Women, Witchcraft, and the Inquisition in Spain and the New World

María Jesús Zamora Calvo (Edited by), Anne J. Cruz (Series edited by), Jair Antonio Acevedo López (Contributions by), Claudia Carranza (Contributions by), Ana María Díaz Burgos (Contributions by), Cecilia López-Ridaura (Contributions by), Beatriz Moncó Rebollo (Contributions by), Yadira Munguía (Contributions by), Alberto Ortiz (Contributions by), Sonia Pérez-Villanueva (Contributions by), Robin Ann Rice (Contributions by), Graciela Rodríguez Castañón (Contributions by)

9780807175613

Hardback, published 27 October 2021

232 pages, 3 halftones
21.5 x 13.9 x 1.6 cm, 0.333 kg

Women, Witchcraft, and the Inquisition in Spain and the New World investigates the mystery and unease surrounding the issue of women called before the Inquisition in Spain and its colonial territories in the Americas, including Mexico and Cartagena de Indias. Edited by María Jesús Zamora Calvo, this collection gathers innovative scholarship that considers how the Holy Office of the Inquisition functioned as a closed, secret world defined by patriarchal hierarchy and grounded in misogynistic standards.

Ten essays present portraits of women who, under accusations as diverse as witchcraft, bigamy, false beatitude, and heresy, faced the Spanish and New World Inquisitions to account for their lives. Each essay draws on the documentary record of trials, confessions, letters, diaries, and other primary materials. Focusing on individual cases of women brought before the Inquisition, the authors study their subjects' social status, particularize their motivations, determine the characteristics of their prosecution, and deduce the reasons used to justify violence against them. With their subjection of women to imprisonment, interrogation, and judgment, these cases display at their core a specter of contempt, humiliation, silencing, and denial of feminine selfhood. The contributors include specialists in the early modern period from multiple disciplines, encompassing literature, language, translation, literary theory, history, law, iconography, and anthropology.

By considering both the women themselves and the Inquisition as an institution, this collection works to uncover stories, lives, and cultural practices that for centuries have dwelled in obscurity.