Servas do diabo: o estereótipo da bruxa e a mulher no Malleus Maleficarum

Abstract

This paper is dedicated to the analysis of the stereotype of the witch and how this demonized image was built, which caused an intense persecution led by the Catholic Church, which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of people in the context of medieval Europe. We will then move on to the main goal of the research, which is to understand the reason why the abundant majority of these victims were women, who were directly related to the crime of witchcraft, due to the supposed inferiority of the feminine in relation to the masculine. We will use as the main source for this research the "manual of the inquisition" written in 1486 by the inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger themselves, the Malleus Maleficarum. As methodology, we will make use of literature review, using books that are essential to this theme, such as Witchcraft and History, by Carlos Roberto Figueiredo Nogueira, and History of Witchcraft, by Jeffrey Russel and Brooks Alexander, besides relying on the iconographic analysis of some works that refer to the figure of the witches and their master, the Devil. Based on this, we will conclude by reaffirming the relevance of this work, because one of the roles of the historian is in the re-signification of the past, not allowing traumas to fall into oblivion, so that they are not repeated and, in this specific case, so that misogyny is no longer, in any way, an argumentative instrument that puts powerful women in a position of inferiority.