{"product_id":"the-basque-witch-hunt-a-secret-history","title":"The Basque Witch-Hunt : A Secret History","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn June 1609, two judges left Bordeaux for a territory at the very edge of their jurisdiction, a Basque-speaking province on the Atlantic coast called the Pays de Labourd. In four months, they executed up to 80 women and men for the crime of witchcraft, causing a wave of suspects to flee into Spain and sparking terror there. Witnesses, many of them children, described lurid tales of cannibalism, vampirism, and demonic sex.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOne of the judges, Pierre de Lancre, published a sensationalist account of this diabolical netherworld. With other accounts seemingly destroyed, this witch-hunt – France's largest – has always been seen through de Lancre’s eyes. The narrative, re-told over the centuries, is that of a witch-hunt caused by a bigoted outsider.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNewly discovered evidence paints a very different, still darker picture, revealing a secret history underneath de Lancre’s well-known tale. Far from an outside imposition, witchcraft was a home-grown problem. Panic had been building up over a number of years and the region was fractured by factionalism and a struggle over scarce resources.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Basque Witch-Hunt reveals that de Lancre was no outsider; he was a local partisan, married into the Basque nobility. Living at the Franco-Spanish border, the Basques were victims of geography. Geo-politics caused a local conflict which made the witch-hunt inevitable.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe same forces eventually sent thousands of religious refugees from Spain to France where they, in turn, became new objects of popular fear and anger. The Basque witch-hunt is justly infamous. This book shows that almost everything historians thought they knew about it is wrong.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners Books Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56364645122427,"sku":null,"price":19.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0297\/2768\/6700\/files\/9781350607514.jpg?v=1785835571","url":"https:\/\/blackmoonbotanica.com\/products\/the-basque-witch-hunt-a-secret-history","provider":"Black Moon Botanica Amsterdam","version":"1.0","type":"link"}