vast majority of those brought to trial
for magic-related activities in early modern Saragossa were members of
this floating population and many were immigrants from two areas in
particular: the Mediterranean coast and the region of southern France
that adjoined the Kingdom of Aragon.
Magic as a means of resorting to the imaginary rather than to a
reality filled with hardship and material want, its manifold enchant-
ments, the wonders and marvels its practitioners hoped to work by
carrying out prescribed rituals to the letter – all of this has to be placed
within the broader context of the cult of the miraculous, a phenomenon
given a new lease of life in the late sixteenth century by the Counter-
Reformation Church.14 As far as many of the people of Saragossa were
concerned, spells and prayers, saints and demons, ungodly sacrilege and
fervent devotion were caught up in a tangle of beliefs that even the most
experienced theologians found hard to unravel.
That sense of the miraculous as a part of everyday life was enhanced
in this period by the mythologization of the city itself, as reflected in
the publication of a growing number of treatises inspired in the main
by two particular tales from Saragossa’s past. To its champions, this was
not just an earthly paradise of boundless fertility, situated – like the Gar-
den of Eden itself – at the confluence of four rivers, but also, and most
importantly, a divinely favoured and indestructible city, ‘a most solid
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
power over their holdings, despotically governing and acting as judge

and jury over their vassals. As for the local councils, although their
decision-making capacity was more limited by the fueros (general laws
of the kingdom), they controlled local matters in line with their own
needs and interests and with almost complete freedom of manoeuvre.18
Proof of this can be seen in the various Estatutos de Desaforamiento
(statutes suspending the fueros) that were approved in many Aragonese
towns and villages over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries so as to allow their councils to combat those crimes considered
particularly serious.
The aim of these statutes was to free those who subscribed to the
fueros from any obligation to respect them when it came to trying the
most dangerous criminals, so that the latter could be sentenced quickly
and effectively. Once desaforados (in other words, no longer bound by
the fueros), judges could institute criminal prosecutions on their own
initiative, without any other requirements, ‘[be] the party present or
absent, [be it] a feast day or not, standing or seated, in the accustomed
place or in an unaccustomed place, by day or by night, by any means’.19
Defendants might be subjected to brutal torture and have no recourse
to any kind of defence lawyer. The freedom of action enjoyed by munic-
ipal judges went as far as allowing them to condemn to death criminals
cited in the statutes without even bringing judicial proceedings against
them (‘that summarily and without observing the usual solemnities
[ . . . ] they may proceed [ . . . ] against those who have committed [ . . . ]
the said crimes [ . . . ] even without calling a trial if they do not wish to
do so’).20
Only two very specific offences were considered grave enough to war-
rant such cruel and extreme measures: banditry and witchcraft, two
crimes involving violence and destruction – one of which was real, the
other imaginary – and which were perceived as in some way compara-
ble to one another. Certainly both were a genuine source of affliction to
those who were – or believed themselves to be – on their receiving end,
and the threat of both was primarily felt in small and isolated pock-
ets of population, often in remote, mountainous regions. Here, where
brigands and highwaymen could most successfully ply their trade, was
also where the most impassioned accusations of witchcraft were concen-
trated. Bearing in mind the kind of personal relationships typical of rural
communities, whose members (often part of a single extended family)
lived and worked cheek by jowl, in circumstances therefore less than
conducive to open hostility, such accusations were simply a reflection
of the way in which social tension built to intolerable levels.
According to the desaforamiento statutes drawn up by different

Aragonese councils throughout the early modern era, witches and wiz-
ards, sorcerers and sorceresses, poisoners and magicians constituted
an incalculably greater danger than the most bloodthirsty of ban-
dits. As Satan’s allies and thus engaged in an ongoing war with the
human race, they were blamed for death and disease among children
and adults, for lost livestock and ruined harvests, for barrenness in
women and impotence in men, for hailstorms, for the plagues of insects
that periodically laid waste to the fields, and so on. Faced with the
magnitude of the damage caused by these enchanters to their own fam-
ily members and other fellow citizens, and taking into account the
offence their disruptive and demonic behaviour must be causing the
Almighty, local authorities had no choice but to increase the sever-
ity of ordinary sentences until all such suspect characters had been
eliminated.
Essentially, what the small centres of population where such ‘witch
hunts’ took place were facing was an almost permanent state of chaos,
with ongoing threats to the social equilibrium and, above all, to the
concept of public order, maintenance of which was a central aspect
of the work done by municipal authorities. Social disorder worsened
in times of crisis and revealed itself in neighbourhood conflicts that
usually resulted in one party accusing the other of witchcraft. On the
whole, such allegations were levelled against the weakest members of
society, those with the least chance of defending themselves (in other
words, women, and generally poor and elderly women at that), who
were doomed to become scapegoats for an entire community.
In principle, urban life in large population centres such as Saragossa
did not encourage the stereotypical concept of witchcraft characteristic
of the rural environment (in other words, the key belief that certain indi-
viduals could actually destroy nature by the sheer force of their will; in
addition to this superhuman ability, they were also later thought to be
able to fly, transform themselves into animals and, most significantly, to
have engaged in carnal relations with the devil himself). As we shall see,
while the accusations of evildoing that flared up between neighbours
in Saragossa also stemmed from personal animosity, they seem to have
been backed up not only by suspicion, but by evidence relating to spe-
cific magical practices or beliefs. Nonetheless, the obsession with the
myth of witchcraft also ended up being enshrined in the capital’s munic-
ipal laws, which concluded that even if the city was not producing its
own witches, it was a gathering place for those fleeing the clutches of
the law elsewhere.
16
Illustration 1.1 Front cover of the Recopilación de Estatutos de la ciudad de

Zaragoza (1635).
In 1584, Saragossa’s Chapter and Council (Capítulo y Consejo: a colle-

giate assembly with legislative and decision-making powers) took up the
issue of witch-immigrants, who were being blamed for all the ills then
afflicting the city:
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
Two years later, according to the Statute of 6 December 1586 against

Witches and Sorceresses, the city of Saragossa decided to suspend its fueros
in order to take decisive action against what it saw as the greatest threat
facing it at that time:
BEARING in mind and taking into consideration the many scan-

dals, deaths, dangers and afflictions which have beset and may daily
beset the people and residents of this City on account of the many
witches, wizards and poisoners who presently, according to what is
believed and held to be true, do or could live in this City and its
districts and villages, having fled or been exiled from certain Cities,
towns and villages of the present Kingdom and from other places
or having come here in some other way, [we have endeavoured] to
remedy this using the means and ways that are according to the gen-
eral Fueros of this Kingdom, and to the Special Privileges granted to
this City by their most Serene Highnesses of Aragon, and also to its
most ancient good and laudable customs it may use and it is permit-
ted and granted to use. THEREFORE, in the desire to remedy all the
aforementioned, we hereby declare the Statute and Statutes of the
City [ . . . ] concerning the punishment of all crimes and men who
are criminal and harmful to the said Republic [ . . . ], we deem and
ordain that any maleficent [ . . . ] person, be she witch, healer or sor-
ceress [ . . . ] may and should be brought before the Zalmedina22 of the
same city or before another competent judge, to be tried [ . . . ] under
penalty of death [ . . . ] and that such process should be carried out
swiftly, summarily and without formality or judicial procedure, dis-

pensing with the solemnity of the fueros, and attending purely to the
truth of the matter; using not only the evidence of instruments, tri-
als, witnesses but also that of intimations, arguments, presumptions
or conjecture, as the Judges deem appropriate. And this because it has
reached our notice that there have gathered in this City large num-
bers of the abovementioned people, witches and sorceresses, who
have fled here from other places much to the harm of this Repub-
lic. We therefore ordain that any and all such persons, men as well
as women [ . . . ] found guilty or accused of or denounced for commit-
ting such crimes [ . . . ] in the present City [ . . . ] may [ . . . ] be expelled
and thrown out of it [ . . . ] on the declaration and determination of
the Judges alone, or of the majority among them, the which they
may decide purely by being satisfied in their minds of the condition
and quality of these men or women, without any other matter or
more information or further procedures being necessary, with written
documents or without.23
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
early modern period, these constitutions invariably included a chapter

devoted to exhorting the denunciation of any kind of superstitious
practice, be it ‘curing by reciting psalms’, ‘working spells’, ‘divination’,
‘augury’ or ‘sorcery’, among others.25
In order to publicize the contents of these constitutions and encour-
age the faithful to denounce their fellow citizens, an edict was drawn
up once a year (the so-called Edict of Sins) and had to be issued in all
churches on the first Sunday in Lent. Another way of inciting denunci-
ations was the reading of the Edict of Visitation, which took place during
the Pastoral Visitations that bishops were supposedly obliged to make to
their diocese at least once a year. In reality, they rarely embarked upon
such journeys as frequently as that, nor did they carry out the neces-
sary inspections in person. Instead, this work was done by men known
as visitadores, inspectors who essentially fulfilled the role of judges-
delegate, given the many powers and responsibilities that were assigned
to them. As set out in 1656 in the Synodal Constitutions of the Archbishop
of Saragossa, Juan Cebrián, one of the visitadores’ main objectives when
it came to examining the spiritual condition of the residents of a par-
ticular place was to try and establish whether the town or village was
harbouring witches or displaying any other evidence of superstitious
behaviour:
That the inspectors should inquire about public sins and vices, and as to
whether there are Witches, Sorceresses and folk indulging in Superstitious
conduct.
We solemnly commission them to investigate whether there be

Witches, Sorceresses or folk indulging in superstitious conduct, advis-
ing that, as crimes of this sort are always committed by night and in
secret, they are very difficult to verify and that, according to the law,
strong indications and conjecture are sufficient for punishment to be
meted out. And having gathered information about the said crimes,
they will send the defendants to be tried at Our Tribunal, so that the
case may be examined at length, in accordance with the time lim-
its and conditions associated with each of these crimes and with the
provisions of the Holy Canons.26
As this constitution was at pains to underline, one of the most charac-

teristic features of ecclesiastical justice (episcopal in this instance, but it
applied largely to the inquisitorial system too) was its insistence that
the deadlines set down by canon law should be respected, and that
all charges laid should be verified in detail before a defendant was
condemned. The crimes of witchcraft and superstition which, in the

words of the Archbishop of Saragossa, were always committed ‘by night
and in secret’ (tantamount, in today’s language, to saying that they
were imaginary), were considered extremely difficult, if not impossi-
ble, to prove. In fact so cautious a stance did the bishops of Aragon
adopt towards them that one might almost say they had no real inter-
est in condemning magic per se, despite their continuing to try cases
of witchcraft, sorcery and superstition. Contrary to the position taken
by their secular counterparts (for whom allegations of witchcraft posed
a serious enough threat to public order to warrant the death penalty),
episcopal judges would investigate the circumstances surrounding the
original accusations, almost always levelled in the heat of the moment,
in an attempt to uncover other, related motives that could be used as
grounds to punish defendants.
It is very telling, for example, that a letter sent by the Saragossa cathe-
dral chapter in 1576 to its procurator in Madrid stated that the memorial
drawn up by that procurator to report on the current circumstances
of the archdiocese was all in order, apart from the section relating to
witchcraft:
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
The attitude of Saragossa’s archbishops towards witchcraft and sorcery,

therefore, was one of scepticism (laced with diplomacy, since they did
not deny the existence of witchcraft itself, just the presence of witches
within their territory), and helps explain the paucity of surviving evi-
dence. For the entire early modern period, we have the details of a mere
eight cases brought against Saragossa residents for these crimes.28 More-
over, when these are examined in closer detail, it becomes apparent that,
as might be expected in an urban society, witchcraft was conspicuous
by its absence. Just one of the eight cases revolves around it: that of a
woman who had fled to the city to escape the clutches of her local jus-
tice system (this was María Sanchez, a widow from Sallent de Gállego,
in the Pyrenean Tena Valley, who, ‘accused of being a witch [ . . . ] in fear
that they would arrest her and hang her [ . . . ] secretly and under cover
[ . . . ] did flee and leave behind her native land and [ . . . ] did come to live
as a resident of the present city of Saragossa’29 ). Her trial was very brief
and the case against her was quickly dismissed.
A second case, in which the archbishop’s fiscal, or prosecutor, charged

a man from the Béarn region of France with being a ‘sorcerer, necro-
mancer and man of superstition’, was also resolved without any sen-
tence being passed or any penalty imposed. Instead the matter was
deemed to be a matrimonial dispute between the accused and his wife,
on whose insistence the case had been brought. She had accused her
husband of practising divination using a mirror (‘in which everything
that each person does may be seen’), of treasure hunting, of using pow-
der of the ‘herb of joy’ (black henbane) to practise love magic, and so
on.30 In response to such allegations, the episcopal judges reacted by
summoning the couple to appear before the tribunal where they were
encouraged to settle their differences. The sorcery charges, frequently
found in cases relating to immigrants from the South of France, were
simply ignored:
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
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:
Isabel Bibache is a new Christian, I say a new convert [ . . . ] and she

is a sorceress who practises superstition and is thus a deceiver who
has dealt with and cheated many people, both men and women of
the present city, and from elsewhere, promising to give these persons
magical remedies for all the things they asked her for, taking from
them in exchange for these remedies large sums of money, giving
them to understand that thanks to these remedies they would be able
to make others marry, love or hate them, and making them believe
that with what she gives them they will achieve their intentions.36
The eighth article again underlined the abuse of trust committed by the
defendant, stating that
she has impoverished some people by giving them to understand that

her charms and enchantments were real.37
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
the said lies, divinations, bribery, falsehoods and [ . . . ] charms using

amulets and ointments and potions and powders to cheat people,
and her making herself out to be a diviner by saying she knew what
she was doing.38
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
the former’.43 In effect, this meant that although it was theoretically an

ecclesiastical tribunal, its objectives when it came to trying and pros-
ecuting potential cases of heresy were not entirely spiritual in nature.
In fact, the principal motive for re-establishing the Inquisition in both
Castile (1478) and Aragon (1483) was not to counteract any heresy
against Christianity, but to deal with the Judaizers. In Spain, the concept
of heresy provided justification for a purge based far more on social than
religious grounds, since first the Jews, and then the Muslims (who had
peacefully coexisted with the Christian population for centuries), were
to become the main targets of the inquisitorial jurisdiction, despite the
fact that they practised other faiths. The change came when it became
mandatory for them to convert to Christianity (1492 for the Jews and
1526 for the Muslims of Aragon), after which they could be accused of
heresy and the doors to persecution were opened wide.
Witchcraft and other forms of superstitious behaviour also fell under
inquisitorial control by virtue of a broad definition of heresy which
held that those in possession of magical powers must have renounced
God and made a pact with the devil, and were therefore guilty of the
extremely serious offence of abjuration or apostasy. In practice, though,
after an initial phase of persecuting witchcraft proper, many inquisitors
became increasingly sceptical and more inclined to view the classic accu-
sations of attending sabbaths, flying, metamorphosis and so on as the
product of fevered imaginations rather than as proof of genuine rela-
tionships with Satan. Over time, therefore, the number of witch trials
decreased and in most of the cases that did still come to court from time
to time the charges were eventually dropped, once it was accepted that
they were simply impossible to prove.44
Paradoxical as it may seem, however, this growing inquisitorial scepti-
cism towards the devil-related witchcraft typical of rural areas coincided
with a gradual increase in cases brought against other forms of supersti-
tion more prevalent in urban centres. Although the Inquisition focused
its activity during an initial stage (1483–1530) on repressing Jewish
converts and then, during a second phase (1530–1620), on persecut-
ing moriscos, once it had run out of ‘external enemies’ to fight, its
attention began increasingly and inexorably to turn to the matter of
controlling any remnants of superstitious belief or practice that might
still hold sway among the faithful.45 Echoing the action taken during
the sixteenth century in other Catholic regions against the threat of
Protestantism, throughout the following century the Spanish Inquisi-
tion set its sights on ‘cleansing’ the faith and eliminating anything that
might tarnish its purity. In the words of Ruth Martin, discussing why
and how the Venetian Inquisition chose to act against such offences as
witchcraft:
At the same time as the Catholic Church’s battle against

Protestantism lessened in its intensity, so its energies were directed
increasingly inwards on itself, and towards the purity of faith of those
who still remained within its bounds. A growing need was felt that
a clear understanding of the true Christian faith should extend right
down to the uneducated masses who fell to the responsibility of the
Catholic Church [ . . . ] An appreciation of the Church’s aims follow-
ing the Council of Trent is essential in understanding why it was that
its attention swung towards dealing with witchcraft and superstition
at the time it did. The Church, with the Inquisition as one of its
strongest arms, began to look within itself rather than to any exter-
nal threat, and there it found a mass of pagan ritual and superstition,
a corruption of the true faith, which was to become one of its main
preoccupations into and throughout the following century.46
The centralized nature of Spain’s Inquisition meant that, although to

begin with Aragon had only itinerant tribunals (the inquisitors would
travel the kingdom encouraging people to denounce Jewish converts,
but then move on again, without establishing any permanent judicial
institutions), after 1506 the situation began to change.47 In 1485, King
Ferdinand had ordained that there should be a single tribunal in Aragon,
with its seat at the Aljafería Palace, an imposing eleventh-century
Islamic fortress on the outskirts of Saragossa. There, well protected
within its solid walls, the Aragonese inquisitors were to remain safe and
sound until the eighteenth century. As William Monter has written,
At one stroke, with remarkable foresight, Ferdinand had guaranteed

the physical safety and freedom of action of the Aragonese Inquisi-
tion, admirably preparing it to serve as a vital element of royal control
in an insubordinate land riddled with liberties and privileges.48
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
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
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
Illustration 1.2 & 1.3 (Continued).
of all, however, as a result of that gathering of 1526, a set of detailed

instructions was drawn up for all inquisitors across Spain, obliging them,
among other things, to ascertain whether women accused of witchcraft
had been tortured by secular judges, and not to accept statements relat-
ing to any nefarious acts they might have committed as conclusive proof
of their guilt.54
As noted above, inquisitorial scepticism towards the type of witchcraft
associated with the rural environment did not mean it took no interest
in the kinds of magic primarily found in urban areas. Bearing in mind

the difficulties experienced by the sizeable contingent of immigrants
who moved from the countryside to cities throughout the early modern
period, it comes as no surprise to learn that the vast majority of those
prosecuted for crimes relating to magic in sixteenth- and seventeenth-
century Saragossa were outsiders in search of a way of keeping body
and soul together. Many of those tried for practising sorcery or other
forms of superstitious behaviour did what they did as a genuine modus
vivendi, a way of earning a living at the expense of their neighbours’
credulity. Others were victims of their own naivety: individuals who
believed they could summon up a demon to be their personal slave;
others who conjured spirits in the hope of obtaining magic formulas to
make them invisible or able to leap great distances in a single bound;
others again who were seeking imaginary enchanted treasures buried by
the Moors; alchemists convinced they could turn base metal to silver or
gold; wronged lovers determined to win back the object of their desire
with the help of souls languishing in purgatory; salaried astrologers;
sacrilegious priests; supposed witch-finders; diabolical prestidigitators,
fortune-tellers, exorcists and so on. The following chapters will look
at their beliefs and behaviour, and at the stance adopted by inquisito-
rial judges towards a Saragossan underworld in which age-old traditions
remained so deeply entrenched.
2
Magic Circles and Enchanted
Treasures
One Moor [ . . . ] recounted various ways in which sorcerers

and sorceresses gained familiar spirits, and, among other
things, [said] that by drawing certain circles and characters with
a stick, while dressed in certain clothes, reciting words and
conjurations, they did bind demons within rings for various
ends: to obtain women, cause tempests, achieve victory in battle,
win affections and other things.1
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,
in other words a chain of correspondences and affinities between the

terrestrial and celestial worlds, a concept summarized in the famous her-
metic principle ‘That which is below is like that which is above, and that
which is above is like that which is below’ (‘as above, so below’), a state-
ment which could be interpreted from both an astrological and strictly
demonological perspective.6
As an optimistic and experimental science, capable of endowing its
practitioners with great power over nature, magic attracted many fol-
lowers, including such renowned figures as Albert the Great, Raimund
Llull, Arnaldo de Villanova and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, the latter
of whom claimed that ‘he which shall know these qualities of the Ele-
ments, and their mixtions, shall easily bring to pass such things that
are wonderful’.7 To work the wonders promised by magic, however, it
was not enough simply to understand the material world. Among those
who cultivated high magic there was a widespread Neoplatonic belief
in a cosmological hierarchy, where the space between the most perfect
and the basest elements was occupied by a range of intermediate beings.
Man was one such, but above him were other, more spiritual creatures,
known as daimones, which the Greeks and Romans viewed as semi-
divine beings, and among whose number were the souls of the dead.8
Like the djinns or genies of Islamic tradition, daimones were innu-
merable. The world was populated by them, some were better, some
worse, and each could serve a different purpose, depending on its innate
qualities. In the Koranic tradition, for example, Solomon was said to
have gathered more than 60 million of them together to fight a single
battle.9 In the same way that Mohammed had upheld a belief in djinns
despite attacking other divinities of pre-Islamic Arabia, those who culti-
vated magical science (nearly all of whom were not just Christians but
clerics) did not ascribe to daimones – a category of beings that included
pagan gods and heroes as well as the angels of scriptural tradition –
the negative, malign nature attributed to them over time by the offi-
cial Church. In fact, these daimones or demons came to represent the
hidden dimensions of the world, so that invoking them – summoning
them by name – meant, from the point of view of a prospective science,
drawing into the light, into existence, hitherto unknown aspects of the
physical universe. That summoners could compel these spirits to obey
them meant they had achieved the long-sought-after dream of mas-
tering nature, which had previously required that magicians dominate
their own natural inclinations.10
As described in books of magic, before performing a conjuration or
invocation, the magician needed to observe a period of asceticism,
involving chastity, fasting and prayer. Indeed practising magic was

understood as a lengthy exercise in religious devotion, since all oper-
ations were carried out in the name of Almighty God, who had created
the universe and all the spirits who inhabited it. Not just the magician
himself, therefore, but everything he used as part of the invocation
process – knives, vestments, candles, parchments and so on – had
to be fumigated, sprinkled with holy water and blessed. Little by lit-
tle, however, all of this began to be seen as a belief system in itself,
one in competition with that of the official Church. Before long,
therefore, it would be condemned, and would therefore have to be
reinterpreted.
According to Thomas Aquinas, magicians who believed they were
controlling demons were merely deceiving themselves: the spirits might
pretend to help mortals, because that suited their purposes, but in reality
it was they who determined the end results. No magical operation could
be carried out without their help, so there had to be an implicit pact of
collaboration between the two parties – hence it came to be thought that
magicians were not controlling demons, but worshipping them. At the
same time, one particular evil spirit was beginning to play an increas-
ingly significant role as the devil – singular – started to replace demons –
plural – which in turn soon led to the identification of ritual magic with
the idea of a Satanic cult. From the late thirteenth century onwards,
there was a surge in threats against demon-conjurers,11 and 300 years
later Pope Sixtus V was still explicitly condemning not only those who
practised demonic magic, but anyone who possessed ‘books which deal
with this matter’.12 According to the Libro Magno de San Cipriano o Tesoro
del Hechicero (Great Book of St Cyprian or the Sorcerer’s Treasure), one of
the many treatises on magic13 possession of which was reason enough
to be brought up before Spain’s ecclesiastical tribunals throughout the
early modern age:
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
certain death. A passage in one of the best preserved manuscripts of the

famous Key of Solomon reads:
no experiments for converse with Spirits can be done without a Circle

being prepared.16
According to the experts, magic circles could be of different types and

sizes: some had messages inside them, or featured pentagrams or other
geometrical figures such as triangles, squares or smaller circles, while
others contained inscriptions in Hebrew, Greek or Latin characters,
forming words such as ‘Tetragrammaton’ (the ‘four letters’, YHWH, or,
divine name that is not spoken) or ‘agla’ (an abbreviation of the first four
letters of the Hebrew words aieth gadol leolam Adonai, meaning ‘Adonai
[the Lord] will be great unto eternity’). Each practitioner would choose
the type of circle he preferred, as well as his own way of drawing it –
either using chalk or coal, or marking it out with a knife or some other
sharp instrument:
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 conjurer had to be in the ideal frame of mind before performing

these operations, and the instruments he used also had to be pre-
pared with absolute precision, as the St Cyprian text, also known as the
Ciprianillo, tells us:
Forty days beforehand [the magician] will withdraw to a solitary and

tranquil place; he will avoid meetings and contact with others, espe-
cially women, and must try and avert his thoughts from worldly
matters, quelling the voice of passions in his soul that it may remain
pure, serene and unchanging at all times. He will sleep little and
always between the same hours; he will rise at daybreak and must
take long walks in remote places, absorbing himself in the contem-
plation of nature and the worship of the Eternal Creator, whom he
will ask in the purity of prayer for celestial lights to lead him towards
the fulfilment of his enterprise. He will eat sparingly, touching no

meat or any other food deriving from animals; he must drink no wine
or liquor and will devote almost all his time to meditation and study.
Every morning he will bathe in flowing water and it is essential that
he keep both his under and outer garments scrupulously clean [ . . . ]
He will become accustomed to staying awake and clear of intellect at
a determined hour of the night (which must be that of the invoca-
tion), at the arrival of which he will extinguish his light, remaining
in complete darkness, will turn his face towards the East and, cross-
ing his hands upon his breast, will invoke the power of God and the
celestial forces, that they may help and strengthen him so that he
may in tranquillity confront the presence and opposition of the ter-
rible Guardians of the Gates of Mystery. This operation will be repeated
every day without exception, such that if one day should go by with-
out his completing it, he would have to start the forty-day period
again.18
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
Perpignan in southern France – one of many Frenchmen to face accu-

sations of sorcery in Aragon.21 The cleric had in his possession various
books of invocations, including the Clavicula Salomonis, seen as the ‘key
to all the arts of necromancy’.22 His faith in the power of such books
to guide those who obeyed their rules was absolute and unwavering.
Thus, in the hope of ‘conjuring a spirit or spirits [ . . . ] to come and bring
him coins’, Father Joan convinced three other men (a weaver, a notary
and his servant) to join forces and form what they themselves called
a ‘general circle’, after swearing on a consecrated host ‘to be discreet
and truthful among themselves and not to betray one another’.23 Both
their objective and the means by which they planned to achieve it were
quite clear. In the event, however, their experiment never got off the
ground because, in the first place, two of the conspirators argued vio-
lently with one another during the course of the lengthy preparations
and, in the second, the Holy Office intervened, arresting the four would-
be necromancers one by one, trying them and sentencing them to death
by the customary means of ‘relaxing’ them to the secular arm of the
law. Two of them (Vicente and the notary) managed to avoid the stake
by escaping from prison, so could only be executed ‘in effigy’.24 Neither
they nor their less fortunate companions, however, would ever know
what results might have been achieved by what was, judging by the
surviving evidence, some astonishingly thorough and time-consuming
groundwork.
As stated in the Clavicula Salomonis, anyone who entered a magic cir-
cle had to be dressed in outer garments, under garments and shoes that
were new, white and marked with specific magical figures and charac-
ters. These had to be drawn with a feather taken from a male gosling’s
right wing and sharpened with a knife that had been dipped in the blood
of the same gosling, and on the handle of which certain symbols given
in the Clavicula were to have been engraved using an iron needle. In the
words of Jerónimo de Valdenieso, the notary’s servant and one of the
four associates:
Firstly the following things have to be prepared and done at particular

places and hours: firstly new white unworn clothes have to be made
for the master and disciples who are to enter into the circle, on to
which have to be stitched the pentagrams or pentacles, the which
has to be done before this operation can take place. And on these
white garments and on the under garments which have to be made
of the same linen, to be worn by the master and disciples, are to be
marked certain characters and signs [ . . . ] And shoes of white leather

have to be made, on which signs or characters have to be drawn using
a quill plucked from the right wing of a male gosling. And when the
feather is plucked from this gosling, the following words have to be
said: arboy, narboy, nasay [ . . . ] And afterwards this feather has to
be treated with a knife prepared in this way, whether the handle be
white or black, let it be treated with blood from the selfsame gosling,
and on that knife must be engraved certain signs contained in the
Clavicula using an iron needle, and that needle must be made at a
particular moment and hour and [on a particular] day, and over it
must be recited certain psalms [ . . . ] and the quill dipped in exorcized
ink must be used to draw the said signs on those white shoes.25
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
A priest must bless all these instruments by reciting psalms and

prayers over them, and they must be perfumed with incense and
sprinkled with holy water [ . . . ] using a bunch of hyssop in which
are particular herbs that must also be blessed [ . . . ] and over all these
things, wrapped in a consecrated cloth of sendal, a certain number of
Masses had to be said.27
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
As for the further requirement of a ‘magic ring’,
he ordered a ring to be made [ . . . ] which was done by a man named

