No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Having lost northern Europe to the Protestants the Catholic Church tried to preserve control over what remained of the respublica Christiana. The attempt was twofold. First, it was political. The popes declared the entire Catholic world for their diocese. The government of the Christian peoples’, Pius V observed, ‘belongs to Us and We should see that they are governed with charity’. Second, the popes admitted that the Reformation had been the result partly of the religious and spiritual shortcomings of the Church itself and tried to make the requisite internal reforms. The Council of Trent defined Catholic doctrine and anathemized whoever disagreed with it. Seminaries were set up to train the clergy while the lay population was held under tight control. The Jesuits and the Office of the Holy Roman Inquisition were the main instruments of discipline. In this article I will explore the ways in which the Holy Office impinged on Maltese society during the time of the last eight inquisitors. Fortunately the archive deposits of the Inquisition in Malta are nearly complete and the recent opening of the Vatican archives has added further to our knowledge of the Maltese Holy Office.
1 See Prodi, P., Una Storia della Giustizia: dal pluralismo dei fori al moderno dualismo tra coscienza e diritto (Bologna, 2000), 269–324 Google Scholar. See also Donati, C., ‘La Chiesa di Roma tra antico Regime e riforme settecentesche (1675–1760)’, in Chittolini, G. and Miccoli, G., eds, Storia d’Italia, annali 9: la chiesa e il potero politico dal Medioevo all’età contemporanea (Turin, 1986), 721–66.Google Scholar
2 Quoted in Giannini, Massimo Carlo, ‘Tra politica, fiscalità e religione: Filippo II di Spagna e la pubblicazione della bolla “In Coena Domini” (1567–1570)’, Annali dell’Istituto storico italo-germanico in Trento 23 (1997), 83–152.Google Scholar
3 Schroeder, H.J., ed., Canons and Decrea of the Council of Trent (Rockford, IL, 1978)Google Scholar.
4 Evennett, H. Outram, The Spirit of the Counter-Reformation (Cambridge, 1968)Google Scholar is still valid.
5 For a description of the Maltese Inquisition archives, see Ciappara, Frans, The Roman Inquisition in Enlightened Malta (Malta, 2000), 1–13.Google Scholar
6 For the importance of this event, Prosperi, Adriano, ‘Per l’apertura dell’archivio del S. Uffizio’, in idem, L’Inquisizione romana: letture e ricerche (Rome, 2003), 297–310.Google Scholar
7 von Pastor, L., Storia dei Papi v, Paolo III (1534–1549) (Rome, 1914), 673–6.Google Scholar
8 See Wright, Anthony D., The Counter-Reformation: Catholic Europe and the Non-Christian World (Aldershot, 2005)Google Scholar.
9 For a discussion of the subject, see Jedin, H., Riforma Cattolica o Controriforma? (Brescia, 1967)Google Scholar.
10 Monter, W., Frontiers of Heresy: the Spanish Inquisition from the Basque Lands to Sicily (Cambridge, 1990), 250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11 Martin, R., Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice, 1550–1650 (Oxford, 1989), 216 Google Scholar; Martin, J., Venice’s Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance City (London, 1993), 226–7.Google Scholar
12 Mdina, Cathedral Museum, Archives of the Inquisition, Malta, Proceedings 137, fols 193r-324v [hereafter: AIM and Proc.].
13 Christian, W. A., Christian, Jr, Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain (Princeton, NJ, 1981)Google Scholar; Prosperi, A., ‘La religione della Controriforma e le feste del Maggio nell’Appennino Tosco-Emiliano’, Critica Storica 18: 2 (1981–2), 202–22 Google Scholar. See also the essays in Cooper, K. and Gregory, J., eds, Elite and Popular Religion, SCH 42 (Woodbridge, 2006)Google Scholar.
14 Selwyn, Jennifer D., A Paradise Inhabited by Devils: thefesuits’ Civilising Mission in Early Modern Naples (Aldershot, 2004)Google Scholar.
15 ‘… ce qui fut sans doute la plus grande entreprise d’acculturation que l’Europe ait connue jusqu’à l’implantation de l’école gratuite et obligatoire à la fin du XDCè siècle.’ Jean-Pierre Dedieu, L’administration de la Foi: l’Inquisition de Tolède (XVIe-XVIIIe Siècle) (Madrid, 1989), 360.
