WHIPPED, SHAMED AND EXECUTED: FEMALE VICTIMS OF PUNITIVE VIOLENCE IN THE COURT AT THE END OF THE OLD REGIME. THE EXAMPLE OF MADRID.

Abstract

This paper analyses punitive violence against women in Madrid, during the Enlightenment and late absolutist periods. In this regard, we aim to highlight how justice institutions, directly dependent on the Crown, applied physical and psychological punishment in public. In adition, we will explore the social context of poverty and criminalisation that particulary affected women belonging to the lower classes. In this way, we will analyse the practice of judicial torture against them, the number and nature of death sentences, public shaming and flogging, without neglecting to review the conditions and treatment received by our protagonists in prisions.