Corrupt air, diabolic women and “Tempestariae”

Through a long term analysis —from the Early Middle Ages (with multiple quotes of classical authors reinterpreted by the medieval scholasticism) to the Early Modern Age, this study tries to understand the criteria under which the philosophy, theology and the medieval medical science justifi ed why women were more prone to corrupt the air; how demons and malefi cent women used the winds —and also any other inclemency— to destroy crops and harvests; and how they could combine both concepts in order to accuse the sorcerers, transformed into witches, of corruption, poisoning and/or of being agents of destruction through climatic catastrophes.