A dark-skinned pilgrim walks into the vineyards, not far from Ourense, in the spring of 1693. This powerful image serves John K. Moore to introduce a fascinating character, José Soller, an unknown Afro-Caribbean man accused by the Royal Appellate Court of Galicia of impersonating a priest and other crimes. Moore's latest book provides the reader with an in-depth analysis of the judicial experience of Spanish courts in the seventeenth century, but above all, with a reliable reconstruction of the arduous journey of the ‘quisqueyano’ José Soller, culminating in his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

The central axis of the work, in historiographical terms, could be understood as the critical analysis of the source. From the beginning, the author is interested in the origins and background of the false priest. This is useful in attempting to understand better the ethnic and racial composition of colonial societies under the Hapsburgs. Especially innovative is the study of ‘free papers’, a volume compiled by the appellate Court as judicial evidence, which would expose the condition of Soller as liberto. The comparison of complementary sources is essential to this study. For instance, the author points out that the pilgrim's credentials and diploma (compostela), where each of the stops on the journey is noted, is essential to any attempt to trace the pilgrimage through different parishes of Portugal and Galicia. Moore's work reinforces the traditional perspectives on hospitality and social relations around the Portuguese Way.Footnote ¹ It turns out to be a paradigmatic example of the dynamics of travellers in early modern Iberia. The annotations found in Soller's certificate allow the author to reconstruct his journey. From Lisbon, ‘Europe's leading and busiest trading city’, to Ourense, passing through Viana do Castelo, Coimbra and Aveiro, Moore uses the index paradigm to resolve, through other sources, some questions about Soller's urban experience in the course of his journey. The last part of the text drives the reader back to the beginning of the work. The legal case against Soller is resumed once his pilgrimage is over. Captured in the vineyards on the outskirts of Ourense, Soller is accused of pretending to be a priest since his presence in a socially hermetic space is posed as a paradigm. Throughout this scene, the author explores the social and judicial representation of an outsider like Soller; for instance, jurisdiction, legislation and praxis are masterfully exposed. The research successfully ends with a chapter that raises further questions around the figure of the enigmatic pilgrim.

Clearly influenced by Natalie Zemon Davis and Robert Darnton, Moore analyses the ‘reduced scale’ of the life of the false priest.Footnote ² His latest book returns to microhistorical analysis. The main source in the judicial case against Soller is a conceptual platform which is used to deepen our knowledge of different aspects of the sociocultural reality of pilgrims and mulattos, ‘two types of people often perceived to have fluid identities’ (p. 13). Nevertheless, the second part of the book is composed of transcripts in modern Spanish of the thirty-seven two-sided folios of the original graph type, bastardilla española. The author translates the transcription into English, attending carefully to the problems around the literal transcription of legal terms. As a result, critical analysis is reinforced by a bilingual edition of the main dossier upon which the work is based. The work concludes with a supplement on linguistics variants, scribal errors, case notes and suchlike which shows the care and respect given to the source. The result is a compact, coherent, and calibrated book that demonstrates Brill's editorial commitment to issues related to the medieval and early modern Iberian world.

Mulatto – outlaw – pilgrim – priest takes up some of the central themes of some of Moore's earlier work.Footnote ³ He shows an exceptional handling of the source and the subject. He treats his source with the necessary rigour, as well expressing his argument in clear and succinct prose. The story of the pilgrim Soller captivates the reader from the beginning, as well as being the key to a deep, nuanced sociocultural analysis. The book is accompanied by illustrations produced by Clinton Lariscy, maps, church plans and a photographic catalogue in order to facilitate spatial and contextual understanding. Moore carefully traces the route that Soller took in 1693 and that he himself revisited in the course of his research. Indeed, the book is not just an interesting historiographic proposal, it is the result of Moore's particular intellectual pilgrimage through Iberian lands.