Pedro [ . . . ] who lives in calle Mayor [ . . . ] it was the ring of Solomon,
which was used to govern the spirits and was made of silver [ . . . ]
and it had to be made as stated in the book of rings and to be made
between one and two hours after midday, for this is when Mercury
reigns.32
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
necessary to say over all those things mentioned [ . . . ] certain prayers

and certain Masses.34
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
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
That, however, is precisely what did occur, although because of the

secrecy with which the Inquisition operated, the exact sequence of
events remains a mystery. As on so many other occasions, though, the
judicial system was spurred into action by a clash between two indi-
viduals. One after the other, all four conspirators were imprisoned and
brought to trial: first the notary, Miguel Sánchez, then the weaver Miguel
de Soria, the priest Vicente and finally Sánchez’s servant, Jerónimo de
Valdenieso. Both Sánchez and Vicente managed to escape from prison,
but because the former’s trial documents have not survived, we only
have details about the latter. According to the ‘venerable Miguel de
Galbe, procurator fiscal against heretical and apostatical depravity’, on
Sunday 23 February 1511,
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’.
An investigation was immediately set in motion and one of the inquisi-

tors, accompanied by a notary and the three jailors, carried out an
inspection of the whole tower and the chambers in which [the pris-
oners] were usually held [ . . . ] to see if by chance the said Father Joan
were hidden in one or other chamber [ . . . ] of the said tower.40
They then opened ‘the doors of every locked chamber throughout the
tower’ and called out to the priest,
in loud voices [ . . . ] asking the prisoners [ . . . ] if they knew anything

of Father Joan, [but] all replied, by virtue of the oath perpetrated by
them, that they did know nothing, be it directly or indirectly, about
the matter, nor had they seen him go, nor had they heard anything.41
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:
I have decided to do everything possible for the sake of my reputation

and, thus, I have had them ordered to pay me the sum of five hun-
dred ducats and I have had the sentence passed there repealed. They
are making many threats to kill me and other things that would take
long to recount, yet I am like a rabid dog which bites his master [ . . . ]
Since I do not have to go there, I wish to do all the harm it is in
my power to do. Therefore, sir, please advise Father Anthon and my
mother and master Joan and everyone, that if they are asked what my
estate might have been worth, they should say as far as they know it
was worth five hundred ducats, because I had plenty of money. And
if they ask who took the money, let them say that those who came
for his clothes must have taken it.42
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
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’,
‘a crucifix and some altar-cloths’, ‘all the usual accoutrements needed

to say Mass’ and so on.50 According to the details provided at Jerónimo’s
inquisitorial trial,
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
As the days went by, Jerónimo staged a series of increasingly spectacular

scenes until ‘on the last night he led them higher than the place where
the horn was buried’, arranged his macabre implements and,
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
Almost as some kind of vestigial reference to the scrupulous prepara-

tions detailed in the canonical books of magic and reflected in the
evidence given at Joan Vicente’s trial, the six men – again, at the false
cleric’s bidding – had made a stop at the village of Tauste, about halfway
between Saragossa and their hilltop destination, so that each of them
could make his confession at its Franciscan monastery. In addition to
this, the (real) priest, so he said in his statement, ‘had fasted for one day,
for he had been told to do so by the said Juan Calvo [ . . . ] in order to
obtain a demon from a conjuration’.53 It seems clear, however, from the

less than rigorous and somewhat hotch-potch nature of their leader’s
operations, that he was, essentially, improvising, drawing on a wealth
of now rather imprecise beliefs, whose original significance had become
a distant memory.
The five men who followed Jerónimo de Liébana (later revealed as
a professional con artist capable of pulling the wool over the eyes of
courtiers and royals as well as lesser mortals) had implicit faith in his
magical powers and, specifically, in the idea that people could obtain
their own personal demon or familiar, which they could then bind
to them by ‘tethering’ them in a ring, a power legendarily attributed
to King Solomon.54 Even the priest would acknowledge that he had
believed
that it was possible to do what he wanted to have a familiar spirit [ . . . ]

and that he had not stopped to consider whether the said enchant-
ments and superstitions had the power to achieve this, but that,
without thought, he had let himself be led by his desire to have and
carry with him a familiar spirit which would fulfil his every need.55
Nonetheless, at a time when the dialectic between truth and falsehood

had become a real social obsession, most of them ended up swearing
to the inquisitors that they had been motivated by curiosity alone, not
by any genuine belief that these experiments would yield results. The
painter, for example, admitted that the false cleric had been to his house
a few days earlier ‘saying that he was an astrologer and could invoke
familiars and bewitch them’ but added that he ‘had never believed that
the sorcery and superstitions of the said Juan Calvo were real’.56
The accused himself would ultimately confess to the more minor
offence of deception with intent, and tried to defend himself against
the imputation of idolatry by saying
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
worshipping him or committing idolatry, but only of deceiving those

with him.57
In theory, deception was seen as a far less serious crime than

idolatry – worshipping Satan rather than God, as forbidden by the First
Commandment.58 In practice, ever since the authorities had first started
taking action against ceremonial magic, an accusation of idolatry (which
included making a pact with the devil, be it implicit or explicit) had
been the main justification for condemning such practices for their
inherent heresy. In 1510, for example, the document of abjuration read
out by Pedro Bernardo (a Florentine merchant then living in Saragossa,
accused of practising necromancy at the request of a Gascon cleric) ran
as follows:
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
Throughout the sixteenth century, the chief cause of trials brought

against practitioners of magic had been accusations of devil worship
(whether with latria – the term referring to the supreme worship due
to God alone – or with dulia – the veneration due to lesser beings such
as angels or saints). A hundred years on, however, the emphasis had
changed dramatically and such rituals were for the most part only cited
as part of the argument against any belief in their existence. Profes-
sional spirit-conjurers, participants in magic circles, those who joined
daring quests for hidden treasures – one after another they and others
involved in similar practices stood up in court and denied having any
belief in their efficacy, confessing instead either to having acted with
intent to defraud or to having been duped by someone else. It is worth
noting that, despite admitting their true intentions, the fraudsters were
given sentences almost as harsh as the penalties imposed on those who
confessed to actual devil worship.
Jerónimo de Liébana, meanwhile, was subjected to the rack so that

the inquisitors could ascertain his true intentions, and once they had
allowed the charges of fraud, he was sentenced as follows:
that at a public auto de fe [ . . . ] his sentence should be read to him

and he should abjure de vehementi and should be given one hun-
dred lashes and be permanently exiled from the entire district of this
Inquisition. And that he should serve the first eight years at the oars
of his Majesty’s galleys.60
Although some Saragossan necromancers charged with idolatry in the

early 1500s had been given the death penalty, it is also true that oth-
ers, including Pedro Bernardo of Florence, had eventually had their
names cleared (even if they were precluded thereafter from obtaining
‘any public office or benefice’61 ). Either way, the severity of the sentences
imposed on those who were now judged to be charlatans rather than
adepts of an alleged demonic sect was not substantially different, bear-
ing in mind the theoretical chasm that separated the two crimes. What
mattered most to the Inquisition, clearly, was not the doctrinal justifica-
tion for their prosecution of such individuals, but the simple practicality
of curtailing their activities. As far as the court was concerned, there was
a need firstly to defend the true faith – and, therefore, Catholicism’s
exclusive grip on the sphere of the sacred – and secondly to defend the
innocent victims taken in by the sophistry of anyone passing himself
off as a magician. Underpinning all this was a determination to show
that the only true and valid way of making contact with the next world
was through members of the official Church, whose remunerated ser-
vices were by no means considered fraud but rather a God-given favour
or an intercessory power.
Returning to the key question of belief in magic,62 while defendants
may have done all they could to convince the courts that they had
no faith in any of their necromantic arts, perhaps the most striking
characteristic of those who took part in magic circles or other kinds of
invocations was their powerful need to believe at all costs. This was par-
ticularly pronounced when it came to spells aimed at acquiring wealth:
despite failure upon failure, those involved appeared to have limitless
reserves of hope and perseverance. According to folk traditions about
hidden treasure, most hoards were enchanted and guarded by magical
beings who could be bypassed only if one knew the necessary formulas
to lift the enchantment. These custodians could be anything from toads
and snakes (which were really bewitched humans who would be set free
by a kiss) or the female spirits of woods and water,63 to mythical crea-

tures such as dwarfs,64 giants65 (said to inhabit ancient monuments) or
even ‘enchanted Moors’ – Muslims who had continued living in Spain
after the reconquest and the edicts of conversion but had been forced
underground.66 Other interpretations had it that the true custodians of
enchanted treasure troves were the demons, an idea that came not so
much from folklore as from an esoteric and reductionist retelling of
folk tradition centred around the increasingly omnipresent figure of the
devil and his followers.67
In 1630, a group of at least 12 people gathered in a house in Saragossa
from whose cellar unexplained noises had been emanating for some
time, according to those who lived there – leading to tales of buried
treasure. Days passed, and nothing was found, but none of them was
prepared to give up. A certain Luis Gama y Vasconcellos, who was orig-
inally from Lisbon but had also spent some time in Rome, claimed
to possess ‘a piece of cloth belonging to Cardinal Bellarmino [ . . . ]
which was a great relic [ . . . ] and which had twenty-four powers’. These
included that of offering protection against potential enemies, as well
as that of uncovering ‘any treasure in the place where it might be
hidden’.68 With this encouragement, and in exchange for ‘a robe that
cost 15 escudos’69 , a silk-weaver, a labourer, a student of medicine and
another of theology, two Trinitarian and two Augustinian friars, sev-
eral gypsies and a young virgin applied themselves to digging up the
cellar, as well as performing all kinds of ceremonies in an attempt
to summon the demons supposedly guarding the treasure. For one
of these they went out to the Monte de Torrero on the outskirts of
Saragossa to create a magic circle. Gama y Vasconcellos, the Portuguese
ringleader, gave instructions that it was to be traced on the ground
with a sword and, of course, that a number of different objects had
to be brought along, notably ‘a length of rope from a scaffold, to be
placed beneath an altar stone which would be used to say Mass’, sev-
eral ‘bats [ . . . ] whose blood would be extracted and mixed with the
milk of mother and daughter and the juice of green nuts and, all com-
bined, used to write some words upon a virgin parchment [ . . . ] during
the rule of a certain planet’, ‘holy water, palm leaves, myrrh, a grain of
incense from the Paschal candle, a Candlemas candle’ and so on.70 Once
again, the bringing together of elements from the domains of both the
sacred and the profane appeared to dangle the promise of guaranteed
success.
Days of searching and spell-casting later, however, the hoard remained
stubbornly elusive – and this despite the presence and combined efforts
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
While paling somewhat in comparison to the fabulous visions of certain

North African rituals for unbinding enchanted treasures, reminiscent
of the sumptuous wonders of The One Thousand and One Nights,80 such
images nevertheless underline the belief in the fantastical that charac-
terized treasure seekers, along with their craving for wealth and sheer
staying power. As noted, they seemed willing to accept any excuse for
the repeated failures and sleepless nights they would have to endure
before gaining their long-sought-after reward.81 In this particular case,
when, despite Luisa’s hallucinations, ‘the experiment did not turn out
well, Gama said that this was because the girl was menstruating’.82
He therefore decided to replace her with ‘a pregnant woman who,
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
offered himself to the Devil and thus he remained guarding a jar of

coins that was hidden within that wall.90
Nonetheless, the defendant himself, like so many others, ended up

confessing to the deliberate deception behind his actions, claiming
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
Travelling charlatans played a prominent role in treasure-hunting

schemes, but so, unquestionably, did members of the clergy: regular
and secular, young and old, itinerant and settled.92 Their status and
circumstances aside, they were known to be familiar with the spirit
world, making them the ideal choice in most people’s eyes when it
came to breaking the spells believed to bind hidden caches to their
former masters. Therefore whether they themselves instigated these for-
bidden ceremonies or were specially invited because of their association
with all things sacred, churchmen were a constant presence in such
operations. Between 1690 and 1693 various individuals were tried in
Saragossa for being members of a group of ‘17 persons, Spanish and
French, who had made a league and a union to undertake treasure-
seeking’.93 In this case, those involved had travelled out of the city to
the ruins of the Castillo de Miranda, where they drew a circle, celebrated
specific Masses and invoked demons with the help of a 13-year-old girl
believed to be a zahorí.94 Among the participants were several priests
and a Capuchin friar from the monastery of Our Lady of Cogullada.
The latter was accused of practising palmistry and reading the hands
of his penitents, of making wax figures so as to control the will of cer-
tain women and of possessing books of magic, among which were cited
the ‘Alphabet of Pythagoras [ . . . ] a Chemical treatise to transmute sil-
ver into gold [ . . . ] the Clavicula Salomonis [ . . . ] the Agrippa [ . . . ], a
parchment for impenetrability’ and so on.95 He and two of the priests
were sentenced to ten years in exile, the first four of which they were
to spend in reclusion in a specified monastery. Father Antonio Poyanos,
for example, priest of the Saragossan church of San Juan el Viejo, was
sent to the Monastery of Veruela, where he had to live for one year
‘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,
a portrait and a statue and representation of the Most Holy, for if

wafers of bread represent Christ himself, the poor man not only rep-
resented the human God, but also the divine, and alms were a kind of
sacrifice similar to the effect of the Most Holy Sacrament which is to
increase the grace granted to those who give them [ . . . ] and therefore
they were one of the sacraments of the Church.102
He was also accused of claiming, in a speech informed by a spirit of

anti-hierarchical social conscience,
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
for revealing treasure and enchanted money, of which there was

much in that district, and also for attracting women, and for con-
stant success at gaming and at gaining others’ esteem, and he had
said that this was called the ring of the four virtues and that [ . . . ] he
knew how it was to be obtained.105
This statement, inspired by the well-worn cliché of the clerical necro-

mancer, did not end there. Like a kind of vulgarized compendium of the
theory of magic circles and invocations, the witness went on to accuse
the monk of having discussed in detail the instruments and operations
required to summon demons:
[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
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
As already revealed, none of these claims was taken seriously by the

inquisitors, who acquitted the monk after realizing just how tendentious
and unjust his accusers had been. Looking beyond this or any other
specific case, however, what matters is that both the cliché and the belief
in the power of demonic invocation as a means of acquiring wealth
would survive for many years to come.107
What the courts were really punishing was not treasure seeking itself,
but the recourse to demonic forces. That, at least, was how they had long
justified decisions which effectively served a dual purpose: not only did
the Church wish to retain control of the spiritual sphere, it also wanted
to benefit from any ensuing material gain, because any such income
was taxable. It is worth noting here that many of the medieval Spanish
fueros governed the rights relating to treasure trove: in general, finders
were allowed to keep two-thirds of anything they found, but the other
third had to be handed over to the Crown, ‘unless it were discovered by
use of magic, in which case it must all be paid to the King’. Resort to the
magical arts, therefore, nullified any claims to ownership.108
It seemed entirely legitimate to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
theologians to make the connection between material wealth and things
diabolical, given that treasure hunting entailed not just the love of
money which was ‘the root of all evil’ (radix enim omnium malorum
est cupiditas: 1 Timothy 6:10), but the temptation to enter into a pact
not, now, with demons in general, but with Satan himself. According
to Pedro Ciruelo (1470–1548), of the three types of secrets contained
within the universe (past, present and future), the devil was already in
on the first two, and possessed enough knowledge to divine many of
those that were to come, with the exception of a small margin granted
to free will. Because of his infallible memory, Satan would know exactly
where each and every cache of treasure was hidden, just as he knew
‘where there are veins of water beneath the earth, and many other secret
things’.109 Moreover,
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:
It is the custom of those who seek out enchanted treasure to recount,

in fabulous manner, how on discovering the entrance to the cavern
in which they suspect it may lie they are greeted by an array of fan-
tastical monsters come to frighten and terrify them and send them
back whence they came: a wild giant threatening them with a huge
cudgel, a dragon from whose eyes and mouth issue streams of fire,
a rabid lion which makes as if to tear them limb from limb with its
teeth and claws; yet by conquering all these phantasms by means of
brave hearts and conjurations, they reach the threshold of the cham-
ber, in which they find an enchanted Moorish woman, seated on a
royal throne amid jewels and riches, the which, should she look well
on their removing the treasure, they fear and suspect will turn to coal
on them as they leave that place.115
According to Father Miguel Francisco de Pedregosa (one of the priests

brought to trial in Saragossa in 1693 as part of the treasure-seeking plot
involving demonic invocation at the Castillo de Miranda), one sum-

mer’s night he and his companions had kept watch for several hours
in the hope that ‘something’ would appear to them.116 At three in the
morning, as they waited with their oil lamps snuffed, one of them ‘saw’
a Moorish woman, who told him that the time to find the treasure had
not yet arrived and that they would have to wait for the first month with
an ‘r’ in its name. In an attempt to protest his innocence, Pedregosa told
the inquisitors he believed it had all been a ‘deception’, and that his
companion had ‘feigned this, out of fear or for other reasons’.117 What-
ever the case may be, a cabalistic combination of names, letters and
treasure seems to underline, once again, the latter’s inherent elusive-
ness. One legend about buried treasure tells of a hoard concealed within
a Westphalian palace, in a chamber whose door could only be opened if
one knew the ‘magic word that acted as its key’.118 The mysterious power
of words, their connection to material objects and, above all, their essen-
tially indefinable meaning gave them a quality of intangibility, however
familiar they might seem. In the same way, for both those who truly
believed that magic spells could awaken sleeping riches and those who
took advantage of such credulity, treasure was the ultimate symbol of
the unobtainable, while still offering the teasing possibility that it might
be discovered at any moment, right beneath one’s feet.
3
Magic for Love or Subjugation
At that time there came to Salamanca a woman well-versed in

the ways of the world [ . . . ] who, when Thomas spurned her and,
so she thought, held her in revulsion [ . . . ] gave him a Toledo
quince laced with what folk call a love potion, believing that she
could thus gain mastery over his will and make him love her.1
That on many occasions, so that the women with whom he dealt

would love him greatly, he said – in the very act of copulating
with them – the words of the blessing Hoc est corpus meum, and
that he taught it to other men that they might do likewise.2
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
a violent passion in someone for a specified other) mentioned in many

contemporary treatises, Melibea ends up being infected with the same
ardour as Calixto.8 As we shall see in example after example of mat-
ters relating to love spells extracted from Saragossa’s inquisitorial trial
summaries, supernatural intervention, in this case that of Satan him-
self, is judged essential to achieving the desired effect. Before casting the
spell proper, Celestina gets proceedings underway by conjuring ‘Pluto’
(the devil of Christian tradition in thinly veiled classical disguise9 ),
after which she uses snake venom (considered extraordinarily poisonous
because of the association of serpents with the demonic) to anoint a
skein of thread which she will later sell to Melibea. The devil in person
will therefore be introduced into Melibea’s house in the form of yarn,
coiled like a snake, and the young woman will become ‘entangled, for
the more she looks upon [the skein] the more her heart will soften’ and
the devil will open it and wound her with a ‘raw and powerful love for
Calixto’.10
Although the book deals with requited rather than unrequited love,
the deterministic pessimism in which it is steeped from the start means
that we find Melibea herself referring to her new state of mind as a ‘terri-
ble passion’ which is making her feel as if her ‘heart is being devoured by
serpents within [her] body’.11 Whether because of the wrong committed
in resorting to the demonic arts in a society ruled by Christian morality,
or because of the inherent impurity of an imposed love (brought about
by magical means), there is only one possible, tragic ending: the death
of both lovers.
This counterposing of two kinds of love – one free, the other born of
magic and outside coercion – remained a literary constant throughout
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Of the many works in which it
appeared, one particularly notable example is Cervantes’ novel El licen-
ciado Vidriera (The Glass Graduate, 1613), in which the author subtly
expresses his antipathy against any attempt, natural or supernatural, to
impose love on another person. Not only does his protagonist, a law
graduate in Salamanca, not fall into the arms of the lady who plies him
with a love potion in order to make him love her, but – when the effects
of her philtre backfire – he is persuaded by some sort of insanity that he
is ‘all made of glass’.12 Paradoxically, this madness or ‘strange delusion’
somehow endows him with a new intelligence, enabling him sagely and
lucidly to take the measure of all those around him.13
Cervantes’ anti-magic and pro-free will stance (which broadly corre-
sponded to the Church’s official position, as upheld by the Inquisition)
recurs throughout his work. Don Quixote, for example, as part of the
episode in which he frees a group of galley slaves, expresses his opinion
of pimps and sorcerers, reiterating that belief in the freedom of the

individual:
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
In response to the Protestant doctrines of predestination and provi-

dence, viewed from a fatalistic perspective – rather than as God’s care
and attention for his creatures – the Council of Trent had emphasized
the fundamental liberty of every human being. For Catholicism, divine
grace was not imperative and discretional, as Luther and Calvin would
have it, but instead represented a form of supernatural assistance avail-
able to man, but which he could also choose to reject. It was therefore up
to the individual to decide how to behave in any given circumstance, a
concept in direct opposition to a belief in magic and its implicit promise
that it could command the universe and all its people. The incompat-
ibility of such a claim with Catholic doctrine applied to every type of
magic (whether its purpose was to make others ill – or cure them –
to find lost objects or at least divine who was responsible for stealing
them, to reveal hidden fortunes or to dispatch another person to some
far-off place in the blink of an eye, and so on). Love magic, however,
constituted a particularly flagrant attack on free will, given that its char-
acteristic charms and formulas were designed to override and destroy
the will of the person at whom they were aimed:
So-and-so [ . . . ], I shorten your steps, I lengthen your steps, that thus

may you come to me, dead or in pain, as Our Lord died crucified
upon the tree of the True Cross15
that he might come to where she was and that he might not live nor
rest until he had come to speak with her16
that [ . . . ] they might do with him whatever they liked17

that she would bind him again in such a way that he would never be
a free man for the rest of his life18
Unsurprisingly, therefore, when it came to passing sentence, one of the

key concerns of ecclesiastical judges was to verify whether or not
the practitioners of this brand of magic truly believed it possible that
the miraculous effects promised by their conjurations and enchant-
ments could in fact be brought about. As one might expect, the accused
invariably responded in the negative. The hope that an eleventh-hour
recantation would result in a reduced sentence was expressed in a vari-
ety of ways (although no one could deny the facts once they had been
proved, so all people could do in reality was make a declaration about
their original intentions). The essential message, however, was identical:
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
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:
Geronima de Torres [ . . . ] sixty-three years of age [ . . . ] appeared at

the tribunal of her own free will [ . . . ] in order to say and show how,
having been in dispute with the said man her husband and desiring
to establish peace and harmony with him, had told a woman whom
she named that she had told him that even if it meant entering hell
itself, she would do so in order to make peace with the said man
her husband, and that the said woman did take her to the house
of another, named Ana, and when the first woman had told [Ana]
how much [Geronima] was suffering and that she should do what
she could for her and would be well paid for this [ . . . ] the said Ana
took some beans that she had with her [ . . . ] and did cast them.27
64
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).
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
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
wrote some characters on an egg using ink made of rosewater, saffron

and musk’35 ).
Of course there were also examples of men who desired the favours
of a specific woman. Even then, though, there was a fundamental
difference between the sexes: whereas most women had marriage in
mind, given that this would bring them not just economic security but
also social respectability, the male objective was generally a no-strings
encounter. We know, for example, of a certain Miguel Melchor Aguado,
a 24-year-old surgeon from Saragossa. Married, he was so infatuated
with another woman and so determined to get his hands on a means
of having her, that he went to the city’s Hospital of Our Lady of Grace,
where lived ‘a Frenchman [ . . . ] and herbalist who had given him a lit-
tle book by Albertus Magnus, De secretis et virtute plantarum et lapidum,
and told him that in it he would find remedies to make the said
woman love him’.36 Aguado spent more than two months practising
the spells recommended by the book, especially one involving suspend-
ing a sieve from a pair of shears and making it turn at the same time
as he recited a demonic invocation – this, in his own words, ‘he had
done on more than 40 occasions, sometimes in the presence of the said
woman’.37
In a masterful display of cunning and smoke-and-mirrors trickery,
Miguel Melchor succeeding in winning over the woman in question
with a wide range of illusions, chief among them that of his own
invisibility. According to the account he himself gave the inquisitorial
judges:
He told the woman he was pursuing that he could make himself

invisible by taking a black cat and killing it at midnight on Christmas
night, or on Holy Thursday, placing inside its head five beans that
would then produce other beans, one of which would possess the
power to make him invisible, and experimenting with all of them, by
putting one bean in his mouth and looking at his reflection in a mir-
ror until he discovered the one that possessed the power [ . . . ]. And
[ . . . ] he had also told her that, by having on his person a stone from
the hoopoe’s nest he would become invisible; and that he would also
become invisible if he had with him one of the said hoopoe’s bones,
which was shaped like a cross. And [ . . . ] he had told her this so that
the woman would believe that he could go into her house without
her seeing him. And [ . . . ] he had said too that once, having made
himself invisible, he had entered her house and seen her in bed. And
as proof of this he had told her certain things that he had in fact
learned from her maid.38
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
With its combination of sleight-of-hand techniques and a series of intri-

cately staged subterfuges, all designed to dupe his lover, the magic
practised by Miguel Melchor was essentially a carefully calculated strat-
egy. Although most did not involve such extremes of forward planning,
the charms and spells of seduction worked by male practitioners were
generally seen as useful tools in the pursuit of a specific goal, compa-
rable to the magic worked to achieve other such disparate objectives as
winning at cards or other games, being able to turn silver to gold, or
becoming immune to enemy attack. Another Saragossa resident, Carlos
de Federicis (originally from Austria), was involved in treasure hunting40
and obsessed with finding ‘the philosopher’s stone of Raimund Llull,
four ounces of which would transmute 16,000 ounces of silver into
16,000 ounces of gold’,41 but also found time to pass himself off as a
great expert in the art of love, having advised more than one man to
‘anoint his finger with holy chrism from the church [ . . . ] and touch
with the finger thus anointed the clothes of the person whom he desired
[ . . . ] and, so as to enjoy a woman, to put some of his semen into some
foodstuff and give it to her to eat’.42 Similarly, one of his fellow treasure
seekers, Brother Mateo de Albalate, a Capuchin friar at the monastery
of Our Lady of Cogullada, was also accused of ‘fabricating wax statues
with which to control women’s wills’, and was extremely keen to get
his hands on ‘a document for impenetrability’ with which to defend
himself from those he claimed were after his blood ‘because of a minor
argument over a woman’.43
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:
So desperate am I that it would give me great pleasure if you would

come and see me, since you have a horse. The scoundrel is there with
that woman [ . . . ] You can come with the woman who will give you
this letter, for it is very important to me to see you, if it cannot be
today, let it be tomorrow without fail [that you come] with your hus-
band. And tell me what you do in such business. I shall say no more,
but shall tell you about it when we meet. Today, Friday, a wretched
woman.45
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
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
appetite for any of life’s pleasures, or frequent attacks of misanthropy,

many female love charms aimed to reproduce a similar state in the men
at whom they were directed:
let him enjoy no peace at all

till he come at my beck and call51
may he not drink nor eat a bite
nor feel any pleasant appetite
till he respond to my sad plight52
may he have no pause nor rest,
nor other woman again molest,
but to my door by love obsessed
ere long return at my behest53
One of the most popular services provided by the sorceresses of

Saragossa was that known as giving malas noches or ‘bad (in other words,
sleepless) nights’. Rather than offering a cure to insomnia, therefore, the
aim was to prevent the men in question sleeping peacefully in their beds
at night until they fell into the arms of the women who had paid for the
spell to be cast:
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
It was customary to perform such spells between 11 and 12 o’clock

at night. According to one of the witnesses at the trial of Saragossan
woman Gracia Andreu:
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
As noted earlier, there was a high level of emotional investment in

women’s magic, and overt expressions of scorn and anger were part and
parcel of a ritual (the so-called ‘bad nights’ or ‘window spell’) in which
revenge played a crucial role:
the said Teresa did also say that the window had to be slammed shut
in anger.56
[ . . . ] the defendant would chew nine mouthfuls of bread and another

nine of cheese and put them beneath her feet. And after stamping on
them with great anger [ . . . ] she would go to the window.57
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
significance in all kinds of magical operations because of its close associ-

ation with the gestation period and, therefore, its symbolism as a whole
number denoting totality.60 While on this subject, it is worth noting that
when the ‘casting of beans’ was introduced to Spanish America, displac-
ing the ancient Aztec form of divination using grains of maize, its new
practitioners used the same number.61 For example, inquisitorial docu-
ments relating to the case of a diviner tried in Mexico in 1622, reveal
that his technique was to count out 18 beans, ‘nine female and nine
male’, then take ‘one of each sex’ and put them in his mouth. After
reciting a conjuration alluding to the heart of the person desired, he
would throw down the remaining 16 beans and spit out the two in his
mouth: if they fell close together, it was a sign that the person invoked
would return the other’s love.62 This divination ceremony was, in fact,
a reproduction of rituals typical of the sorcery practised in peninsular
Spain, as can be seen from many surviving inquisitorial documents.63
Endowing the two beans with different genders was a key part of
the scenario, casting them in the roles of the opposing wills, male and
female. It was not just beans, however, that were employed in such
dramatizations. According to the testimony of Felicia Figueras (whose
sentence, handed down by the Saragossa Inquisition in 1654, comprised
a hundred lashes and eight years’ exile from the district), she had on one
occasion asked another woman for some beans,
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
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,
Significant in this context was a whole other range of love magic

concerned with the domestic sphere, where hearth, kitchen uten-
sils, doorsill, stairs, and bed took on special deeper meanings – as
if women had discovered the deeper powers in the world assigned to
them.67
The home, a space of which women had ownership, was brimming

with all kinds of symbols and metaphors, and there is unquestionably
research to be done into this ‘geography of the house’, as Ruggiero has
suggested.68 As opposed to the logical-metaphysical models of interpret-
ing the universe that belonged to the representatives of high culture
and which are to be found in the pages of the numerous medical and
theological treatises of the day, the culture of home and hearth revolved
around a vision of the world that was more emotional and, to a cer-
tain extent, poetic in nature, a place where the humblest and most
unassuming of objects were transformed into powerful instruments
capable of altering reality at a stroke. As far as love magic is con-
cerned, one (among many) revealing examples of this ‘poetics of the
everyday’,69 which could turn seemingly innocuous scenarios into fer-
tile ground for all kinds of transformations, is that of the valerian
plants which, according to inquisitorial evidence, were common to
many Saragossan households, often for reasons other than the purely
decorative.70 According to Isabel Francisca de Mota’s trial summary,
it was common amongst women of bad repute to have pots con-

taining valerian plants and [ . . . ] it could be that the accused had
decorated one of them, although she did not remember having
done so.71
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
Other cases for which records survive tell us of plants having to be

watered with white wine not just once a week but three times (on
Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) – this was no arbitrary sequence,
but a pattern that echoed that of other love-magic rituals. As emphasized
by Francisco Bethencourt in his study of sixteenth-century Portuguese
sorcery, these days had particular symbolic significance because of their
respective associations with the moon, Mercury (god of commerce) and
Venus (goddess of love).74 Whatever the case may be, perhaps the most
important requirement for the charm to take effect was the emotional
engagement of the woman responsible for looking after the plant –
providing us with a further example of a dramatization in which a
woman’s repressed feelings are translated into her relationship with
some other physical object. In similar vein, we know of another woman
tried by the Inquisition in Saragossa and accused of advising one of her

clients to
water the valerian with white wine on Mondays, Wednesdays and

Fridays, and speak lovingly to it, as if she were with a lover. And that
on the said days she had to make the pot elegant, with all the gold
and silver she might possess.75
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
[ . . . ] in the same way as did burn [ . . . ] that image, so must the

heart of the said Father Miguel burn and blaze with love for the said
Valconchara.81
[ . . . ] she was to take an orange [ . . . ] and place it among the burning
embers and should say [ . . . ] ‘let his heart burn with love for me just
as this orange is burning now’.82
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
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
love charms [ . . . ] with amulets and documents [ . . . ] and availing

himself of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to perform them for his
own obscene and lascivious ends.88
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,
in order to obtain women and bring about other amatory conse-

quences he wrote some characters on an egg using ink made of
rosewater, saffron and musk and put it in a brazier to dry out. And
while it was drying out he recited a psalm of David [ . . . ] repeating it
many times with other words, including the following: Sic ardeat cor
meum in amore meo sicut ardet diabulus in inferno.89
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
truth, if I am to win this woman. And if I am to win her, turn towards

my right hand. And if not, turn to my left.’ And that the said sieve
had made a half turn towards the right hand, and sometimes a full
turn. The which he had done more than 40 times.90
Although both sexes were accustomed to practising divination with a

sieve, women’s trials make no mention of the books that inspired such
operations and experiments.91 The most notable exception to the oral
tradition that characterized the sphere of female love magic was the
use of so-called cartas de toque, or ‘letters of touch’. Here again, as the
name suggests, any magical power was derived from physical contact
between these objects and the man whom the woman wanted to seduce.
Although these ‘letters’ were written documents, however, nowhere do
we find any mention of the women involved either reading or writing
them – all we know is that they possessed them, as if as far as they
were concerned, a carta was simply one magical object among many,
regardless of its actual text. Felicia Figueras, for example, was said to
have ‘used a letter which, when it touched men, would make them love
her’.92 Similarly, during the trial of Isabel Teresa Castañer, three women
asserted that the accused was in possession of ‘a letter with which to
touch men on the nights of St John and St Peter and on Christmas night
and others, so that they would follow after her’.93 Meanwhile, according
to several of the witnesses at the trial of Isabel Francisca de Mota, it was
the defendant’s custom
to urge women of bad repute [ . . . ] to buy from her a letter, assuring

them it would work so that by touching men on the days of St John,
St Peter, Christmas and the Resurrection, those men would love them
well and give them many things. And that the said letter had many
crosses and that what it contained were good things.94
As Guido Ruggiero notes in his study of Venetian magic, such ‘letters’

