Popular Healing: Christian and Islamic Practices and the Roman Inquisition in Early Modern Malta - research database

This database relates to a British-Academy funded project, 'Popular Healing: Christian and Islamic Practices and the Roman Inquisition in Early Modern Malta', conducted by Catherine Rider and Dionisius A. Agius. The Inquisitions which operated in southern Europe, and in Portuguese and Spanish colonies outside Europe, in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries recorded the cases of many people from across early modern society who were accused, or accused others, of religious offences including magic and superstition. A major focus of these accusations was the use of magical ‘remedies’, which were used to diagnose and cure illnesses (especially illnesses deemed to have been caused by magic) or arouse love. Early modern witchcraft and magic have been the focus of many recent studies, but the records of the Roman Inquisition preserved in Malta have the potential to expand this scholarship by shedding light on an area which still remains largely unexplored: the interaction between Christians and Muslims in the areas of magic, illness and healing. The records of the Roman Inquisition in Malta, held in the Metropolitan Chapter Archives in Mdina are unusually rich sources for exploring this area because the Maltese archipelago had a substantial minority of Muslim slaves owned by the Knights of St John who ruled the islands, who formed one of the most numerous slave populations in the Christian Mediterranean. Both Christian and Muslim inhabitants of Malta came before the Inquisition to make accusations of magic, or to respond to accusations made against them, and the records show that certain Muslim slaves, like some Christians, worked as medical practitioners on the island, offering 'magical' cures and curing 'magical' illnesses.This project asked a series of research questions focusing on the relationship between perceptions of Islam and magical healers, in the period 1598-1608:- Did healers from different faiths or backgrounds offer distinctive remedies, or were they perceived to do so?- Were certain kinds of practitioner especially likely to be described as frauds or magicians, and were Muslim slaves who offered healing particularly vulnerable to these accusations?- How were practitioners chosen, and were there networks of healers who worked together?