Overview

This impressive volume is actually three histories in one: of the legal procedures, personnel, and institutions that shaped the inquisitorial tribunals from Rome to early modern Europe; of the myth of The Inquisition, from its origins with the anti-Hispanists and religious reformers of the sixteenth century to its embodiment in literary and artistic masterpieces of the nineteenth century; and, of how the myth itself became the foundation for a 'history' of the inquisitions.

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9780520066304

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Reviews

Tracing the Inquisition's history from its roots in Roman legal procedure through its growth under the Roman Church as an instrument to enforce religious orthodoxy and up to its depiction as a symbol of intellectual dissent (no longer simply the Inquisition, but now The Inquisition) by such artists as Schiller, Verdi, and Dostoevski, Peters makes a forceful and cogent case that history and myth inform one another--thus making historical objectivity but another myth. Not only an excellent study of the Inquisition, but a piquant look at the methodology of historians. -- Kirkus Reviews

"""Tracing the Inquisition's history from its roots in Roman legal procedure through its growth under the Roman Church as an instrument to enforce religious orthodoxy and up to its depiction as a symbol of intellectual dissent (no longer simply the Inquisition, but now ""The Inquisition) by such artists as Schiller, Verdi, and Dostoevski, Peters makes a forceful and cogent case that history and myth inform one another--thus making historical objectivity but another myth. Not only an excellent study of the Inquisition, but a piquant look at the methodology of historians.""--""Kirkus Reviews"

Author Information

Edward Peters, author of the highly acclaimed Torture, is Henry Charles Lea Professor of Medieval History at the University of Pennsylvania.

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