This collection of previously untranslated court documents, testimonials, and letters portrays the Spanish Inquisition in vivid detail, offering fresh perspectives on such topics as the Inquisition's persecution of Jews and Muslims, the role of women in Spanish religious culture, the Inquisition's construction and persecution of witchcraft, daily life inside an Inquisition prison, and the relationship between the Inquisition and the Spanish monarchy. Headnotes introduce the selections, and a general introduction provides historical, political, and legal context. A map and index are included.
This collection of previously untranslated court documents, testimonials, and letters portrays the Inquisition in vivid detail, offering fresh perspectives on such topics as the Inquisition's persecution of Jews and Muslims, the role of women in Spanish religious culture, the Inquisition's construction and persecution of witchcraft, daily life inside an inquisition prison, and the relationship between the Inquisition and the Spanish Monarchy. Homza's general introduction traces the Inquisition's origins back to the Roman Empire and provides valuable historical, political, and legal context. Headnotes introduce each selection and footnotes identify unfamiliar terms, religious customs, and people.
This collection of previously untranslated court documents, testimonials, and letters portrays the Spanish Inquisition in vivid detail, offering fresh perspectives on such topics as the Inquisition's persecution of Jews and Muslims, the role of women in Spanish religious culture, the Inquisition's construction and persecution of witchcraft, daily life inside an Inquisition prison, and the relationship between the Inquisition and the Spanish monarchy.
"In this completely updated edition of Henry Kamen's classic survey of the Spanish Inquisition, the author incorporates the latest research in multiple languages to offer a new-and thought-provoking-view of this fascinating period. Kamen sets the notorious Christian tribunal into the broader context of Islamic and Jewish culture in the Mediterranean, reassesses its consequences for Jewish culture, measures its impact on Spain's intellectual life, and firmly rebuts a variety of myths and exaggerations that have distorted understandings of the Inquisition. He concludes with disturbing reflections on the impact of state security organizations in our own time"--
Inquisitions of heresy have long fascinated both specialists and non-specialists. A Companion to Heresy Inquisitions presents a synthesis of the immense amount of scholarship generated about these institutions in recent years. The volume offers an overview of many of the most significant areas of heresy inquisitions, both medieval and early modern. The essays in this collection are intended to introduce the reader to disagreements and advances in the field, as well as providing a navigational aid to the wide variety of recent discoveries and controversies in studies of heresy inquisitions. Contributors: Christine Ames, Feberico Barbierato, Elena Bonora, Lúcia Helena Costigan, Michael Frassetto, Henry Ansgar Kelly, Helen Rawlings, Lucy Sackville, Werner Thomas, and Robin Vose
Few institutions in Western history have as fearful a reputation as the Spanish Inquisition. For centuries Europe trembled at its name. Nobody was safe in this terrifying battle for the unachievable aim of unified faith. Established by papal bull in 1478, the first task of the Spanish Inquisition was to question Jewish converts to Christianity and to expose and execute those found guilty of reversion. It then turned on Spanish Jews in general, sending three hundred thousand into exile. Next in line were humanists and Lutherans. No rank was exempt. Children informed on their parents, merchants on their rivals, and priests upon their bishops. Those denounced were guilty unless they could prove their innocence. Few did. Two hundred lashes were a minor punishment; 31,913 were led to the stake at public displays, the last a mad witch in 1781. The Inquisition policed what was written, read and taught, and kept an eye on sexual behaviour. Napoleon tried to abolish it in 1808, and failed. Joseph Perez tells the history of the Spanish Inquisition from its medieval beginnings to its nineteenth-century ending. He discovers its origins in fear and jealousy and its longevity in usefulness to the state. He explores the inner workings of its councils, courts and finances, and shows how its officers, inquisitors and leaders lived and worked. He describes its techniques of interrogation, disorientation and torture, and shows how it refined displays of punishment as instruments of social control. The author ends his fascinating account by assessing the impact of the Inquisition over three and a half centuries on Spain's culture, economy and intellectual life.
This book challenges the reputation of the Spanish Inquisition asan instrument of religious persecution, torture and repressionandlooks at its wider role as an educative force in society. A reassessment of the history of the Spanish Inquisition. Challenges the reputation of the Inquisition as an instrumentof religious persecution, torture and repression. Looks at the wider role of the Inquisition as an educativeforce in society. Draws on the findings of recent research by American, Britishand European scholars. Includes original documentary evidence in translation.
This book revises what we thought we knew about one of the most famous witch hunts in European history. Between 1608 and 1614, thousands of witchcraft accusations were leveled against men, women, and children in the northern Spanish kingdom of Navarre. The Inquisition intervened quickly but incompetently, and the denunciations continued to accelerate. As the phenomenon spread, children began to play a crucial role. Not only were they reportedly victims of the witches’ harmful magic, but hundreds of them also insisted that witches were taking them to the Devil’s gatherings against their will. Presenting important archival discoveries, Lu Ann Homza restores the perspectives of illiterate, Basque-speaking individuals to the history of this shocking event and demonstrates what could happen when the Spanish Inquisition tried to take charge of a liminal space. Because the Spanish Inquisition was the body putting those accused of witchcraft on trial, modern scholars have depended upon Inquisition sources for their research. Homza’s groundbreaking book combines new readings of the Inquisitional evidence with fresh archival finds from non-Inquisitional sources, including local secular and religious courts, and from notarial and census records. Expanding our understanding of this witch hunt as well as the history of children, community norms, and legal expertise in early modern Europe, Village Infernos and Witches’ Advocates is required reading for students and scholars of the Spanish Inquisition and the history of witchcraft in early modern Europe.
The Inquisition! Just the word itself evokes, to the modern reader, endless images of torment, violence, corruption, and intolerance committed in the name of Catholic orthodoxy and societal conformity. But what do most people actually know about the Inquisition, its ministers, its procedures? This systematic, comprehensive look at one of the most important Inquisition tribunals in the New World reveals a surprisingly diverse panorama of actors, events, and ideas that came into contact and conflict in the central arena of religious faith. Edited and annotated by John F. Chuchiak IV, this collection of previously untranslated and unpublished documents from the Holy Office of the Inquisition in New Spain provides a clear understanding of how the Inquisition originated, evolved, and functioned in the colonial Spanish territories of Mexico and northern Central America. The three sections of documents lay out the laws and regulations of the Inquisition, follow examples of its day-to-day operations and procedures, and detail select trial proceedings. Chuchiak’s opening chapter and brief section introductions provide the social, historical, political, and religious background necessary to comprehend the complex and generally misunderstood institutions of the Inquisition and the effect it has had on societal development in modern-day Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras. Featuring fifty-eight newly translated documents, meticulous annotations, and trenchant contextual analysis, this documentary history is an indispensable resource for anyone seeking to understand the Inquisition in general and its nearly three-hundred-year reign in the New World in particular.