16 Clappara, F., Society and the Inquisition in Early Modern Malta (Malta, 2001), 330.Google Scholar
17 Given, James, ‘The Inquisitors of Languedoc and the Medieval Technology of Power’, AHR. 94:2 (1989), 347–51.Google Scholar
18 Nalle, Sara T., ‘Inquisitors, Priests and the People during the Catholic Reformation in Spain’, Sixteenth Century Journal 18: 4(1987), 557–87, at 567.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19 Calculated from data in Ciappara, Society and the Inquisition, Table 9.1, 466.
20 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 134A, fols 171r-172V.
21 For the importance of confession in the Counter-Reformation Church, see de Boer, Wietse, La conquista dell’anima: fede, disciplina e ordine pubblico nella Milano della Controriforma (Turin, 2004)Google Scholar; Rusconi, Roberto, L’ordine dei peccati: la confessione tra Medioevo ed età moderna (Bologna, 2002), 277–341.Google Scholar
22 Del Col, A., L’Inquisizione nel patriarcato e diocesi di Aquileia 1557–1559 (Trieste, 1998), lvii–lxii.Google Scholar
23 Prosperi, Adriano, Tribunali della coscienza: inquisitori, confessori, missionari (Turin, 1996), 431–64.Google Scholar
24 Rambaldi, S. Peyronel, ‘Podestà e Inquisitori nella Montagna Modenese: riorganizzazione inquisitoriale e resistenze locali (1570–1590)’, in Col, A. Del and Paolin, G., eds, Inquisizione romana in Italia nell’età moderna (Rome, 1991), 297–328 Google Scholar.
25 For the vital role played by the clergy, especially parish priests in the detection and repression of heresy, see Given, J. B., Inquisition and Medieval Society: Power, Discipline and Resis tance in Languedoc (Ithaca, NY, 1997), 198–202.Google Scholar
26 Lopez, P., Clero, eresia e magia nella Napoli del Viceregno (Naples, 1984), 185–6.Google Scholar
27 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 15, fol. 15V.
28 Ciappara, F., ‘The Roman Inquisition and the Jews in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth- Century Malta’, in Le Inquisizioni cristiane egli ebrei, Atti della Tavola Rotonda, Rome, 20–21 December 2001 (Rome, 2003), 449–70.Google Scholar
29 Roth, C., ‘The Inquisitional Archives as a Source of English History’, TRHS, ser. 4, 18 (1935), 107–22, at 107Google Scholar.
30 For an excellent overview, see Tedeschi, J., ‘The Organization and Procedure of the Roman Inquisition: a Sketch’, in idem, The Prosecution of Heresy: Collected Studies on the Inquisition in Early Modem Italy (Binghamton, NY, 1991), 127–203.Google Scholar
31 Calculated from data in Ciappara, Society and the Inquisition, Appendix 3, 518–38.
32 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 123A, fol. 168r.
33 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 130, fol. 472r. On this topic, see A. Del Col, ‘I processi dell’Inquisizione come fonte: considerazioni diplomatiche e storiche’, Annuario dell’Istituto storico italiano per L’età moderna e contemporanea 35–6 (1983–4), 31–49, at 41.
34 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 123A, fol. 55V.
35 Mdina, AIM, Miscellanea 2, 76.
36 Midna, AIM, Correspondence 3, fol. 39r, 30 August 1613 [hereafter: Corresp.].
37 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 127A, fol. 251 r.
38 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 22, fol. 220r.
39 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 103C, fol. 914V.
40 Mdina, AIM, Corresp. 23, fol. 47r, 15 December 1725.
41 Flynn, M., ‘Mimesis of the Last Judgment: the Spanish Auto de fê ’, Sixteenth Century Journal 22: 2 (1991), 281–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
42 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 115 A, fol. 441 r.
43 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 125A, fol. 29V.
44 Mdina, AIM, Corresp. 14, fol. 142r, 8 July 1684.
45 Mdina, AIM, Corresp. 10, fol. 111r, 1656.
46 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 125B, fols 459r-527v.
47 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 125C, fol. 1405r.
48 For shaming in pre-Reformation London, see Wunderli, Richard M., London Church Courts and Society on the Eve of the Reformation (Cambridge, MA, 1981), 50–1.Google Scholar
49 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 134A, fols 209r, 488V.
