[500] Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 564, fol. 341, 343.
[501] A narrative, not an official report, of this auto was printed in Logroño in 1611, a copy of which is in the Bibl. nacional, D, 118, p. 271. It was reprinted in Cádiz in 1812 and again in Madrid, in 1820, with notes by Moratin el hijo under the pseudonym of the Bachiller Gines de Posadilla (Menéndez y Pelayo, III, 281). There is another abstract of the auto, compiled from various relations by Pedro of Valencia, in the MSS. of the Bodleian Library, Arch Seld. A, Subt. 10.
Pierre de Lancre of Bordeaux, in his contemporary book on witchcraft, assumes that the outbreak in Navarre was caused by the flight of witches from the Pays de Labour, which he and his colleague had purified with merciless severity. He comments on the difference shown, in the auto of Logroño, between inquisitorial practice in Spain, where the offence was treated as spiritual and those who confessed and professed repentance were admitted to reconciliation, and that of France where it was a crime and those who confessed were burnt by the secular authorities.—Pierre de Lancre, Tableau de l’Inconstance des mauvais Angels et Demons, pp. 391, 561-2 (Paris, 1613).
[502] Archivo de Simancas, Inq. de Logroño, Leg. 1, Procesos de fe, n. 8.
[503] This discourse was not printed but was circulated in MS. Nicholas Antonio had two copies (Bib. nova, II, 244). There is one in the Simancas archives, Lib. 939, fol. 608, and another in the Bodleian Library. Arch Seld. A, Subt. 10.
[504] The most prolific source of evidence against individuals was that obtained by requiring those who confessed to enumerate the persons whom they had seen in the aquelarres. This explains the enormous numbers of the accused during epidemics of the witchcraft craze. The value of such evidence was a disputed question, as it was argued that the demon frequently caused deception by making spectres appear in the guise of absent persons.
[505] Archivo de Simancas, Inq. de Logroño, Leg. 1, Procesos de fe, n. 8.
In the Royal Library of Copenhagen (MS. 218b, p. 379) there is a printed four-page set of instructions to commissioners on receiving confession and testimony as to witchcraft. It is in conformity with the above, but goes into much detail as to the interrogatories to be put, after carefully writing down the confession or deposition—a kind of cross-examination evidently suggestive of complete incredulity. It is without date, but the typography seems to be that of the seventeenth century.
[506] Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 30, fol. 1.
[507] Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Leg. 552, fol 1.