Un tribunal méconnu et honni. Les savoirs géographiques sur l’Inquisition dans la France d’Ancien Régime

Abstract

This article examines the construction of a geographical knowledge about the Inquisition in specialized dictionaries in French in the 18th century. In order to gather first-hand information, compilers looked at the accounts of travellers who had visited Italy and the Iberian Peninsula, even though they generally said little about the Inquisition. As the century progressed, geographical information became more precise and was fleshed out with polemical comments that revealed the hostility that this institution aroused among French observers. In this sense, geographical knowledge about the Inquisition testifies less to the compilers’ concern for accuracy, as to their adherence to the ideas of the Enlightenment. Geographers thus helped to establish the image of an archaic and barbaric institution, a symbol of religious absolutism at odds with the liberal and gallican ideas advocated by French philosophers and jurists.

Keywords

• geography
• inquisition
• black legend
• dictionaries
• travel narratives