The last dozen years have witnessed a remarkable renaissance in scholarship about the Spanish Inquisition, both inside and outside Spain itself. This phenomenon seems appropriate to an age when Spain has joined the European community, and when the history of modern persecution appears darker than in Lea and Lecky's day. Most of the important results of this renaissance have appeared in one of three forms: either as collections of papers delivered at a steady stream of international congresses, as general histories of the entire institution from its fifteenth-century foundation to its nineteenth-century abolitions, or as monographs on individual tribunals.

The present work, however, fits none of these categories, because I believe that none of them represents the optimal way to study and understand that hoary old monster called the Holy Office. Although many of its basic rules remained constant, the entire institution changed remarkably between its foundation and its dissolution; different types of victims predominated at different times. The study of individual tribunals provides a better canvas on which to portray such changes over time; but no two tribunals behaved alike, and there were usually twenty of them operating at once.