"Durango's heretics rose up against religious power and political power."
- Ander Berrojalbiz (Durango, 1983) has joined history and music, as he teaches history of music at the Durango Conservatory, belongs to the group Khantoria, which recovers ancient music and has published two books on history in the editorial Pamiela: The heretics of Amboto (2016) and Herejeen alaba (2017), written together with Joseba Sarrionandia.
You said that the heretics were political dissidents...In the 15th century the
first heresies of the Duranguesado appeared. In the first, two heads stood out: Radical Franciscans Alonso de Mella and Guillén de Albesa. Among the documents is a letter from De Mella and a letter from a Durangus who participated in the repression, written to the Pope. There you see that they rose up against religious and political power. They were millennials, they believed that the second coming of God was approaching and that then paradise would be organized on land, the laws and the prerogatives of men would be organized in a world of justice without possessions of goods.
Were they also charged with sexual liberation? That's
what I'm analyzing. It is true that the first source of lust is much later than judgment. It may appear in the second or third trial, we do not know the role played by the torture. The fact is, they had an anti-dotational attitude. Women needed a dowry to be able to marry or put in a nun. A dowless woman had difficulty entering the marriage market, so many women were excluded from marriage law. A movement that claimed a world in which men ' s laws should be suspended would see fit to abolish marriage laws and unite without marriage among its members. From the work of De Mella the possibility of libertinage from old sources is deduced, but there are no concrete references and perhaps that of libertinage is an exaggeration.
What were the Blessed Ones?They
were like sack fabrics that were applied to the heretics for scarlet fever, but that after their death they hung in the church, with the name of Manteta, for the shame of their heirs. Hence the expression pull out of the blanket. In the church of Durango they hung until the arrival of the French in 1809. Before, in 1616, a Durangus entered the church and burned the fabrics there, probably because they referred to his family. It was not just a matter of modesty, the descendants of the two successive generations were not entitled to any public office.
Is torture mentioned in the documents?
Rarely. The case of a woman from Mungia is mentioned in the documents of another trial held in 1508, in the framework of an investigation seeking witches throughout Bizkaia. In it one can read that they gave him a hard cry, but the woman did not confess it. He was burned, though.
They had burned people alive, including cadavers, mostly women.
Man was the only one of the eleven burned in 1500. Seven other women who had already died were also sentenced, whose bodies were taken from the cemetery and burned. Why? Someone, perhaps, preferred to attribute responsibility to a death in confessions under torture. Heretics could not be in the holy land, so they would take their bodies out of the ground and burn them.
"Of the eleven people who burned in 1500, only one man was a man. Seven other women who had already died were also sentenced, whose bodies were taken from the graveyard and burned."
You have associated with misogyny the fact that the condemned are women.
As I said before, it was a very hard world for women. In the same era of heresies, a Beaterio appeared in Durango, where today the San Francisco Convent is located: a group of women occupied the abandoned house and founded a community in 1439 to be able to live from their crafts and lymosnas. They were marginalized women, some without dowry and single mothers. The San Francisco standard was approved and the Pope was asked for protection, as he was persecuted by several men. They were tried in 1442, but then they were clean. The local churches were persecuted, perhaps for the sanctity of the people, for fear of being given a handout.
How did you create, with Joseba Sarrionandia, the book Herejeen Alaba?He
has made the account of The Heart of Crystal and I have told his origin, his story. Next, in three texts, I have reported all the cases of heresy that occurred in Durango: those mentioned above, the case of a Dominico Apostate that was in 1700 and another heresy of the 19th century, without forgetting the cases of witches. It is a collection of all the heterodoxos of the Duranguesado.
You have also prepared a show with the contents of the book.
Yes, it's a musicated, non-dramatized reading by Ander Lipus. Maider López de Khantoria and I have put 15th-century music to the reading and the second part is my speech, but also Lipus puts the voice of all the quotes from the speech. We did it in Tabakalera, then in Durango, and on 11 March we will do it again in the Guggenheim in Bilbao, inside Loraldia.
“Formazioz bibolin jolea naiz, aintzinako musikari buruzko ikasketak egin nituen eta, 2010az geroztik Khantoria taldean nabil. Bertan, aintzinako musika berreskuratzeaz gain, hipotesiak lantzen ditugu, esaterako “Bereterretchen oinatzak“ programan ikertu genuen zer harreman dagoen herri musikaren eta erdi aroko eliz musikaren artean. Bereterretxen khantoria-ren musikaren ezaugarriak guztiz erdi arokoak dira, iturri batzuen arabera Anbrosio deunak konposatu zuen doinua IV. mendean”.
For pedagogical or methodological reasons, historians tend to fragment and divide historical periods of the past into deadlines. There are traditional times that we all know (Prehistory, Antiquity, Middle Ages, Modern and Contemporary Ages), but also several sub-ages.
These... [+]
Copenhagen, 18 December 1974 At 12 noon a ferry arrived at the port, from where a group of about 100 Santa Claus landed. They brought a gigantic geese with them. The idea was to make a kind of “Trojan Goose” and, upon reaching the city, to pull the white beard costumes... [+]
Tennessee (United States), 1820. The slave Nathan Green is born, known as Nearest Uncle or Nearest Uncle. We do not know exactly when he was born and, in general, we have very little data about him until 1863, when he achieved emancipation. We know that in the late 1850s Dan... [+]
The Centre Tricontinental has described the historical resistance of the Congolese in the dossier The Congolese Fight for Their Own Wealth (the Congolese people struggle for their wealth) (July 2024, No. 77). During the colonialism, the panic among the peasants by the Force... [+]
New York, 1960. At a UN meeting, Nigeria’s Foreign Minister and UN ambassador Jaja Wachucu slept. Nigeria had just achieved independence on 1 October. Therefore, Wachuku became the first UN representative in Nigeria and had just taken office.
In contradiction to the... [+]
Today, 50 years ago, the labor movement of the Basque Country wrote a very important chapter in its history. In Hegoalde, some 200,000 workers went on a general strike in protest against the Franco regime, which lasted two months. This mobilization made it clear that the... [+]