(in Italian, carte di voler bene [letters to bring about love]) were simply
pieces of paper on which were written prayers, usually addressed to
Christ, the Virgin Mary or a particular saint, although on occasion they
might also include petitions to the spirits of hell or the devil himself.95
That would account in the quotation above for the final reference to the
‘good things’ in those sold by Isabel Francisca, who, despite denying in
court that she had ‘committed the crimes of which the prosecutor was
accusing her’, did confess to ‘having possessed and sold the letters of
touch as accused’, as an honest means of trying to survive the extreme

poverty in which she found herself mired.96
So rich and varied is the testimony from Saragossa relating to love
magic that an almost endless number of pages could be filled with the
details of different spells and divination practices. Having provided a
concise analysis of the basic principles underpinning the many experi-
ments carried out by both professional sorcerers and large swathes of the
female population, however, this chapter will now focus on one specific
aspect of love magic deliberately ignored thus far, namely the custom of
seeking help from the spirit world.
The characteristic eclecticism of magic shines through in what we
know about invocations of both celestial and infernal beings. Souls in
purgatory, too, were frequently called on in love charms: their liminal
and heteronomous state led people to believe they wielded particular
influence in this field. When it came to asking for heavenly assistance,
it was far less common to invoke God or the Virgin Mary than it was to
call on certain saints, who were seen as genuine specialists in the arts of
love and thus became the object of constant entreaties.97
The divine image that recurs most frequently is that of Christ on the
cross, as though the idea of a triumphant and almighty God would have
less of an impact than that of a deity voluntarily made flesh who had
endured agony and death on behalf of mankind. Individuals who cast
love spells made the connection between the Lord’s suffering and the
pain they wished their beloved to suffer, expressing the desire to have
them bound and nailed in the same way as Christ had been during his
Passion.98 According to one of the many spells taught by Ana de Yuso
to one of the women who gave evidence at her trial, any woman who
wanted to have a man at her mercy had first to measure the length of
her left arm (as a symbol of the distance that separated her from him)
and then utter the following words:
So-and-so (naming the man she loved), I shorten your steps,

I lengthen your steps, that thus may you come to me, dead or in
pain, as Our Lord died crucified on the tree of the True Cross.99
As Our Lady of the Pillar, meanwhile, Mary was a particularly popular

choice as intercessor in Saragossa – it is by the former name that she is
often cited in trial records. María de Romerales, for example, a sorceress
tried by the Inquisition in 1609, had promised one of the witnesses who
spoke against her in court
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:
Our Lady St Martha,

you are blessed and worthy,
dearly beloved
of my Lord Jesus Christ;
invited and welcomed
by our Lady the Virgin,
you came into the mountains of Tarascon,
you encountered the fierce serpent,
you overcame it and rode on its back [ . . . ]
Thus as this is true,
it was bound, captured and defeated;
thus as this is true,
bring to me here that which I ask of you.103
Others, by contrast, allude to her power for evil, as effective as its

beneficent counterpart, if not more so:
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:
Martha, Martha, not the good one, but the bad [ . . . ]

you went up to Monte Oliván,
three black goats did you meet,
three drops of milk did you take from them,
three black cheeses did you make from them,
which you sliced with three knives you were carrying,
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
Martha was, then, a regular feature of Saragossan spells of erotic nature,

both in invocations of the type discussed, and in figurative or picto-
rial form as well.106 Here too, as noted above with regard to cartas de
toque, we can see a palpable difference between an almost exclusively
oral female culture and the kind of magic practised by men, in which
written documents played such a dominant role. At the trial of a woman
named Petronila Sanz it was claimed that the defendant,
in order to know if one person loved another, and to make someone

hate one person and love another, would make a sign either on the
ground or on the bedposts, and then she would measure a distance
of three hands, and at the start and finish of this length would draw a
line or make a mark with saliva or something else. And she would say:
May you come and go as weary and defeated as a dead man goes to
the earth, repeating it twice over and also saying three times a prayer
to St Martha, for she said if it was not spoken three times it was worth
nothing.107
Ana María Torrero, meanwhile, was accused of bragging about vari-

ous powers (including those enabling her ‘to transform people into
any animal she wished’, ‘prevent husbands hiding from their wives’,
or knowing ‘what a person was doing even if he were a league distant’,
among others) and of having blessed
some prayer cards of St Martha with certain ceremonies and prayers

[ . . . ] all of which she did to work love magic, and to make peace
between men and women who had an improper relationship and
other similar things.108
A good example of the way in which St Martha formed a requisite part

of the repertoire – both spiritual and material – of those involved in love
magic can be seen in the case of Jorge Núñez Piñeiro. According to the
records, during his first appearance before the inquisitors he confessed

as follows:
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
As we know from her hagiography, St Martha had demonstrated super-

human powers in defeating and taking captive a terrifying dragon, and
was therefore assumed to be able to exert an equally decisive influence
when it came to taming men. There was a similarly widespread belief
that St Helena, as possessor of the nails from the True Cross, could use
them to pin down any man proving wary of falling into a woman’s
clutches.110 St Christopher (‘bearer of Christ’, patron saint of travellers),
for his part, had overcome all obstacles placed in his way and so was
seen as the ideal companion for the imaginary journeys evoked in the
majority of love spells. Indeed such formulas were based on the notion
of sending a fabulous being capable of travelling at great speed to find
the subject of the charm and then make him or her fall into the arms of
the person who had spoken it.111
A perfect illustration of the narrow divide between religion and magic,
between the sacred and the supposedly superstitious, can be found in
the tale of Felicia Figueras (sentenced by the Inquisition to 100 lashes
and eight years in exile for being a ‘sorceress and fraud’) and the devo-
tions she had paid to St Christopher – or, to be more specific, to the
portrait of him that hung in Saragossa’s Basilica of Our Lady of the
Pillar. Appearing before the judges for the second time, the defendant
confessed to having advised a certain Teresa
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
Christ on the riverbank as he called out to him, entreating the saint

to utter three cries within the heart of the man in question that he
might come and speak to her. And [ . . . ] the defendant told her this
three or four times, that it would make a man with whom she had
had relations and who had left her speak to her again, and [ . . . ] he
did come back, although she does not know whether this was because
of the novena or not.112
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
matters of the heart: women such as Celestina or María de Padilla, for

example. Both were thought to have been condemned to the flames of
hell because of the power they had wielded over men and the methods
they had employed to achieve that influence in the first place – in other
words, direct contact with Evil. Celestina’s identity is clear and unam-
biguous. That of the María de Padilla invoked in love charms, however,
is a matter of some dispute. Some believe her to have been the wife of
Juan de Padilla, one of the Toledan leaders of the Comuneros Revolt in
the early 1520s,115 but the prime candidate, going by a number of refer-
ences to her in inquisitorial documents and the lady in question’s own
life history, is in fact the fourteenth-century noblewoman of the same
name who was mistress of Peter (the Cruel) of Castile.116 He had mar-
ried Blanche of Bourbon, only to return three days later to María with
whom, so it was said, he remained very much in love for the rest of
his life. One of the the most widespread rumours about María and her
womanly wiles was that she was responsible for Blanche’s death, having
had her assassinated in order to legitimize her own situation.117
As noted by Francisco Fajardo Spínola in his study of sorcery in the
early modern Canary Islands,118 María de Padilla was always visualized
as part of a gang, accompanied by a troupe of demons, all of whom
were indisputable experts in the art of love, their number including
Martha the Bad and, most prominent of all, the Diablo Cojuelo, or lame
devil.119 Saragossa’s sorceresses appear to have been very much aware
of this particular fantasy too, if the surviving testimony is anything to
go by.120 The aforementioned Ana María Torrero, for example, to whom
the Inquisition meted out severe punishment because she was deemed
to have acted ‘with intent, faith and belief’, and who was accused of
having performed
many and different charms, spells and superstitions, using beans,

cards, amulets, knots, water boiled with earth from the grave, clothes
and candles perfumed with incense and enchanted in a certain way,
alum, fumigation of the house, oil lamps and animal hearts pierced
with nails and buried, by saying certain words in a low voice that
cannot be heard121
confessed to the judges
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
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
Generally speaking, few demons were referred to by name, with the

exception of those already mentioned and one other spirit who makes
an appearance in the documents relating to the trial of Cándida Gombal,
a morisca from the region of Valencia who had come to live in Saragossa.
This was Maymon, one of the Islamic world’s seven earthly kings of the
djinn, who was often cited in books of morisco magic125 with epithets
such as ‘the sword-bearer, ‘the Black’, ‘the executioner’ and so on126 ,
and whose Latinized name had also become familiar among Christians.
According to her trial record, the defendant
used to invoke demons by speaking in Arabic and on other

occasions – when she was heard by the witnesses – would call on
Barabbas, Satan, Beelzebub and Maymon.127
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
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
Similarly, Ana Ruiz, ‘unmarried, 30 years old and a resident of Saragossa’,

was accused of telling one of the women who gave evidence for the
prosecution at her trial
that to make a man love a woman faithfully [ . . . ] she had to break

a piece of bread [ . . . ] into twelve scraps and throw them out of a
window calling on Satan, Beelzebub, Barabbas and the great devil,
that they might bring to her the person she loved, by offering to give
them a gift. And that if the man in question were to come, she should
throw out of the window a shoe or some other thing as payment to
the devil for having done as she wished.131
When it came to seeking favours from otherworldly spirits, those con-

demned to hell were not the only port of call: a notable number of cases
mention deals done with the denizens of purgatory.132 The underlying
idea behind such contacts essentially echoed what countless theological
treatises written at the time were striving to prove as they attempted to
gainsay Protestant doctrines and refusal to accept the very existence of
such a place. From the Catholic point of view, those in purgatory (unlike
the blessed souls in heaven or those condemned to eternal hellfire and
damnation, whose fate was immutable) needed the help of the living if
they were ever to escape the place of torment in which they were held
prisoner. Hence, for example, Capuchin monk Feliciano de Sevilla wrote
a book in 1704 whose purpose was to warn the living of the terrible
suffering that lay in store for them in purgatory. In it he laid particu-
lar emphasis on ‘the predicament of the need that those blessed souls
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.
As well as saying Masses, practitioners of magic also used prayer (the

second most important suffrage for the redemption of souls, as advised
by the Church), translated into a sacrilegious context and with specific
ends in mind. So we find a woman named María García advising another
who ‘was weeping because she had had no news of her absent husband’
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,
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:
Soul, Soul, Soul,

saddest and most alone,
you who are most defenceless,
I come with a gift for you,
another I ask from you in return,
that which I give you, I neither give nor take from you,
for among the skirts of the Virgin Mary I leave it for you.
I offer you a Mass if you will make so-and-so love me

(naming the man in question).
May you arise from where you lie, and come
and torment his heart, and his feelings,
his entire person, so that he will love me,
that in his eyes there will be none prettier than me,
and that he will not forget me,
but will come at my command,
loving and generous.
And if you are to bring him I ask you
[as a sign] that the door and window be shut,
or that water be thrown into the street.
And if you do as I ask, I shall offer a Mass to you,
and if not, I shall give you nothing.140
A point aptly made by Francisco Fajardo Spínola in his study of sorcery

in the Canaries is that such ‘orations’ or ‘pseudo-prayers’ were basically
commercial transactions complete with clearly set-out terms and con-
ditions (including the ‘signs’ demanded from souls as proof of their
acceptance of the contract), to the extent that sometimes those cast-
ing the spells even indulged in imaginary haggling with the spirits they
were invoking.141 Back in Saragossa, ‘in order to make a man return to
his illicit relations with a woman’, Felicia Figueras
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
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
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
a new broom and put on it a shawl, a bonnet and a large woollen

cloth and some needles, to bind this to the said man, her husband,
so that he would have nothing to do with any other woman, and
that he would soon return to her. And this confessant did all of this,
95
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).
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
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,
being in a friendship with her, married another woman who is still

his wife today. And since this defendant truly loved him, she was
very distressed that he had married, so much so that she almost lost
her wits. And in order to take her revenge and to forget him, she
took up friendship with a young man named Juan Francisco, a silk-
weaver and son of this city, with whom she forgot about the said
Marcos Gonzalez, as if she had never known him. And it happened
that the wife of the said Gonzalez fell ill [ . . . ] And this defendant
being in her own home, the said Marcos Gonzalez arrived and said
that he wished to speak to her [ . . . ] and that he wanted the two of
them to go out [ . . . ] to the gate of the Portillo [ . . . ] and although this
defendant wanted to take with her a friend of hers, the said Marcos
Gonzalez made her turn away from the path. [ . . . ] And taking her to
the tower of Palaberino [ . . . ] he said to her: Ha, Lucia, here you must
die, because you have bewitched my wife [ . . . ] and she told him she
was not to blame.161
Having been subjected to all kinds of threats as well as having been

physically assaulted by the painter and a brother of his who appeared on
the scene shortly afterwards, the young woman decided to defend her-
self provisionally by confessing to having carried out certain enchant-
ments and at the same time offering a cure for the sick woman that
consisted of a little white wine and theriac (a concoction of vari-
ous ingredients, principally used as an antidote to animal venom). All
this would add fuel to the fire when she was denounced and subse-
quently brought to trial by the Holy Office, although she was ultimately
acquitted because of lack of evidence and witnesses. Thanks to the inves-
tigations carried out by the inquisitors, we know that the González
brothers had originally gone ‘to communicate the illnesses of their wives
[ . . . ] to an elderly monk of St Lazarus who conjures such sick people’ and
that, when he asked them ‘whom they suspected’, they had replied that
they suspected no one ‘except perhaps for a woman with whom he had
been friends for five years, speaking of this defendant’, at which
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
As we shall see in the following chapters which examine the interrela-

tionship between the urban and rural environments with reference to
witchcraft and its persecution, city walls marked both a physical and a
cultural demarcation between two universes separated by their code of
values and behaviour. Despite the widespread belief that some individu-
als possessed extraordinary powers, certain forms of violence associated
with magic were perpetrated for the most part outside the walls (‘take
her out to the countryside and [ . . . ] she will confess’). Just as urban areas
frequently, though not exclusively, proved to be the most fertile ground
for the kind of subtle violence inherent in love magic, other more direct
brands of violence played out against the backdrop of the wide, open
spaces of the countryside or that of isolated, often mountainous hamlets
and villages. Thus it was that a substantial number of healer-diviners,
popularly known as saludadores, came to see the city of Saragossa as a
stage on which they could display their astonishing talents and powers
to a far larger audience.
4
Saludadores and Witch-Finders
Some saludadores take a glowing coal or red-hot iron in their

hand and hold fast to it for a while. Others wash their hands
in boiling oil or water. Others walk barefoot over red-hot irons.
Others step into hot ovens.1
One devil did say: [ . . . ] To see good people, look at the

saludadores, for [ . . . ] they are said to be virtuous. They took
offence and said that it was true that they were. And to this
replied [another] devil: How can it be that virtue be found in
people who go about always blowing?2
The presence of healers known as saludadores both within and without

the city walls means we have to look at the twin concepts of sorcery and
witchcraft (see Chapter 6) from a new perspective. While, strictly speak-
ing, witchcraft was a rural phenomenon, it is equally true that plenty
of people saw an opportunity to profit from the beliefs associated with
it away from its home environment. Indeed, the success of the occupa-
tion of saludador (a means of earning a living closely linked to urban
chicanery) was based not only on curing the sick but also on pointing
to the possible causes of disease, and in particular on discerning the sup-
posed evil influence of witches.3 There is an obvious complementarity
between the myths of witches and of saludadores: while the former were
said to be able to harm their fellow men by their will alone, channelled
through their gaze, the latter were thought to be able to restore people to
health principally through their words, breath or saliva. If evil emanated
from a witch’s eye, its cure was to be found in a saludador’s mouth.4
The superhuman power attributed to saludadores, as well as enabling
them to cure disease (especially rabies, which was particularly feared at
the time and associated with the most extreme pain and suffering), also
99
endowed them with other extraordinary faculties. Most people firmly

believed that they could drive away storms, stop fires from spreading,
combat plagues of locusts and even ‘transform beings and things in the
manner of the wise men of pagan times’.5 In fact, saludadores’ supposed
immunity from the effects of fire was an early modern version of an
ancient tradition, as mentioned, for example, in Virgil’s tale of Apollo’s
priests walking on glowing embers and hot ash on Mount Soracte.6
Saludadores’ mystical powers were reflected corporeally in the marks
on their bodies that supposedly distinguished them from ordinary men.
Here we see another parallel with witches, whose supernatural pow-
ers were said to have a physical equivalent in the shape of the mark
left by the devil’s claw on each new adept after she had signed a pact
with him during a sabbath.7 The sign most commonly associated with
saludadores, as well as that known as the ‘mark of St Quiteria’, curer
of rabies, was the wheel of St Catherine, an ancient sun symbol later
adopted by Christianity when it was transformed to represent the instru-
ment of torture on which the Alexandrine saint had been martyred.8
Clearly, marks of this type were positive in nature, like the stigmata
borne by some saints or the birthmarks of certain kings and miracle-
workers. They were also seen as innate, unlike the witch’s mark, which
was thought to appear only on the signing of the diabolical pact.9
Before we turn to the documentary evidence to examine the lim-
inal status of the saludadores – figures who straddled the rural and
urban worlds – and the influence they wielded over women accused
of witchcraft, it is worth noting, however obvious it may seem, that
all saludadores were men. This was by no means coincidental: indeed,
it was unavoidable, given that the only people believed to be true
saludadores were the seventh sons of parents who had produced only
male offspring.10 That said, a man might also be a saludador if he was
of royal blood or had been born on Christmas Eve or Good Friday, this
last idea being a way of Christianizing a figure who had far more in
common with the sages of pagan times than with the profile usually
associated with saints.11
In practice, the vast majority of self-styled saludadores could not claim
to base their alleged powers on any such genuine accident of birth,
although they certainly tried to fake their credentials in order to build
up a large and loyal client base. In 1619, for example, a cobbler named
Gabriel Monteche confessed to Saragossa’s inquisitorial tribunal that
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
and to deliver villages from hailstorms, saying that he bore on one

arm the wheel of St Catherine and on the other a cross, which signs
he had made himself with a needle to deceive people and let them
think he had been born with them. And that he would show them
to many people to make them believe he had the healing virtue [ . . . ]
and that he also let it be thought that he was a seventh son and that
he had received both virtue and grace from God.12
The detailed description of the various tricks employed by the cobbler

to fool those who came to him seeking cures for their ills did not stop
there. Monteche (‘otherwise known as the saludador’13 ) admitted that it
was his custom to place a caterpillar in his mouth and then claim to
have removed it from his patients as he cured them:
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
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:
It is possible that some men had such complexions as to give them

natural virtue, hidden in their breath and in their saliva, and even
in their touch, owing to the temperament of the complexional quali-
ties. And the four humours, which are choler and blood, phlegm and
melancholy, might exist in a human body in such temperament and
harmony that from there might result a hidden natural virtue [ . . . ]
This being so, it seems that those who demonstrate such natural
virtues are not to be condemned [ . . . ] and it seems that those who
possess these natural virtues which are not commonly found in men,
except in a few special cases, can be called saludadores.18
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
with St Quiteria and St Catherine. Even Ciruelo, however, who wrote

with such acerbity about the saludadores in general, was able to counte-
nance the idea that there might be a few exceptions to the rule, proving
that belief in the myth was not restricted to the popular classes but
enjoyed a level of acceptance within ecclesiastical circles too. The fact
that, in a manner so typical of the time, a distinction could be drawn
between ‘true’ and ‘false’ saludadores (however low a number of the for-
mer there were thought to be), meant that faith in the supernatural
powers of certain individuals remained very much intact:
It is now proven that all healing procured by words alone is a sin of

superstition, and even a sin of tempting providence in the case of
those illnesses that can be cured by natural medicines. Except when
this is done by holy men, servants of God, and not by those con-
temptible drunks who travel the world proclaiming themselves to
be saludadores, and everything that we have written in this chapter
against the common saludadores applies to these men, not to other
good and simple men who by the grace of God are able to heal
through their devotion, by laying on their hands and praying. But
there are very few such men in the world. And, therefore, prelates
and judges must carefully examine which are the former and which
the latter.20
The examining referred to by Ciruelo was carried out by both bishops

and inquisitors, or sometimes by local officials appointed for that spe-
cific purpose.21 Where it was deemed that a saludador did possess special
gifts that enabled him to heal in the name of God, he was granted a
licence which in effect acted as an official safe-conduct, authorizing him
to travel freely from one area to the next and perform all kinds of won-
ders and miracles at his own discretion. Although as the seventeenth
century wore on saludadores began to fall under increasing suspicion of
fraud, it is significant that even as late as 1698 the Synodal Constitutions
of the Archbishop of Saragossa included a clause confirming the ancient
custom of bishops to grant licences to certain healers. While it is true
that the intention of the text was to send out a warning about the con-
sequences of allowing those without a licence to operate, the implicit
recognition of holiness as an occupation remained alive and well:
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
each time, and we ordain that secular judges and council officials do
not allow this either, on pain of the same fine.22
No figures survive as to how many of those who travelled the land as

healers actually possessed one of these officially issued licences. It must,
however, have been common practice to forge them, given that they
brought an additional and crucial element of verisimilitude to the role.
This is not to say that all such documents carried by saludadores were
necessarily fake. One particularly fascinating case is that of Andrés
Mascarón, from Salvatierra de Escá (in the diocese of Saragossa), who
had moved to the Aragonese capital at the age of 12. According to what
he himself told the city’s inquisitorial tribunal in 1620, he had worked
in the city as both a tailor and a carter, but for the last three years had
been practising
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
In the words of another witness to the event,
he pointed out thirteen witches, five of whom he named, and they

were imprisoned and four were hanged and the other exiled [ . . . ] and
when the witness asked him how he recognized witches, he said that
on seeing a witch he felt his flesh begin to burn, and the older the
witch the more it burned, and the village of Bielsa paid him for his
work as a saludador [ . . . ] and did give him one hundred reals.25
The saludadores’ work as ‘witch-finders’, as well as having its charismatic

element, was seen as essential to the smooth functioning of society.
Hence not only private individuals but certain institutions, from local
councils right up to the Inquisition itself, if some of the evidence is to
be believed, would avail themselves of their services. One of the com-
monest ways of suggesting a particular woman’s guilt was to say that she
had fled her village just as a saludador was due to arrive there, for fear
he would recognize her as a witch. According to a report made by the
Archbishop of Saragossa’s fiscal found among the documents relating to
the 1591 trial of Bárbara Blanc, of Peñarroya de Tastavins (Teruel), who
was charged with witchcraft,
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
Similarly, according to the testimony of Martín Guillén, at the trial of

Pascuala García of Herrera de los Navarros (Saragossa):
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
Statements such as this, highlighting society’s respect for saludadores and

acceptance of their ability to find scapegoats in every community, could
not have been made had it not been for the consistent line taken by
the Spanish Church throughout the seventeenth century, namely, as
noted above, that certain individuals did indeed possess extraordinary

God-given gifts. For Gaspar Navarro, the natural virtue that enabled
saludadores to work miracles was identifiable with their innate goodness,
or at least the semblance of such:
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
Returning to the case of Andrés Mascarón (the saludador and witch-

finder who wanted to do away with witches as if they were in fact rabid
dogs, and who was responsible for the execution of several women in the
village of Bielsa), we learn that his trial ultimately ground to a halt. As far
as we know, none of the witnesses testified that he was a ‘virtuous’ man
or one ‘of good character’; on the contrary, the court heard that because
of his actions some of the sick people he had treated had also died.30
Mascarón defended himself by claiming that he healed in the name
of the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, St Peter, St John, St Cosmas and
St Damian, St Gregory, St Augustine, St Barbara and, finally, St Orosia,31
as well as denying any responsibility for the death sentences passed
against the women found guilty of witchcraft. This denial contradicted
the allegations made by the Bishop of Barbastro, yet because of the
licences found in his possession, Mascarón was let off with a warning –
he was no longer to practise as a saludador, on pain of being ‘punished
with all rigour’ in future.32 The leniency showed by the Inquisition to
this defendant (a man apparently in possession of genuine documenta-

tion) is in stark contrast to the treatment dispensed three years later to
another saludador (this one the bearer of fake licences), who was con-
demned to serve six years in the royal galleys without pay, as well as
receiving 100 lashes and being exiled from the district for a period of
ten years.33
Francisco Casabona, who led a life colourful enough to have featured
in one of the picaresque novels so popular in his day, had been born in
Albero (Huesca) in 1602 and,
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
According to Francisco himself, it was his master who had suggested to

him when he was 11 – as a way of gaining his independence and begin-
ning to earn his own living – that he change his name to Sebastián
Ferrer. Morales then gave him a false licence which stated that the
inquisitor-general of the Kingdom of Aragon authorized him to heal as
a saludador. Francisco agreed to the plan, after which,
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,
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,
although it seemed to him that these documents were not lawful,

[Casabona] did make him provide lodging and that of which he had
need [ . . . ] And he healed men and women and livestock in that
place. And because he was not given a mount on which to travel to
another village, [Casabona] threatened him with the Holy Office, say-
ing that since he was refusing to give him a mount and not abiding by
the documents which he had presented to him, he would have him
brought before the Inquisition. And he went away most angered.37
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
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
versed in their subject and therefore, in theory, trustworthy. Such was

the case of Jacinto de Vargas, a 38-year-old French doctor from the Basse-
Navarre region, who was brought before the Saragossa inquisitors in
1636 because
he kept saying and boasting that he could recognize witches and

knew who they were and where they gathered, declaring there to
be a certain number in one village, and this many more or fewer in
another [ . . . ] and [ . . . ] when he was asked how he recognized them,
he replied that it was very easy and that whoever knew what he did
would be able to do so.43
With a flourish of fantasy and theatricality, Vargas claimed, among other

things, that
were he to place a certain medicament in the font of holy water inside

the church, it would ensure that if witches came to take the water
they would not be able to, and would be left with their fingers in the
air, shaking as if they were playing a monochord.44
Although he was deemed to be ‘of suspect faith’ (‘if he were not a

deceiver’45 ) and to have made (‘at least’46 ) an implicit pact with the
devil, Vargas defended himself by saying that he made the claims he
did ‘in order that people should believe in his knowledge [ . . . ] and
that they should hold him in greater esteem in those places [ . . . ] to
which he went to heal’. Neither this nor the potential harm he might
have caused those women he claimed to be able to recognize as witches
(‘he confessed that on many occasions he had said that he could find
witches’47 ) prevented his eventual acquittal (‘he was warned and given
a reprimand and sent away a free man’48 ). This decision underlines once
again the fact that what drove the inquisitors was the desire not so much
to punish those who continued to encourage witch-hunts, but to con-
demn those whose words or actions called the authority of the Catholic
faith or the Holy Office itself into question. That being so, the crimes of
falsifying ecclesiastical documents or disobeying the tribunal were con-
sidered far graver than that of defaming poor and wretched women by
accusing them of witchcraft, despite the consequences that might ensue
from such malicious allegations.49
This approach is further confirmed by the sentences imposed by
Saragossa’s Inquisition on other alleged saludadores throughout the sev-
enteenth century. Juan de Mateba, for instance, a ‘vagrant’ boy of 14
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:
That in future he should not heal by incantation nor staunch blood,

nor should he boast of having the power to heal or divine or see
the dead or other things beneath the earth, or to recognize witches
and sorceresses, on pain of receiving two hundred lashes in the city
streets and other penalties to be decided on by the tribunal, and that
he should serve his full term at the said monastery.51
A similar range of abilities was exhibited by Juan José de Venegas (origi-

nally of Constantinople), another itinerant saludador. He was known as
‘Juan de la Cruz’, and various witnesses stated that he bore the image
of a large crucifix on his chest and that ‘he said he would go into an
oven when it was burning hot and would hold a glowing iron bar in his
hands or walk upon it barefoot’.52 When it came to finding witches and
controlling demons, he claimed that in the city of Saragossa he had
revealed a woman to be a witch and had reported the fact to the

Inquisition. And that he knew another woman to be a witch as clearly
as he knew himself to be a Christian. And that he had wanted to heal
a possessed woman saying that she was a witch and that she had to
be taken to the Inquisition, since he had the authority so to do. And
that he had healed a possessed girl and that he had brought down
demons by the ankle and bound them there, and that he had grace
and power over demons.53
Contrasting as it did with the indulgence shown towards other

saludadores, the harsh sentence imposed on Juan de la Cruz reflected
the tribunal’s real concerns. Although he too had made defamatory and
slanderous statements, boasted of his powers and issued threats against
those he considered to be witches, the deciding factor in this case was
the fact that he was a newly converted Muslim, to whom no credit at
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
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,
many of whom said he had seduced them by assuring them he had

