This chapter focuses on the ‘parting of the ways’ between Judaism and Christianity. The documents show how anti-Jewish writings became central to Christian identity but also indicate real encounters between Christians and Jews and a closer relationship than might be anticipated.

Chapter 9 finally turns to the results of litigation in the courts of royal justice. Analysing the well-preserved books of orders and decrees made by the Court of Requests, this chapter asks how far this tribunal’s determinations met the expectations of petitioners, acknowledged the arguments of defendants, and subscribed to existing legal norms. It first surveys the changing circles of men who passed judgment in Requests, and considers the extent of their legal and judicial expertise. It then sets out the general formula of decrees recorded in this period, and what they can reveal about the processes of decision-making in this Court, the evidence it examined, and the awards within its gift. Finally, the chapter turns to the longer-term significance of rulings made within this burgeoning jurisdiction: assessing the signs of increasing caution about the scope of Requests’ powers, on the one hand, and the future utility of written royal decrees once they were in the hands of winning parties, on the other. In all, this chapter demonstrates that making the extraordinary powers of the Crown more ordinary meant balancing litigants’ demands with practical limitations.

The introductory chapter surveys the events that led to the convocation of the Council of Trent and summarizes what was accomplished at each of its twenty-five sessions. It also recounts how its was formally approved, its decrees published, their interpretation and implementation entrusted to the Congregation of the Council, and its legislation promulgated by provincial councils. How the council has been remembered by historians and its records made available is also traced.

For decades, two sophisticated historiographies, postcolonialism and critical archival studies emphasized that knowledge is power and that archives are power. These two formulas have been subject to recent criticism from a small group of renowned researchers, who stress that knowledge and archives do not possess such a linear and direct relationship with domination. It remains for us, therefore, to explore how, and in which specific social contexts, knowledge and archives allow administrations to achieve more power. This chapter follows the Council of the Indies during its nomadic existence, from 1524 to 1561, in which ministers prioritized communication with vassals (along with a subsequent incoherence of imperial policies) over an assertive, coherent program. This chapter also explores the decision-making technologies of this nomadic council, especially how it applied limited textual hermeneutics to petitions. It also follows the extraordinary juntas: committees which occasionally convened to solve imperial crises and which applied more sophisticated knowledge-based decisions to Indies problems. Nonetheless, I argue, the Council’s members recognized the inefficacy of its theological approaches and its largely nonarchival hermeneutics, setting the stage for reform.

This chapter surveys the major Athenian inscriptional genres as well as their placement and distribution over time, and attempts to convey what it might have meant to a passerby to experience the ‘inscribed’ city.