This chapter traces the conflicting history of the relationship between the popes and the Inquisitions from the early modern period onwards, with a prologue on the late Middle Ages. Its scope embraces the Roman Holy Office alongside the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, with their offshoots in the colonies, since to suppose that these latter were institutions entirely dependent on the Iberian monarchies is over-simplistic. The Roman court and the Index are treated more extensively, especially since the Holy Office was considered the most eminent Congregation of the Curia. The text also seeks to determine the extent to which the Roman Inquisition impinged on the autonomy of the popes or the development of Catholic dogma and orthopraxy on a global scale. Lastly, it looks at the later evolution of the Holy Office up until its mutation into the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the twentieth century.

The first chapter establishes the groundwork for thinking about social differences in society by reviewing the major political milestones that transformed multi-confessional medieval society. Reaching back to the first fourteenth century pogroms that drove Spanish Jews to convert en masse to Christianity, to be repeated again in the fifteenth century, the chapter explores how the terms “New Christian” and “Old Christian” emerged and later solidified as the primary divisions in sixteenth-century society.