‘power in his semen’. One female witness whom he had treated because
she was ‘suffering from the curse of paralysis’, making it impossible to
consummate her marriage, stated that
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
This woman, it seems, in an attempt to free herself of ‘the demons

within her’ and thus be able ‘to have intercourse with her husband’,
‘persevered in her friendship’ with the defendant until she began to tell
others about her case – including a doctor – which led to her quarrelling
with Borao and accusing him of deceiving her, as well as of having made
her commit many mortal sins. The woman’s innocence seems to have
been genuine, for she added
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
Borao was evidently fairly relentless in the sexual demands he made on

his female patients, urging some of them to pay him ‘not with money
but with their body’67 and trying to convince others to choose him
as their exorcist and saludador because he had ‘more virtue and grace
in carnal relations than did others’68 (which gives some idea of how
widespread this practice was). Some believed themselves to be victims

of ‘a love curse’ since, after being exorcized, they said they could ‘see
the defendant at all times’.69 As in so many other cases of demonic
possession, the most serious symptoms were a product of the sexual ten-
sion between Borao and his patients, and that was what finally pushed
many of them to speak out against the man they had initially gone to in
search of a cure for their ailments.70 According to the suspicions of one
young female witness who claimed she ‘could not live without seeing
the defendant’, Borao
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
Far from these being unfounded accusations aimed at destroying the

defendant’s reputation, they were confirmed by Borao himself when he
confessed to the inquisitors (in a long letter written in his own hand)
that in the previous eight years he had received around 5000 sacrilegious
communions. Of these, he said, about 200 had been for having kept
quiet about numerous
sins of voluntary pollution that he had committed: twenty-two with

married women; three thousand with unmarried women; three more
by having had a married woman touch him in church; one hundred
and two with nuns, as well as other lascivious desires; and another
six pollutions with a virgin.72
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
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
Although he confessed to endless counts of excess, sexual abuse and

deception, Pablo Borao was also a man of intense and tormented reli-
gious fervour, making his case more complex than it might seem at
first sight. A graduate by the name of Morata, a priest whom Borao had
cured and who appeared as a witness at his trial, stated that on one
occasion the saludador had ‘consoled him and given him such spiritual
aid that he took him to be a holy man, for which reason he formed a
friendship with the defendant and was in contact with him until he was
arrested by the Holy Office’.74 If the portrait of him given by this priest
is anything to go by, Pablo Borao spent a great deal of his time praying
and doing penance, activities which brought him to a particular state of
consciousness in which he became plagued by demonic visions:
The defendant told him he continually suffered by night at the hands

of demons, who dealt him many blows and often left him with
bruises on his body [ . . . ] and that the demons sometimes made signs
of wanting to take him away with them during the time he spent at
prayer each night, a period of three or four hours, or sometimes the
entire night [ . . . ] And that, among the penances he did, was that of
putting a mat around his body as a hairshirt, and that prayer had
transported him so far [ . . . ] that when someone asked him what he
had been doing, he answered that the same as other days, which was
to pray and then find himself in places without knowing how he had
come to be there.75
Among the diabolical snares Borao claimed had been set for him were
certain illusory visions, such as one of the crucified Christ which
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
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
In the said convent, on the first occasion on which he came to exor-

cize the said sister Pomares, after having spoken to her at length and
told her that she should pardon the person she suspected of having
placed the curse upon her [ . . . ], there being six or seven nuns in her
cell, the defendant said: Now great and terrible things will soon be
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
Because of this non-appearance, Borao carried on treating the suppos-

edly possessed nun, whose symptoms, according to her companions,
were ‘terrible pain and such weakness that she seemed close to death’,
until on one of his frequent visits to the convent he organized a pro-
cession which the patient was to lead, ‘holding a figure of Christ’ and
followed by ‘six or eight sisters’, behind whom walked the saludador
‘bearing a censer and dressed only in a priestly vestment’:
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
The ‘witches’ in question here are clearly not the flesh-and-blood

women branded as such in remote mountain areas, often, as seen, with
fatal results. In this case what we are dealing with is a far more abstract
concept, one which had widespread currency in the urban environment,
namely that there existed harmful but non-specific spirits against whom
it was possible to wage symbolic warfare with the help of amulets –
in some cases these took the form of particular plants thought to be
endowed with the magical power to drive away any malign influence.
Hence, as we go back to the details of the procession, we see Borao’s use
of rue:
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
seemed entirely convinced it would work, as is clear from the amus-

ing comment she made while the procession was still in progress (‘the
said Pomares was ashamed to see what was happening and it made her
laugh and she said to the nun by her side: it looks for all the world as
though he were leading us to the gallows’91 ). Yet after Borao’s repeated
visits,
it seemed to some sisters that the defendant himself had brought, or

there was in the convent, some curse and that it would be wise to see
them all together in order to put an end to the general delusion.92
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
In spite of this favourable diagnosis, these solemn rituals did nothing

but foment alarm and the fear of new terrors, which of course was all
grist to Borao’s mill. Another of the nuns, for example, a woman named
Catalina Valero Marín, testified that ‘he had blown four times on her’
instead of three, and that he had spent more time looking at her than
he had at the other women,
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
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
As far as his fakery and fraudulence were concerned, Borao admitted

to the tribunal that he had feigned blindness for eight months and car-
ried out many miraculous healings; that the feelings of faintness he had
claimed to feel in the presence of those who were bewitched were pure
fiction (‘and that he did it that others would put their trust in him and
believe him to be the only man who could carry out exorcisms, and
out of vanity’); that it was true ‘that without being ordained he had
said prayers to cure the possessed’; and that he had lied in saying ‘that
he had [ . . . ] the marks of a saludador’. Nevertheless, he did continue
to insist on his proven natural power to defeat demons, at the same
time as acknowledging that he was often tempted by them. When asked
whether he had made a pact with the Devil, he replied that he had not,
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
The disturbed state of mind revealed by this statement is underlined

by the obsessive tendencies Borao displayed while in prison, where he
practised quite a regime of protection rituals. He was constantly writ-
ing down anti-demonic formulas on scraps of material and hiding them
in every nook and cranny of his cell, to the amazement of even the
judges themselves. According to the assistant governor, one morning
when he had gone to visit Borao, ‘he had found on the window ledge in
his cell a scrap of cloth as big as a hand, bearing the defendant’s hand-
writing, which he delivered to the tribunal’. After this, Borao was called
for questioning on the matter, until he eventually admitted
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
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
To remedy the many deaths and other injuries [ . . . ] which are

said to have occurred in the city [ . . . ] by reason and cause of
the witches who have fled from the mountains and other places
and have come to the city as exiles and now reside here [ . . . ],
be it decreed that these witches are to be tried, punished and
banished and that criminal proceedings are to be brought against
them incurring serious and rigorous penalties.1
It is also right and just to ordain [ . . . ] that there be [ . . . ]

reclusions and moderate punishments for vagabond, fallen and
delinquent women [ . . . ] since it is true that [ . . . ] if one of
these women commits a crime of theft, or sorcery, or if she is
a vagabond or a procuress, or does some other thing that merit
her public shaming [ . . . ], she is neither reformed nor taught a
lesson.2
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
During the interrogation to which she was subjected, the defendant

denied having made any attempt to run away. According to her version
of events,
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
eventually compelled her to confess that ‘out of necessity, in order to

make a living [ . . . ] did she do these things’.12
This more benevolent attitude adopted early on by the episcopal
court, based on its lack of belief in the existence of diabolical witchcraft,
stood in stark contrast to the brutality of the secular justice system and
its witch-hunts. Saragossa’s inquisitorial tribunal, meanwhile, occupied
the middle ground. This, in practice, meant that unlike their diocesan
counterparts, the Inquisition’s judges continued bringing women to trial
and finding them guilty of the unprovable crime of ‘witchcraft’ through-
out the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, although after 1535 no
more women accused of this offence were put to death.13 From that date
onwards, paradoxical as it may seem, many women were saved from
execution purely because the crimes of which they were accused fell
under inquisitorial jurisdiction. In fact, all the witchcraft cases known to
have been tried thereafter by the Holy Office in Saragossa were originally
instigated by the secular system: rather than being ‘new’ cases, they were
all existing matters transferred from one jurisdiction to another. The
role of Saragossa’s tribunal (which had initially prosecuted the crime
of witchcraft more assiduously than any other in Spain14 ) had clearly
changed: rather than launching its own investigations or seeking out
new victims, it became instead a judicial safe haven for those who, once
so many local councils in the Kingdom of Aragon had introduced fero-
cious anti-witchcraft legislation, found themselves deprived of any right
to a legal defence.
Such was the case, for example, of Joanna Bruxon, an unmarried
30-year-old woman from Grado (Huesca) who had come to live in
Saragossa. Having first been incarcerated on the order of the court in
her home village, and then by that of Saragossa’s city council, she was
forced to confess (no doubt under torture) to all kinds of ignominious
deeds in line with her supposed status as witch. These confessions cen-
tred firstly on a carnal pact with the devil and secondly on a series of
dreadful murders she had allegedly committed:
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
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
In the event, Joanna was sentenced to ‘public shaming’, which meant

that she would be flogged in the city streets, and would have to appear
wearing the conical hat known as a coroza and carrying a candle at the
auto de fe that took place in the Plaza del Mercado on 13 March 1581.
The only penalty she received was that of being exiled ‘from the place of
Grado and the surrounding area for four years’,17 which, far from being
a punishment, was a sensible measure given the abuse she had suffered
at the hands of her fellow villagers.
Another woman suspected of witchcraft who had sought refuge in the
city was 60-year-old Isabel Alastruey, also known as ‘la Luca’. She had
been driven to flee her native village of Sesa (Huesca) by her neighbours’
persecution, only to end up being brought before the Saragossa tribunal.
As is clear from her trial summary, she was known for being ‘a witch and
mistress of the other witches and because she feared a law that was being
passed to deal with witches there she ran away and left the said place’.18
The details of her trial bear many similarities to those of Joanna’s: three
other women from the village had admitted under torture to the local
court that Isabel had induced them to become witches like her, to which
end she had made them ‘renounce the Catholic faith and offer them-
selves to the Devil’. On this occasion, Satan did not appear in the form
of a gentleman but as a ‘most ferocious man’ or ‘in the shape of a
dog’. Either way, Isabel was spared the fate that befell these unfortu-
nate women (‘they were hanged as witches by the secular court and
died showing signs of repentance’19 ), the inquisitors decreeing that ‘her

sentence be read out at an auto de fe, where she should abjure de vehe-
menti, then be exiled from the district for a period of 10 years, as well as
receiving one hundred lashes’.20
The lenient sentences imposed by the Holy Office on women brought
before the Saragossa tribunal accused of witchcraft indicate that, far
from believing that the demonic pacts confessed to under torture were
real, and far from considering these defendants dangerous or even
capable of harbouring heretical intentions, the judges accepted the fun-
damentally inoffensive nature of their confessions. As we have seen,
however, their scepticism as to the women’s magical powers and beliefs
did not stop them passing sentences of exile and public shaming, reveal-
ing an attitude towards their guilt that is at the very least ambiguous –
the accused were after all made to pay real penalties for questionable
sins that were still being linked to a well defined crime.
The last known case of a woman accused of witchcraft and making
a pact with the devil who was not only tried but also tortured by the
Saragossan inquisitors is that of María Romerales, a widow of 63 who
lived in the city and devoted herself to healing with prayer as well as –
if the various witness statements are to be believed – boasting of her
ability to work all kinds of miracles (‘that she had taken certain men to
Rome and to Jerusalem by sending them to sleep and that she returned
them to their home’,21 ‘that she had said she would remove the body
of a dead man from a cellar and open up the earth so that the demons
could be seen’,22 and so on). Unlike other women accused of witchcraft,
María denied everything, although it is true that she was not forced to
endure the worst excesses of torture, as is noted in her trial papers:
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
the aftermath of the witchcraft cases brought by the Logroño tribunal

against a large group of both men and women from Zugarramurdi
(Navarre) and other nearby villages.24 Thirteen of those accused received
the death penalty, their sentences read aloud at a huge and dramatically
staged auto de fe in Logroño in November 1610. After this, however,
Inquisitor Alonso de Salazar y Frías’s unwavering refusal to believe in
the reality of charges relating to witchcraft led, in August 1614, to
the Suprema’s issuing new instructions for dealing with such cases –
a set of norms that represented a complete volte-face in inquisitorial
policy.25
In fact, the Holy Office never did go as far as denying the existence
of witchcraft or, therefore, the idea that people might actually be mak-
ing pacts with the devil, flying off to sabbaths and so on, but what it
did do from this date onwards was make it more or less impossible to
prove that any such thing might have happened. In the words of Henry
Charles Lea,
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
How did this change in attitude affect those accused of witchcraft by

the Saragossa tribunal? What role did the city of Saragossa play there-
after in the lives of the women who continued to flee there in search
of refuge? What kind of treatment was now meted out to those once
considered guilty of apostasy and transferred from their village prisons
to the inquisitorial cells in the Aljafería? According to the surviving tes-
timony, after 1609 the Inquisition ceased punishing these women with
floggings or exile, or indeed any other comparable penalty. More often
than not, witchcraft cases were dismissed on the grounds of lack of evi-
dence. Sometimes, given the disconcerting statements made by some
defendants, along with their minimal levels of literacy and less than
comprehensive knowledge of the Christian religion (for this gradually
became the new way of interpreting confessions that had previously
been attributed to demonic pacts), the inquisitors ordered that they
enter a convent for a period of time, usually a year, there to receive
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
to see no one excluded from the opportunity to achieve the Christian

ideal of perfection,
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
at night time. And without the defendant’s knowing or imagining

where they might go, she replied that she would do so.34
Her statement is so full of fantastical details that her description of the

ensuing encounters with the devil could be attributable either to dreams
or to visions,35 for she went on to say,
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:
And that on some occasions they went to harm their neighbours,

and about two years ago, they did kill two mules belonging to one
neighbour, and another one later on a different night. And they did
try and kill a child with some ointments they used to make.37
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
In fact, both defendants were clearly troubled about their conflicting

relationships with God and the devil and showed signs of penitence
(‘that she renounced God and his Mother, but not in her heart’40 , ‘that
at the time she felt it right to renounce God and obey the Devil [ . . . ]
until [ . . . ] she repented’41 ). Nevertheless, after examining the two old
women and formally dubbing them heretics, the judges decided to
send them to Saragossa’s House of Penance where they were to receive
instruction over the period of a year: this was not only a display of
the Holy Office’s benevolence but also a way of protecting Juana and
Margalida from their persecutors.
No evidence relating to any other women sent to this home for crimes
involving magic has yet been unearthed. Details have survived, how-
ever, about the case of a woman brought before the Inquisition in
Saragossa in 1640 accused of superstition and sorcery in which another
such ‘home for repentant women’ is mentioned, an institution estab-
lished nine years after the House of Penance with a view to both
improving welfare provision and gaining more control over prostitutes
and other women involved in crime or immorality. The summary of
Justa Rufina’s inquisitorial trial tells us that she lived in the ‘convent of
withdrawn women of this city’, which was in fact the House of Our
Lady of Mercy, founded in 1594.42 During her stay in this convent,
30-year-old Rufina, originally from Madrid, had boasted of knowing
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
After being accused by the Holy Office’s calificadores of having made a

pact with the devil, Rufina defended herself by assuring them that she
had ‘not committed the crimes of which the fiscal was accusing her’,
and insisted that ‘she had heard tell [of this remedy] in the convent
of withdrawn women in the city of Madrid, and she repeated the same
thing in the convent in this city, saying she had heard it and nothing
else’.44 In the end, she was ‘gravely reprimanded for the testimony she
had given and told she would be given other spiritual penances’.45 The
defendant’s stay at this ‘correctional facility’ was evidently seen as pun-
ishment enough for such an inconsequential case of superstition. It is
worth underlining the fact that, unlike other fundamentally repressive
women’s institutions, like the so-called ‘Galleys’ (Galeras), where food
was in short supply, hygiene conditions left a lot to be desired and a
regime of iron discipline and harsh corporal punishment was imposed,
the reformatory homes for ‘withdrawn women’, whether in Madrid,
Saragossa or elsewhere in Spain, were far more charitable in nature,
given that they were sheltering not hardened criminals but rather
women interned for not conforming to the prevailing moral code.46
As many scholars have noted, the Houses of Mercy (later replaced by
the so-called Refuges) grew out of the new thinking on poverty for-
mulated in the early sixteenth century by Juan Luis Vives, the great
Valencian humanist then living in exile in Flanders. His De subven-
tione pauperum, published in 1526 and dedicated ‘to the consuls and
senators of the city of Bruges’, is seen as the birth of a social doctrine
later upheld by other writers, including the canon Miquel Giginta47 and
physician Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera, all of whom agreed that there first
needed to be a clear distinction drawn between the genuinely needy and
those who were faking their circumstances, after which those who were
healthy and capable of working should be given the opportunity to do
so, rather than being left to beg, for not only was idleness unproductive,
it was the root of all vice.48
In the fourth section of his famous treatise on protecting the poor,
the specific focus of which is ‘the form of reclusion and punishment for
the vagrant and delinquent women of these kingdoms’, Pérez de Herrera
suggested a far more effective way of rehabilitating these women than
simply flogging them. His proposal was that homes should be founded
in which ‘women guilty of idle vagrancy, robbery, sorcery, deception or

of other offences’ would live and work in an austere manner (dressing
‘in sackcloth or canvas’, their hair cropped, ‘eating modest provisions’,
sleeping in ‘simple beds with some palliasse of straw or hay’). As for the
kind of work these women were to occupy themselves with, it was essen-
tially spinning and knitting, although from Pérez de Herrera’s point
of view they were being offered a wide choice of activities: ‘tasks of
many different kinds, such as: spinning cotton, flax and wool at the
wheel, twisting yarn, rope-making’49 and so on. The women taken into
Saragossa’s House of Mercy led a cloistered, quasi-monastic life,50 saying
their rosaries and attending Mass daily, wearing the habit and wimple,
and were forbidden ‘to put colour or other adornment on their face’ as
well as ‘to dance or sing anything unless it be very moral and godly’.51
Significantly, unlike the famous ‘Galleys’ founded in 1608 by
Magdalena de San Jerónimo in Valladolid and Madrid ‘as a punish-
ment for vagrant and thieving women, procuresses, sorceresses and the
like’,52 Saragossa’s version of this institution only admitted prostitutes.53
In theory, the ‘galleys’ were the female and ‘dry land’ equivalent of
the maritime punishment reserved for men. In practice, this meant
that anyone sent there received much harsher treatment than did the
women admitted to other corrective establishments.54 The running of
Saragossa’s ‘Galleys’, for example, was the direct responsibility of the
criminal court of Aragon’s Royal Audience, so the women who ended
up in custody there had first to have been tried and sentenced by that
tribunal.55
The fact that the city of Saragossa represented a safe haven for many
women persecuted for witchcraft elsewhere in Aragon (particularly in
the Pyrenees) can be seen in the increasing number of cases lodged
which, as the seventeenth century unfolded, were dismissed by the
Inquisition once the inconsistency of the charges had been proven.
As the case of Catalina Fuertes shows, some women continued to
be dogged by such accusations. Born in Fago, in the Valley of Ansó
(Huesca), Catalina had been resident in Saragossa for around 30 years
when she was arrested by the Inquisition in 1658, having already faced
the court in her native village in 1629, as a child of just six or seven,
because various people in her community had made allegations against
her. According to various witnesses, ‘she had been taught [to be a witch]
by Juana de Aznar, who was banished from Ansó in the said year of
29 for being a witch, and for breaking her exile was hanged in 1632’.56
Catalina’s parents, almost certainly hoping to save her from a similar
fate, took her to Saragossa when she was 10 or 11. There she earned her
living by working as a maidservant for a gentlewoman until she herself

got married. Thirty years later, three men brought new charges against
her, and the inquisitors therefore decided to investigate her case further.
Shortly afterwards, however, she was acquitted and her case dismissed,
the judges merely ordering her to ‘do some salutary penance and make
her confession’.57
In 1633, Quiteria Pascual, originally from Nocito (Huesca) but now
living in Saragossa, was accused of witchcraft in the city of Huesca
(where she had lived for a number of years) by some enemies of her
husband, who was a ‘slaughterman’ by trade.58 According to her trial
summary, Don Lorenzo Almanzor, ‘administrator of the butchers’ shops’
of that city, had even drawn his sword and threatened to kill her on one
occasion unless she revealed the spell with which, he claimed, she had
caused the illness of a young woman whom the doctors now believed to
be beyond help. Almanzor continued to persecute Quiteria until he got
his wish and had her imprisoned by Saragossa’s municipal judge, but
the Inquisition had the trial transferred to its jurisdiction, eventually
dismissing the case on the grounds of insufficient evidence.59
The compassion shown by the inquisitors of Saragossa in the closing
decades of the seventeenth century to women accused of witchcraft can
be particularly clearly seen in the last three trials for which documentary
evidence survives. In all three cases, the defendants were acquitted on
the grounds of insanity.60 Such judgements demonstrate that not only
did the Inquisition no longer give any credence to tales of encounters
with the devil (now attributed to a propensity for hallucinations), it also
exempted those accused from any responsibility for their alleged crim-
inal behaviour (and thus spared them any kind of punishment) and,
moreover, protected them from their enemies by finding them a safe
place to live. Perhaps the most striking example of inquisitorial benevo-
lence in such circumstances is the case of Francisca Abat, an 89-year-old
widow, who had been born in Jaca (Huesca) but had spent the past four
decades begging for a living in Saragossa. Accused of superstition and
practising evil magic, she was examined by several doctors and a sur-
geon, after which ‘it was ordered that she be taken to the Hospital of
Our Lady of Grace and given into the care of the Father of the Insane,
because she was of unsound mind, and so this was done’.61
Like its counterpart in Valencia,62 Saragossa’s Our Lady of Grace
Hospital, established in 1425 by Alfonso V (‘the Magnanimous’), was
renowned both at home and abroad throughout the early modern
period for its specialist treatment of the insane. Its all-embracing attitude
was expressed in the inscription that graced the building’s façade, Domus
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:
Because we understand there is a great need to pay particular atten-

tion to curing the insane and because they are patients like any
others, it is right that the necessary remedies be applied to them.
For this reason we ordain that the governors should meet with the
physicians of the hospital and discuss with them the form that such
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
According to a report drawn up about the hospital in 1784, the doctors

were only in the habit of medicating those who were ‘very choleric or
frenetic’, since ‘the most efficacious medicine for many is moderate out-
door work and fresh air’.71 Involving the hospital’s mentally ill patients
in physical labour had been part of the treatment regime since at least
the seventeenth century,72 and although debate has raged as to whether
this was encouraged as a form of occupational therapy or simply for eco-
nomic reasons,73 we do know from another informative report dating
from the late eighteenth century that
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
terrified did in his fright fall down, invoking as many prayers as he

could to Our Lord and the Virgin. And when he came to his senses,
he saw no visions, no whirlwind, no woman, but found that he was
very dirty and injured.75
This account, clearly the product of the witness’s vivid imagination

and slanderous intentions, resulted in imprisonment for the defendant.
On being interrogated by the inquisitors, so her trial summary tells
us, Estefanía became ‘choleric’ and uttered ‘words of blasphemy’. They
therefore decided she should be sent ‘to the Holy Hospital to spend 14
days among the madwomen’, after which her case was dismissed.76
However effective or otherwise the treatments provided by the hos-
pital, and leaving aside the polemic surrounding the therapeutic or
repressive nature of such institutions,77 one thing known for sure is
that many people feigned madness, considering life in an asylum prefer-
able to that in prison. Given that mental illness was, even at this time,
held by the Holy Office to be an extenuating circumstance or cause for
exemption from punishment,78 the inquisitors were not quick to rec-
ognize defendants as lunatics, indeed they treated any plea of insanity
with suspicion and were extremely wary of being deceived.79 In cases
of alleged heresy, the matter of real or feigned madness was of crucial
importance, since it was on that very distinction that the question of
a person’s guilt or innocence rested. Nevertheless, in the late seven-
teenth century a far more sympathetic attitude was displayed towards
those tried as witches, as the inquisitors finally began to see witchcraft
as an imaginary offence, dispelling the centuries-old myth of its being a
genuine threat to public safety.80
A case that brings together many of the themes covered in this
chapter is that of Jusepa Ainda, a 26-year-old widow born and bred in
Saragossa, who was tried by the Holy Office in 1689 after being accused
of witchcraft and sorcery.81 From her trial summary we know that she
had spent some time living in the aforementioned home for repentant
prostitutes, the House of Our Lady of Mercy. In fact, according to one of
those who gave evidence against her,
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
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
If this witness is to be believed, Jusepa also specialized in casting evil

spells on others, which she did by mixing into the food of her pro-
jected victims ‘the blood of a toad [ . . . ] with that of some frogs, and
a snake, and other bugs and beasts’. Just to complete the picture, this
same woman insisted that when Jusepa ‘wanted to fly, she anointed her-
self with the above-mentioned’, although ‘she had anointed herself and
had not flown’. She also spoke of other claims made by Jusepa, accord-
ing to which she had seen a woman who had taught her what she knew
transform herself ‘into a cat, owl, hare, partridge and other birds’.84
Other witnesses stated that the defendant had done such sacrilegious
things as
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
On the other hand, however, she also apparently indulged in such

innocent but eccentric activities as the following:
the defendant had spoken lovingly to a butterfly as big as a bat, saying

to it: Oh, angel of my soul, I wish I could be like you! And that she
had taken it up to her room and kept it with her in bed all night
long.86
Leaving aside the malicious intent inherent in the earlier accusa-

tions, and the question of their reliability, there are two statements in
Jusepa’s trial papers that are particularly relevant here, especially as they
contradict one another. According to the first of these,
the defendant had pretended to be mad and hence had gone to

the General Hospital in order to escape being arrested by the Holy
Office.87
According to the second, however, which was made by one of those in

charge of said hospital,
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
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).
undeniable magical power.12 As for healers, whatever their background

and qualifications,13 their privileged position as representatives of the
science of the day meant they could present themselves to their patients
as genuine wise men, the less scrupulous among them taking advan-
tage of this to promote their own personal interests.14 The astrologers
of the time were principally concerned with drawing up calendars, pre-
dictions and horoscopes to sell to their clients.15 Some of them were
also alchemists, although this aspect of their work, rather than bringing
material gain, gave only the hope of escaping poverty by means of that
never-fulfilled dream of transmuting base metals into gold.16 Execution-
ers, for their part, played a sizeable role in the business of magic – just as
clergymen had easy access to sacred objects, they came into direct con-
tact with death. Not only did this make them intermediaries between
the living and the dead, it enabled them to make money by selling
items connected with their profession (lengths of gallows rope, sheep’s
brains and so on – the latter because most were slaughtermen as well as
executioners).17
As far as women are concerned, the most frequently mentioned occu-
pations are those of prostitute18 and procuress,19 along with those of
maidservant and beggar.20 All in all, then, unlike the brand practised in
the countryside, urban magic often constituted a job in itself – a means
of survival or, at least, a way of trying to improve one’s standard of liv-
ing and escaping, if only temporarily, a relentless cycle of poverty. It is
worth remembering at this juncture that the vast majority of defendants
whose cases are dealt with in this book were immigrants to Aragon. Of
the 100 and 36 men and women whose life stories have been traced for
this book, only 30 were born in Saragossa.
This information is in itself pretty telling, but there are two addi-
tional factors to be borne in mind. Firstly, at least 10 of these 30
were tried because of their involvement with another person, some-
one born elsewhere but who had come to the city, settled there for a
while and successfully talked other residents into performing magical
ceremonies that would purportedly bring them wealth, be it by sum-
moning demons, practising alchemy or searching for hidden treasure.21
Secondly, a good number of the women tried for sorcery confessed to
being disciples or clients of other women most of whom, again, were
incomers. In fact it is impossible to draw a clear distinction between
professional sorceresses and their clients given that so-called ‘supersti-
tions’ were part of a common cultural background and that most of the
women prosecuted attempted to defend themselves in court by claiming
they had been deceived by a third party.
The immigrants to Aragon hailed from a variety of places but, as far

as male magic at least was concerned (being predominantly ‘learned’,
book-based and practised for money-making purposes), the most influ-
ential group, if not the most numerous, were those from neighbouring
France, who brought with them both printed and manuscript books of
magic (grimoires) with which to conjure demons, as well as a firm con-
viction that, thanks to the centuries-long presence of the Moors in Spain
(and specifically, after 1610, to the expulsion of the moriscos), there were
huge quantities of treasure beneath Iberian soil just waiting to be set free
from the spells that were keeping them hidden from human view.22 The
‘high’ magic practised by men and based to such a great extent on the
written word stood in stark contrast to the illiterate world of female
magic, the prime influence on which stemmed from the Mediterranean,
principally the Valencia area. In both cases, as we know from surviv-
ing trial documents, other cultures had an impact on Saragossan life
not only through the defendants themselves but also through other
individuals from the areas in question.23
The high proportion of immigrants among those brought to trial in
Saragossa could lead us to interpret the presence of what we have been
thinking of as ‘urban magic’ as ‘a slice of the countryside inside the city’,
in the sense that, as noted by Bernd Roeck,24 newcomers to cities tend to
congregate in certain areas where they then recreate their native culture
as closely as possible (hence the use in magical practices of herbs or other
typically rural elements, such as sieves or beans).25 Yet as Owen Davies
points out, adapting to urban life is in fact usually much easier and
quicker than it might seem at first sight, and familial or community ties
are soon replaced by other, new relationships.26 If many of the typical
allegations of witchcraft that arose in the rural world were a reflection
of the tensions bound to arise in isolated, self-enclosed communities,
establishing a new life in the city had its own difficulties and here
too, interpersonal frictions were commonly expressed in accusations of
sorcery.
Evidence of the mercantile nature of urban magic can be seen in
the abundance of references to a fundamentally monetary culture.27
These are ever-present in treasure-seeking activities, where the treasure
in question was often imagined to be buried ‘jars of money’28 or a hoard
of ‘enchanted coins’.29 There is also an obsession with base metal in
the desire of many alchemists to fabricate what they called ‘volatile
coin’,30 not to mention the much sought-after philosopher’s stone, four
ounces of which, some said, could transmute ‘16,000 ounces of sil-
ver into 16,000 of gold’.31 Many of the men tried in Saragossa were
gamblers, desperate to win at cards or dice. One of the commonest

ways of trying to increase one’s luck was to procure the intercession
of someone executed by hanging whose soul was therefore languishing
in hell. Gamblers were supposed to pray for this soul and carry with
them a length of the noose that had brought about the victim’s death.
They were also, however, advised to exchange coins with the hangman
himself, in a clear attempt to carry out a financial transaction with the
afterlife that would never have been sanctioned by any official religious
institution.32
Despite the widely accepted commonplace that only men practised
magic for lucrative ends (while women focused on the far less materi-
ally inclined love magic), a similar obsession with money raises its head
in most trials of women as well. A certain Ana Merino Pérez, who made
a voluntary confession to the Inquisition, told how a woman named
Magdalena had come to her house one day and sold her a valerian plant
to bring her good luck, and to make men give her money. Some time
later, when Ana’s luck had failed to change, another woman, Elena, see-
ing how she was suffering ‘because her husband had left her without
money’, told her she would give her ‘a remedy to make her husband
love her dearly and help her and send her money’ and so on.33 Simi-
larly, María Ángela Madruga had offered up a prayer ‘to make her lover
find her attractive and healthful and give her much money’.34
The established link between valerian plants and women’s hope of
increased economic stability – thanks to the men who would, in the-
ory, fall under their spell simply because they had such a thing in their
possession – is expressed not only in the tender loving care they were
advised to give the plants but also, and most importantly, in the symbols
of wealth that had to be buried among their roots (pearls, gold or silver
thread and, of course, coins).35 Another indirect way in which women
tried to achieve material gain was by using cards not to gamble and lay
bets, as men did, but to sit back passively and wait for the events foretold
by the different suits to come to pass.36 When it came to it, both men
and women quarrelled and betrayed one another over money. (We saw
in Chapter 2, for example, the incident of the ‘four ducats’37 owed to
the servant involved in the preparations for Father Joan Vicente’s magic
circle and the violent arguments this debt caused with one of his fellow
conspirators. Similarly, Catalina Aznar had demanded ‘two coins’38 from
another woman in payment for love charms and had been thrown out
of the latter’s house.)
The mercantile spirit of urban magic can also be seen, more subtly
perhaps, but no less tellingly, in the role played by the devil. We know
from testimony given at witchcraft trials that in the countryside Satan

was often thought to take the form of a wolf, he-goat or some sort
of fierce, wild man (with horns and cloven hoofs).39 Furthermore, his
dealings with the female defendants who, it was assumed, freely sur-
rendered themselves to him, basically consisted of a sexual encounter
(almost always anal: ‘nefarious intercourse’) which caused the alleged
witch pain.40 In the city, however, the devil almost always appears in
the form of domestic animals such as dogs or cats, or in the guise of an
attractive man. There are mentions of sexual encounters with some of
the women accused of sorcery, but they are less transgressive in nature
and would appear, on the whole, to have been pleasurable experiences.41
Perhaps the key difference is that in the country the devil, once a witch
had renounced God, seemed to materialize at will, whereas in the city
he had to be invoked or conjured by those who needed his help. Indeed
when sorceresses invoked demons they entered into a genuinely recipro-
cal barter arrangement: in exchange for the scraps of food, shoes or even
money the women offered, the spirits were supposed to perform the task
in question and bring aloof or indifferent lovers back home with them
as soon as possible.42 Crucial to the difference between the two types of
diabolical fantasy is the use of torture in extracting confessions. The hor-
rifying, animalistic vision of the devil, with whom sex had to be ‘dirty’,
degrading and unsatisfying, was essentially imposed by local judges in
their zeal to associate supposed witches with a pernicious, undesirable
being. By contrast, the testimony obtained without violence tells of a
far friendlier and more civilized vision of demons, whether they take
the form of attractive gentleman callers or domestic animals willing to
help out in any way necessary.43
Turning now to ‘magical’ times and spaces, in both urban and rural
areas night-time is of foremost importance, though it served a differ-
ent function in each. It was thought that the fantastical episodes so
closely bound up with rural witchcraft (metamorphoses, night flights
and the horrors that took place at sabbaths) could take place, and do
so unnoticed, because the devil induced such a deep sleep in any man
who slept with a woman believed to be a witch. For many witnesses,
these scenes actually unfolded in their own beds – their statements
allude, with varying degrees of awareness, to vivid and intense night-
mares in which various daytime conflicts were symbolically enacted.44
And it is worth recalling here that the prudent and sceptical stance
adopted by Saragossa’s bishops towards witchcraft – which they held
to be an imaginary, non-existent crime – was expressed in their asser-
tion that it was difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain the facts on
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
‘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
previously.56 Thereafter, as far as rural witchcraft was concerned, the

