ULL research examines how the Inquisition punished women in the Canary Islands

The Inquisition in the Canary Islands rarely carried out autos de fe, but women accused of heresy-related offences — most of them alone and living in extreme poverty — were repeatedly punished by being made to parade semi-naked on a donkey and flogged in public, as well as being forcibly exiled to another island. This is the finding of María Teresa Manescau, a contracted doctor of Legal History at the Universidad de La Laguna, whose research focuses primarily on the 18th century, according to an interview with the EFE news agency.

The work forms part of a national research project backed by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades entitled "Una historia de intolerancia: mujer e Inquisición", which is due to conclude in April 2027. Manescau, who has already completed the section on the Inquisition tribunal in the Canary Islands, is now working on the Sevilla tribunal, analysing data on the persecution of women accused of witchcraft and sorcery held at the Archivo Histórico Nacional.

An exceptional archive

The Canary Islands were chosen as a case study because original documentation survives from only two inquisitorial tribunals: those of Cuenca and the Canary Islands. In the archipelago, much of this archive is held at the Museo Canario in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, where the researcher examined proceedings against women accused of witchcraft, sorcery and superstitious folk healing. The Museo Canario itself describes this collection as one of the most complete and best-preserved produced by any Spanish inquisitorial district.

Until 1508, commissions from the Inquisition tribunal in Sevilla travelled to the islands. The Holy Office then established its headquarters in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, where it remained active until its abolition was decreed in 1834.

Different treatment for women

Manescau, who wrote her doctoral thesis on bigamy before the Inquisition tribunal in the Canary Islands, later asked whether the Holy Office treated men and women differently in legal terms — as ordinary courts did, regarding women as the "weaker sex" or near-minors. For the Inquisition, however, women could testify and be put on trial when accused of offences such as heresy, which struck at religious doctrine.

The researcher notes that, according to Danish specialist Gustav Henningsen, the northern half of the Iberian Peninsula was associated with witchcraft — sabbaths and pacts with the devil — while the southern half was associated with sorcery, spells and curses. It is this latter form that appears in the Canary Islands, shaped by Portuguese and Moorish influence. Only in the early years of the Holy Office were there a handful of prosecutions for witchcraft, punished in the "harshest" manner.

Manescau points to a notable fact: barely a hundred confirmed cases of witches being burned at the stake have been recorded in Spain. Although such executions are an aberration by today's standards, the offence was vigorously prosecuted but not punished by burning as elsewhere in Europe, where an estimated 50,000 people are thought to have been victims of witch trials.

Twelve autos de fe and a "poor" tribunal

In the islands, only twelve public autos de fe are recorded, all held in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria during the 16th century and the early 17th century, at which those accused of Judaism, Islam and Protestantism were put to death. The practice was not widespread, as the ceremony was extremely costly "and the Canary Islands tribunal was the poorest of all."

The Inquisition focused mainly on the larger islands, although people were also condemned on the smaller ones. In the case of women, those persecuted came from very humble social backgrounds — practically illiterate and living alone, either abandoned by their husbands or left behind when the men emigrated. They turned to sorcery to survive, and the very neighbours who sought their services were the ones who denounced them when the expected results did not materialise.

As the researcher describes, the tribunal was "extremely procedurally rigorous" to guard against denunciations motivated by personal enmity or revenge, and would indirectly question various individuals to establish whether witchcraft or sorcery was actually being practised. Proceedings were secret: when a person was detained, they were not told what they were accused of, and had to appear before the tribunal three times, providing details about their life and family — something that, by today's standards, represents a clear denial of the right to a defence.