Author Description

This Book Examines All The Activities Carried Out By The Roman Inquisition (including Both The Roman And The Local Tribunals) In The Year 1626. Its Main Argument Is That The Early Seventeenth-century Roman Inquisition Was Not Solely The Expression Of The Most Militant And Repressive Aspects Of Post-reformation Catholicism. Rather, To Understand The Historical Role The Holy Office Played We Need To See Its Development In Terms Of The Tension Between Rigidity On The One Hand, And Flexibility And Complexity On The Other. The Mandate Of The Holy Office Was To Defend And Impose Catholic Doctrine By Identifying And Punishing Deviations: There Could Be Absolutely No Room For Flexibility When It Came To Upholding Catholic Theological Rules. The World That Roman Inquisitors Oversaw, By Contrast, Was Characterized By A High Degree Of Complexity. Roman Inquisitors Did Not Ignore Such Complexity; Rather, They Acknowledged It, Occasionally Came To Terms With It, And Indeed Absorbed It In Some Measure. But To What Extent Could The Holy Office Relax Its Rigidity Before It Became Unable To Fulfill The Functions For Which It Was Created In The First Place? At What Point Did An Increased Complexity Hinder, Rather Than Aid, The Goal Of Monitoring And Controlling The Catholic World? Having The Opportunity To See All The Activities Of The Holy Office In One Entire Year Makes The Centrality Of These Questions Easier To Appreciate Than If We Just Focused On A Specific And Necessarily Limited Subset Of Issues. Conversely, The Granular Analysis Of Those Activities Provided In This Book Gives A Concrete Sense Of The Ways In Which The Tension Between Flexibility And Rigidity Manifested-- Provided By Publisher.