main preoccupation of Saragossa’s inquisitors was to spare the lives of
many women who would otherwise have ended up dead at the hands
of the secular judges in their home villages. The harshest sentences
applied by the tribunal involved exile or flogging, but the vast major-
ity of witchcraft trials brought before it were dismissed on the grounds
of insufficient evidence.
This radical change of stance, whose impact on both rural and urban
magic was felt across Aragon, stemmed from the famous gathering held
in Granada in 1526, after which the Supreme Council of the Inquisition
approved new directives that were to be enforced across the peninsula.57
Regrettably, it took some years more for these to be backed by other tri-
bunals, such as that of Barcelona, where in early 1549 the Inquisition
allowed seven alleged witches to be burned at the stake. So horrified
was the Suprema on hearing of these executions that, after the publi-
cation of Inquisitor Francisco Vaca’s report on the matter (‘one of the
most damning indictments of witch persecution ever recorded’, to quote
Henry Kamen), the Catalan Inquisition never executed another witch.58
Decades later again, as we saw in the previous chapter, in the mountains
of the Basque Country and Navarre, an area which fell under the remit
of the tribunal of Logroño, more than 50 people were tried for witchcraft
in 1609, 31 of them being sentenced to appear at the infamous auto de
fe that took place in Logroño the following year, although by then only
12 of the 31 were still alive.59 It was Inquisitor Alonso Salazar y Frías’s
intervention in the wake of this auto that led to the approval in 1614
of the guidelines that put a definitive end to the Spanish Inquisition’s
witch-hunt.60
In the area of urban magic too, it is notable that from 1537 onwards
the Saragossa tribunal displayed a far more benign attitude towards
those accused of sorcery and superstition, as expressed in its frequent
acquittals and stays of proceedings, or imposition of lenient penali-
ties such as fasting or prayer. When defendants came forward of their
own free will to declare their sins (after reading out an edict of faith or
their confessor’s admonition), they would be let off with a simple rep-
rimand. Furthermore, exceptional cases aside, the most serious penalty
imposed on clergymen involved in magic-related crimes was reclusion
to a monastery, where they had to do various kinds of penance, such
as occupying the humblest position in their community, eating only
bread and water one day a week (preferably Friday), being deprived of
both active and passive voice, and so on. In fact, as was also true of
other peninsular tribunals, such as those in the Canaries61 or Granada62 ,
where no one found guilty of sorcery is known to have been relaxed to

the secular arm of the law, the sternest punitive measures were floggings
and banishment from the inquisitorial district, along with galley service
for men involved in the most serious cases.
What is most striking, therefore, is that from the 1630s onwards we
need to think less in terms of the repression or punishment of magic,
and more about two constants that are highlighted time and again in
the trials of those accused of sorcery and superstition, revealing the
Inquisition’s true concerns. The first was the Holy Office’s gradual relin-
quishing of a belief in the heretical nature of magical acts, the second
its equating of magic, for all practical purposes, with fakery instead.
As noted in the chapter on treasure seeking, in the early sixteenth
century inquisitors had tended to emphasize the inherent role of the
demonic pact in any magical operation, making it a sin of idolatry
and, therefore, a grave insult to God. Over time, however, what had
been a cast-iron assumption began to ease into mere suspicion. For it
becomes increasingly evident that, as the sixteenth century gave way to
the seventeenth, instead of taking it for granted that superstitious acts
necessarily involved heresy, the inquisitors made every attempt to ver-
ify the extent to which those accused of sorcery were consciously using
magic as a weapon against religion, or whether they simply saw it as
one resource among many to achieve their aims and were genuinely
unaware of its heterodox nature.
Such attempts to substantiate the nature of defendants’ true inten-
tions can be seen in the so-called ‘question of credulity’ that appears
in the trial summaries. In effect, this consisted of a brief interrogation
that offered people the ideal opportunity to deny their guilt by the sim-
plest of means, in other words by declaring that whatever they might
have done, they had never, deep down, believed in the effectiveness of
their spells or charms, and that they had behaved the way they had
out of curiosity, fear, dire need of some kind or, more generally, basic
ignorance. So, for example, Father Diego de Fuertes, a prebendary at the
Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar, who was tried in 1653 for having used
consecrated objects in order to win at gambling,
when questioned as to what credence he had given to [the fact] that

by carrying with him the altar stone and rope from the gallows, over
which three Masses had been said, he would have success in gaming,
he said that he had always believed that the effect of winning would
not be obtained by carrying with him the stone nor the rope, nor that
it could have any power to this end, that it appeared only to him that
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
As noted by Kamen in his discussion of the cultural change that

took place in Spain after the Council of Trent, ‘Ignorance, rather than
heresy, was considered the principal enemy by the new generation of
reformers’.64 It was that ‘ignorance’ and the inquisitors’ recognition of
it as such which lay beneath their benign treatment of those held to be
superstitious but who defended themselves by denying that they had
acted in collaboration with the devil or, to put it another way, against
the fundamental tenets of Christianity. From the trial summary of Ana
Tamayo, a Murcian sorceress who had learned her arts from a Neapolitan
woman in Alicante and who was accused by 13 witnesses in Saragossa
of practising love magic using wax figures stuck with pins, ‘letters of
touch’, invocations to Barabbas, Satan, the Diablo Cojuelo and so on, we
know that
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.
According to the testimony of Isabel Francisca de la Mota (a 50-year-

old widow whose home attracted a considerable female clientele in
search of cures for their relationship problems), she did not know how
to read cards, burn aromatic substances in flasks or write letters, but had
pretended to be skilled in all these arts just to scratch out a living:
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
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
social behaviour but also a radically different way of thinking. The

key to this lies in the fact that, in the countryside, tensions and con-
flicts arise between individuals living in close proximity – almost always
between members of a single family. In rural environments (and partic-
ularly in small centres of population) a high level of competition and
hostility between relatives, close or otherwise, can provoke accusations
of witchcraft – these in turn lead to an immediate breakdown of rela-
tionships hitherto considered inviolable. In the city, however, conflicts
tend to diffuse more easily and, most importantly, to be more readily
verbalized and externalized.78
It seems, therefore, that the myth of witchcraft represents an attempt
to provide an ‘explanation’ or ‘language’ that would both channel and
alleviate all kinds of tension, as well as providing a way of interpreting
misfortune in its broadest sense. In urban areas, the original purpose
of this explanation gradually fades away because hostilities towards
and rivalries with strangers can be openly expressed. As Marc J. Swartz
notes, in cities no theoretical justification is needed to explain the end
of certain relationships (‘Social separation is a constant, expected and
accepted feature of city life’).79 Over time, therefore, those myths tradi-
tionally concerned with explaining the root cause of natural and social
calamities become less and less sacrosanct, as a gradual but irreversible
decontextualization, inextricably linked with the urban lifestyle, takes
place. According to Max Gluckman, witchcraft works as a moral theory
of the causes of adversity:80 ‘moral’, because witches are considered to
be wicked beings, and ‘causal’ because they are believed not to attack at
random but to direct their wickedness at people they have some reason
to hate (which is really a form of projection, since those who actu-
ally ‘hate’, whether consciously or not, are their accusers themselves).
Hence the fact that many country dwellers, when afflicted by some sort
of misfortune, look for its cause among their potential enemies.81
Accusations of witchcraft act as an indicator to the state of per-
sonal relationships within small communities, highlighting in particular
those grudges accumulated over generations that eventually tip over
into violence.82 Hostilities of this kind do not of course vanish when
people live in cities, but resentments tend not to take root so deeply
because emotions can be more easily expressed. In this respect it is
revealing that all the mentions of supposed witches in the documents
relating to early modern Saragossa are linked to incomers from else-
where, be they witnesses from outlying villages set on accusing women
who have fled from there to the city, or ‘foreign’ charlatans pass-
ing through and claiming to have discovered witches during their
stay. The archetypal witch83 continues to make the occasional appear-

ance, but comes from an alien world, with the result that accusations
gradually lose their original meaning and, as we shall see, turn into
straightforward insults.
The way in which the myth of witchcraft was transposed (devalued,
deconceptualized, even perhaps ‘profaned’) can be seen in the change
of meaning undergone by the word ‘witch’ itself. In the city, it stops
referring to individuals whose supernatural power makes them agents
of evil, coming instead to be no more than an offensive expression used
to slander or defame someone, almost always in an exclusively female
context. According to Brother Pedro Moliner, ‘a monk of the order of the
Most Holy Trinity’ and ‘professor of Holy Theology’ at the University of
Lérida, while he was staying in Saragossa,
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
or go by the chimney, as witches are commonly said to do’88 – this

was the most graphic way of denying her mother’s guilt, since flying
was a witch’s most defining characteristic. Nonetheless, she went on to
say, in her own defence but against her mother, that unlike Isabel, she
had never used the suspect ‘herb of joy’, only ever availing herself of
innocent valerian:
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
on the night of St John, and [ . . . ] a priest, when it struck midnight,

dressed in his finery, had to say a Mass backwards, and conjure the
seed so that the Devil did not take it away.91
Demonic consecrations of this sort, along with metamorphoses, flight

and attendance of the sabbath were part of everyday belief in the
Pyrenees, where the highest number of Aragon’s witch-hunts took
place,92 so it would hardly be surprising had Isabel, whose birthplace
is not given in the surviving documentation93 , emigrated to Saragossa
to escape her persecutors. Once she had settled in the city, her daugh-
ter had continued making use of her supposed knowledge of plants
and herbs, yet if there was one thing Gracia wanted to make clear in
her statement, it was that she, like so many of her fellow citizens in
seventeenth-century Saragossa, had moved on from the age-old belief
system of her mother’s generation.
Epilogue: In Times of Plague
One mischief always introduces another [ . . . ] and this folly

presently made the town swarm with a wicked generation of
pretenders to magic, to the black art [ . . . ] [I]nnumerable atten-
dants crowded about their doors every day [ . . . ] The Government
encouraged their devotion [ . . . ] and it is not to be expressed
with what alacrity the people [ . . . ] flocked to the churches and
meetings, and they were all so thronged that there was often no
coming near, no, not to the very doors of the largest churches.1
According to Daniel Defoe’s fictionalized account of the plague that

struck London in 1665, its citizens reacted to the epidemic in one of two
ways – they either turned to magic or sought solace in religion. As a man
of the Enlightenment, Defoe regarded this as a choice between oppos-
ing positions, since it was ‘the common people’ who followed ‘mock
astrologers’ while ‘serious and understanding persons thundered against
these and other wicked practices, and exposed the folly as well as the
wickedness of them altogether’. His narrator concludes that ‘those peo-
ple who were really serious and religious applied themselves in a truly
Christian manner to the proper work of repentance and humiliation as
a Christian people ought to do’.2
The testimony relating to the 1652 outbreak of bubonic plague in
Saragossa suggests, however, that these two reactions were by no means
mutually exclusive. In circumstances of both individual and collec-
tive desperation, magic represented a source of consolation that was
not incompatible with the religious faith enshrined in the worship
and other devotional practices promoted by the municipal authorities
as they sought to placate the wrath of God. Evidence of the popula-
tion’s diverse range of responses and the many and varied attempts
to combat an evil as relentless as it was unknowable (‘a mortal and
161
invisible enemy’, to quote Carlo M. Cipolla3 ) can be found in a report

written by surgeon José Estiche, who was one of those charged with
caring for the afflicted in the hospital of the Capuchin monastery in
Saragossa between the months of August and November of the year in
question.4
This document, written as an expression of gratitude once the danger
had passed, was published with a dedication to ‘the city of Saragossa
itself’, dubbed by Estiche a protector and ‘merciful mother’, since
because of the ‘devout and frequent petitions’ made by its people for the
‘Most Holy Virgin of the Pillar, St Roch, Blessed Physicans and the Innu-
merable Martyrs’ to intercede on their behalf, God had looked upon the
city ‘with merciful eyes’, preventing the plague from spreading further,
as it had elsewhere.5 This providentialist view of the epidemic, and of
the city, did not mean people had abandoned the search for concrete
solutions, which the surgeon labels ‘human remedies’ to distinguish
them from the ‘divine’ variety. Estiche therefore highlights not only the
‘exercises of devotion and penance’ performed to ‘placate God’ but also
the efforts made by the authorities to ‘purify’ the city, on various fronts,
as well as to place watchmen at its gates and provide enough hospital
beds to treat all those afflicted.6
Contrary to Defoe’s description of plague-ridden London, neither
Estiche’s report nor any other printed source related to the Saragossa
outbreak makes any mention of the activities of ‘pretenders to magic’ or
‘oracles of the devil’.7 Some of the evidence from inquisitorial trial sum-
maries, however, does reveal an undeniable link between the epidemic
and the belief in the power of magic both to attract misfortune and
to dispel it. With regard to the former, there is no information about
the persecution of scapegoats – people blamed for being behind the
outbreak – unlike in other cities, where some were accused of having
poisoned the water supply.8 Even so, as seen in the previous chapter,
one of the few inquisitorial allusions to the epidemic mentions a female
defendant who, having been led to the ‘washing place for those infected
with the plague’, was accused of being a witch and sorceress.9
One of the most widespread beliefs of the day was that whether
they acted voluntarily (deliberately plague-spreading by means of poi-
son) or involuntarily (in other words simply by being sinners), those to
blame for this kind of punishment sent by God were primarily to be
found among the poor and beggars, most of whom were foreigners – in
other words, among those social groups who had not integrated them-
selves into wider community life. One of the key ways of combating
the plague, therefore, was to expel all vagrants from the city, a move
aimed both at eliminating the squalor and lack of hygiene associated
Epilogue 163
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
also succeeded in cleansing it of the criminal poor, in whose

punishment divine justice also involves the innocent.11
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
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
It was hardly surprising that women became increasingly anxious about

their husbands and lovers during times of plague given that, according
to the medical theories of the day, one of the factors that aggravated
the disease (in addition to polluted air or water, rotten food, infected
clothing and heat) was sex.18 This commonly held belief dated back
centuries, one of its earliest known proponents being Plutarch, who
had advised men to conserve their semen during epidemics.19 As Jesús
Maiso González recalls, it was only men whose strength was thought
to be sapped during sex – women would not be affected in any way,
unless they were pregnant at the time. One of the key pieces of advice
doctors gave men, therefore, was to avoid intimate contact with their
lovers, and this in itself often led to increased tension between men
and women.20 According to Juan Tomás Porcell, a Sardinian physi-
cian who worked in Saragossa’s Hospital of Our Lady of Grace during
the 1564 epidemic and later wrote a treatise on the subject of the
plague,
because coitus cannot be achieved without a certain amount of move-

ment and effort, the which do heat the body and weaken one’s
Epilogue 165
nature, people must guard themselves against it as they must against

the plague itself. And let women not say what one such did here dur-
ing the plague, whose husband asked me what he should do, and
I told him, among other things, that he should go to his wife as
seldom as possible. And when he asked me how often he could lie
with his wife, I replied once a week, and that in the early hours of the
morning. And then his wife replied, if you want a greater plague than
this, doctor, go search for it, etc. I would expand at great length on
this, but because men do not believe physicians on this subject and
are so disordered in this matter of coitus, I shall say no more.21
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
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
Just visualizing the whereabouts of their absent husbands during the

epidemic was a comfort to some of these women. To this end, María
García would use ‘a white cloth and some candles’, with which she
cast apparition-like shadows. Nevertheless, her interpretations were not
always what people wanted to hear, and on occasion led to her being
denounced to the Inquisition, as indeed happened in 1656:
When a woman whose husband was absent desired to know whether

he was dead or alive, the defendant told her to give her a white cloth
and some candles and that she would tell her. And when she brought
her these things and wanted to remain with the defendant to see
how she did it, [the defendant] said she did not want her to remain,
that she would take fright because she had to summon demons. And
when she returned to the defendant’s house in the morning, she was
told that her husband was alive and ill and with a mistress in his bed.
And she showed her the white cloth all singed, apart from its four
corners, and two burned-down candle stubs. And she placed over her
face a square of fine silk and told her to look towards the wall where
the burned cloth was and tell her what she saw. And when she replied
that she could see nothing, the defendant gestured to the same place
and the witness saw two shadows of the size of a hand, one against
the other. And the defendant said this was her husband in bed with
his mistress.27
Although various witnesses accused the defendant of having summoned

demons, it should be borne in mind that as well as calling on evil spirits
Epilogue 167
(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
Similarly, other sorceresses who practised love magic would offer up

prayers to cure plague victims that were barely distinguishable from the
clergy-approved equivalents. As noted in the trial summary of Jerónima
Torrellas, this defendant had confessed to the Inquisition in 1654 that
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
Of particular interest, in that it involves the blending of magical and reli-

gious elements, is the case of Elena Sánchez, originally from Valencia,
who was exiled from Saragossa as a sorceress in 1654. One of her spe-
cialities was attracting men’s love and attention using various different
animals (donkey brains, bats and so on). On one occasion, for instance,
she had asked a woman who was in despair because her lover did not
want to talk to her, ‘to bring her a young pigeon and some earth from
a grave’. She then cut out the bird’s heart and stuck ‘four or five small
pins’ into it, giving it to the woman with the promise that her man
would change his mind. This kind of animal sacrifice, examples of which
abounded in the magic books of the day,30 coexisted quite happily in the
accused’s repertory alongside invocations to the crucified Christ as a way
of healing the sick, whether directly or by blessing their clothes. Various
witnesses reported how the defendant
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
As we have seen throughout this book, the use of various character-

istic aspects of Christian tradition (prayer, sacred objects) was key to
both rural and urban magic, the latter in particular. There was among
magical practitioners a shared assumption that certain elements were
inherently capable of working miracles at any time or place, regardless
of the intentions of the person using them.32 Leaving aside the nature of
such intentions, one of the principles upheld by the defenders of ortho-
doxy was that the central difference between true believers and those
held to be superstitious hinged on the latter group’s lack of faith in an
omniscient God who knew better than anyone what was right for each
individual man and woman. Putting one’s trust in Divine Providence
neessarily meant fully accepting the will of the Almighty, in any of his
manifestations, and relinquishing any other wish or desire.33 Neverthe-
less, the dividing line between Christian resignation and the search for
material or spiritual help to alleviate misfortune of any sort was by no
means clearly defined. This meant that in practice many sectors of the
clergy accepted a range of propitiatory rituals, including storm-calming
charms and frequent public services to pray for help in times of drought
or to be spared plagues of locusts, and so on.34 It was often no easy task
to determine where religion stopped and superstition began – in the
trickiest cases, it was left up to the Holy Office, the supreme authority
when it came to distinguishing between genuine faith and the falsity of
heresy, to reach a verdict.
Among the most notable devotional practices to take place in the
city during the 1652 epidemic were the processions to the Basilica of
Our Lady of the Pillar and the sanctuary of the Innumerable Martyrs –
those two central axes of worship in Baroque Saragossa – and the sil-
ver lanterns offered by the authorities to the Virgin of the Pillar, and to
St Sebastian and St Roch (San Roque), both of whom were patron saints
of plague victims.35 Then there were the private prayers said and rituals
Epilogue 169
performed at the tomb of the inquisitor Pedro Arbués, murdered in the

cathedral in 1485 and instantly thereafter raised to sainthood in the
minds of the people of Saragossa.36 The popularity of St Roch, mean-
while, had grown and grown between the fifteenth and seventeenth
centuries, overtaking that of St Sebastian,37 as is shown by an isolated
piece of testimoy from the trial of Elena Sánchez, who, having requested
a voluntary appearance before the inquisitors,
said that on one occasion she gave to Catalina de Luna a piece of

alabaster which looked like an altar stone, wrapped in a cross of
St Roch, one of those given out by the shod Augustinian friars at
the time of the plague, tied up with a golden thread, that the said
Catalina and her husband might have good fortune.38
There is no doubt that the mutual connections between the worlds

of magic and religion remained very much alive for a large propor-
tion of the population. Despite the progress made by the agents of
the Counter-Reformation towards educating many parishioners who in
the mid-sixteenth century would scarcely have distinguished their faith
from a set of formulas intended to protect against different kinds of
misfortune,39 at times of collective catastrophe, practicality and a syn-
cretic tendency again prevailed over all other considerations. This was
visible at all levels of society, as people everywhere sought out possi-
ble explanations and solutions or, when these were not to be found,
turned to forms of consolation in which the imagination played a
leading role.40
In conclusion, despite the abundance of legal documents that have
come down to us today, there undoubtedly remains much to be learned
about urban magic in early modern Saragossa. This book has depicted a
wide variety of conjurations and charms, invocations and spells, as well
as of methods employed to try and divine or influence the course of
future events. Some may seem exotic or extravagant to our eyes, but we
have to remember that such ways of expressing oneself were inextricably
linked to certain types of religious sentiment that represent an as yet
little-studied aspect of cultural history. Judicial dealings with so-called
superstitious practices unquestionably tell us much about the beliefs and
behaviour of a sizeable sector of the population, but there are still many
other sources to be explored, a wealth of information which will in the
future shed further light on the mental universe of the men and women
who have played the leading roles in these pages.
Notes
Prologue: Abracadabra Omnipotens

1. ‘Wherever there is religion there is magic, even though the magical stream
does not always follow the main channel of religion; similarly, wherever
there is magic there is religion, although it can be only one specific type
of religion.’ Gerardus van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation,
Princeton and New York, Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 468–469.
Quoted by permission of © Princeton University Press.
2. See Guillermo Fatás (ed.), Guía Histórico-Artística de Zaragoza, Saragossa,
Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza, 1982.
3. Writer Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola (1559–1613), for example, dedicated
a poem to the city in which he even compared it with Ancient Babylon.
4. See María Tausiet, ‘Zaragoza celeste y subterránea: Geografía mítica de una
ciudad (siglos XV–XVIII)’, in François Delpech (ed.) L’imaginaire du territoire
en Espagne et au Portugal (XVIe –XVIIe siècles), Madrid, Casa de Velázquez,
2008.
5. The coat of arms was not granted by the emperor Augustus (as certain
seventh-century panegyrists had it), but by Alfonso VII of Castile and León
(the lion rampant was the ensign of the kings of León) when he gained
‘imperial control’ of the city in 1134, taking advantage of the fact that the
people of Saragossa were unable to defend themselves against the Moorish
threat without outside help.
6. This enclosure was in the San Andrés parish and had a boundary fence that
enabled ‘those who went there to see and admire the said lion without dan-
ger’. In 1577, Brother Jorge Oliver wrote that in Saragossa ‘they have a lion,
representing the insignia or arms of that city, and that it was so valued by all
the people that when it died they greatly mourned its loss and kept its skin
in its memory’. See Ángel San Vicente, ‘El escudo de armas de Zaragoza’, in
Guillermo Fatás (ed.), op. cit., p. 42.
7. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Communist Manifesto, ch. 1, cited in Owen
Davies, ‘Urbanization and the decline of witchcraft: an examination of
London’, Journal of Social History, 30 (3), 1997, p. 597.
8. Sigmund Freud, Totem und Tabu. Einige Übereinstimmungen im Seelenleben
der Wilden und der Neurotiker, Vienna, Hugo Heller & Cie, 1913. (Eng.
transl. Totem and Taboo. Resemblances Between the Mental Lives of Savages and
Neurotics, trans. Abraham A. Brill, New York, Moffat Yard & Co., 1918.
9. See Randall Styers, Making Magic. Religion, Magic and Science in the Modern
World, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004, in particular Chapter 2, ‘Magic
and the Regulation of Piety’, pp. 69–119.
10. See E. M. Butler, The Myth of the Magus, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1948.
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.
1 The judicial backdrop: Saragossa and the three

justice systems
1. ‘Estatuto hecho a seys de Deziembre de mil quinientos ochenta y seys contra
las Brujas y Hechizeras’ [Statute of 6 December 1586 against Witches and
Sorceresses], in Recopilacion de los estatutos de la ciudad de Zaragoza por los
Señores Iurados, Capitol y Consejo, con poder de Concello General. Confirmados y
decretados el primero de Deziembre de 1635, Saragossa, Hospital Real y General
de Nuestra Señora de Gracia, 1635, p. 291.
2. See Ángel San Vicente Pino, ‘El escudo de armas de Zaragoza’, in Guillermo
Fatás (ed.), op. cit., pp. 35–44.
3. See Miguel Beltrán Lloris and Guillermo Fatás Cabeza, ‘César Augusta, ciudad
romana’, Historia de Zaragoza, vol. 2, Saragossa, Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza,
1998.
4. See José Luis Corral Lafuente, ‘Saragossa musulmana (714–1118)’, Historia de
Zaragoza, vol. 5, Saragossa, Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza, 1998.
5. See María Isabel Falcón Pérez, ‘Zaragoza en la Baja Edad Media (siglos
XIV–XV)’, Historia de Zaragoza, vol. 7, Saragossa, Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza,
1998.
6. See Antonio Domínguez Ortiz and Bernard Vicent, Historia de los moriscos.
Vida y tragedia de una minoría, Madrid, Ed. Alianza, 1985, p. 61.
7. See María Isabel Falcón Pérez, Zaragoza en el siglo XV. Morfología urbana,
huertas y término municipal, Saragossa, Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza & IFC,
1981.
8. See Eliseo Serrano Martín, ‘Zaragoza con los Austrias mayores (siglo XVI)’,
Historia de Zaragoza, vol. 8, Saragossa, Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza, 1998.
9. See Jesús Maiso González and Rosa María Blasco Martínez, Las estructuras de
Zaragoza en el primer tercio del siglo XVIII, Saragossa, IFC, 1984.
10. See Pablo Desportes Bielsa, ‘Entre mecánicos y honorables. La “élite popular”
en la Zaragoza del siglo XVII’, Revista de Historia Jerónimo Zurita, 75–2000,
Saragossa, IFC, 2002.
11. See José Antonio Salas Auséns, ‘Zaragoza en el siglo XVII’, Historia de
Zaragoza, vol. 9, Saragossa, Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza, 1998.
12. See Ángel San Vicente Pino, El oficio del Padre de Huérfanos en Zaragoza,
Universidad de Zaragoza, 1965. To quote Andrés Giménez Soler, Saragossa
was a ‘haven to all Spain’s outlaws, since the freedoms of Aragon devolved
not upon men but upon land’ (Andrés Giménez Soler, La Edad Media en la
Corona de Aragón, Madrid, Ed. Labor, 1930).
13. See Christine Langé, La inmigración francesa a Aragón en los siglos XVI y XVII,
Saragossa, IFC, 1994.
14. According to Henry Kamen, ‘the pruning of saints, and the corresponding
attempt to uproot superstitious practices connected with them, was by no
172 Notes
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
26. Constituciones Sinodales del Arzobispo de Zaragoza Juan Cebrian, Saragossa,

1656, fol. 141.
27. Registrum epistolarium missarum et acceptarum a capitulo sedis cesaraugustane
insigni (Collection of letters from 1567–1580), no folio number. Letter dated
23-X-1576.
28. These were trials (whose documentation is housed in Saragossa’s Diocesan
Archive [ADZ]) brought by the city’s archbishop against the following:
Joanna Polo in 1561 (ADZ, C. 1–41), María Sánchez in 1574 (ADZ, C. 1–7),
Gostanza Rossa in 1581 (ADZ, C. 27–35), Jerónima Fernández in 1581 (ADZ,
C. 28–15), Juan Blanc in 1584 (ADZ, C. 26–3), Pedro de Salanova in 1591
(ADZ, C. 37–20), María Rodríguez in 1604 (ADZ, C. 23–13) and Isabel
Gombal in 1605 (ADZ, C. 44–27).
29. Record of the trial of María Sánchez (Saragossa, 1574), ADZ, C. 1–7, fol. 8.
30. Record of the trial of Pedro de Salanova (Saragossa, 1591), ADZ, C. 37–20,
fols. 3–4.
31. Ibid., fol. 15v.
32. Record of the trial of Gostanza Rossa (Saragossa, 1581), ADZ, C. 27–35,
fol. 5v.
33. Ibid., fol. 45r.
35. ‘Relación de causa contra Isabel Gombal’ (1597), in Zaragoza. Relacion de
causas de fee desde el año de 1597 hasta el de 1608. Archivo Histórico Nacional
(AHN). Sección Inquisición (Inq.). Libro (Lib.) 990, fol. 15.
36. Record of the trial of Isabel Gombal (Saragossa, 1605), ADZ, C. 44–27, fol. 11.
37. Ibid., fol. 13.
38. Ibid., fol. 20.
39. The records of these six trials are currently housed in Saragossa’s Archivo
Histórico Provincial (AHPZ). They are those of Tomás Bonifant, a military
scout and innkeeper from Huesca accused of blasphemy, but also of ‘taking
the Devil as his master’ (Saragossa, 1509, AHPZ, leg. 28–1); Pedro Bernardo, a
Florentine merchant accused of sorcery and necromancy (Saragossa, 1510,
AHPZ, leg. 28–5); Juan Vicente, a French priest accused of necromancy
(Saragossa, 1511, AHPZ, leg. 28–7); Catalina Aznar, a sorceress specializing in
love magic (Saragossa, 1511, AHPZ, leg. 28–6); Agustina, a young girl accused
of practising love magic at the instigation of an old midwife (Saragossa, 1646,
AHPZ, leg. 125–9); and Catalina Baeza, also accused of being a sorceress and
using love magic (Saragossa, 1648, AHPZ, leg. 124–20).
40. Another source of information about those Saragossa residents brought to
trial for practising magic (in addition to the six surviving trials which also
provide the names of various alleged accomplices who were also tried,
although their records have since disappeared) as well as about the famous
inquisitorial trial summaries (relaciones de causa) is the document known as
the Green Book of Aragon (‘a record of infamy’, to quote Baltasar Gracián). This
consisted of a carefully compiled genealogy of Aragon’s principal converso
families and was of great use to the inquisitorial judges. It contains a men-
tion of four more Saragossans tried for witchcraft or sorcery between 1498
and 1537: Gracia la Valle, Miguel Sánchez, Martín de Soria and Joan Omella.
See Isidro de las Cagigas (ed.), Libro Verde de Aragón, Madrid, Compañía
Iberoamericana de Publicaciones, 1929, pp. 119–130. It is impossible to put
174 Notes
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’.
2 Magic circles and enchanted treasures

1. Relación de causa of Brother Pedro Moliner (Saragossa, 1641), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 992, fols. 611v.–612r.
2. Relación de causa of Agustín Sanz (Saragossa, 1631), AHN, Inq., Lib. 992,
fols. 104v.–105r.
3. See Jean-Michel Sallmann, Chercheurs de trésors et jeteuses de sorts. La quête
du surnaturel à Naples au XVI e siècle, Paris, Aubier, 1986, and Alberto
Serrano Dolader, Tesoros ocultos y riquezas imaginarias de Zaragoza, Saragossa,
Diputación Provincial de Zaragoza, 2002.
Notes 175
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
making it a symbol of divinity (a quality to which Satan aspires); sec-

ondly, ‘the circle, with no angles, is opposed by the cross, a most angular
shape [ . . . ] greatly abhorred [by the Devil] who therefore loves the contrary
figure. In fact, in magic seals you will find the cross surrounded by a circle,
as if held captive.’ (Martín del Río, ‘Libro II de las Disquisiciones Mágicas’,
in Jesús Moya (ed.), La magia demoníaca, Madrid, Ed. Hiperión, 1991,
p. 192.
16. The manuscript in question is Le secret des secrets, autrement la clavicule
de Salomon, ou le véritable grimoire. MS 2350, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal,
Paris; English quotation taken from The Key of Solomon the King (Clavicula
Salomonis) ed. and trans. S.L. MacGregor Mathers, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 2012, p. 13.
17. El Libro Magno de San Cipriano, op. cit., pp. 229–230.
18. Ibid., pp. 217–218.
19. Ibid., pp. 219–229.
20. Of the many sorcery trials brought by Saragossa’s inquisitorial tribunal in
early modern times, the records relating to only 12 survive, four of which
are focused on ceremonial magic. Nevertheless, references in these 12 cases
to other individuals found guilty of the same crime, as well as those con-
tained in trial summaries (relaciones de causa), show the extent of such
practices from the late fifteenth century onwards.
21. It should be noted that a substantial proportion of the men tried in Aragon
for sorcery or necromancy were originally from southern France, and from
the regions of the Béarn and Gascony in particular, which is where, accord-
ing to some scholars, the first mention of the sabbath appeared, in a
number of witchcraft trials of the mid-fourteenth century. It was also in
fourteenth-century France that the demonic pact was first defined: in 1398,
the University of Paris stated that there was an implicit pact ‘in all super-
stitious practices whose result cannot reasonably be expected from God or
from Nature’. It is therefore no coincidence that the term most commonly
used in Aragon to refer to a book of magic, grimorio, derives from the French
grimoire. (See Christian Desplat, Sorcières et diables en Gascogne (fin XIV e –
début XIXe siècle), Toulouse, Ed. Cairn, 2001.)
22. Record of the trial of Joan Vicente (Saragossa, 1511), AHPZ, C. 28–7, fol. 71v.
23. Ibid., fols. 63 and 39.
24. ‘Joan Vicente, beneficed priest of San Pablo, necromancer, fugitive, relaxed
in effigy on 19 March 1511’ and ‘Miguel Sanchez del Romeral, notary,
resident of Saragossa, heretic, fugitive, necromancer, relaxed in effigy on
16 June 1511’, both listed in the ‘Memorial of those burned at the stake up
to the year 1574 in the Inquisition of the residents of this city of Saragossa’,
in Isidro de las Cagigas, op. cit., pp. 125 and 131.
25. Record of the trial of Joan Vicente (Saragossa, 1511), AHPZ, C. 28–7,
fols. 67v.–68.
26. As well its symbolic links with purity, there was a scientific basis for the use
of parchment made from the skins of young animals. The highest-quality
parchment, vellum (deriving from the Latin vitelus, calf), is prepared from
the skins of young or newborn calves. Its principal quality is that it holds
ink or paint well and allows the original colours to be better preserved,
which is why the most beautiful miniatures were painted on vellum.
Notes 177
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.
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.)
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
64. According to mythological traditions about dwarfs, gnomes, elves, gob-

lins or imps (trasgos), as they were known in the Iberian Peninsula, such
creatures lived underground, had deformed bodies and were mischievous
and unpredictable. See Antonio de Fuentelapeña, El ente dilucidado, Madrid,
1676; Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, ‘Duendes y espíritus familiares’, in Obras com-
pletas, Madrid, BAE, vol. 56, pp. 111–112, and Francisco Flores Arroyuelo,
‘Duendes y tesoros encantados’ in El Diablo en España, Madrid, Ed. Alianza,
1985, pp. 231–273.
65. The term ‘giant’ did not always have size implications, and there were
also traditional tales of huge dwarfs. See Louis Charpentier, Los gigantes,
Barcelona, Ed. Plaza & Janés, 1976; Claude Lecouteux, Demonios y genios
comarcales en la Edad Media, Madrid, Ed. José J. de Olañeta, 1995, and
François Delpech, ‘Rite, légende, mythe et societé: fondations et fonda-
teurs dans la tradition folklorique de la péninsule ibérique’, Medieval folklore
(1991), pp. 10–56.
66. One of the key strands in the Polish Count Jan Potocki’s novel The
Manuscript Found in Saragossa (1813) is the idea that the Moors had
created a hidden underground domain after their expulsion from the
peninsula. Central to the novel are the complementary stories of two
men: one very young, who on entering adulthood has to face a disturb-
ing universe, the other a 40-year-old who, feeling himself old, weak and
burdened with responsibilities, hopes to find an heir. The young man,
Alphonse van Worden, has to undergo a series of initiation tests (he
wakes up among rotting corpses, has to keep a secret which is gradually
revealed to him, travels into the depths of the earth to dig for gold, and
so on). All of these have been designed by the older man, the Sheikh
of the Gomélez, ruler of a subterranean society which has spent cen-
turies preparing to come out into the light and impose the true religion,
although his plans are ultimately thwarted. (See Jan Potocki, The Manu-
script Found in Saragossa, trans. Ian Maclean, London, Penguin Classics,
1996.)
67. See Vicente Risco, ‘Los tesoros legendarios de Galicia’, in Revista de Dialec-
tología y Tradiciones Populares, tomo VI, 1950, pp. 1–55; Álvaro Cunqueiro,
op. cit., and François Delpech, ‘Libros y tesoros en la cultura española
del Siglo de Oro. Aspectos de una contaminación simbólica’, in Javier
Guijarro Ceballos (ed.), El escrito en el Siglo de Oro. Prácticas y representaciones,
Salamanca, Ed. Universidad de Salamanca, 1998, pp. 95–109.
68. AHN, Inq., Lib. 992, fols. 95v. and 97v. The Cardinal whose miraculous
relic Gama y Vasconcellos hoped would lend its magical powers to his cause
was the Italian Jesuit Roberto Bellarmino (1542–1621), one of Catholicism’s
most significant champions during the Counter-Reformation. He was can-
onized and named a Doctor of the Church in the twentieth century.
Although he was elevated to the college of cardinals and appointed bishop
(against his personal wishes), Bellarmino continued to lead a life of extreme
austerity, a fact that added greatly to his popularity and led to his being
revered as a saint in his own time.
70. Ibid., fols. 97v.–98v.
71. Ibid., fol. 100r.
180 Notes
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.).
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.
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
95. AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fol. 371r. and v.

