Which junior Logroño inquisitor became famous for skepticism in the Basque witch trials?

The junior Logroño inquisitor who became famous for skepticism in the Basque witch trials was Alonso de Salazar Frías.

Salazar joined the Logroño tribunal in 1609 as its third inquisitor, after proceedings against alleged witches from Zugarramurdi and nearby areas had already begun. Unlike colleagues who accepted the existence of a large satanic sect, he demanded independently verifiable evidence.

In 1611, the Supreme Council sent Salazar through Navarre to investigate accusations without coercing confessions. He found contradictions, retracted statements, invented physical evidence, and stories describing impossible events. Nearly 2,000 people supplied confessions, many of them children, but the investigation produced no reliable proof of witchcraft.

His reports helped shape the Inquisition’s Instructions of 1614, which required stricter evidence and rejected convictions based solely on another accused person’s denunciation. Salazar is therefore often called the “Witches’ Advocate.” He did not invent skepticism within the Inquisition, but his unusually systematic investigation made it influential policy.