From Inquisition to E-Inquisition: A Survey of Online Sources on the Portuguese Inquisition

Abstract

The Portuguese Inquisition in the colonies of the Empire remains understudied due to a lack of primary source materials that are available the researchers and educators. The advances in digital technologies and the current drive to foster Open Access have allowed us to understand better the relations among the complex set of circumstances as well as the mechanisms that, in their totality, represent the Portuguese Inquisition. The present paper seeks to answer questions that vary from describing these resources to identifying the institutions that created them. Digitized resources serve as a surrogate of the originals, and we can leverage the access to these electronic surrogates and enhance our understanding of the mechanisms of inquisition through E-Inquisitional objects in pedagogy and research.