96. Ibid., fol. 368.
97. Ibid., fol. 160.
98. AHN, Inq., Lib. 992, fol. 614v.
99. Ibid., fols. 605r. and 607v.
100. Ibid., fol. 608r.
101. Ibid., fol. 607r.
102. Ibid., fol. 608v.
103. Ibid., fol. 607v.
104. Ibid., fol. 605r. Author’s italics.
105. Ibid., fols. 605v–606r.
107. As late as the mid-eighteenth century, Brother Benito Jerónimo Feijoo was
writing against the belief in familiar demons and ‘the futile and perni-
cious insistence on searching for hidden treasures’. See the second of his
Cartas eruditas y curiosas, vol. III, Madrid, Herederos de Francisco del Hierro,
1742–1760, pp. 11–22.
108. See Eloy Benito Ruano, ‘Búsqueda de tesoros en la España medieval’, in
Studi in memoria di Federigo Melis, vol. III, Naples, Giannini, 1978.
109. See Pedro Ciruelo, op. cit., p. 71.
110. Ibid., p. 72.
111. See Eloy Benito Ruano, op. cit., pp. 185–189.
112. ‘Treasure has to be long desired and long dreamed of. [ . . . ] It is easier to
find a treasure that closely resembles one once seen in a dream, and when
the treasure appears, he who finds it believes he is still dreaming. There
have therefore been cases of men finding treasure and leaving it where it
lay, because they believed the treasure before their eyes was but a dream,
that it was air and not gold.’ (See Álvaro Cunqueiro, op. cit., p. 45.)
113. Cervantes alludes to this in Don Quixote as justification for the knight
errant’s poverty and fidelity to his lady. (‘It is very likely that Altisidora
loved me well; she presented me, as thou knowest, with three night-
caps; she wept and took on when I went away [ . . . ] It was not in my
power to give her any hopes, nor had I any costly present to bestow
on her; for all I have reserved is for Dulcinea; and the treasures of a
knight errant are but fairy-gold, and a delusive good.’ Miguel de Cervantes,
Don Quixote, trans. Peter Motteux [1700/1712], Ware, Wordsworth,
1993, p. 726.
114. See, for example, Sebastián de Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o
española [1611], Barcelona, Ed. Altafulla, 1993, pp. 302 and 407.
115. Sebastián de Covarrubias, op. cit., pp. 19–20. Covarrubias was drawing a
comparison between the treasure seekers’ task and his own work as a lexi-
cologist, for which he had had to ‘do battle’ with the ‘monsters’ of foreign
languages as he sought definitions for Spanish words; he also wrote of his
fear that all this work would be in vain because ‘the tongues of gainsay-
ers and malcontents’ would try and turn his ‘treasure’ into coal. See also
François Delpech, ‘Libros y tesoros . . .’, op. cit., p. 101.
116. AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fol. 399r.
117. Ibid., fol. 399v.
118. See Álvaro Cunqueiro, op. cit., p. 26.
182 Notes
3 Magic for love or subjugation

1. Miguel de Cervantes, El licenciado Vidriera, in Novelas Ejemplares (1613),
Madrid, Castalia, 1982, pp. 115–116 (my own translation).
2. Relación de causa of Jorge Núñez Pineyro (Saragossa, 1636). AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 992, fol. 233r.
3. Juan de Mena, in his Laberinto de Fortuna (Labyrinth of Fortune, 1444), uses
the example of two Roman women executed for poisoning their spouses to
serve as a dire warning to all husbands about the dangers of love magic:
‘The women Licinia and Publicia / were giving their husbands, / to the dis-
honour of their line, / fatal potions made with poisonous herbs; / for once
is lost that noble chastity, / which is a necessary virtue in woman, / such
fury grows, such hatred is sown, / that she holds her husband in enmity. /
Therefore you, o husbands, / should ever suspicion take hold within you, /
let your right hand rest idle, / and let it not be known that you know; / but
apply your own remedy first / before the circumstances cause you sor-
row; / fight great cunning with greater, / since forewarned is forearmed.’
See Maxim Kerkhof (ed.), Juan de Mena, Laberinto de Fortuna, Madrid, Ed.
Castalia, 1995, pp. 172–173.
4. See René Nelli, L’Érotique des Troubadours, Toulouse, Édouard Privat,
1963.
5. The first known edition, in 16 acts and dubbed a Comedia, was printed in
Burgos in 1499. The Comedia was soon turned into a Tragicomedia in 21 acts
and was published in Seville in 1501.
6. See Fernando de Rojas, La Celestina, Madrid, Austral, 1977, p. 22.
7. See Otis H. Green, ‘Amor cortés y moral cristiana en la trama de La
Celestina’, in Alan Deyermond (ed.), Historia y crítica de la literatura española,
vol. I, Spanish trans. Carlos Pujol, Barcelona, Crítica, 1979, p. 507. (A partial
reproduction of Otis H. Green, Spain and the Western Tradition. The Castilian
Mind in Literature from El Cid to Calderon, University of Wisconsin Press,
Madison, 1963, pp. 112–119, specifically p. 115.)
8. On magic in La Celestina, see Peter E. Russell, ‘La magia de Celestina’,
in Francisco Rico (ed.), op. cit., pp. 508–512; Francisco Rico, ‘Brujería y
literatura’, in Brujología. Congreso de San Sebastián. Ponencias y comunica-
ciones, Madrid, Seminarios y Ediciones, 1975, pp. 97–117; Patrizia Botta, ‘La
magia en La Celestina’, Dicenda: Cuadernos de filología hispánica, 12, 1994,
pp. 37–67; Olga Lucía Valbuena ‘Sorceresses, Love Magic, and the Inqui-
sition of Linguistic Sorcery in Celestina’, PMLA, 109, 1994, pp. 207–224;
Anthony J. Cárdenas-Rotunno, ‘Rojas’ Celestina and Claudina: In Search of
a Witch’, Hispanic Review, 69, 2001, pp. 277–297 and, in particular, Dorothy
Sherman Severin, Witchcraft in ‘La Celestina’, Department of Hispanic
Studies, Queen Mary and Westfield College, London, 1995.
9. In fact, according to the spell cast by Celestina, Pluto is invoked as ‘Lord
of the infernal depths, emperor of the accursed court, sovereign captain of
the condemned angels, lord of the sulphurous fires that erupt from Etna’s
boiling core, governor and overseer of torment and the tormentors of sinful
souls’ and so on. (See Fernando de Rojas, op. cit., p. 45).
10. Fernando de Rojas, op. cit., p. 45.
11. Ibid., p. 90.
Notes 183
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.
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
inciting people to lustful behaviour. See M. F. Wack, Lovesickness in the

Middle Ages: The Viaticum and its Commentaries, Philadelphia, University
of Pennsylvania, 1990; D. Beecher, ‘The Essentials of Erotic Melancholy’,
in K. Bartlett, K. Eisenbichler and J. Liedl (eds.), Love and Death in the
Renaissance, Ottawa, Dovehouse, 1991; D. Beecher, ‘L’amour et le corps:
les maladies érotiques et la pathologie à la Renaissance’ in J. Céard, M. M.
Fontaine and J.-C. Margolin (eds.), Le corps à la Renaissance, Paris, Amateurs
de Livres, 1990.
47. See Linda Phyllis Austern, ‘Musical Treatments for Lovesickness: The Early
Modern Heritage’, in Peregrine Horden (ed.), Music as Medicine. The History
of Music Therapy since Antiquity, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2000, pp. 213–245.
48. There was a growing tendency in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
to medicalize love within the concept of ‘erotic melancholia’, as can be seen
in many treatises of the day, such as those of Jacques Ferrand (De la mal-
adie d’amour ou mélancolie érotique. Discours curieux qui enseigne à connaître ce
mal fantastique, Paris, 1623); Luis Mercado (Opera omnia, Valladolid, 1604,
vols. 3–4, p. 102), Alonso de Santa Cruz (Dignotio et cura afectuum melan-
cholicorum, Madrid, 1622),Tomás Murillo y Velarde (Aprobación de ingenios
y curacion de hipochondricos, Saragossa, 1672), and so on. See also Christine
Orobitg, L’humeur noire. Mélancolie, écriture et pensée en Espagne au XVIe et au
XVIIe siècle, Bethesda, International Scholars Publications, 1997.
49. One chapter of Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough is devoted to the subject
of the transference of evil and states, among other things, that ‘The notion
that we can transfer our guilt and sufferings to some other being who will
bear them for us is familiar to the savage mind’. As well as citing examples
testifying to the existence of this belief among various primitive peoples,
he also refers to a European case dating from the late sixteenth century:
‘In 1590 a Scotch witch [ . . . ] was convicted of curing a certain Robert Kers
of a disease “laid upon him by a westland warlock when he was at Dumfries,
whilk sickness she took upon herself, and kept the same with great groaning
and torment till the morn, at whilk time there was a gret din heard in the
house.” The noise was made by the witch in her efforts to shift the disease,
by means of clothes, from herself to a cat or dog.’ (See Sir James Frazer, The
Golden Bough. A Study in Magic and Religion, Ware, Wordsworth Editions Ltd,
1993, pp. 539 and 542).
50. We know that several of the sorceresses of Saragossa attempted to cure
people by transferring their illnesses to animals. Several witnesses at the
inquisitorial trial of Elena Sánchez said that ‘on two occasions she did
advise that, to be cured, those sick people who said they had been
bewitched should take some mouthfuls of bread and chew them furiously
then, holding them in their hands, say an Our Father and an Ave Maria,
and while they were praying should kiss the bread three times and then
place it on their stomachs one night [ . . . ]. And in the morning they should
remove it and give it to a dog to eat, and the dog would die.’ (AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 995, fol. 289r.)
51. See Sebastián Cirac Estopañán, op. cit., p. 122.
52. Ibid., p. 112.
53. Ibid., p. 129.
54. AHN, Inq., Lib. 995, fol. 410v.
186 Notes
55. Ibid., fol. 454r.

56. Ibid., fol. 451v.
57. Ibid., fol. 454r.
58. Relación de causa of Jerónima de Torres (Saragossa, 1651), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 994, fols. 433v. and 434r.
59. See ‘That Old Black Magic Called Love’ in Guido Ruggiero, Binding Passions.
Tales of Marriage, and Power at the End of the Renaissance, New York & Oxford,
Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 108.
60. See Francisco Bethencourt, O Imaginário Da Magia. Feiticeiras, Saludadores e
Nigromantes no Século XVI, Lisbon, Universidade Aberta, 1987, p. 113.
61. See Noemí Quezada, Sexualidad, Amor y Erotismo . . ., op. cit.
62. See Noemí Quezada, Amor y Magia amorosa entre los Aztecas . . ., op. cit., p. 81.
63. See Sebastián Cirac Estopañán, op. cit., pp. 49–52.
64. Relación de causa of Felicia Figueras (Saragossa, 1654), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995,
fol. 451v.
65. Relación de causa of Gracia Andreu (Saragossa, 1654), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995,
fols. 453 and 458.
66. See María Tausiet, Ponzoña en los ojos . . ., op. cit. pp. 507–538.
67. Guido Ruggiero, op. cit., p. 98.
68. Ibid., p. 112.
69. Ibid., pp. 110 and 124.
70. For more on the links between valerian and love magic, see Rafael Martín
Soto, op. cit., p. 219.
71. Relación de causa of Isabel Francisca de Mota (Saragossa, 1665), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 997, fol. 477r.
72. Relación de causa of Felicia Figueras (Saragossa, 1654), AHN, Inq. Lib. 995,
fol. 448r.
73. Ibid., fol. 450v.
74. Francisco Bethencourt, op. cit., p. 111.
75. Relación de causa of Isabel Francisca de la Mota (Saragossa, 1665), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 995, fol. 470v.
76. See María Tausiet, Ponzoña en los ojos . . ., op. cit., pp. 511–514.
77. Véase François Delpech, ‘ “Camino del infierno tanto anda el cojo como el
viento.” Monosandalisme et magie d’amour’, in A. Molinié and J.P. Duviols
(eds.), Enfers et Damnations dans le monde hispanique et hispano-americain,
Paris, La Découverte, 1987, pp. 294–315.
78. See María Tausiet, Ponzoña en los ojos . . ., op. cit., pp. 514–522.
79. According to the widespread belief in the so-called law of contact or conta-
gion, ‘things which have once been conjoined must remain ever afterwards,
even when quite dissevered from each other, in such a sympathetic relation
that whatever is done to the one must similarly affect the other.’ (See Sir
James Frazer, op. cit. p37.)
80. Record of the trial of Catalina Aznar (Saragossa, 1511), AHPZ, C. 28–6,
fol. 13.
81. Ibid., fols. 19v.–20.
82. Ibid., fol. 19.
83. AHN, Inq., Lib. 991, fol. 89v.
fols. 454v. and 455r.
Notes 187
85. AHN, Inq., Lib. 989, fol. 212v.

fol. 444v.
87. Relación de causa of Carlos de Federicis (Saragossa, 1690), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 998, fol. 334r. Béarnais man Pedro de Pedinal confessed in similar fash-
ion to Saragossa’s inquisitors that ‘desiring greatly to have a woman’, he
took the advice of those who told him that ‘all he needed to do was anoint
an apple with the man’s semen and give it to the woman in question
to eat’, an experiment which he admitted to having carried out ‘on nine
occasions [ . . . ] but never with any effect’. (AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fol. 217).
88. Relación de causa of Antonio Poyanos (Saragossa, 1692), AHN, Inq., Lib. 998,
fol. 368.
89. Relación de causa of Jorge Núñez Pineiro (Saragossa, 1636), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 992, fol. 232v.
90. Relación de causa of Miguel Melchor Aguado (Saragossa, 1651), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 994, fol. 432.
91. A witness who appeared at Catalina Aznar’s trial recounted how once, at an
inn in Saragossa, she had seen ‘performing the experiment of the sieve for
a woman named Joana, wife of a bookseller [ . . . ] and the present witness
had performed it three times’. (ADZ, C. 28–6, fol. 45). Divination by the
turning of a sieve, or coscinomancy, is one of the most widespread such
practices, common since the Middle Ages and still in use today.
fol. 447v.
93. Relación de causa of Isabel Teresa Castañar (Saragossa, 1682), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 997, fol. 320v.
Lib. 997, fol. 472.
95. See Guido Ruggiero, op. cit., pp. 99–103. For more on cartas de toque, see also
Sebastián Cirac Estopañán, op. cit., p. 156 and José Pedro Paiva, Práticas e
crenças mágicas. O medo e a necessidades dos mágicos na diocese de Coimbra
(1650–1740), Coimbra, Minerva, 1992, pp. 150–151.
Lib. 997, fol. 475.
97. An example of such a prayer, in this case mentioning St John, comes from
the trial summary of Jorge Piñeiro, from which we learn that ‘when in the
presence of the woman he desired, he said on some occasions: So-and-so
(naming the said woman by name), Our Lady has sent me to you that you
may love me of your free will as Our Lord Jesus Christ loved the blessed St
John. God lives, God reigns, since he achieves that which he desires, thus
may I have all I desire with you.’ (AHN, Inq., Lib. 992, fols. 232v–233.)
98. See Guido Ruggiero, op. cit., p. 106, and François Delpech, ‘Système éro-
tique et mythologie folklorique dans les “Conjuros amatorios” (XVIe-XVIIe
siècles)’, in Augustin Redondo (ed.), Amour légitimes, amours illégitimes en
Espagne (XVIe–XVIIe siècles), Paris, La Sorbonne, 1985, p. 219.
99. AHN, Inq., Lib. 989, fol. 214. Other mentions of Christ also make reference
to the incarnation (‘may your love be bound to me as was Our Lord Jesus
Christ in the womb of the Virgin Mary’) or to episodes from the Passion, for
example ‘may all so-and-so’s limbs and senses be bound just as Jesus Christ
188 Notes
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.
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.
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
118. Francisco Fajardo Spínola, op. cit., p. 164.

119. See François Delpech, ‘En torno al diablo cojuelo: demonología y folklore’,
in María Tausiet and James S. Amelang (eds.), El diablo en la Edad Moderna,
Madrid, Marcial Pons, 2004.
120. As also mentioned in Sebastián Cirac Estopañán, op. cit., p. 149.
121. Relación de causa of Ana María Torrero (Saragossa, 1636), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 992, fol. 229.
122. Ibid., fol. 230.
123. See François Delpech, ‘Camino del infierno . . .’, op. cit. and María Tausiet,
Ponzoña en los ojos . . ., op. cit., pp. 264–265.
124. Relación de causa of Ana de Yuso (Saragossa, 1585), AHN, Inq., Lib. 989,
fol. 211v.
125. See Ana Labarta, Libro de dichos maravillosos (Misceláneo morisco de magia y
adivinación), Madrid, CSIC, 1993.
126. See Yvette Cardaillac-Hermosilla, La magie en Espagne: morisques et vieux
chrétiens aux XVIème et XVIIème siècles, Zaghouan (Tunisia), Fondation
Temimi pour la Récherche Scientifique et l’Information, 1996.
127. Relación de causa of Cándida Gombal (Saragossa, 1597), AHN, Inq., Lib. 990,
fol. 13v.
128. ‘The said Isabel Gombal [ . . . ] told him [ . . . ] to say: this I offer to Barabbas,
and another to Beelzebub, another to Satan, another to the devil and she-
devil, and another to all the demons’. Record of the trial of Isabel Gombal
(Saragossa, 1605), ADZ, C. 45–27, fol. 66v.
129. One woman who was a witness at the trial of Cándida Gombal stated that,
having consulted the defendant as to ‘how to marry an absent man’, she
had been advised ‘to go one night to the Ebro bridge with three pieces of
bread and give them to the first dog she met, without mentioning on the
way there or back either Jesus, Mary or any saint’.
fol. 212.
131. Relación de causa of Ana Ruiz (Saragossa, 1603), AHN, Inq., Lib. 990, fol. 208.
132. See María Tausiet, ‘Gritos del Más Allá: la defensa del purgatorio en
la Contrarreforma española’, Hispania Sacra, vol. LVII, no 115 (2005),
pp. 81–108.
133. Feliciano de Sevilla, Racional campana de fuego que toca a que acudan todos los
fieles con agua de sufragios a mitigar el incendio del Purgatorio, en que se queman
vivas las benditas animas que alli penan, Cadiz, 1704, p. 33.
134. José Pavía, Rescate piadoso y libertad gloriosa de las almas del Purgatorio. Obra
que socorre a los muertos y no menos ayuda a los vivos, Valencia, 1666, p. 208.
135. Relación de causa of Jerónima Torrellas (Saragossa, 1654), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 995, fol. 285v.
136. Relación de causa of María García (Saragossa, 1655), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995,
fol. 442.
137. A Portuguese version of this belief is cited by Francisco Bethencourt, op. cit.,
p. 78 (‘As it grew dark, and to the first star she saw in the sky, she would say,
o most forsaken soul, you who are in the fire of purgatory without father
or mother, without brother or sister, and without godfather or godmother,
without godson or goddaughter, one gift do I wish to beg of you, another
do I wish to promise you.’) As for so-called ‘star charms’, they were also very
190 Notes
common in the region of Castilla la Nueva, as reflected by Sebastián Cirac

Estopañán (op. cit., pp. 106–112). See also Julio Caro Baroja, Vidas mágicas
e Inquisición, op. cit., p. 106 and François Delpech, ‘Système erotique . . .’,
p. 220.
138. According to various seventeenth-century Spanish treatise-writers, purga-
tory was ‘a part and the privy of hell’ so that ‘a single fire torments
the damned and purges and cleanses the chosen ones’. (See Dimas Serpi,
Tratado de purgatorio contra Lutero y otros hereges . . ., Barcelona, 1604, p. 63
and Felipe de la Cruz, ‘Tratado de purgatorio’, in Tesoro de la Iglesia . . .,
Madrid, 1631, p. 164.)
139. See Sebastián Cirac Estopañán, op. cit., pp. 132–134 and Francisco Fajardo
Spínola, op. cit., pp. 167–169.
fol. 459.
141. ‘She would say the prayer of the lonely soul [ . . . ] and if the soul replied that
she had not prayed long enough, she would say a longer prayer. And she
would say to the soul that she would negotiate for what she wanted, and
that she would say a prayer for her [the soul] after these negotiations. And
when she prayed, she would look for portents, and what she heard in the
street was the soul’s reply.’ (See Francisco Fajardo Spínola, op. cit., p. 168).
fol. 447.
143. José Pavía, op. cit., p. 276.
144. See Juan García Polanco, Memoria de las Misas que en sus testamentos y por
las animas del Purgatorio y por negocios graissimos a devociones particulares se
dicen, Madrid, 1625, fol. 2.
145. Limbo was thought to be home to the souls of those who had died without
being baptized or below the age of reason (infants and the mentally defi-
cient) and a temporary home to the souls of virtuous people (pagans and
Jews) who had lived before the incarnation of Christ and who were then
set free and sent to heaven by him, as part of his redemption. See Jacques
Le Goff, ‘Les limbes’ [1986], in Jacques Le Goff, Un autre moyen âge, Paris,
Gallimard, 1999, pp. 1235–1259.
146. See Adelina Sarrión, Beatas y endemoniadas. Mujeres heterodoxas ante la
Inquisición. Siglos XVI a XIX, Madrid, Alianza, 2004, pp. 278 and 296.
147. On the fate of suicides, see David L. Lederer, ‘Reforming the Spirit: Society,
Madness and Suicide in Central Europe, 1517–1809’ (Ph.D diss, New York
University, 1995) and Alexandra Walsham, Providence in Early Modern
England, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 85.
148. See Jean Delumeau, La Peur en Occident (XIV e –XVIII e siècles), Paris, Fayard,
1978, pp. 75–87; Francisco Bethencourt, op. cit., pp. 108–109 and Francisco
Fajardo Spínola, op. cit., pp. 169–170.
149. See María Tausiet, Ponzoña en los ojos, op. cit., pp. 517–519.
fol. 212v.
151. According to the trial summary of Jerónima Torrellas, she had told ‘some-
one who wanted to win at gaming that she would bring him a fragment of
consecrated altar stone and a length of gallows rope [ . . . ] and that he was
to place the rope beneath the altarcloth while three Masses were said, and
Notes 191
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).
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.
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.
4 Saludadores and witch-finders

1. Pedro Ciruelo, op. cit., p. 101.
2. Francisco de Quevedo, ‘Sueño del infierno’ or ‘Las zahúrdas de Plutón’, in
Desvelos soñolientos y discursos de verdades soñadas, descubridores de abusos,
vicios y engaños en todos los oficios y estados del mundo, Barcelona, 1629. (See
Obras de Don Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas, Madrid, BAE, vol. XXIII, 1946,
p. 318.)
3. For more on the role of the saludador, see Fabián Alejandro Campagne,
‘Cultura popular y saber médico en la España de los Austrias’, in María
Estela González de Fauve (ed.), Medicina y sociedad: curar y sanar en la
España de los siglos XIII al XVI, Buenos Aires, Universidad de Buenos
Aires, pp. 195–239; Fabián Alejandro Campagne, ‘Medicina y religión en
el discurso antisupersticioso español de los siglos XVI a XVIII: un com-
bate por la hegemonía’, Dynamis, No. 20 (2000) pp. 471–456, and Enrique
192 Notes
Perdiguero, ‘Protomedicato y curanderismo’, Dynamis, No. 16 (1996),

pp. 91–108.
4. See Robin Briggs, Witches and Neighbours. The Social and Cultural Context of
European Witchcraft, London, Harper Collins, 1996, pp. 171–195, and María
Tausiet, Ponzoña en los ojos, op. cit., pp. 325–346.
5. See Luis Sánchez Granjel, Aspectos médicos de la literatura antisupersticiosa
española de los siglos XVI y XVII, Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca,
1953, p. 66.
6. See Virgil, The Aeneid, Book XI.
7. See François Delpech, ‘La “marque” des sorcières: logique(s) de la stigma-
tisation diabolique’, in Nicole Jacques-Chaquin and Maxime Préaud (eds.),
Le sabbat des sorciers en Europe (XV e –XVIII e siècles), Grenoble, Jérôme Millon,
1993, pp. 347–368.
8. Scholar and bibliophile Antonio de Torquemada wrote this about
the saludadores: ‘they say that they are known by the wheel of St
Catherine on their palate, or on some other part of the body’. See
Antonio de Torquemada, Jardín de flores curiosas [1570], Madrid, Castalia,
1982, p. 324.
9. See Marc Bloch, Les Rois Thaumaturges, París, Gallimard, 1983, and
François Delpech, ‘Du héros marqué au signe du prophète: esquisse pour
l’archéologie d’un motif chevaleresque’, Bulletin Hispanique, 92 (1990),
pp. 237–257, and ‘Les marques de naissance: physiognomie, signature mag-
ique et charisme souverain’, in Augustin Redondo (ed.), Le corps dans la
societé espagnole des XVI e et XVII e siècles, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne,
1990.
10. See Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic. Studies in Popular
Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England, London, Penguin, 1973,
pp. 237–239.
11. As noted by Luis Sánchez Granjel, ‘the fact that Philip IV could add to
his status as king of Castile his having been born on Good Friday gave
greater credence to the notion [ . . . ] that Castilian royalty also had, as if by
right, the power to cure the possessed and the bewitched.’ (See Luis Sánchez
Granjel, op. cit., p. 66.)
12. Relación de causa of Gabriel Monteche (Saragossa, 1619), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 991, fol. 435v.
13. Ibid., fol. 433v.
14. Ibid., fol. 435v.
15. Ibid., fol. 434r. For more on mirror divination, or catoptromancy, see
the fascinating treatise by Raphael Mirami, Compendiosa introduttione alla
prima parte della specularia (Ferrara, 1582), and Jurgis Baltrusaitis’s El espejo
(Madrid, Miraguano, 1988), especially the chapter devoted to Renais-
sance catoptromancy, which includes a reproduction of an image of a
sixteenth-century ‘magic mirror’ from Saragossa (p. 197).
16. Ibid., fols. 435r and v.
17. Ibid., fol. 436v.
18. Martín de Castañega, Tratado de las supersticiones y hechicerias [1529],
Madrid, Sociedad de Bibliófilos Españoles, 1946, pp. 62–64.
19. Pedro Ciruelo, ‘Capitulo seteno: en que se disputa contra los comunes
saludadores’, in op. cit., pp. 100–107.
Notes 193
20. Ibid., p. 103.

