Abstract

In Early Modern Sicily, the introduction of the Spanish Inquisition, with its privilege of legal forum guaranteed to officials and family members in civil and criminal cases, had devastating effects on the functioning of justice and, indirectly, on the social and economic milieu based on fiduciary relations. In the 1590s, in order to mitigate its effects, consideration began to be given to establishing the waiver of the privilege of legal forum, to be used in the context of private law relations, limited to specific legal transactions. This did not happen peacefully. Inquisitor Luis de Páramo intervened to emphasise its legal groundlessness and political inappropriateness. For various reasons, the very role of the Spanish Inquisition in controlling the consciences and institutions of the Kingdom of Sicily was at stake. Two models of the state emerged in the harsh debate that followed: one innervated with sworn relations founded on loyalty; and another imagined by privileging its function of guaranteeing equally sworn relations founded on trust and respect for the logic of promise/expectation.