The origins of the Sabbat: A brief Basque case study

Machielsen, Jan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8492-0263 2024. The origins of the Sabbat: A brief Basque case study. Groniek Historisch Tijdschrift 238

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Abstract

Even by the standards of early modern witches’ gatherings, the Basque sabbat was exceptional. Neither the French judges nor the Spanish inquisitors who confronted the witchcraft panic of 1609 quite knew what to do with the sensational testimony they gathered. Basque sorginak did not simply feast on the bodies of dead babies, as witches were said to do elsewhere, they dug up the bodies of deceased witches from cemeteries and consumed those. They did not simply adore the devil by kissing him on the backside, the devil also sucked their blood. And above all, witches brought their children to the sabbat – the really young ones were playing with toads while their parents were having sex with Satan. The Spanish inquisitors descended into years of factional infighting, arguing amongst themselves whether any of it was real or one giant demonic delusion. In France, one of the judges, Pierre de Lancre, was kept spellbound by the sabbat and, in 1612, published a sensational account of this nocturnal netherworld.

Item Type:	Article
Status:	In Press
Schools:	History, Archaeology and Religion
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DC France D History General and Old World > DE The Mediterranean Region. The Greco-Roman World
ISSN:	0169-2801
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	1 November 2024
Date of Acceptance:	14 October 2024
Last Modified:	01 Dec 2024 02:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/172886

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