Thesis ID: CBB032778162

The Medical Reformation: Healing, Heresy, and Inquisition in Sixteenth-Century Spain (2017)

unapi

This dissertation analyzes the persecution of medical heresies during the confessional era in Spain, arguing that the widespread arrest and punishment of popular healers, charismatics, alchemists, and ethnic-minority practitioners constituted an important element of the Habsburg acculturation program. This initiative depended upon the cultivation of an ideology of religio-medical rationalism, implemented through the machinery of a sprawling and increasingly complex inquisitorial bureaucracy. The project offers a new perspective on the social history of premodern medicine, and also comments on larger themes in Spanish imperial history such as the limits of confessional discipline and the reform of popular Catholicism. As this dissertation demonstrates, religio-medical rationalism was implemented through a robust institutional effort to curb superstitious healing in Castile and throughout the empire. During the reigns of the Habsburg monarchs, the crown developed an inquisitorial system that partnered with established Church and state institutions in an effort to regulate healing beliefs and practices. Unlike other Habsburg initiatives that were limited by local privileges, the Inquisition had unique jurisdictional powers that allowed it to act unilaterally in a growing empire. Through a detailed examination of the extant documentation from the Castilian imperial heartland, along with comparative regional samples, this dissertation examines the Inquisition’s efforts against heterodox healers in the context of the crown’s larger acculturation project. By examining the records of trials for superstitious healing, this dissertation assesses the ways in which scholastic knowledge was used in situ to make judgments regarding real-world healers and their practices. It shows that, despite concerted efforts, persecution had limits. Unlike polemicists, inquisitors were forced to weigh intellectual imperatives against the needs of communities where religious healing was in high demand.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB032778162/

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Authors & Contributors
Rey Bueno, Mar
Bulkeley, Kelly
Ribeiro, Luís Campos
Daza, Mariana Sánchez
Holler, Jacqueline
Fernández, Enrique
Concepts
Medicine
Inquisitions
Healers
Alchemy
Censorship
Physicians; doctors
Time Periods
16th century
17th century
Early modern
Medieval
Enlightenment
20th century
Places
Spain
Portugal
Peru
Italy
Guatemala
Belize
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