This article analyzes the representations of women in the Ordenações Afonsinas, the Portuguese juridical code elaborated in the 15th century that defined and classified in detail several crimes considered typically feminine, and that stipulated rigorous punishments. Among those crimes, we will discuss some aspects of adultery, concubinage, and panderism. Informed by gender representations, the juridical discourse of the Lusitanian monarchical State legitimated the persecution of "deviating" women undertaken by the Church. The view of justice was influenced by Christian/medieval religious imaginary, full of patriarchal and misogynistic ideas that associated the feminine to Eve's archetype of the sinner, the first woman to be seduced by the Devil's evil artifices.
Gender Relations; Religion; Justice; Ordenações Afonsinas