Alonso de Salazar Frías facts for kids
Alonso de Salazar Frías (born around 1564 in Burgos, Spain; died 1635 in Madrid, Spain) was a Spanish expert in religious law, a priest, and an inquisitor. He was well-known for speaking out against witch trials during his time. Historians often call him "The Witches’ Advocate." This is because he helped people understand that many accusations of witchcraft came from dreams or imagination, not from real events. He believed these claims went against common sense.
Salazar was likely the most important person who helped stop people accused of witchcraft from being killed in Spain during the 1600s and 1700s. The Spanish Inquisition was one of the first groups in Europe to decide against the death penalty for supposed witches. Their rules from 1614, which included Salazar's ideas, became important across Catholic Europe.
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Alonso de Salazar's Life Story
Alonso de Salazar Frías lived from about 1564 to 1636. He was born in Burgos, where his father was a lawyer. His family was important, with many civil servants and successful merchants. Salazar studied religious law at the University of Salamanca and the University of Sigüenza.
He became a priest and was appointed as a vicar-general and judge in the bishop's court in Jaén. His career grew a lot because of his close connection with Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, who was first the Bishop of Jaén and later the Archbishop of Toledo.
Salazar became known as a very good lawyer. In 1600, he was chosen as the Attorney General for the Church in Castile. When his friend became the Inquisitor General in 1608, Salazar was picked to be an inquisitor in Logroño (La Rioja) in 1609. He handled the witch trials there with great intelligence and focus. This earned him a lot of respect within the Inquisition. By 1631, he became a member of its highest council.
When Salazar joined the Logroño court as its third inquisitor in June 1609, a huge series of witch trials had already started. This was the biggest witch hunt in Spanish history. It eventually involved 1,384 children and 420 adults who were accused of being witches. This was a persecution of witches unlike any other in Spain, before or after. Most of the accused came from Zugarramurdi and Urdax. These were two Basque villages in Spanish Navarre, close to the French border in the Pyrenees mountains.
The investigation began when Maria de Ximildegui from Zugarramurdi said she had gone to witches' Sabbaths (night meetings). She named other people from her village who were supposedly there. She even confronted one woman, Maria de Jureteguia, in front of her family. Maria de Ximildegui described the events so clearly that the family believed her. They pressured the woman to confess. Maria de Jureteguia then admitted it was true and said she had been a witch since she was a small child. After her priest told her to confess publicly, many others who had been accused also came forward and confessed. Some people who were suspected were even forced to go to the local priest and threatened with torture if they didn't confess.
In January 1609, four people who had confessed to being witches were taken to Logroño for a first hearing with the Inquisition. The inquisitors only told the Inquisitor General and the Supreme Council in Madrid after these first inquiries were done. The two inquisitors in Logroño, Alonso Becerra Holguin and Juan del Valle Alvarado, believed that a group of witches really existed. This was mainly because the witches' descriptions were so similar. Their stories about the devil, night meetings, and how new members joined matched very closely.
In March 1609, the Supreme Council of the Inquisition sent a list of questions to Logroño. These questions were for witches who were in prison, witches who were free, and certain witnesses. Several questions tried to find out if the supposed witches' experiences were dreams or real. This showed that the Council was a bit doubtful. The inquisitors only used the questionnaire on the imprisoned witches. From their answers, the inquisitors felt sure that the witches' gatherings were real, not just dreams or imagination.
Later, inquisitor Valle Alvarado visited the area. He concluded that about 300 adults were involved in witchcraft. Thirty-one of the most guilty ones were taken to Logroño for trial in June 1610. By this time, Salazar was also an inquisitor. All the inquisitors agreed that the nineteen people who confessed should be punished but not burned at the stake. However, one person was condemned to burn for trying to get others to join the witch group. But they disagreed about the twelve people who denied being witches. The other inquisitors thought these twelve should definitely be burned. Salazar, however, was not convinced they were guilty. He voted for them to be questioned under torture to get more proof. In the end, the majority decision won, and those who denied their guilt were put to death. At this point, only Salazar's fellow inquisitors knew about his doubts.
These events happened at the same time as a witch-hunt led by French judge Pierre de Lancre in the Pays de Labourd, north of the Pyrenees. De Lancre's investigation led to many accused witches being burned. Salazar said over 80 people were burned (this number is now thought to be the most accurate, much closer to the truth than the old number of 600, which was a misunderstanding of de Lancre's own writings). It's clear that news of de Lancre's actions caused a witch panic on the Spanish side of the border. A public event called an auto de fe in Logroño in 1610, attended by perhaps 30,000 people, made the fear about witchcraft even worse in 1610–11. This led to many accusations and confessions. In northern Spanish Navarre, it seemed almost every town had children who were supposedly bewitched. These children claimed they were taken to witches’ night gatherings and named everyone they saw there.
However, some important people were doubtful. They believed that those accused in the Logroño trials had lied because they were tortured or threatened. Local priests, Jesuit preachers, and even the Bishop of Pamplona, Venegas de Figueroa, shared this belief. The Bishop told the Inquisitor General that the witch craze was just rumors spread by children and simple people who had heard about the witches in France. With so many new accusations and confessions that weren't proven, Salazar refused to support the other inquisitors. This led to a divided vote being sent to the Supreme Council.
In March 1611, the Inquisitor General told Salazar to make a new visit to the area, but this time alone. He was not to force confessions. He also wasn't supposed to ask witches about their supposed partners in crime. Instead, he was to question witches who claimed to have attended the same gathering to see if their stories matched. Salazar's visit started in May 1611 and lasted almost eight months. He noticed that the accused people were unsure and changed their stories often. They also frequently took back statements they had made about others. He completely rejected the statements of 1,384 children, aged six to fourteen years, because their stories had many problems. He focused on finding real proof that a witch group existed.