21. One notable example is known of in Valencia, where, during the sixteenth
and into the seventeenth century there existed the post of ‘examiner of
saludadores’. As María Luz López Terrada notes, this was held for some years
by a certain Domingo Moreno, a needle-maker, and himself a saludador.
See María Luz López Terrada, ‘Las prácticas médicas extraacadémicas en la
ciudad de Valencia’, Dynamis, No. 22 (2002), pp. 118–119, and José Rodrigo
Pertegás, ‘Los “saludadors” valencianos en el siglo XVII’, Revista Valenciana
de Ciencias Médicas, No. 8 (1906) pp. 219–220.
22. Constituciones Sinodales del Arzobispado de Zaragoza de Antonio Ibañez de la
Riva, Saragossa, 1698, fols. 471–472.
23. Relación de causa of Andrés Mascarón (Saragossa, 1620), AHN, Inq., Lib. 991,
fol. 574r.
24. Ibid., fol. 574r.
25. Ibid., fol. 574v.
26. Record of the trial of Bárbara Blanc (Peñarroya de Tastavins, 1591), ADZ,
C. 31–34, fol. 24.
27. Record of the trial of Pascuala García (Herrera de los Navarros. 1572), ADZ,
C. 42–12, fol. 8.
28. Gaspar Navarro, Tribunal de superstición ladina, Huesca, Pedro Blusón, 1632,
fol. 95.
29. Jaime de Corella, Practica de el confessionario, Madrid, 1690, fols. 13–14.
30. ‘When he said he could cure all ailments, they took him to see a girl who
was sick, and he gave her something to drink, and soon afterwards she
died.’ Relación de causa of Andrés Mascarón (Saragossa, 1620), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 991, fol. 574r.
31. Orosia, the least well known name in this list, was the patron saint of Jaca
(Huesca), famous among other things for her ability to cure the possessed
whose custom it had been, since at least the thirteenth century, to come
to the city on 25 June each year. See Enrique Satué Oliván, Las romerías de
Santa Orosia, Saragossa, DGA, 1988, and Ricardo Mur Saura, Con o palo y o
ropón. Cuatro estampas inéditas sobre el culto a Santa Orosia, Jaca, Francisco
Raro, 1995.
32. Relación de causa of Andrés Mascarón (Saragossa, 1620), AHN, Inq., Lib. 991,
fol. 575v.
33. Relación de causa of Francisco Casabona (Saragossa, 1623), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 991, fol. 639v.
34. Ibid., fol. 637v.
35. Ibid., fols. 637v.- 638r.
36. Ibid., fol. 633r.
37. Ibid., fol. 635v.
38. Ibid., fol. 635r.
39. Ibid., fol. 635r.
40. Ibid., fol. 636v.
41. See Manuel Gómez de Valenzuela, ‘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).
42. Relación de causa of Francisco Casabona (Saragossa, 1623), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 991, fol. 639r. and v.
194 Notes
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.)
Notes 195

70. The link between seemingly overwhelming male sexual potency and the
corresponding female reaction in the form of collective demonic possession
is a recurring theme in documentary evidence from this period, particu-
larly in the case of the events that took place between 1633 and 1640
at the Ursuline convent in Loudun and which soon became the most
notorious such episode in all of Europe. (See Michel de Certeau, The pos-
session at Loudun, trans. Michael B. Smith, Chicago, University of Chicago
Press, 1996; Michel Carmona, Les diables de Loudun: sorcellerie et politique
sous Richelieu, Paris, Fayard, 1988, and Juana de los Ángeles, Autobiografía,
Madrid, Asociación Española de Neuropsiquiatría, 2002.) As for Spain, two
of the best-known cases of possession were largely attributable to the sex-
ual demands of a single man. The first episode involved the nuns of the San
Plácido convent in Madrid in 1628, whom a certain Brother Francisco had
tried to exorcize with kisses and caresses. The second outbreak affected sev-
eral different villages in the Tena Valley (Huesca) between 1637 and 1642,
and was defined by the inquisitor sent by the Saragossa tribunal to this
mountainous region as ‘an affliction caused by their refusal to satisfy the
desires of Pedro Arruebo’. (See Beatriz Moncó Rebollo, Mujer y demonio: una
pareja barroca, Madrid, Instituto de Sociología Aplicada, 1989; Carlos Puyol
Buil, Inquisición y política en el reinado de Felipe IV. Los procesos de Jerónimo
de Villanueva y las monjas de San Plácido, 1628–1660, Madrid, CSIC, 1993;
Ángel Gari Lacruz, Brujería e Inquisición en el Alto Aragón en la primera mitad
del siglo XVII, Saragossa, DGA, 1991 and María Tausiet, ‘Patronage of Angels
and Combat of Demons: Good versus Evil in 17th Century Spain’, in Peter
Marshall and Alexandra Walsham (eds.), op. cit.) For another case similarly
involving high levels of sexual tension, here between a woman accused
of being a witch and her supposed victims, see María Tausiet, Los pos-
esos de Tosos (1812–1814). Brujería y justicia popular en tiempos de revolución,
Saragossa, Instituto Aragonés de Antropología, 2002.
71. Relación de causa of Pablo Borao (Saragossa, 1658), AHN, Inq., Lib. 996,
fol. 68r.
77. With regard to the significance of sexual imagery in the lives of nuns in
the seventeenth century, Moshe Sluhovsky gives several examples, includ-
ing that of the Benedictine nun Louise Boussard, who could not look at
the crucifix because it made her imagine carnal scenes that made her feel
ashamed – her mother superior’s response to this, in an effort to calm her,
was that visions of Christ were always pure, even when they took a carnal
or sensual form. In other cases, such visions went as far as fantasies of inter-
course between the nun and Christ. Seen as traps laid by the devil, these
fantasies were often countered by further, divine apparitions. (See Moshe
196 Notes
Sluhovsky, ‘The Devil in the Convent’, American Historical Review, vol. 107,
no. 5, 2002, pp. 1398–1399).
fol. 74v.
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.
fol. 71v.
86. Ibid., fols. 71v.–77v.
87. Ibid., fols. 77v.–78r.
92. Ibid., fols. 79v.–80r.
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.
fol. 90r.
100. Ibid., fols. 267v.–268r.
101. Ibid., fol. 69v.
5 The city as refuge

1. Libros de Actas del Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza (September 1584), Archivo
Municipal de Zaragoza (AMZ), 34 B-30, fol. 65v.
2. Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera, Discurso del amparo de los legitimos pobres y reduc-
cion de los fingidos, y de la fundacion y principio de los albergues destos reynos y
amparo de la milicia dellos, Madrid, 1598. Quoted in Michel Cavillac (ed.),
Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera. Amparo de pobres, Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1975,
Discurso Cuarto, pp. 118–119.
Notes 197
3. ‘Estatuto hecho a seys de Deziembre de mil quinientos ochenta y seys contra

las Brujas y Hechizeras’, in Recopilacion de los estatutos, op. cit.
4. See the aforementioned cases of Magdalena Ortiz and María de Val
(Chapter 1, note 24).
5. Record of the trial of María Sánchez (Saragossa, 1574), ADZ, C. 1–7, fol. 3.
6. Ibid., fols. 7v. and 8r.
7. Ibid., fol. 11v.
8. Ibid., fol. 15v.
9. Record of the trial of Gostanza Rossa (Saragossa, 1581), ADZ, C. 27–35,
fol. 5v.
10. Ibid., fol. 7r.
13. The last women condemned to death for witchcraft by Saragossa’s inquisito-
rial tribunal, both in 1535, were Dominga Ferrer, nicknamed ‘the Cripple’,
from Pozán de Vero (Huesca) and Catalina de Joan Díez, from Salinas de Jaca
(Huesca). See María Tausiet, Ponzoña en los ojos . . ., op. cit., p. 108.
14. See William Monter, Frontiers of Heresy, op. cit., p. 257.
15. Relación de causa of Joanna Bruxon (Saragossa, 1581), AHN, Inq., Lib. 988,
fol. 486r.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Relación de causa of Isabel Alastruey (Saragossa, 1603), AHN, Inq., Lib. 990,
fol. 309r. The law referred to in this case, which covered the villages of Sesa
and Salillas (Huesca), may well have been approved in 1592, the same year
in which another desaforamiento statute was passed to deal with witchcraft in
the villages that were part of the judicial district of Gía (Huesca), a document
now housed in the Barbastro Diocesan Archive.
19. Ibid., fol. 309v.
20. Ibid.
21. Relación de causa of María Romerales (Saragossa, 1609), AHN, Inq., Lib. 991,
fol. 134v.
22. Ibid., fol. 135r.
23. Ibid., fol. 136r.
24. The Logroño witch trials, which saw more than 2000 people accused and
almost 5000 suspected of witchcraft, became one of the most famous such
episodes in early modern Europe. See Gustav Henningsen, The Witches’ Advo-
cate, op. cit., and Manuel Fernández Nieto, Proceso a la brujería. En torno al
Auto de Fe de los brujos de Zugarramurdi. Logroño, 1610, Madrid, Ed. Tecnos,
1989.
25. See Gustav Henningsen, The Witches’ Advocate, op. cit., pp. 366–377.
26. Henry Charles Lea, op. cit., vol. IV, p. 239.
27. See José Luis Gómez Urdáñez’s doctoral thesis (unpublished), Beneficencia y
marginación social en Aragón en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII (Universidad
de Zaragoza, 1982).
28. See José Luis Gómez Urdáñez, ‘La Real Casa de Misericordia de Zaragoza,
cárcel de gitanas (1752–1763)’, in M. García Fernández and M. A. Sobaler
Seco (eds.), Estudios en homenaje al profesor Teófanes Egido, Valladolid, Junta
de Castilla y León, 2004, vol. I, pp. 329–343.
198 Notes
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.
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.
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
reclusion in order to undergo spiritual education.’ (See Jesús Martínez Verón,

La Real Casa de Misericordia, Saragossa, Diputación Provincial, 1985, vol. I,
p. 34.)
43. Relación de causa of Justa Rufina (Saragossa, 1640), AHN, Inq., Lib. 992,
fol. 565r.
44. Ibid., fol. 566r. and v.
45. Ibid., fol. 566v.
46. ‘Generally speaking, these correctional establishments acted as places of pre-
ventive detention for many women accused of committing marital infidelity
or public sins, or of rebelling against their families. In some cases, therefore,
it was their own husbands, fathers or other family members who decided
they should be interned for a period of time until they saw the error of
their ways.’ (See María Dolores Pérez Baltasar, Mujeres marginadas. Las casas
de recogidas en Madrid, Madrid, Gráficas Lormo, 1984, pp. 51–52.)
47. Miquel Giginta, canon to the bishop of Elna (Roussillon), wrote four treatises
in the late sixteenth century advocating the provision of various poor relief
schemes: Tratado de remedio de pobres (Coimbra, 1579), Exhortación a la com-
pasión de los pobres (Barcelona, 1583), Cadena de oro (Perpignan, 1584) and
Atalaya de caridad (Saragossa, 1587).
48. See Michel Cavillac’s excellent introduction to his edition of Cristóbal
Pérez de Herrera’s treatise, Amparo de pobres . . . (Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1975).
Also: Linda Martz, Poverty and Welfare in Habsburg Spain. The example of
Toledo, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983; David Goodman,
Power and Penury: Government, Technology and Science in Philip II’s Spain,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988; Jon Arrizabalaga, ‘Poor Relief
in Counter-Reformation Castile: An Overview’ and Maria Luz López Terrada,
‘Health Care and Poor Relief in the Crown of Aragon’, in Ole Peter Grell,
Andrew Cunningham and Jon Arrizabalaga (eds.), Health Care and Poor
Relief in Counter-Reformation Europe, London and New York, Routledge,
1999, pp. 151–199; Mary Elizabeth Perry, Ni espada rota ni mujer que trota.
Mujer y desorden social en la Sevilla del Siglo de Oro, Barcelona, Ed. Crítica,
1993, pp. 138–149; Bronislaw Geremek, La estirpe de Caín. La imagen de los
vagabundos y de los pobres en las literaturas europeas de los siglos XV al XVII,
Madrid, Ed. Mondadori, 1990, pp. 221–293; and Mónica Bolufer Peruga,
‘Entre historia social e historia cultural: la historiografía sobre pobreza y
caridad en la época moderna’, Historia Social, 43 (2002), pp. 105–127.
49. Michel Cavillac (ed.), Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera. Amparo de pobres, op. cit.,
pp. 122–123.
50. For other cases of women tried for witchcraft in Spain who were then sent
to convents, see Gunnar W. Knutsen, ‘Where did the witches go? Spanish
witches after their trials’, in Hilde Sandvik, Kari Telste and Gunnar Thorvalds
(eds.), Pathways of the Past. Essays in Honour of Solvi Sogner. Time and Thought,
No.7, (Oslo, 2002), pp. 197–206.
51. Estatutos fundacionales de la Casa de Nuestra Señora de Misericordia de Zaragoza
para prostitutas arrepentidas. Archivo Histórico Provincial de Zaragoza, Diego
Casales, 1594, fols. 1.361 and ff. (See Ángel San Vicente Pino, El oficio del
Padre de Huérfanos . . ., op. cit., pp. 297–301.)
52. See Razon y forma de la Galera y Casa Real que el Rey Nuestro Señor manda hazer
en estos Reynos, para castigo de las mugeres vagantes, y ladronas, alcahuetas,
200 Notes
hechizeras, y otras semejantes, Salamanca, 1608. (Madrid. Biblioteca Nacional,

R. 29697.)
53. See Ángel San Vicente Pino, El oficio del Padre de Huérfanos . . ., op. cit.,
pp. 172–175.
54. See Vincent Parello, ‘Discours réformateur et marginalité féminine dans
l’Espagne Moderne. Les “Galères” de Madalena de San Jerónimo (1608)’,
Biblioteca de la Historia, vol. 101, 1999, No.1, pp. 55–68.
55. See Ángel San Vicente Pino, El oficio del Padre de Huérfanos . . ., op. cit.,
pp. 174–179.
56. Relación de causa of Catalina Fuertes (Saragossa, 1658), AHN, Inq., Lib. 996,
fol. 131r.
57. Ibid., fol. 138r.
58. Relación de causa of Quiteria Pascual (Saragossa, 1663), AHN, Inq., Lib. 997,
fol. 324v.
59. Ibid., fol. 326r.
60. For more on witchcraft understood as a consequence of mental illness, see
physician Johan Weyer’s defence of witches based on this premise in his De
praestigiis daemonum (Basle, 1563). See also: George Mora et al. (eds.), Witches,
Devils and Doctors in the Renaissance: Johan Weyer, ‘De praestigiis daemonum’
Binghamton, New York, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991;
Thomas S. Szasz, La fabricación de la locura, Barcelona, Kairós, 1974, and H. C.
Erik Midelfort, A History of Madness in Sixteenth-Century Germany, Stanford,
Stanford University Press, 1999, pp. 182–227.
61. Relación de causa of Francisca Abat (Saragossa, 1668), AHN, Inq., Lib. 998,
fol. 122r.
62. The first hospital in Europe (and probably in the world) devoted exclusively
to caring for the mentally ill was founded in Valencia in 1409 by Juan
Gilabert Jofré, a Mercedarian friar touched by the suffering of many Christian
captives who had gone insane in the prisons and dungeons of Muslim Spain
and North Africa. It was called the Hospital of the Innocents (‘Espital dels
Innocents’) and remained as such until it was integrated in 1512 into the
city’s ‘Hospital General’. See Hélène Tropé, Locura y sociedad en la Valencia
de los siglos XV al XVII. Los locos del Hospital de los Inocentes (1409–1512)
y del Hospital General (1512–1699), Valencia, Diputación de Valencia, 1994.
Other similar hospitals in Spain were those established in Seville and Toledo
(see Carmen López Alonso, Locura y sociedad en Sevilla: Historia del Hospital
de los Inocentes, Sevilla, Diputación Provincial, 1988, and Rafael San Román,
‘El Hospital del Nuncio de Toledo en la historia de la asistencia psiquiátrica’,
Anales Toledanos, 17, 1983, pp. 55–71). The most famous such institution
elsewhere, an establishment that had been caring for the insane since the
fourteenth century, was London’s Bethlem Hospital (‘Bedlam’), originally
founded in 1247 as the priory of St Mary of Bethlehem. See Jonathan
Andrews, Asa Briggs, Roy Porter, Penny Tucker and Keir Waddington, The
History of Bethlem, London, Routledge, 1997, and Roy Porter, Madness: A Brief
History, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003.
63. One of the good works done by Madrid’s ‘Cofradía del Refugio’ (Brother-
hood of Refuge) was that of arranging for those in need to be taken to the
asylum in Saragossa, because there was nowhere in the capital for the men-
tally ill to be treated. See Enrique González Duro, Historia de la locura en
Notes 201
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
74. See Julián Espinosa Iborra, ‘Un testimonio de la influencia de la Psiquia-

tría española de la Ilustración en la obra de Pinel: El informe de José Iberti
acerca de la asistencia en el Manicomio de Zaragoza, 1791’, Asclepio, Archivo
Iberoamericano de Historia de la Medicina, vol. XVI (1964), pp. 179–182.
75. Relación de causa of Estefanía Lázaro (Saragossa, 1679), AHN, Inq., Lib. 998,
fol. 183r.
76. Ibid.
77. See Henry Charles Lea, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 558–566, and Miguel Ángel
Motis Dolader, ‘La atenuante de enajenación mental transitoria en la praxis
inquisitorial: el tribunal de Tarazona a fines del siglo XV’, in Aragón en la
Edad Media (siglos XIV–XV), vol. I, Saragossa, Universidad de Zaragoza, 1999,
pp. 1125–1149.
78. See Hélène Tropé, op. cit., pp. 185–198.
79. On the subject of heresy and madness, see Sara Tilghman Nalle’s excellent
publication, Mad for God. Bartolomé Sánchez, the Secret Messiah of Cardenete,
Charlottesville and London, University Press of Virginia, 2001. The author
analyses the case of a man found guilty of heresy by the inquisitorial tri-
bunal of Cuenca but who was eventually deemed to be mentally ill and was
sent to the Hospital of Our Lady of Grace in Saragossa to be cared for and
cured.
80. See Michel Foucault, History of Madness, trans. J. Murphy and J. Khalfa,
Abingdon, Routledge, 2006, Part One, p. 94 ff. According to Foucault, when
magic is understood as madness, it is ‘stripped of the efficacious power of
sacrilege: it is no longer profanation, but is reduced instead to mere trickery.
Its power is illusion, both in the sense that it is devoid of reality and in that
it blinds the weak-willed and the feeble-minded . . .’.
81. Relación de causa of Jusepa Ainda (Saragossa, 1689), AHN, Inq., Lib. 998,
fol. 323v.
82. Ibid., fol. 324r.
83. Ibid.
84. Ibid., fol. 323v.
85. Ibid.
86. Ibid., fol. 324v.
87. Ibid.
88. Ibid.
89. The inmates at the Valencia asylum wore clothes of two colours (usually yel-
low and blue), and this came to be seen as a symbol of their confused minds.
Similarly, the uniform, or ‘livery’, for both men and women at Saragossa’s
Hospital of Our Lady of Grace was made ‘of brown and green cloth, with
panels in each colour; for example, the front of the right sleeve in green, the
back in brown. And the front of the left sleeve in brown, the back in green,
and so on.’ (See Enrique Rodríguez Pérez, Asistencia Psiquiátrica en Zaragoza
a mediados del siglo XIX, Saragossa, IFC, 1980, p. 133.)
6 Rural versus urban magic

fol. 459v.
Notes 203
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
Cortinas, Manuela de Biescas, Juan Antonio del Castillo y Villanueva, Jusepe

Fernández, Miguel Francisco de Pedregosa, Juan Clavero and Pedro Antonio
Bernard (Saragossa, 1690–1693, AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fols. 334r.–417v.)
22. José Ferrer reported having once been in Toulouse, where some French peo-
ple had told him ‘that in Spain, in various places, there were great treasures
that had been hidden since the expulsion of the Moriscos’ (Saragossa, 1691,
AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fol. 248r.). According to the confession made by priest
Miguel Francisco de Pedregosa, he himself had witnessed at the Castillo de
Miranda, in the company of ‘two Frenchmen who said they knew how to
find treasure’, the appearance of a Moorish woman who told them that it
was not yet the right time for the treasure to be revealed and that they would
have to wait for the next month with an ‘r’ in its name (Saragossa, 1693,
AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fols. 399r.–403v.). And, Brother José de Jesús María,
when he was on the road back from Toulouse where he had been during car-
nival period, was given a copy of the Clavicula Salomonis by a Spanish woman
in exchange for a diamond ring (Saragossa, 1666, AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fol. 5r.
and v.).
23. Frenchmen are a constant in the papers relating to trials brought against
men. Examples include the case of surgeon Miguel Melchor Aguado, who
‘had communicated with a Frenchman [ . . . ] who worked in a ward at the
Hospital of Our Lady of Grace and was a herbalist, who had given him a short
book by Albertus Magnus, De secretis et virtute plantarum et lapidum [ . . . ]’
(Saragossa, 1651, AHN, Inq., Lib. 994, fol. 432r.), and that of Franciscan
monk Eugenio Bamalera, who, according to Felipe Estanga, owned ‘a printed
book in the French language which belonged to Juan Belot, who had been
burned in France because of the said book’ (Saragossa, 1666. AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 998, fol. 7r.). Cases of female magic, meanwhile, regularly cite the influ-
ence of the Mediterranean, either because the defendants themselves had
lived in the regions of Valencia or Murcia, or because someone from that
area had taught them what they knew: see, for example, the relaciones de
causa of María García, a Castilian woman who practised magic and had lived
in Valencia (Saragossa, 1656, AHN, Inq., Lib. 995, fol. 440r); Ana Tamayo, of
Murcia, who admitted having learned her skills from a Neapolitan woman
who lived in Alicante (Saragossa, 1666, AHN, Inq., Lib. 998, fols. 22v.–33r.);
or Gracia Andreu, who confessed to having learned from ‘a Valencian
woman who died and from a man named Juan from Burgundy’ (Saragossa,
1656, AHN, Inq., Lib. 995, fol. 457v.).
24. Bernd Roeck, Eine Stadt in Krieg und Frieden, Studien zur Geschichte der
Reichsstadt Augsburg zwischen Kalenderstreit und Parität, Göttingen, Bayerische
Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1989, pp. 829–844, especially pp. 836–837.
25. Most of the concrete information we have about where defendants lived
places them in one of two specific areas, both situated outside the city walls:
the Moorish district and that of San Pablo. The latter attracted many immi-
grants, including a large number of people from the French dioceses of
Oloron, Lescar and Tarbes. See María del Carmen Ansón Calvo, ‘Zaragoza
como lugar de inmigración en el siglo XVII’, in X Congreso de Historia de la
Corona de Aragón, Saragossa, IFC, 1984, pp. 25–32 and Christine Langé, La
inmigración francesa en Aragón (siglo XVI y primera mitad del XVII), Saragossa,
IFC, 1993.
206 Notes
26. Owen Davies, ‘Urbanization and the decline of witchcraft: an examination

of London’, Journal of Social History, 30 (3), 1997, pp. 597–617.
27. On the commercial and monetary nature of magic in sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century Venice, see Ruth Martin, op. cit., p. 242.
28. As seen in Chapter 2, according to zahorí Antón Lozano, he and his accom-
plices had dug into the earth in three different places in Pinseque (Saragossa)
‘to find three earthenware jars full of money’ and ‘when they had dug, the
said zahorí did say that the jars had moved themselves from that place’
(Saragossa, 1631, AHN, Inq., Lib. 992, fol. 58v.–59r.).
29. Relación de causa of Trinitarian friar Pedro Moliner (Saragossa, 1641), AHN,
Inq., Lib. 992, fol. 606r.
30. Relación de causa of Félix Cortinas (Saragossa, 1692), AHN, Inq., Lib. 998,
fol. 376r.
31. Relación de causa of Carlos de Federicis (Saragossa, 1690), AHN, Inq., Lib. 998,
fols. 334r.–346v.
32. See the relaciones de causa of two men with a taste for gambling: the priest
from Our Lady of the Pillar, Father Diego de Fuertes (Saragossa, 1652, AHN,
Inq., Lib. 995, fols. 21v–26v.), and silk throwster Juan de Berges (Saragossa,
1654. AHN, Inq., Lib. 995, fols. 111r.–113v.). See also that of Jerónima
Torrellas (Saragossa, 1654, AHN, Inq., Lib. 995, fols. 284r.–287v.).
33. Relación de causa of Ana Merino Pérez (Saragossa, 1654), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995,
fols. 183v.–187v.
34. Relación de causa of María Ángela Madruga (Saragossa, 1661), AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 997, fol. 165r.
35. See relaciones de causa of Isabel Teresa Castañer (Saragossa, 1663, AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 997, fol. 321r.) and Isabel Francisca de la Mota (Saragossa, 1665, AHN,
Inq., Lib. 997, fol. 451v.). One of the women who testified at the latter’s trial
told of how ‘the defendant had decorated a valerian plant, putting silver
lace and a dinero coin among its roots [ . . . ] and that she had to water the
valerian with white wine on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and speak
lovingly to it, as if she were with a lover. And that on the said days she had to
make the pot elegant, with all the gold and silver she might possess.’ Gracia
Andreu meanwhile confessed to having planted two valerian shrubs in one
pot, ‘one male and one female, and among the roots she placed a Catalan
sueldo, a coin from the inn, another from the baker’s, and another from the
butcher’s, and gold and silver lace and cochineal; the sueldo and other coins,
to bring her money; the lace to bring jewels and linens; and the cochineal
to make men happy with her or with the persons by whom it was planted.’
(Saragossa, 1656, AHN, Inq., Lib. 995, fol. 460r.)
36. According to Isabel Francisca de la Mota’s trial summary, she ‘would lay
down the cards’ face up, murmuring as she did so, ‘and depending on what
they asked her, she told them what would happen, so if jacks and knights
were turned up together, their men were with other women, and if coins
came out, they would have gold and money [ . . . ], and if two sword cards
crossed, that meant prison. And if the two of clubs came out, it meant a
path along which the lover would come [ . . . ]’ (Saragossa, 1663, AHN, Inq.,
Lib. 997, fol. 473r.)
fols. 16v–17r.
Notes 207
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Epilogue: In Times of Plague

1. Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, London, Penguin Classics, 1986,
pp. 47–49.
2. Ibid., pp. 48–49
3. See Carlo M. Cipolla, Contro un nemico invisibile. Epidemie e strutture sanitarie
nell’Italia del Rinascimento, Bologna, Il Muhino, 1985.
4. José Estiche, Tratado de la peste de Zaragoza en el año 1652, Pamplona, Diego
Zabala, 1655.
5. Ibid., fol. 2.
6. Ibid., fols. 44–45.
7. Daniel Defoe, op. cit., p. 47.
Notes 211
8. In Barcelona, for example, the municipal court tried a Frenchman, Bernat

Rigaldia, in 1589 on a charge of having spread the plague using various poi-
sons. See José Luis Betrán Moya, ‘Medicina popular y peste en la Barcelona
de 1589: el proceso de Mestre Bernat Rigaldia’, in Eliseo Serrano Martín (ed.),
Muerte, religiosidad y cultura popular. Siglos XIII–XVIII, Saragossa, IFC, 1994,
pp. 279–304. See also the chapter headed ‘Typologie des comportements
collectifs en temps de peste’, in Jean Delumeau, op. cit., pp. 98–142.
fol. 459v.
10. See Ann G. Carmichael, Plague and the Poor in Renaissance Florence,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986; James S. Amelang and Xavier
Torres (eds.), Dietari d’un any de pesta. Barcelona, 1651, Barcelona, Eumo,
1989; and Jesús Maiso González, La peste aragonesa de 1648 a 1654, Saragossa,
Universidad de Zaragoza, 1982.
11. José Estiche, op. cit., fol. 44.
12. Certificacion del modo como Zaragoza ha hecho la purificacion del contagio, 20 de
mayo de 1653. Archivo de la Corona de Aragón (ACA), Secretaría de Aragón,
leg. 96, no folio number. (Cited in Jesús Maiso González, op. cit., p. 103.)
13. See José Estiche, op. cit., fol. 45v.
fol. 456v.
15. Ibid., fol. 457r.
16. As underlined by Jesús Maiso González in his study of the plague in Aragon
between 1648 and 1654, once the epidemic had taken hold and begun caus-
ing large-scale loss of life, neither council nor Inquisition papers reflected
what was going on in the region. The reports of sessions held by the
Deputation of the Kingdom during those years also omit any mention of
the catastrophe: ‘the documentation on the period when the epidemic was
at its height maintains essentially an absolute silence on the matter [ . . . ] This
is clear from the procedures observed with relation to the 1652 outbreak of
plague in Saragossa.’ (See op. cit., pp. 111–113.)
fols. 448v.–449r.
18. In the words of Pedro Barba, author of a treatise entitled Breve y clara resumpta
y tratado de la essencia, causas, prognostico, preservacion y curacion de la peste
(A clear and concise summary and treatise of the essence, causes, prognostic,
means of protection and curing of the plague; Madrid, Alonso de Paredes,
1648), ‘venereal activity is in no way advisable’ (fol. 7).
19. See Jean-Noël Biraben, Les hommes et la peste en France et dans les
pays européens et méditerranéens, Paris/The Hague, Mouton, 1975, vol. II,
pp. 38–39.
20. Jesús Maiso González, op. cit., p. 40.
21. Juan Tomás Porcell, Informacion y curacion de la peste de Çaragoça y preservacion
contra peste en general (Information on and curing of the plague of Saragossa
and means of protection against the plague in general), Saragossa, Bartolomé
Nagera, 1565, fol. 84r.
22. According to Porcell, most of those infected with the plague in Saragossa in
1564 were very poor, but some well fed patients also came to the Our Lady of
212 Notes
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.
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
35. See Jesús Maiso González, op. cit., p. 59.

