Few subjects in European history have been subjected to as much revision in the past three decades as the Spanish inquisition. Gone is the dreaded inquisition of old, the bloodthirsty monster run by intolerant priests whom everyone held responsible for turning Spain into a benighted land, the archenemy of progress and enlightenment. This inquisition of old, it turns out, was more myth than reality, and the myth itself as buffoonish, perhaps, as the infamous skit by Monty Python's Flying Circus. Here to stay, it seems, is a new inquisition, which was actually less repressive and intolerant than its counterparts in the rest of Europe. This change in perspective is due largely to three factors. First, such revisionism was made possible by the inquisitors themselves, who left behind a mountain of detailed records that have enabled historians to judge for themselves whether or not the inquisition was as awful as its reputation. Second, the revisionism is also due to the decline of polemically-inclined confessional history, which sought to prove claims to religious truth rather than to assess the past dispassionately. Third, the emphasis now placed on social disciplining as the most salient characteristic of the early modern state and the Protestant and Catholic Reformations has exposed the inner workings of tribunals other than the inquisition, and allowed historians to contrast and compare raw data previously unavailable. So much has been published on the Spanish inquisition in the past two decades, in fact, that keeping up with the subject has become a difficult task. Fortunately, Helen Rawlings has written the perfect introduction, which can serve not only as a guide for absolute beginners but also a concise and timely update and summary for all interested in the subject. The Spanish inquisition is a gem of a synthesis: concise, yet thorough, it provides a superb review of the historiography of the inquisition, detailing the sea-change that has taken place in inquisition studies, and analysing how the institution carried out its work over nearly four centuries, as it processed conversos, moriscos, heretics, blasphemers and all sorts of alleged deviants.

For those who would like a detailed look inside the workings of the Spanish inquisition, few other texts in English provide as intense an immersion as Gillian Ahlgren's The inquisition of Francisca: a sixteenth-century visionary on trial. A transcription and translation of the proceedings against Francisca de los Apóstoles in 1575–7, Ahlgren's text allows all readers to follow an entire trial and to judge the inquisition for themselves. It also allows readers to engage one-on-one with the parties involved in this case: Francisca, a beata, or holy woman who claimed intense spiritual revelations, and the clerical inquisitors who suspected her of being deluded, or a fraud. Accompanied by a lucid introduction and several immensely helpful appendices, The inquisition of Francisca, makes for compelling reading and for a perfect test case against which to measure all the revisionist history that Rawlings so aptly summarises.