The Jesuits’ Church Foundation is holding a lecture titled ‘Women and Witchcraft and the Inquisition of Malta in the 16th and 17th Centuries’ at the Oratory of the Onorati in Valletta on Thursday, April 3.
Carmel Cassar, a professor of cultural history who presently serves as director of the Institute of Maltese Studies at the University of Malta, will look at how a good number of women, mostly from the urbanised Harbour area (but not only) were accused of witchcraft practices in the last decades of the 16th and the first quarter of the 17th centuries.
These women were accused of sortilegio (sorcery), which was the general term used for all sorts of magic-related accusations, whether it was healing concoctions, love magic, divination, evil eye and so on.
To the elderly, unmarried or widowed popular healers, witchcraft offered a way of gaining a certain prestige, as well as providing a means of survival.
Poor moral behaviour contributed greatly towards suspicions of witchcraft. This was one reason why courtesans featured so much in the list of those denounced.
“To the elderly, unmarried or widowed popular healers, witchcraft offered a way of gaining a certain prestige, as well as providing a means of survival”
At the same time, the Harbour area-based courtesans who lived outside recognised moral norms, were expected to have few scruples about operating outside conventional religious standards. They also had more reason to resort to witchcraft in order to entice men.
In the end, Cassar says, witches were often scapegoats to put under accusation − partly because the Catholic Church stressed that such sorcery was the devil’s work, since only the Church possessed the force and authority to counter it.
The lecture, which starts at 6.30pm, forms part of a series of public lectures being organised by the Jesuits’ Church Foundation this season. Entrance is free but donations are welcome.
For more information, visit the event’s Facebook page.