Lumières in shade: Enlightened projects and communitarian conflict in the Basque Country (1748-1833)

Abstract

We will focus on the impact of the reformist projects linked to Enlightened and scientific ideas in the Basque country between the second half of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. As an introduction, we will summarize the social profile of the local elites who shared those ideas and developed worldviews that were substantially different to the ones rooted in their communities. These elites belonged to a group of families taking part in the new Bourbon administrative State, in sheer contrast with other families of the privileged classes, as well as with the bulk of the popular sectors, who lived to a greater or lesser extent isolated from this reality. In this context, transformative initiatives provoked a rejection that we will try to study by means of three phenomena: the different attitudes towards variolic inoculation depending on the socio-professional milieu that we can detect in a case taking place in Fuenterrabia (Guipuzcoa) in 1791; the qualms found to the replacement of burials inside the churches by those in outside cemeteries as they are exposed in an anonymous letter at the beginning of the 19th century and, finally, the last trials concerning witchery in which the popular faith in the supra-natural clashes with the incredulous position of the magistrates in charge of judging them; we will see how, at the dawn of the 19th century witches and healers are persecuted as being considered a risk for public order and swindlers, and not because of their supposed links with evil. Lastly, we will reflect on the meaning of the Basque enlighteners in relation to the social reality where they lived and on how the impact of Enlightened ideas fuelled internal differences into the community to the point of producing an otherness perception between elites and popular groups.