Women health providers: materials on cures, remedies and sexuality in inquisitorial processes (15th-18th century).

Background

The first inquisitorial trials were against Muslims and Jews. Later, they focused on women, especially caregivers. Progressively, they were linked to witchcraft and sorcery because of their great care, generational and empirical knowledge. The historiography of health in the 15th-18th centuries still has important bibliographical and interpretative gaps in the care provided by women.

Objective

To analyse the care provided by healers as health providers, accused by the Inquisition, justifying the importance of nursing in the diversity of community care in the 15th-18th centuries.

Method

A scoping review was conducted following the Dialectical Structural Model of Care (DSMC). A database search was conducted for the period 2013-2022. Bibliographic and legislative resources were used. Cases and convictions from Castilla la Nueva were found in the National Historical Archive and the Diocesan Archive of Cuenca.

Results

The concepts of healer, witch and sorceress envolved during the study period. They reflect and reveal the collective imaginary of the social structure. They had healing laboratories, practised psychological and sexual care. They used to accompany their therapeutic action with prayers and amulets. They shared their professional activity with their main denouncers, doctors, apothecaries and priests. They were usually women in socially vulnerable situations, who did not conform to social stereotypes.

Conclusions

They were predecessors of today's nursing, they overcame socio-cultural difficulties, although they were condemned for it. Healers did not manage to regulate their profession, but they acted as agents of health in a society that demanded them while participating in the "witch-hunt".

Informations de copyright

Copyright © 2023 Espina-Jerez, Siles-González, Solano-Ruiz and Gómez-Cantarino.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Misnamed “La Coracha”, she was accused of witchcraft and superstitious cures, which led to a trial of faith in the early 18th century (National Historical Archive, 1703). When the Tribunal is informed of Catalina’s activities, an information letter is sent to the area commissioner, requesting further investigation of the elements of the statement with appropriate witnesses. The original letter states the following against Catalina: ”(.) there is a woman in the Va de Hita who is misnamed la Coracha, who has the custom of sanctifying and cure animals, healing them with different things and the main one is with partridge feathers, and that she makes psalms and that to cure and to know the evil eye they bring her some jewels from the sick person and with them she knows the damage; and lastly, he does and says such nonsense that it has caused a great scandal in the town; and that the Apothecary and the priest of San Pedro and others that they could cite would testify at length about all this (.)”. (National Historical Archive, 1703) [1]. In this statement, in addition to the account of their practices, the complainants, both opponents, one in professional matters and the other in moral-religious matters, stand out. Finally, however, it is equally appropriate to highlight the conclusion of the commissioner who analysed and closed the case, who determined that the witnesses were not telling the truth.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.