In 1609, some 80 people were executed for witchcraft in France's Basque region. It inspired a final push to eradicate witches by the Spanish Inquisition across the border. One of the judges, Pierre de Lancre, published a sensationalist book which has been the source of every subsequent account. But newly discovered evidence paints a very different picture.

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb finds out more from Dr. Jan Machielsen whose book The Basque Witch Hunt: A Secret History shows that almost everything historians thought they knew about this brutal episode is inaccurate.

Listen to our previous episode with Jan Machielsen, An Early Modern Teenage Werewolf >

Presented by Professor Suzannah Lipscomb. The researcher is Alice Smith and the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.

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