Performing Theaters of Power: The Holy Office of the Inquisition's General Autos de fe in Spain and Spanish America and the Visual and Physical Representation of Inquisitorial Power, 1481-1736

The auto de fe, or "act of faith” in English, served as the most elaborate public spectacle in what was otherwise the most private and secretive actions of an Inquisitorial Tribunal. At these massive public ceremonies that had both illustrative and didactic purposes, the Spanish Inquisition announced the sentences and punishments of those convicted heretics it sentenced and condemned. Although most previous scholars have identified these autos de fe as ostensibly a form of religious ritual, it is my contention that the Spanish Inquisition's auto de fe served not only religious, but obvious political, cultural and didactic purposes. Combining the politics of both the secular and the religious, as well as imbuing the ceremony with hierarchical and political messages, the inquisitorial auto de fe served not only to warn the Catholic faithful of the dangers of heresy, but it also served to delineate the proper hierarchical social and cultural spaces of what the Inquisition and the Spanish Crown believed were the ideal nature of the proper order of Spanish colonial society.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts in History

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Year

2014

Author dc:creator

• Duncan, Justin R.

Contributors dc:contributor

• John Chuchiak

• auto de fe
• Spanish inquisition
• procession
• spatial representation of power
• religious ceremonies
• History

Statement dc:rights

• © Justin R. Duncan

Repository record dc:identifier

https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/1170

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:bearworks.missouristate.edu:theses-2171