HERESIES IN THE INQUISITION: FEMALE TRANSGRESSION, WITCHCRAFT AND POWER IN THE RELIGIOUS IMAGINATION

Abstract

This article analyzes witchcraft as a symbolic mechanism of control within the Portuguese inquisitorial system, focusing on female experience and representations of the heretical body. Based on cases such as that of Úrsula Maria, condemned for demonic rituals, it discusses how inquisitorial discourse transformed popular practices into heresies perceived as threats to sacred and political order. Witchcraft is interpreted as an ontological transgression and a profanation of latria—the exclusive worship due to God—thus constituting a crime of divine lèse-majesté. Victor Turner’s concepts of liminality and communitas are used to understand these women as threshold figures, suspended between worlds. Accused and excluded, they inhabited ambiguous symbolic zones where collective bonds and shared rituals, though repressed, enabled experiences of resistance and belonging. The inquisitorial tribunal functioned as both priest and judge, aiming to restore the violated sacred and impose legitimate meanings of faith. In this sense, inquisitorial action is understood as a form of symbolic violence (Bourdieu), enforcing a worldview through classification, exclusion, and stigmatization. The analysis of inquisitorial discourse and practices reveals how power operated through the control of language, memory, and the collective imagination.