1664. Carta no autógrafa de María López de Sarria para su marido Juan Sánchez.

Unsigned letter sent by María López de Sarria to his husband Juan Sánchez.

The author, who is in jail, asks her husband to send her her licence to give medical cares.

Between 1662 and 1665, María López de Sarria was accused of witchcraft, because she had allegedly performed cures which looked like spells. María López de Sarria had been asked to go to the town of Yuncler (Toledo) because of her reputation as a healer. There, she was asked to cure a very sick boy called Francisco Pantoja. When the priest of the town arrived, he claimed that she was doing incantations and spells, and he demanded to see her licence as a healer. She answered that she had left it in her house, and she wrote this letter to her husband, asking him to send it to her. The letter was actually written by the priest, because she declared to be illiterate. She entrusted the letter to the priest, asking him to send it to her husband. But the priest presented the letter to the Inquisition Tribunal, together with a denunciation letter and with a prayer she had with her. María López de Sarria tried to defend herself saying that she had learned how to heal from a physician who had cured her while she was in Casar de Escalona, and who told her how he made his prescriptions. Eventually, María López de Sarria was condemned to eight years of banishment from Toledo, Torrijos, Puebla de Montalbán, Cebolla and the court of Madrid, and was prohibited to practice as a healer.