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The Ballad of the Inquisition's Greatest Witch Trial

’s Greatest Witch Trial How a lost ballad detailing the Inquisition’s sentencing of 28 alleged Basque witches spread a witchcraft panic through 17th-century Spain. Like all legal institutions, the Spanish Inquisition recognised that justice needed not only to be done but also to be seen to be done.

How a lost ballad detailing the Inquisition’s sentencing of 28 alleged Basque witches spread a witchcraft panic through 17th-century Spain. An auto de fe, or ‘act of faith’, was, in part, a religious procession, possibly designed to mimic the Last Judgement. Penitents were forced to wear sambenitos, special garments, which, upon completion of their sentences, would be hung in the parish church to remind them, their offspring and their communities of their crimes.

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