36. Saragossa Cathedral Chapter Archive. Account of the 1652 epidemic, in Libro
de Gestis de 1653, without folio number. For more on the miracles suppos-
edly worked by Pedro Arbués as soon as his death became known, see Henry
Charles Lea, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 251–252.
37. On the growing popularity of St Roch, see Jean-Noël Biraben, op. cit.,
vol. II, pp. 78–80, William Christian, Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century
Spain, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1981, pp. 42–43 and Christine
M. Boeckl, Images of Plague and Pestilence. Iconography and Iconology,
Kirksville, Missouri, Truman State University Press, 2000.
38. Relación de causa of Elena Sánchez (Saragossa, 1654), AHN, Inq., Lib. 995,
fols. 290v.–291r.
39. On the catechizing work of the Counter-Reformation Church in Spain,
see ch. 7 ‘Taking the Message to the People’ in Henry Kamen, op. cit.,
pp. 340–384).
40. On this matter it is worth noting that in their treatises Juan Tomás Porcell
and José Estiche (the doctors responsible for tending to Saragossa’s plague
victims during the outbreaks of 1564 and 1652 respectively) offer com-
plementary interpretations of the disease. Thus for Estiche, the idea that
the epidemic had been visited on the city by divine wrath to punish its
inhabitants for their sins was compatible with the astrological explana-
tion according to which there had been certain ‘portents’ of the plague,
in the shape of ‘eclipses of both sun and moon’. As for Porcell, he recog-
nized the usefulness of ‘objects with hidden qualities’ to combat the disease,
such as pomanders or precious stones, which should be worn ‘on one’s left
breast’. He even confides that ‘although some think it a laughable thing
and one proper to empirics to wear on one’s left breast a piece of sublimate
adorned [ . . . ] I hold it to be for the best [ . . . ] because when this sickness first
began I was very sad and disheartened, and when I began carrying this it
seemed that a great veil was lifted from my heart, and so I have had it on
my person ever since, and continue to do so and shall do so until I die.’ (See
Estiche, op. cit., 35v., and Porcell, op. cit., 109r.–111r.)
Saragossa in the Early Modern
Period: Locations of the Places
Mentioned in the Text
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.
1. ‘Father of Orphans’. The city orphanage was established in the 1500s on

Calle del Coso, opposite the Plaza de la Magdalena.
2. Convalescents’ Hospital. This is now the Provincial Hospital on Calle
Madre Rafols/Calle Ramón y Cajal.
3. Pilgrims’ Hospital. Located where the Calle Azoque (formerly known as
Calle del Juego de Pelota) meets the Plaza del Carmen, next to the
Carmelite monastery.
4. Fraternity of the Blood of Christ. Institution established in the church of
San Francisco, on the site of the Provincial Council (present-day Plaza de
España), and later transferred to the Church of Santa Isabel.
5. Brotherhood of Refuge. Founded in 1642 in a house in the former
Plaza del Refugio, now the place where Calles Verónica, Eusebio Blasco
and San Andrés and the Plaza José Sinués meet, behind the Teatro
Principal. In 1790 it moved to Calle Escuela de Cristo (now Calle
Refugio).
6. Callizo de la Traición. Now called Calle de Don Pedro de Atarés, this street
runs between Calles Jusepe Martínez and Miguel de Molino.
7. Calle Mantería. Former name of the present Calles Agustín Lezo and
Palomeque.
218 Saragossa in the Early Modern Period
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)
Year Source Name1 Place of origin Place of Charge3 Sentence

residence2
1498 Green Book of Gracia la Valle Saragossa Witchcraft Relaxation to the

Aragon secular arm (in
person)
1509 AHPZ4 Inquisition Tomás Bonifant* Huesca Saragossa Blasphemy and Prayer and fasting
trial records apostasy
1510 Idem Pedro Bernardo* Florence (Italy) Saragossa Necromancy and Life imprisonment
heresy
1511 Idem Catalina Aznar* Saragossa Sorcery Prayer and fasting
1511 Idem Catalina López Saragossa Sorceryco
1511 Idem Magdalena de Saragossa Sorceryco
Vidos
1511 Idem Joan Vicente*c Perpignan Saragossa Necromancy and Relaxation to the
(France) heresy secular arm (in effigy)
1511 Green Book of Miguel Sánchez Saragossa Necromancyco Relaxation to the
Aragon secular arm (in effigy)
1511 AHPZ Inquisition Jerónimo Saragossa Necromancyco Relaxation to
trial records Valdenieso the secular arm
219
(in person)
220
Table 1 (Continued)
Year Source Name Place of origin Place of Charge Sentence

residence
1511 Green Book of Martín de Soria Saragossa Necromancyco Relaxation to

Aragon the secular arm
(in person)
1537 Green Book of Joan Omellac Saragossa Necromancy Relaxation to
Aragon the secular arm
(in person)
1540 AHN5 (Inquisition) Diego de la Fozc Molina Saragossa Necromancy
Relaciones de (Guadalajara)
causa Lib. 988
(1540–1581)
1545 Idem María Violas Saragossa Saragossa Sorcery and Flogging and exile
blasphemy
1549 Idem Melchor Navarre Saragossa Demonic Flogging and
invocations and imprisonment
blasphemy
1554 Idem Gracia de Deza Saragossa Sorcery Imprisonment
1559 Idem Antonio Fillerasc Toulouse Saragossa Necromancy Reclusion in a
(France) monastery
1561 Idem Joan de Tarba Oloron (France) Saragossa Necromancy Flogging and exile
1568 Idem Joan Baptista Valencia Saragossa Necromancy Imprisonment and a
term in the galleys
1570 Idem Antón de Aguilar Riba-roja d’Ebre Saragossa Demonic Exile
(Tarragona) invocations
1582 AHN (Inquisition) Blas Ursino Italy Saragossa Necromancy Flogging and exile
Relaciones de
causa Lib. 989
(1582–1596)
1582 Idem Isabel Marquina Almonacid de la Saragossa Necromancy Flogging and
Sierra (Saragossa) reclusion
1585 Idem Gracia Melero Saragossa Saragossa Sorcery Imprisonment and
order to wear
penitential garb
1586 Idem María de Espinosa Tordehumos Saragossa Sorcery Trial suspended
(Valladolid)
1586 Idem Jerónima de San Toledo Saragossa Sorcery Flogging and exile
Miguel
1586 Idem Ana de Yuso Alcalá de Saragossa Sorceryco Flogging and exile
Henares
(Madrid)
1597 AHN (Inquisition) Cándida Gombal Benaguasil Saragossa Sorcery Flogging,
Relaciones de (Valencia) confiscation of goods,
causa Lib. 990 life imprisonment
(1597–1608) and order to wear
penitential garb
1597 Idem Isabel Gombal Benaguasil Saragossa Sorceryco Flogging,
(Valencia) confiscation of goods,
imprisonment and
order to wear
penitential garb
1603 Idem Ana Ruiz Saragossa Demonic Flogging and exile
invocations
221
Table 1 (Continued)
222

residence
1603 Idem Antonio Carrasco Saragossa Healing Exile

1610 AHN (Inquisition) Isabel Martínez Borja (Saragossa) Saragossa Sorcery Flogging and exile
Relaciones de Fuertes
causa Lib. 991
(1609–1628)
1610 Idem María de Saragossa Sorcery Flogging and exile
Romerales
1617 Idem Jerónimo Ollerc Manresa Saragossa Judicial astrology Exile and suspension
(Barcelona) from holy orders
1618 Idem Gabriel Monteche Daroca No fixed Healing Flogging and exile
(Saragossa) abode
1620 Idem Andrés Mascarón Saragossa Healing Trial suspended
1620 Idem Jerónimo de La Ventosa No fixed Necromancy Flogging, exile and a
Liébanac (Cuenca) abode term in the galleys
1620 Idem Francisco de Alós Saragossa Saragossa Necromancyco Exile
1620 Idem Hernando de Saragossa Saragossa Necromancyco Exile
Moros
1620 Idem Alonso Torrijos Saragossa Saragossa Necromancyco Exile
1620 Idem Agustín Leonardoc Saragossa Saragossa Necromancyco Reclusion in a
monastery and
suspension from holy
orders
1623 Idem Francisco Albero (Huesca) No fixed Healing Flogging, exile and a
Casabona abode term in the galleys
1631 AHN (Inquisition) Isabel Juana Valencia Saragossa Sorcery Flogging and exile
Relaciones de Truxeque
causa Lib. 992
(1629–1643)
1631 Idem Luis Gama and Lisbon No fixed Necromancy Exile and a term in
Vasconcellos (Portugal) abode the galleys
1631 Idem Pedro Montalbánc Azuara Saragossa Necromancyco Trial suspended on
(Saragossa) the death of the
accused
1631 Idem Miguel Calvo Azuara Necromancyco Exile
(Saragossa)
1631 Idem Antón Lozano Saragossa Cerdán Necromancyco Exile
(Saragossa)
1631 Idem Juan Izquierdoc Saragossa Necromancyco Reprimand
1631 Idem Vicente Ferrerc Valencia Saragossa Necromancyco Trial suspended
1631 Idem Agustín Sanz Saragossa Saragossa Necromancyco Acquittal
1635 Idem Petronila Sanz Saragossa Saragossa Sorcery Instruction in a
monastery
1635 Idem Ana María Torrero Saragossa Saragossa Sorcery Flogging and exile
1636 Idem Ana Francisca de La Muela Saragossa Sorcery Exile
Torres (Saragossa)
1636 Idem Jorge Núñez Lisbon Saragossa Conjurations and Flogging, exile and a
Piñeiro (Portugal) invocations term in the galleys
1636 Idem Jacinto de Vargas Basse Navarre No fixed Healing Reprimand
(France) abode
1640 Idem Justa Rufina Madrid Saragossa Sorcery Spiritual penances
1641 Idem Pedro Molinerc Lérida No fixed Acts of Reprimand
abode superstition and
conjurations
223
224
Table 1 (Continued)

residence
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

residence
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)

residence
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
Saragossa often offered help to outsiders and vagrants.

4 Archivo Histórico Provincial de Zaragoza.
5 Archivo Histórico Nacional.
229
230
Table 2 Individuals tried by the episcopal court for crimes relating to magic in Saragossa (1561–1605)

residence
1561 ADZ6 Joanna Polo* Saragossa Sorcery, procuring

Criminal and extra-marital
trial records sexual relations
1574 Idem María Sánchez* Sallent de Gállego Saragossa Witchcraft
(Huesca)
1581 Idem Gostanza Rossa* Burgos Saragossa Sorcery Exile
1581 Idem Jerónima Saragossa Sorcery, procuring Prohibition from
Fernández and prostitution the brothel
1584 Idem Juan Blanc* Gascony (France) Saragossa Superstitious
healing
1591 Idem Pedro de Béarn (France) Saragossa Necromancy, Reprimand
Salanova* sorcery and
extra-marital
sexual relations
1604 Idem María Rodríguez* Navarre Saragossa Sorcery and
procuring
1605 Idem Isabel Gombal* Benalguacil Saragossa Sorcery
(Valencia)
6 Archivo Diocesano de Zaragoza.

231
Table 3 Individuals tried by the secular court for crimes relating to magic in
Saragossa (1591)
Year Source Name Place of Place of Charge Sentence

origin residence
1591 AMZ Magdalena Witchcraft

Ortiz
1591 Idem María de Witchcraft
Val
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Index
Note: Locators followed by ‘n’ refer to notes
Abracadabra, vi, 4 astrology, x, 3, 29, 31–2, 40, 46, 145,

afterworld, 35, 37,93 147, 161, 203 n. 15, 213 n. 40,
Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius, 32, 52, 222, 225, 227
175 n. 7 asylum, 131, 138, 140, 142, 198 n. 31,
Aguado, Miguel Melchor, 68–9, 79, 200 n. 63, 201 n. 73, 202 n. 89
187 n. 90, 203 n. 14, 205 Augsburg, 157, 209 n. 73
n. 23, 225 Augury, 19
Agustina, 151–2, 173 n. 39, 183 n. 25, Austria, 44, 69, 228
208 n. 54, 224 Auto de fe, 22, 48, 51, 112, 123,
Alastruey, Isabel, 128, 197 n. 18, 128–30, 153, 178 n. 60, 180 n. 75
207 n. 40 Aznar, Catalina, 77, 94, 96, 149, 173
Albalate, Mateo de, 69, 204 n. 21, 228 n. 39, 183 n. 25, 186 n. 80, 187 n.
Albertus Magnus, 32, 68, 79, 205 n. 23 91, 188 n. 99, 191 n. 156, 207 n.
Alchemy, 3, 29, 31, 147–8, 177 n. 30, 38, 208 n. 50, 219
203 n. 16 Aznar, Juana de, 136
Almanzor, Lorenzo, 137
Alms, 46, 53–4, 96, 138, 204 n. 20
Bacon, Roger, 31
Altar stones, 2, 49, 66, 145, 152
Bamalera, Eugenio, 53, 203 n. 16, 204
Amulets, 23, 79, 87, 119
n. 21, 205 n. 23, 227
Ana Francisca, 66, 223, 225
banditry, 14–15
Andreu, Gracia, 72, 74, 83, 91, 94,
banishment, 17–18, 102, 117, 124,
159, 163, 186 n. 65 & 84, 188 n.
136, 142, 154, 165, 203 n. 15
105, 190 n. 140, 191 n. 152, 202
n. 1, 205 n. 23, 206 n. 35, 208 n. baptism, 7
50, 210 n. 86–7 & 91, 211 n. 9 & Bardaxi, Juana, 132, 198 n. 34, 36 &
14, 225 40, 207 n. 40
Andreu, Isabel, 143, 159, 210 n. 87 & Baroque, 2, 117, 168, 214
93, 224 barrenness, 15, 144
angels, 4, 32, 45, 47, 117, 141, beans, 63, 66, 68, 73–5, 87, 148
143, 167 beggar, 12, 147, 162, 204 n. 20
apostasy, 24, 41, 128, 130, 132, 134, Bernardo, Pedro, 47–8, 173 n. 39, 178
144, 177 n. 46, 219 n. 59 & 61, 219
Aquinas, Thomas, 33 Bethencourt, Francisco, 76
Aragon, xi, 10, 12–15, 18, 20, 24–6, Bible, 31, 178 n. 54
36, 104, 107, 124, 127, 136, 138, bigamy, 26
142, 147–8, 152–3, 160 binding, 30, 44, 46, 52, 61, 77, 94, 96
Arbués, Pedro, 169, 213 n. 36 bishops, 6, 8, 18–20, 53, 103–4, 106,
Archbishops, 19–23, 44, 103–5, 112, 109, 111, 150, 175 n. 11, 179 n.
125–6, 173 n. 28, 184 n. 44, 216 68, 199 n. 47
Artisans, 11–12 Blanc, Bárbara, 105, 193 n. 26
asceticism, 32 Blanche of Bourbon, 87
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
Corella, Jaime de, 106 possession, ix, 111, 113, 115,

Council of Trent, 25, 61, 155 117–19, 121–2, 192 n. 11, 193
Count-Duke of Olivares, xii, 44 n. 31, 195 n. 70, 212 n. 34
counter-reformation, 2, 12, 90, 169, she-devil, 88, 189 n. 128
179 n. 68, 213 n. 39 visions, 50, 116–17, 133, 139, 160
countryside, x-xi, 12, 29, 98, 127, desire, 5, 17, 29, 31, 46, 59, 63–4, 66,
147–8, 150, 158 73, 75, 78, 81, 110, 115, 132, 143,
Covarrubias, Sebastián de, 56, 181 n. 148, 168, 195 n. 70
114–15, 203 n. 15 devil, 13, 15, 22, 24, 26–7, 33, 44,
credulity, 8, 29, 57, 154–6, 159 46–7, 49, 52, 55–6, 60, 62, 66, 80,
crimes/criminal proceedings, x, 7, 14, 83, 86–9, 99–102, 110, 112, 117,
17–20, 23, 27, 29, 41, 47–8, 80, 122, 127–30, 132–5, 137, 140,
109–10, 112, 123–5, 127–32, 145, 149–50, 155, 160, 162, 173
134–7, 144, 150, 153, 156–7, 163, n. 39, 176 n. 15, 177 n. 46, 178 n.
174 n. 40, 175 n. 11, 207 n. 45, 58, 184 n. 46, 189 n. 128, 195 n.
209 n. 74, 219 77, 207 n. 39–41
Cristóbal, Jerónimo, 42 copulation or intercourse, 26, 133–4
cross, 1, 40, 45, 61, 68, 81, 85, 101, Lame devil or Diablo cojuelo, 83,
106, 113, 117, 119, 123, 156, 87–8, 155, 167
168–9, 176 n. 15, 188 n. 110 pact, 7, 22, 24, 47, 55, 62, 100, 101,
Cunqueiro, Álvaro, 50, 175 n. 14 110, 112, 122, 127, 129–30,
135, 176 n. 21, 177 n. 46
dancing, 133, 136, 145 worship, 33, 47, 117, 144–5
Davies, Owen, xiii, 148 dice, 73, 149
death, death sentence, 2, 14–15, 17, dioceses, 18–20, 22, 104, 127
20, 25–6, 34, 36, 42, 48, 60, 81–2, disease, 4, 15, 70, 99, 164, 184 n. 46,
87, 93, 104, 106, 119, 124–5, 127, 185 n. 49, 209 n. 64, 212 n. 34,
130, 133, 144, 147, 149, 152, 165, 213 n. 40
197 n. 13, 209 n. 73–5, 213 n. 36, divination, 19, 21, 23, 73–4, 80–1,
223–4 143, 180 n. 74, 187 n. 91,
deception, 8, 22–3, 44, 46–7, 52, 57, 192 n. 15
97, 116, 121, 123, 136, 156–7, 225 dogs, 42, 77, 84, 88–9, 100–1, 106,
Defoe, Daniel, 161–2 115, 128, 133, 150, 185 n. 49–50,
Delpech, François, xiii, 82, 96 189 n. 129
demons/demonic, 4–5, 7, 12–13, 15, Don Quixote, 60, 181 n. 113,
22, 29–33, 40, 44–6, 48–9, 51–2, 183 n. 14
54–5, 57, 60, 68, 77, 82–4, 86–9, dragon, 13, 56, 82, 85
111, 114, 121–2, 130, 145, 147–8, dreams, 30, 133, 181 n. 112
150, 151, 154, 160, 165–6, 175 n.
11, 176 n. 21, 178 n. 54, 180 n. Ebro, river, 2, 9, 151, 163, 189 n. 129,
94, 181 n. 107, 189 n. 128, 203 n. 214, 216–17
11, 220–1 ecstasy, 7, 96
Barabbas, 22, 84, 88–9, 155, 189 edict, 19, 49, 153
n. 128 eggs, 68, 77–9, 135
Beelzebub, 22, 88–9, 189 n. 128 elderly women, 15, 21, 26, 125–6
invokers, 3–4, 13, 31, 45, 51–2, 55, Elena, 66, 149
57, 68, 86, 88, 150, 175 n. 15, emotions, 7, 63, 73, 75–6, 158
207 n. 41 enchanters, enchantments, 15, 23, 46,
Lucifer, 84, 88 48–50, 54, 56, 58–9, 62–3, 93, 98,
Index 247
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
Gombal, Cándida, 88, 189 n. 127 & impenetrability, 52, 69

129, 207 n. 41, 221 impotence, 15, 97, 144
Gombal, Isabel, 22, 70, 173 n. 28, incense, 37, 45, 49, 87, 118–19
35 & 36, 183 n. 25, 184 n. 44–5, infanticide, 26, 144
204 n. 19, 221, 230 innumerable Martyrs, 2, 13, 162,
Gómez Urdáñez, José Luis, 131 168, 216
González, Marcos, 97 inquisition, xi, 6, 8, 10, 22–8, 40–4,
Good Friday, 100, 168, 192 n. 11 48, 51, 53, 67, 74, 77, 81, 85,
gosling, 36–9, 177 n. 30 87–8, 91, 96–8, 105–12, 123,
Goya, Francisco de, 6, 64, 65, 67, 71, 130–1, 136–7, 142, 149, 152–4,
95, 146 157, 159, 166–7, 169, 174 n. 41,
Guillén, Martín, 105 194 n. 50, 207 n. 40, 209 n. 64
gypsies, 12, 49–50 inquisitorial justice/courts, ix, 13, 19,
22–3, 29, 35, 46, 55, 57, 60, 93,
hailstorms, 15, 101, 133, 144 100–4, 113, 115, 121–2, 125–9,
hair, 77–8, 82, 94, 136, 141, 156, 159 134, 139–40, 151, 162–4, 173 n.
hallucinations, 50, 137, 151, 160 40, 176 n. 20, 197 n. 13
hangmen, 93, 149, 204 n. 17 invisibility, 29, 44, 68, 79, 122, 143
harvests, 15, 145 invocations, 30, 32–7, 40, 44, 47–8,
healers, 3, 17, 70, 98–9, 101, 103–4, 51, 54–5, 57, 68, 81, 84, 94, 143,
121, 126, 147, 203 n. 13, 151, 155, 165, 167, 169,
204 n. 21 220–1, 223
heaven/glory, 54, 74, 89, 90, 92–3, Isabel Francisca, 66
117, 190 n. 145, 212 n. 34 Islam, 1, 9, 11, 25–6, 31–2, 88
hell, 63, 80, 87–9, 91, 93, 117, 149, Moors/Moorish, 2, 9–10, 22, 29–30,
190 n. 138 49–50, 56–7, 70, 148, 151, 170
Henningsen, Gustav, 9 n. 5, 179 n. 66, 205 n. 22 &
heresy/heretical, 6, 24, 26, 41, 47, 51, 25, 214
54, 59, 128–9, 131, 134, 140, 144, Moriscos, 10, 24, 26, 88, 148,
154–6, 168, 175 n. 11, 176 n. 24, 205 n. 22
177 n. 46, 202 n. 79, 209 n. Mudéjar population, 10
64, 219 Muslims, 10, 24, 49, 111
holy oil, 145 Italy, 44, 107, 221
holy sacrament, 54, 116, 212 n. 34 Florence, 48, 219
holy trinity, 47, 106, 113, 159, 167 Sicily, 227
holy water, 2, 33–4, 37, 49–50, 66, 74, Venice, 75, 157, 206 n. 27, 209 n. 92
110, 135, 152
horoscopes, 147 Jaca, 107, 109, 137, 193 n. 31, 227
horse, 70, 133, 165 Jerusalem, 13, 129, 144
host, 36, 141, 145, 152 Jews/ Jewish/ Judaism, 10, 24–6, 31,
humours, 102, 139 56, 145, 190 n. 145, 214
Jinober, Francisco, 90
idolatry, 46–8, 154, 177 n. 46, judicial institutions, 13, 25
178 n. 58 Justa Rufina, 134, 223
illusions, 8, 31, 68, 130, 202 n. 80
imagination, 24, 26, 31, 50, 56, 75, 93, Kabbalah, 31
117, 123, 140, 169, 184 n. 46 Kamen, Henry, 153, 155, 171 n. 14
immigrants, 7, 12, 17, 21, 29, 147–8, King Ferdinand, 25
205 n. 25 knife/knives, 34, 36–8, 54
Index 249
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
purgatory, 4, 29, 51, 81, 89–93, 117, saints

167, 189 n. 137, 190 n. 138 St Augustine, 106
pyrenees, 10, 20, 26, 104, 109, 136, St Barbara, 106
160, 207 n. 40, 210 n. 92 St Catherine, 100–1, 103–4, 113,
117–18, 192 n. 8
St Christopher, 82, 85–6
quarrels, 21, 40–1, 66, 88, 114,
St Cosmas and St Damian, 106
149, 163
St Cyprian, 33–4
St Gregory, 106
rabies, 99–100, 104, 212 n. 34 St Helen, 82, 85, 188 n. 110
reality, xi, 7–8, 12, 26, 75, 130, 145, St John, 80, 106, 167, 187 n. 97, 214
202 n. 80, 207 n. 45 St Martha, 82, 84–5, 188 n. 106
reclusion, 52–3, 124, 131, 135, 153, St Orosia, 106
199 n. 42, 220–2, 224–5, St Peter, 80, 106, 112, 163, 214
227–9 St Quiteria, 100, 103
reconciliation/reconciled, 22, 63, 132, St Roch, 162, 168–9, 213 n. 37
184 n. 44 St Sebastian, 168–9
refuge, 3, 12, 124–5, 128, 130–2, 135, St Sylvester, 167
142, 200 n. 63, 217–18 Salanova, Pedro de, 21, 230
renaissance, 2, 11, 175 n. 10, 192 n. 15 Salazar y Frías, Alonso, 130, 153
revenge, 63, 73, 97 Saludadores, x, 98, 99–116, 119–24,
rings, 30, 39 192 n. 8, 193 n. 21, 208 n. 52
rituals, 12, 25, 33, 35, 41, 47, 50, 66, San Jerónimo, Magdalena de, 136
70, 73–4, 76, 86, 96, 118, 120, San Miguel, Jerónima de, 78, 93, 221
122, 152, 156, 168, 175 n. 11, 184 Sánchez, Elena, 167, 169, 185
n. 33, 212 n. 34 n. 50, 225
Rodas, Jorge de, 43 Sánchez, Jaime, 126
Roeck, Bernd, 148, 209 n. 73 Sánchez, María, 20, 125–6, 230
Rogel, Sanz de, 39 Sánchez, Miguel, 38–9, 41, 176
Rome, 13, 38, 42–3, 49, 129, 163 n. 24, 219
Romerales, María de, 81, 129, 222 Sanz, Agustín, 51, 223
rope, 49, 7, 93–4, 147, 154–5, 190 n. Sanz, Petronila, 84, 223
151, 204 n. 17 Saragossa, 1–4, 7, 9–26, 29, 31, 35, 38,
rosaries, 50, 71, 136 40–5, 47–53, 56, 60, 62–3, 66, 68,
Rossa, Gostanza, 21, 230 72, 74–6, 77, 79, 81–5, 87–9,
Rothenburg, 157, 209 n. 74 91–113, 117, 123–42, 143–69
Charitable institutions: Convent of
Royo Sarrià, J. M., 138
Holy Faith and Penance, 131,
rue, 118–19
217; Father of Orphans, 131,
Ruggiero, Guido, 75, 80
165, 198 n. 30, 217; Father of
Ruiz, Ana, 89, 221
the Insane The ‘Brotherhood of
rural environment, 3, 7, 15, 28, 98,
Soup’, 137–8; House of Our
158–9
Lady of Mercy, 131, 134, 140,
rural magic, 144–5
198, 217; House of Penance,
131–2, 134, 217; House of the
sabbath, 7, 24, 26–7, 96, 100, 130, Galley, 131; Mother of the
145, 150–1, 160, 176 n. 21 Insane, 138, 198 n. 31; St
sacrilege, 12, 29, 54, 77, 90, 115, 121, Michael’s House of Correction
141, 177 n. 46, 202 n. 80 for Delinquent Children 131;
252 Index
Saragossa – Continued serpents /snakes, 44–5, 48, 60, 82,

The Brotherhood of Refuge, 141, 180 n. 94
131, 200 n. 63, 217; The Sevilla, Feliciano de, 89
Fraternity of the Blood of sex, xii, 63, 66–7, 69–70, 97, 113–16,
Christ, 131, 217 118, 132, 134, 145, 150, 164–5,
Churches: La Seo, cathedral, 66, 195 n. 70 & 77, 204 n.
214; Our Lady of the Pillar, 2, 18, 230
13, 51, 66, 81–2, 85,112, 154, carnal relations, 15, 78, 114,
168, 203 n. 10, 206 n. 32, 214; 207 n. 41
San Gil, 1, 66, 216; San Juan el pollutions, 115–16, 118
Viejo, 52, 79, 214; San Pablo, 1, shadow, 94, 166, 191 n. 153
35, 41–3, 66, 1776 n. 24, 214; sieve, 68, 79–80, 148, 156, 187 n. 91
Santa Engracia, 152, 214, 216 silver, 29, 39, 52, 69, 74, 76–7, 148–9,
Hospitals: Hospital of Our Lady of 168, 206 n. 35
Grace, 68, 131, 137, 164, 198, Sixtus V, pope, 33
201 n. 65 & 73, 202 n. 79 & 89, slaves, 12, 29, 47, 60, 180 n. 80
205 n. 23, 214–15; The sleep, 34, 150
Convalescents’ Hospital, 131, sleepless nights, 50, 72, 156
217; The Pilgrims’ Hospital, sodomy, 26
131, 217 Solomon, 32, 34, 39, 46, 178 n. 54
Locations: Aljafería palace, 1, 25, 41, sorcery, x, 5, 18–21, 23, 29–30, 36, 46,
130, 208 n. 52, 216; Huerto del 61, 74, 76, 87, 92, 96, 99, 122,
Nuncio, 152, 214; Las 131, 134, 136, 139–40, 143–4,
Doncellas, alley, 70; Monte de 147–8, 150–4, 157, 159, 164, 173
Torrero, 49, 151–2, 214 n. 39 & 40, 176 n. 20–1, 188 n.
Monasteries & Convents: Capuchin 106, 209 n. 74, 219–30
monastery, 162, 217; College of Soria, Lamberto de, 41
Virgins, 117, 216; Holy Sepulcre Soria, Lucía de, 97, 224
convent, 112, 11, 216; Our Lady Soria, Miguel de, 38–41, 43,
of Cogullada, 52, 69; St 177 n. 35
Catherine, 117–18, 216; St souls, 32, 34, 40, 54, 89–93, 96, 141,
Lazarus, 98 149, 155, 160, 166, 182 n. 9, 184
Satan/satanic, 7, 15, 22, 24, 33, 45, 47, n. 46, 189 n. 37, 190 n. 145, 191
55, 60, 84, 86, 88–9, 128, 143–6, n. 151 & 153
150, 155, 176 n. 15, 189 n. 128 Lonely soul, 91–2, 190 n. 141
scaffold, 49, 93–5, 151–2, 208 n. 50, In Purgatory, 4, 29, 51, 81, 90–1,
216–17 117, 167
scapegoats, 15, 105, 145, 162 Spain
skepticism, xi, 20, 24, 28, 126, 129, Cities, Towns & Villages: Albarracín
150, 157, 159 (Teruel), 18; Albero (Huesca),
secret, 7, 19–20, 43–4, 55, 73, 125, 107, 222; Alicante, 155, 205 n.
151, 179 n. 66, 180 n. 80, 23; Ballestar de Flumen
207 n. 45 (Huesca), 111, 227 ; Barbastro
secular justice/courts, ix-xi, 13, 20, 23, (Huesca), 18, 104, 106, 109,
26–8, 104, 127–8, 132–4, 153, 207 224, 227; Barcelona, 11, 153,
n. 40 178 n. 60, 211 n. 8, 226; Bielsa
seers, 3, 180 n. 74 (Huesca), 104–6, 229; Canary
semen, 69, 77, 79, 114, 116, 164, 187 Islands, 87; Cartagena, 107;
n. 87 Castillo de Miranda (Saragossa),
Index 253
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

Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain

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Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain

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Urban Magic in Early Modern Spain

Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic

Series Editors: Jonathan Barry, Willem de Blécourt and Owen Davies

Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic

Translated from Spanish by Susannah Howe

Relación de causa of Pedro Montalbán (Saragossa, 1631)

List of Illustrations viii

Note to the English Edition ix

Prologue: Abracadabra Omnipotens 1

1 The Judicial Backdrop: Saragossa and the Three

2 Magic Circles and Enchanted Treasures 30

3 Magic for Love or Subjugation 58

4 Saludadores and Witch-Finders 99

5 The City as Refuge 124

6 Rural versus Urban Magic 143

Epilogue: In Times of Plague 161

Saragossa in the Early Modern Period: Locations of the Places

Select Bibliography 232

0.1 Topographical map of the most noble, heroic and

María Tausiet is held in such high regard among historians of

pains to underline the differences in the responses on the part of the

pose new questions – and the open-ended nature of this questioning is

I am indebted to Dries Vanysacker for the initial stimulus to write this

outstanding linguistic skills have been a continuing source of wonder,

Wherever there is religion there is magic [ . . . ]; wherever there is

Visitors arriving in Saragossa today will ﬁnd themselves in a modern

Whatever the beliefs of those who frequented the churches, whether

of divinity. According to one of the central tenets of Christianity, God

to counter the excesses and abuse denounced by reformers. This is the

collective catharsis, whatever their actual margin of success or failure.

A number of citizens were recently appointed to see and ordain

The city of Caesar Augusta was founded in around 14 BC by the emperor

and demographic growth (the population is reckoned to have reached

It is worth noting here that while Saragossa’s population included

power over their holdings, despotically governing and acting as judge

According to the desaforamiento statutes drawn up by different

Illustration 1.1 Front cover of the Recopilación de Estatutos de la ciudad de

In 1584, Saragossa’s Chapter and Council (Capítulo y Consejo: a colle-

Two years later, according to the Statute of 6 December 1586 against

BEARING in mind and taking into consideration the many scan-

swiftly, summarily and without formality or judicial procedure, dis-

early modern period, these constitutions invariably included a chapter

We solemnly commission them to investigate whether there be

As this constitution was at pains to underline, one of the most charac-

condemned. The crimes of witchcraft and superstition which, in the

The attitude of Saragossa’s archbishops towards witchcraft and sorcery,

A second case, in which the archbishop’s ﬁscal, or prosecutor, charged

Isabel Bibache is a new Christian, I say a new convert [ . . . ] and she

she has impoverished some people by giving them to understand that

the said lies, divinations, bribery, falsehoods and [ . . . ] charms using

the former’.43 In effect, this meant that although it was theoretically an

At the same time as the Catholic Church’s battle against

The centralized nature of Spain’s Inquisition meant that, although to

At one stroke, with remarkable foresight, Ferdinand had guaranteed

Illustration 1.2 & 1.3 (Continued).

of all, however, as a result of that gathering of 1526, a set of detailed

in the kinds of magic primarily found in urban areas. Bearing in mind

One Moor [ . . . ] recounted various ways in which sorcerers

in other words a chain of correspondences and afﬁnities between the

involving chastity, fasting and prayer. Indeed practising magic was

certain death. A passage in one of the best preserved manuscripts of the

no experiments for converse with Spirits can be done without a Circle

According to the experts, magic circles could be of different types and

The conjurer had to be in the ideal frame of mind before performing