Inquisition - Treatment of Women

Treatment of Women

All prisoners were initially kept together and this led to violations of women by other prisoners and their guards. Later orders were given that the sexes be separated. Pregnant women as a vulnerable group became frequent prisoners especially in Spain,with special accommodation but without the help of midwives or other women, consequently many endured extreme suffering and did not survive childbirth. Many babies were confiscated before their mothers were subjected to torture.

• Danger of witchcraft accusation: In 1484 the Innocent VIII papal bull summis desiderantes affectibus was issued to Heinrich Kramer the author of the Malleus Maleficarum, in defiance of his bishop, and Kramer included it in the preface to the book. Women were then open to arrest by the inquisition on suspicision of witchcraft. Although men as well as women could be open to this charge, the title of the book itself is feminine in gender and Kramer writes in section I of his misogynist work that: "all witchcraft comes from carnal lust which is in women insatiable". Although in 1490 the Vatican decided that the book was false, in the face of the inquisition, and in fact in 1538 the Spanish Inquisition cautioned against using it, the damage had been done, and by means of printing the book went through sixteen editions up until 1669. Spreading from the Kramer's Tyrol where it originated to other Germanic States helping to fuel the witch hunts in amongst Protestant countries in the seventeenth century as well.