This essay examines the remarkable phenomenon of “life stories,” which the Spanish Inquisition required of its defendants after 1561. The narratives offered by defendants fit into a wider cultural context in two ways. First, they match a rise in autobiographical consciousness which was increasingly present in all sorts of Spanish literature in the sixteenth century. Second, the life stories demanded by Spanish inquisitors also.

Chapter 2 introduces the Iraqi diasporas in the UK and Sweden, their migration waves, and the sociopolitical reasons for leaving Iraq and migrating to each hostland. It highlights the importance of the socioeconomic profile of each diaspora, which affected their transnational connections to Iraq, and how they could involve themselves rebuilding Iraq. In the United Kingdom, political and religious elites, and upper- and middle-class professionals contributed to London being an oppositional hub for Shi’a Islamist Parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Iraqi National Congress, and the Iraqi National Accord, as well as other liberal and leftist figures. The socioeconomic profiles of the UK diaspora also provided the diaspora with the material power and networks to influence hostland and international policymakers. Meanwhile in Sweden, the socioeconomic profile of the Swedish diaspora, made up of largely refugees and less-skilled individuals, affected its ability to contribute directly towards Iraq, redirecting mobilisation towards the diaspora in the formation years, and later, once settled, towards the hostland audience in the late 1990s. Mobilisation was channelled through Swedish civil society and in collaboration with civic groups and parties, reflecting Sweden’s tradition of politics through social movements.

This essay explores the Inquisition’s persistent interest in converts, and descendants of converts, from Judaism to Catholicism. Spanish inquisitors believed those converts, called conversos, were prone to the heresy of Judaizing, which was continuing to follow Mosaic Law despite Christian baptism. The essay addresses the ambiguity of defining who exactly was a converso, and examines the kinds of accusations made against Jewish converts to Christianity and their descendants in the first four decades of the Spanish Inquisition’s activity, from approximately 1484 to 1525. It considers the gendered nature of those accusations as well as the potential motivations of accusers. After weighing the veracity of inquisition records about Judaizing, the essay moves to a comparison of trials from earlier and later periods of inquisition history, from the mid sixteenth century onward. These trials demonstrate the complicated, ongoing interactions among Jews, New Christians, and so-called “Old Christians” throughout the Spanish empire and around the world.

This chapter considers Christian converts from Islam who were converted forcibly in the early sixteenth century and known as moriscos. Once Catholic, the moriscos came under the jurisdiction of the Spanish Inquisition. For more than a century, Spanish authorities worried about Moriscos adhering to their former religion and being Christian in name only; Spanish inquisitors investigated and prosecuted them for practicing Islam. The number of trials reached a high point in the second half of the sixteenth century, and only dropped when the monarchy expelled the Moriscos from the Spanish kingdoms between 1609 and 1614. This essay examines how the Spanish Inquisition constructed a model of Islamic heresy that encompassed Morisco cultural traditions. It surveys the rise in inquisitorial prosecution of this population across multiple Spanish regions. It also considers Morisco responses to the Inquisition, including strategies of petitioning and financial negotiation. This chapter assesses what Inquisition records can reveal about Morisco histories, as well as methods for reading beyond inquisitorial perspectives.

Chapter 4 explores the central role of Huguenot ministers in maintaining and nurturing this confessional network as part of an international collaboration with the Calvinist church, noble leaders, scholars and other agents. Considers the refugee experience and establishment of stranger churches abroad, the navigation of theological differences and the part played by cooperation and conflict, especially in the French church in London. Focuses on connections to cardinal Châtillon and Regnard/Changy as well as other ministers involved in, and identified through, the correspondence, such as Pierre Loiseleur de Villiers. In particular, establishes the pragmatic day-to-day challenges that Huguenot ministers faced in serving their communities at home and abroad alongside bonds of faith and amity and the handling of disagreements. The varied experience and careers of the ministers are also compared and contrasted, as are the roles of other agents, particularly scholars and diplomats. Diplomacy and the negotiation of alliances were vital to the upholding of the Protestant and Catholic causes as was the identification of plotting by the other side.

Chapter 6 focuses on fears of espionage and treachery, but also the extensive use of information and intelligence-gathering by all sides, and the fine distinctions between these. The close connection with ambassadors and their contacts is discussed, alongside how spies and spying were viewed by contemporaries, through correspondence and judicial records. Explores extensive fears of plots and foreign intervention and how this affected diplomatic and confessional relations; the execution of experienced courier, Jean Abraham, secretary to the prince of Condé, exemplifies this. Looks in detail at contemporary English concerns about a Franco-Scottish alliance in support of Mary Queen of Scots, making links from these concerns to the activities of Norris, cardinal Châtillon and to the network exposed by the letters carried by Tivinat. Attention is given to the role of female agents and especially to double agents, such as Edmund Mather, whose career and connections to Norris, Regnard/Changy and the wider network are explored in detail.

Chapter 3 presents the political contexts of the United Kingdom (UK) and Sweden ahead of the Iraq war, demonstrating how the foreign policies of each host country affected diasporic state-building. While the UK’s involvement in the intervention opened the doors for the diaspora to join in the post-2003 governance and institution building of Iraq, Sweden’s anti-war stance and lack of involvement diverted mobilisation largely towards civil society building and transporting the tradition of democracy from the bottom-up. The chapter introduces the Iraqi opposition groups who mobilised and collaborated with the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency in the United States, and Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the UK. It explores the divergences between the groups and how they shaped the coalition’s thinking ahead of the intervention, as well as laying the foundations of the post-2003 state. It also investigates the diasporic groups and actors in Sweden and how they mobilised through civil society. Sweden’s anti-war movement and global protests against the Iraq War galvanised a very different locus of political activism and mobilisation towards preventing the war from taking place and curbing Sweden’s role in the intervention. It thus diverted involvement towards supporting Iraq’s civil society and its democratisation process.

This essay explores the Spanish Inquisition’s attention to individuals who identified with Protestant Christianity. In the 1520s, inquisitors first attempted to prohibit the smuggling of books. By the 1530s, they were also willing track Spanish Protestant sympathizers abroad, via family members of the suspects as well as networks of spies, and have them repatriated for punishment. The discovery of Spanish Protestant cells in Seville and Valladolid in the late 1550s -- whose members often intellectual and socioeconomic elites -- stunned the inquisitorial establishment, which did not succeed in catching all the suspects. Exceptional punishments even for the penitent were allowed by Pope Paul IV; dozens of individuals were burned at the stake in autos de fe between 1559 and 1562. The discovery of Protestants in the heart of Spain also facilitated the arrest of the archbishop of Toledo, Bartolomé de Carranza, whose seventeen-year trial became notorious. Eventually, Spanish monarchs had to make concessions to foreign Protestants for political and economic reasons, and Spanish inquisitors only encountered scattered, small groups of native believers.

The essay reviews the ebb and flow of Jewish conversions to Catholicism, as well as the ambiguous process of categorizing religious identity. It examines the types of accusations launched against conversos, as well as the motivations for such accusals and their gendered nature. The essays discusses the truthfulness of surviving Inquisition records. It compares trials from the Spanish Inquisition’s first decades to those of later years, with particular attention to the presence of Jewish converts from Portugal. These trials demonstrate the complicated, ongoing interactions among Jews, New Christians, and so-called “Old Christians” throughout the Spanish Empire and around the world. The end of the chapter notes the decline of trials for Judaizing in the eighteenth century.