Tisch Library Undergraduate Research Award Winner, 2017. In contrast to what is found in the witchcraft trials of mainland Europe during the 15th-18th centuries, most witchcraft trials in Portugal lack evidence of the Sabbath (the incestuous, orgiastic, cannibalistic, nighttime meetings where witches professed their faith to the devil). This lack of the Sabbath is not a coincidence. To prove the ... read morepoint, this paper will examine the only three mainland European treatises cited by Portuguese inquisitors in witchcraft trials: Nicholas Eymeric’s Directorium inquisitorum, Heinrich Kramer’s Malleus maleficarum, and Martin Del Rio’s Disquisitionum magicarum libri sex. An investigation of these sources, as well as an analysis of secondary literature, will reveal the influence and role of the Portuguese Inquisition in this deliberate avoidance of the Sabbath.read less
