"I AM SHE, LILITH, CONCUBINA OF DARKNESS, FIRST CRIMINAL AND AUXILIADORA DOS DEMONS": THE WITCH'S IMAGINARY IN THE HAMMER OF WITCHES (15th CENTURY).

Abstract

Magical practices have existed since the most ancient antiquity, and their practitioners
could be men and women, and since the beginning of the Inquisition, accusations of witchcraft were
aimed at both sexes. However, at a certain point this practice started to be directed only at women,
the Daughters of Eve, sinners par excellence. The Hammer of the Witches, an inquisitorial manual,
in its chapters, presents the arguments necessary to prove that a woman's intellect, morals and spirit
were inferior. In the following arguments, it is possible to verify the reading repertoire of the
inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, for the elaboration of the canonical document
responsible for the witch hunt, such as the papal bulls Ad extirpanda and Summis Desiderante
affectibus, theologians and Old Testament biblical books.