Recent Works on the Inquisition and Peruvian Colonial Society, 1570–1820

This essay seeks to categorize and assess works published since the 1950s on the activities of the tribunal of the Santo Oficio de la Inquisición of Lima and their repercussions on the social history of the viceroyalty of Peru. The studies made of the Inquisition in recent decades, in going beyond a merely descriptive focus or one biased by the old prejudices of the “Black Legend,” have highlighted the exceptional value of the records of the Lima Inquisition for acquainting researchers with interesting dimensions on the level of mentalities, ideas, attitudes, and behaviors—that is to say, in the expressions of the deepest impulses of the human soul. This trend has allowed historians to modify their image of the Inquisition in the Spanish metropolis and in its former colonies in America.