The Village of Trasmoz

In the northern mountains of Spain in the region of Aragon lies the tiny Medieval village of Trasmoz. Once it held 10,000 people, but now there are fewer than 100: except for June, when a festival called “Feria de Brujeria” celebrates the fact that the town is known for its history of witches and being excommunicated. The town’s magical past is, of course, fictitious, but the ban of excommunication is real.

You see on the hillside the 12th-century castle of Trasmoz. It overlooked a village made up of a diverse population of Catholics, Jews, and Muslims, and made prosperous by local deposits of iron and silver, as well as a plentiful supply of timber. Quite nearby lay the monastery of Veruela, jealous because the town-dwellers gave it no tax money.

The monks of Veruela accused the whole village of involvement with witchcraft and got the local archbishop to excommunicate everybody — a serious curse for Catholics, whose souls were in jeopardy of eternal damnation. But the villagers ended up not caring, and went on doing their thing and not giving money to the monastery.

Fast forward to the reign of Pope Julius II (the Renaissance Warrior Pope) — in 1511 after years of fighting, the Monastery of Veruela got the Pope to formally curse the village of Trasmoz, and this anathema has never been revoked.

The town’s decline was not because of some spiritual power of Julius, one of the most corrupt prelates to hold the Papal office. Some years earlier in 1492, Spanish rulers had kicked all Jews and Muslims out of the country, which eliminated an important part of Trasmoz’s population.

Today, there is a witchcraft museum in the castle of Trasmoz, and a festival to celebrate witches, with one village denizen selected as “witch of the year.”