All Can Be Saved: Religious Tolerance and Salvation in the Iberian Atlantic World

"This was published 10 or 12 year ago. Schwartz is an historian of various aspects of Latin America, usually Brazil. This book was almost a counterpoint to the traditional idea we have of the Inquisition, that it didn’t brook any difference, that it indoctrinated a uniform approach to faith. What Schwartz found in viewing interrogations of people in Inquisition archives, and in a wide range of other sources in both Spain and Portugal and in their empires, was a popular belief that, in fact, all could be saved. People did actually believe that all could be saved, regardless of their faith. It’s a book about a multicultural society, and the popular adherence to an idea of tolerance, even though that existed alongside the realities of the Inquisition. It does draw on Inquisition sources, but it’s not top-down history. This really helps you think about what people actually made of it all, how it actually changed their daily lives, beliefs and practice. It’s an interesting book from that point of view. What generally happened was that an Inquisitor would make a visit to a settlement or a town. On arrival he would issue something called the ‘Edict of Faith’, which meant that for 30 days, anybody who knew anything which was contrary to the faith or suspicious should come and announce that to them. So, it was a tribunal, which made it your moral duty to gossip, and denounce your neighbours. That can be appealing to some people. That was part of the black legend. It certainly did involve torture, but then civil tribunals in Britain, and in most countries involved torture. I think that’s usually forgotten. The Inquisition certainly persisted with torture, perhaps for longer. There is some evidence of it in the 18th century. “People did actually believe that all could be saved, regardless of their faith” But actually, in many ways, it was its other forms of cruelty that had a much deeper impact on people. It would bankrupt you, for example. Take the case of Christian Peres in our book. She was the most successful trader in her town, which is probably why she was denounced. Her rivals didn’t like her success. They clubbed together and denounced her and they had enough power to get her deported. The trial broke her completely, financially. She was in Lisbon for two or three years, eventually, you know, she went through the auto da fé, and she was sent back to Guinea-Bissau. We don’t know what happened, because the trial ends with her being very, very ill in bed, but her husband had also died in this process, and it seems very likely that she died shortly after. This is a typical story of Inquisition, you’re taken away, thrown into jail for three or four years, you have to pay for your own travel costs and for your food. You bankrupt yourself, and then you’ve got nothing left. That was terrifying, every bit as much as torture. And then, if you did go for an auto da fé you might be banished from your town, which might mean you could no longer earn any money, you were away from your relatives, your descendants weren’t able to work in certain occupations. There were lots of reasons to be scared of the Inquisition, beyond the headline ones."