Church, Religion and Society in Early Modern Spain

ISBN-13: 9780333636954 / Angielski / Miękka / 2002 / 185 str.

Helen Rawlings

Opis

This book sets out to critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of Spain's Catholic identity in the early modern period. Traditionally the Spanish Church has been seen as a major bastion of orthodoxy and intolerance. Modern historians now see the Church as a much more complex and diverse institution in which tolerance and conservatism coexisted. The text provides evidence of the survival of multi-culturalism in Spanish society, the extent of innovative trends in religious scholarship, the partial nature of ecclesiastical reform, the vitality of popular religious culture and the shortcomings of the missionary enterprise overseas.

Spis treści

Acknowledgements
List of Tables and Maps
Introduction
The Breakdown of Spain's Multicultural Heritage
Traditionalism and Innovation in the Spanish Church
The Reform of the Ecclesiastical State
The Church and the People
The Church in the New World
Crisis and Resilience in the Early Seventeenth-Century Spanish Church
Conclusion
Profiles of Church Leaders and Reformers
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index

O autorze

HELEN RAWLINGS is a lecturer in the School of Modern Languages at the University of Leicester.

Blurb

The early modern Spanish Church has long been associated with religious and racial intolerance, the brutality of the Inquisition, the repression of intellectual and spiritual freedom, and the fervour and fanaticism that underpinned Spanish imperialism.

However, behind Spain's identification with orthodoxy, regulation and discipline in religious life, there lay a contrasting image that modern historians have only recently begun to explore. Helen Rawlings argues convincingly that there is now sufficient evidence to point to the survival of multi-cultural influences in Spanish society, the extent of innovative trends in religious scholarship, the vitality of popular religious culture, the failure of aspects of ecclesiastical reform and the shortcomings of Spain's missionary enterprise overseas.

In this invaluable new study, Rawlings evaluates modern approaches to the history of the early modern Spanish Church and examines the results of new research carried out in the field. As well as challenging some of the findings of traditional scholarship, the author assesses and explores the strengths, weaknesses and contradictions inherent in Spain's identification with Catholicism.