In Defence of the Faith : Joaquim Marques De Araujo, a Comissario in the Age of Inquisitional Decline

McGill-Queen's University Press

In Defence of the FaithJoaquim Marques De Arajo, a Comissrio in the Age of Inquisitional Decline\nAuthor(s): James E. Wadsworth\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, Canada\nImprint: McGill-Queen's University Press\nISBN-13: 9780773541177, 978-0773541177\nSynopsis\nJoaquim Marques de Arajo ardently defended the Portuguese Inquisition for fifty years, only to find himself sidelined and forgotten. In Defence of the Faith offers an insightful examination of one man's career as a comissrio of the Portuguese Inquisition in Pernambuco, Brazil, from 1770 to 1820. James Wadsworth argues that as legal extensions of the inquisitors in Lisbon, the comissrios played a role far superior to what their small numbers might suggest. They were not the psychopaths, fanatics, or secret network of spies so common in the popular imagination. Rather, they were the linchpins in the inquisitional system that policed the orthodoxy of the Catholic flock and qualified candidates for inq.