Probabilism and Jurisprudence: violence against women in Spanish America (17th and 18th centuries)

Abstract

The purpose of this Project is to analyze the documentary sources of criminal cases against women or practiced by women in the Real Audiencia of Charcas and Lima in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.This cut is justified, on the one hand, because it is a topic debated in the current historiography and, on the other hand, because in the criminal processes it is easier to find clearer and more solid arguments both by the Prosecutors and Defenders and by the Judges, since these cases involve personal liberty and corporal punishment.The hypothesis of the work is that Probabilism and Moral Theology founded the judicial sentences, in my point of view. It is a question of verifying whether the proper categories of Theology and Probability are present or not in the final decisions of the judges and, as far as possible, also check the tendencies of each of these judges. (AU)