Pierre de Lancre

Pierre de Rosteguy de Lancre or Pierre de l'Ancre, Lord of De Lancre (1553–1631), was the French judge of Bordeaux who conducted a massive witch-hunt in Labourd in 1609. In 1582 he was named judge in Bordeaux, and in 1608 King Henry IV commanded him to put an end to the practice of witchcraft in Labourd, in the French part of the Basque Country, where over four months he sentenced to death several dozen persons.

He wrote three books on witchcraft, analysing the Sabbath, lycanthropy, and sexual relationships during the Sabbath. In his opinion, Satan had little sexual intercourse with single women, because he preferred married women for that implied also adultery, and the incest between mothers and sons at the end of the Sabbath was essential to give birth to demonic children, as well as a sexual act between a witch and a he-goat (believed to be Satan present at the reunion). He also thought that Satan was pleased with a clean body but not a clean (or pure) soul, inducing people to wash their bodies and embellish themselves with ornaments.

His grandfather, Bernard de Rostegui (cf. Basque surname Aroztegi, 'home of the smith'), a native of Lower Navarre, had changed his Basque surname for the French one of de Lancre upon migrating to Bordeaux. This familial denial seems to have influenced him into a deep hate against everything Basque. He considered Basques to be ignorant, superstitious, proud and irreligious. Basque women were in his eyes libertines and Basque priests were for him just womanizers with no religious zeal. He believed that the root of Basque natural tendency towards evil was love of dance. All these prejudices are reflected in his work Tableau de l'Inconstance des Mauvais Anges et Demons, published in 1612, not long after the process.

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