The first novel by Elvira Roca Barea, author of the successful essays Imperiofobia and Fracasología, is dedicated to the inquisitor Alonso de Salazar, to whom she attributes a key role in putting an end to the inquisitorial processes on witchcraft and, consequently, to the collective hysteria that fueled the witch hunt. The author from Málaga defends that honoring this “forgotten” man is what moved her to publish Las brujas y el inquisidor and emphasizes that she does not intend to rewrite the history of the Spanish Inquisition, although she clarifies that has portrayed “from the stereotypes”.
Roca Barea’s latest work follows in the footsteps of Alonso de Salazar in the most important process he faced: that of Zugarramurdi. The town in Navarre yesterday was the place chosen to present the novel, an appointment to which the Málaga author presented herself with the aim between an eyebrow and an eyebrow to focus the focus on the novel’s protagonist and the terrible episode that, being a novice inquisitor, he starred in.
The author detached the work from the path marked with Imperiophobia, when she emphasized her interest in combating the established readings about the most negative aspects of Spain’s history, which she attributes to the propaganda of the “enemy powers”. Walking through the border area of ??Zugarramurdi, Roca Barea focuses on putting the spotlight on Salazar: “He was an extraordinary and courageous man, moved by reason in the face of superstition.”
The novel revolves around the “heroic” position of the inquisitor against the mainstream and, in summary, concludes that the protagonist was right when he pointed out that “there were no sorcerers or bewitched until it began to deal with and write about them”. In other words, the witch hunt was a collective hysteria that was possible in an exceptionally credulous society and in a changing socio-political context.
Roca Barea examines the particular elements that made the Zugarramurdi process possible: the confrontation between France and Spain for the control of Navarre or the conflicts of a religious nature. The author adds a very specific episode: the actions of the high-ranking French official Pierre de Lancre in the neighboring towns of Sara and Senpere, on the other side of the border. He ordered the torture and execution of about 200 people accused of witchcraft. It was the spark that took that collective hysteria. Lancre is the antagonist of Alonso de Salazar, and he credits this French jurist with spreading a “terrible” image of the Spanish Inquisition in his publications, while hiding his actions. The conversation threatened to deviate towards the controversial issue of the black legend, until Roca Barea bet to ask: “How many people did Alonso de Salazar save his life? He was the one who put an end to the witchcraft trials. And we have forgotten it”.
