1723. Carta de Mateus de São Tiago, padre, para Maria Ferreira Guedes.

News letter from Mateus de São Tiago, a priest, to Maria Ferreira Guedes, a barber's wife.

The authors tells the addressee how well her court case is going and how diligent is her solicitor. He asks for money to pay him well.

Maria Ferreira Guedes was accused of witchcraft by the Inquisition because she had learned to prepare a medicine from a poisonous plant, the flax-leaved daphne. She said that she did the cures with no ill intention and gave herself to the Inquisition before her neighbours would accused her. She was sentenced to two years of exile, from Oporto, where she lived, to Lamego.