This book sets out to critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of SpainsCatholic identity in the early modern period. Traditionally the Spanish Churchhas ... » 

This book sets out to critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of SpainsCatholic identity in the early modern period. Traditionally the Spanish Churchhas been seen as a major bastion of orthodoxy and intolerance. Modernhistorians now see the Church as a much more complex and diverse institution inwhich tolerance and conservatism coexisted. The text provides evidence of thesurvival of multiculturalism in Spanish society the extent of innovativetrends in religious scholarship the partial nature of ecclesiastical reformthe vitality of popular religious culture and the shortcomings of themissionary enterprise overseas. «