Women, Violence and the Inquisition

This conference attempts to carry out a study on the situation of women in the New Spanish Inquisition.

Speakers Marta Mateo, Sonia Pérez-Villanueva, Beatriz Moncó Rebollo, Gunnar Winsnes Knutsen, María Jesús Zamora Calvo, Sonia Pérez Villanueva , María Jesús Zamora Calvo, Alberto Ortiz, Robin Ann Rice, Ana Díaz Burgos, and Yadira Munguía will join in a conference that aims to extract from the Spanish and Mexican archives portraits of women who, under very different accusations (heresy, Judaism, witchcraft, bigamy, lesbianism, transsexuality, etc.), came before the Inquisition to answer for their lives.

In recent years, interest in studies related to the Inquisition has increased, while there continues to be a gap in Spain and Mexico when it comes to identifying specific women who were before a court of the Santo Oficio. The conference will analyze their social status, condition, why they were denounced, and how their process went. In every case of women subject to imprisonment, interrogation and sentencing, the spectre of misogyny, rejection, marginalization and also the desire to hide and silence realities that did not fit into that historical moment are raised. When arrested, women enter a world arranged and populated by men; they are subjected to their laws, their punishments and their judgments, with the prejudices and to the detriment that this entails for the female condition.