The Child Witches of Olague
Lu Ann Homza, "The Child Witches of Olague "
English | ISBN: 0271097493 | 2024 | 144 pages | EPUB, PDF | 2 MB + 5 MB
English | ISBN: 0271097493 | 2024 | 144 pages | EPUB, PDF | 2 MB + 5 MB
In the early seventeenth century, thousands of children in Spain’s Navarre region claimed to have been bewitched. The Child Witches of Olague features the legal depositions of self-described child witches as well as their parents and victims. The volume sheds new light on Navarre’s massive witch persecution (1608–14), illuminating the tragic cost of witch hunts and opening a new window onto our understanding of early modern Iberian life.
Drawing from Spanish-language sources only recently discovered, Homza translates and annotates three court cases from Olague in 1611 and 1612. Two were defamation trials involving the slur “witch,” and the third was a petition for divorce filed by an accused witch and wife. These cases give readers rare access to the voices of illiterate children in the early modern period. They also speak to the emotions of witch-hunting, with testimony about enraged, terrified parents turning to vigilante justice against neighbors. Together the cases highlight gender norms of the time, the profound honor code of early modern Navarre, and the power of children to alter adult lives.
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