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 ending the inquisitorial processes on witchcraft and, consequently, with collective hysteria that fueled the witch hunt. The Malaga-born author defends that honoring this "forgotten" man is what has moved her when publishing Las brujas y el inquisidor (Espasa), and stresses that she does not seek to rewrite the history of the Spanish inquisition, although she does clarify that she has been portrayed "from stereotypes".
The last work of Roca Barea follows the traces of Alonso de Salazar around the most important process he faced: that of Zugarramurdi. The Navarrese town was yesterday the place chosen to present the novel, an appointment to which the author from Málaga attended with the objective between eyebrows of focusing the focus on the protagonist of the novel and the terrible episode in which, being an inquisitor rookie, he was a protagonist.
The author separates the work from the path marked with Imperiophobia, when she underlined her interest in combating the readings established on the most negative aspects of the history of Spain, which she attributes to the propaganda spread by the "enemy powers". Walking through the border area of Zugarramurdi, Roca Barea strives to focus on Salazar: "He was an extraordinary and brave man, moved by reason against superstition."
The novel revolves around the "heroic" position of the inquisitor against the mainstream and, in summary, concludes that the protagonist hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that "there were no witches or bewitched until they began to treat and write they". That is, the witch hunt was a mass hysteria that was possible in an exceptionally gullible society and in a changing sociopolitical context.
Roca Barea scrutinizes the particular elements that made the Zugarramurdi process possible: the confrontation between France and Spain for control of Navarre or the conflicts of a religious nature. The author adds a very specific episode: the performance 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 some 200 people accused of witchcraft.
“Without the witchcraft trials that took place on the other side of this almost invisible border, what happened in Zugarramurdi would not have happened. Without Pierre de Lancre we would not know all this history”.
Lancre is the antagonist of Alonso de Salazar; he is a perverse, fanatical and misogynistic figure. A jurist of Basque-French origin with a special animosity for the culture and language of those women who would end up at the stake.
“He deeply hated the Pyrenean origin of his family. In reality, his last name was Rosteguy, although they stopped using it. He says some terrible things about the Basque, just as it is included in the book”, adds Roca Barea.
Those processes on the other side of the border were the spark that would ignite that collective hysteria, and would generate a contagion effect that spread like wildfire.
Roca Barea also considers that this French jurist was key in spreading a “terrible” image of the Spanish inquisition in his Tableau de l'inconstance des mauvais anges et démons, while “hiding his own actions”.
The conversation threatens to deviate towards the controversial question of the black legend, until Roca Barea bets on centering the shot: “How many people did Alonso de Salazar save their lives? He could not prevent the Zugarramurdi trial, but he did manage to avoid many subsequent trials. He was the one who put an end to these processes, the key figure that allowed witchcraft to stop being seen as a punishable act, long before that in the rest of the European countries. And we have forgotten."
