Between Court and Confessional: The Politics of Spanish Inquisitors
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 9/12/2013
EAN 9781107031166, ISBN10: 1107031168
Hardcover, 410 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm
Language: English
Between Court and Confessional explores the lives of Spanish inquisitors, closely examining the careers and writings of five sixteenth- and seventeenth-century inquisitors. Kimberly Lynn considers what shaped particular inquisitors, what kinds of official experience each accumulated, and to what ends each directed his acquired knowledge and experience. The case studies examine the complex interplay of careerism and ideological commitments evident in inquisitorial activities. Whereas many studies of the Spanish Inquisition tend to depict inquisitors as faceless and interchangeable, Lynn probes the lives of individual inquisitors to show how inquisitors' operations in their social, political, religious and intellectual worlds set the Inquisition in motion. By focusing on specific individuals, this study explains how the theory and regulations of the Inquisition were rooted in local conditions, particular disputes and individual experiences.
Introduction
arbiters of faith, administrators of empire
1. Visiting the flock
the pastoral agenda of Cristobal Fernandez de Valtodano
2. Writing the inquisition
the trials of Diego de Simancas
3. Courting the king, courting the pope
Luis de Paramo between Spain and Italy
4. Falling from grace
the disenchantments of Juan Adam de la Parra
5. Negotiating the Catholic monarchy
the transatlantic maneuvering of Juan de Manozca y Zamora
6. Building careers, making a legal culture
toward an appraisal of inquisitorial office
Epilogue
the afterlife of Spanish Inquisitors.
Advance praise: 'The Inquisitor is a figure engulfed in myth, yet about whom very little is actually known. Kimberly Lynn sets the record straight in this thoroughly researched and well-written book. Showcasing individual portraits of five inquisitors from different parts of the early modern Hispanic empire, she offers a lively and convincing composite biography of a unique - and uniquely complex - figure poised between medieval theocracy and modern bureaucracy.' James S. Amelang, Universidad Autónoma, Madrid