50 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 121B, fol. 736r.
51 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 131B, fol. 593r.
52 For the new role of prisons as places of punishment rather than detention, see Sarti, N., ‘Appunti su carcere-custodia e carcere-pena nella dottrina civilistica dei secoli XII-XVI’, Rivista di storia del diritto italiano 53-4(1980-1), 67–110.Google Scholar
53 Ciappara, Society and the Inquisition, 489–90.
54 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 85A, fol. 193r.
55 Schmitt, J.-C., Medioevo “Superstizioso” (Rome-Bari, 1997), 132–6, at 142Google Scholar; Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1971), 612—13.Google Scholar
56 For the translation of relevant parts of this work, see Kors, A. C. and Peters, E., eds, Witchcraft in Europe, 1100–1700: a Documentary History (Philadelphia, PA, 1991), 53–62.Google Scholar
57 For the way sacramentais could become magical, see Scribner, R. W., ‘The Reformation, Popular Magic, and the Disenchantment of the World ’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23: 3 (1993) 475–94, at 480Google Scholar. For their similarity, working on two different levels, the material and the supernatural worlds, see his other article ‘Elements of Popular Belief, in Brady, T. A. Jr, Oberman, H. A., and Tracy, J. D., eds, Handbook of European History, 1400–1600: Late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, vol. 1; Structures and Assertions (New York, 1994), 231–62.Google Scholar
58 On this topic, Verbeeck-Verhelst, ‘Magie et Curiosité au XVIIe Siècle’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 83: 2 (1988), 349–68.
59 On the condemnation of beneficent magic as originating from the devil just like malefice magic, see Clark, S. and Morgan, P. T. J., ‘Religion and Magic in Elizabethan Wales: Robert Holland’s Dialogue on Witchcraft’, JEH 27: 1 (1976), 31–46.Google ScholarPubMed
60 Mdina, AIM, Corresp. 27, fols 114r-16r, 17 March 1742.
61 Mdina, AIM, Cortesp. 13, fol. 143r, 29 February 1676.
62 Mdina, AIM, Corresp. 10, fol. 77r, 13 May 1656.
63 Mdina, AIM, Corresp. 29, fol. 7r.
64 Mdina, AIM, Proc. 131B, fols 549r-602v.
65 Mdina, AIM, Corresp. 96, fol. 2411, 30 December 1776.
66 (Ezek.33: 11)
67 Masini, E., Sacro arsenale, overo pratlica dell’Officio della S. Inquisizione ampliata (Genoa, 1625), 6.Google Scholar
68 Venturi, F., Settecento riformatore, vol. 2: La chiesa e la repubblica dentro i loro limiti (Turin, 1976), 234.Google Scholar
69 Biondi, A., ‘Lunga durata e microarticolazione nel territorio di un Ufficio dell’Inquisizione: Il Sacro Tribunale a Modena (1292–1785)’, Annali dell’Istituto Storico Italo-Germanico in Trento 8 (1982), 73–90.Google Scholar
70 Quoted in Renda, F., ‘Società e Politica nella Sicilia del Settecento’, in La Sicilia nel Settecento, Attis del Convegno di Studi, 2 vols (Messina, 2–4 October 1981) (Messina, 1986), 1: 25–6.Google Scholar
71 Mdina, AIM, Corresp. 96, fol. 135r, 22 November 1758.
72 Mdina, AIM, Corresp. 96, fols 218r-v, 31 July 1771.
73 Mdina, AIM, Corresp. 34, fol. 56r, 13 June 1778.
74 Mdina, AIM, Corresp. 101, fol. 142v, 13 January 1784.
75 Dedieu, L’Administration de la Foi, 238–43, 351.
76 Monter, E. W. and Tedeschi, J., ‘Towards a Statistical Profile of the Italian Inquisitions, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries’, in Henningsen, G., Tedeschi, J., and Amiel, C., eds, The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe: Studies on Sources and Methods (Dekalb, IL, 1976), 130–57 Google Scholar, at 133. See also Romeo, G., L’Inquisizione nell’Italia Moderna (Rome-Bari, 2002), 95–119.Google Scholar
77 Ciappara, Society and the Inquisition, 65–7.