When the accused were taken to the supposed meeting place and asked detailed questions about where the devil sat, they contradicted each other and their own earlier statements. Supposed ointments and powders turned out to be fake. The accused admitted these contained harmless things they had made up to please their accusers and to make their confessions seem real. Children who said they had been to gatherings in the village of Santesteban had lied. Salazar's secretaries had been to that place on the night in question and had seen no one. In fact, no one had ever seen the supposed witches. Salazar concluded that the devil tricks those who think they have been to his gathering. He believed the devil did this to cause trouble and unfairly accuse innocent people. The supposed witch group was just a product of imagination. In a report to the Inquisitor General, Salazar wrote:
I have not found one single proof nor even the slightest indication from which to infer that one act of witchcraft has actually taken place…the testimony of accomplices alone without further support from external facts substantiated by persons who are not witches is insufficient to warrant even one arrest.
In another report to the Supreme Council in 1613, Salazar strongly criticized how the court handled the witchcraft outbreak. He even admitted his own part in the mistakes. The inquisitors had not kept proper records, only writing down the final decision for each point. This hid any contradictions. They had also hidden the fact that accused people were allowed to take back their confessions. Sometimes, these retractions were left out of the records, hoping they would be withdrawn. The inquisitors had also quietly accepted violence used against the accused by local officials. Salazar said the real question was whether one should believe witchcraft happened just because accused witches claimed it did. In his view, they should not be believed. This was because they claimed impossible things, like flying through the air, being at the witches’ gathering while also being in bed, and changing into different shapes.
"These claims go beyond all human reason and many even pass the limits permitted the devil", he concluded. "If the devil was involved, how could he allow his machinations to be exposed so easily by children of eight years and under?"
In 1614, the Supreme Council issued new rules that adopted almost all of Salazar's ideas. Some parts were even copied word for word from his reports. These rules emphasized finding out if witches’ gatherings had actually happened. They required that all of a witch's statements be recorded, including any contradictions. They also said to consider the reasons for the statements and if the accused had faced violence or pressure. The rules insisted on proof from outside witnesses and allowed people to take back their statements. They stated that no one should be sentenced based only on what witches said. Finally, they insisted that public discussions about witchcraft should be forbidden.
After Salazar put these rules into practice in Logroño, he was able to tell the Supreme Council in 1617 that peace had returned to Navarre. Stopping public talk about witches had helped end the craze.
Salazar's Influence in Spain and Europe
Salazar always used a method of thinking called inductive reasoning. This means he looked at specific facts and observations to reach a general conclusion. He also insisted on empiricism, which means relying on experience and observation. He gave logical reasons for the witch panic in Navarre. These included rumors of persecutions in France, sermons by preachers, the dramatic auto de fe in Logroño (which 30,000 people saw), and even a widespread dream epidemic.
The Instructions of 1614 were not completely new. In many ways, they repeated rules made by inquisitors who met in Granada in 1526. Those earlier rules were made to decide how to deal with witchcraft found in Navarre that year. The repeated rules included forbidding the arrest or conviction of a witch based only on another witch's confession. But the 1614 Instructions also added new directions for taking and recording confessions. So, Salazar's main contribution was not to create scepticism where there was none. Other inquisitors already shared his doubts. Instead, he restated this skepticism so clearly and with so much real-world evidence that it definitely won over the Inquisition.
Salazar helped reduce the impact of large-scale witch persecutions in other parts of Spain. He worked to make sure that witch trials, whenever possible, came under the Inquisition's control. In 1616, local, non-religious authorities in North Vizcaya started trials against witches. But thanks to Salazar's involvement, there were no mass burnings. The accused were cleared, and their trials were moved to the Inquisition, which stopped the cases. In Catalonia, local authorities hanged more than 300 supposed witches between 1616 and 1619. But the Inquisition stopped these persecutions. In 1621, when eight supposed witches were burned in the province of Burgos, Salazar wrote a report about it. After this, the Inquisition's authority in witch cases was confirmed again. In a witch hunt in the 1620s in Cangas, the Inquisition stepped in. They made sure the accused received light sentences.
The Instructions of 1614 showed a skepticism that not all inquisitors shared. Even well into the 1600s, many inquisitors still thought witches should be put to death. But because the Inquisition had a strong central government and its Supreme Council had a lot of power, it was possible to put a minority decision into practice. This meant witch burnings were stopped several decades before most of the rest of Europe changed their policies. However, the new instructions did not end witch trials completely; they only stopped the killings. In fact, the number of witch trials in Spanish courts actually increased during the 1600s. But the punishments were light compared to those in central and northern Europe. Spanish courts continued to have witch trials long after many other European courts stopped. As late as 1791, the Inquisition in Barcelona handled a case against a woman who confessed to making a deal with the devil.
Salazar's influence went beyond Spain. The Roman Inquisition also became very lenient in sentencing supposed witches. They insisted on following strict rules for how witch trials were conducted. Their own guidelines for witch trials were written in the early 1620s. These were influenced by Salazar's Instructions. They were shared widely as handwritten copies until 1655, when they were published. These guidelines set strict rules for questioning accused witches. They called for careful use of torture and advised careful thought when evaluating witches’ confessions. Both the Spanish and Italian Inquisitions were among the first to reject the idea that witches’ gatherings were real.
Historian Gustav Henningsen has said that Salazar's reports show that smart people in the past could understand witchcraft just as well as modern experts.
See also
In Spanish: Alonso de Salazar y Frías para niños
