Lu Ann Homza

Background

Lu Ann Homza received her B. A. in History from Scripps College, and  M.A. and Ph.D. from The University of Chicago. She studies the religious, legal, and cultural history of Europe, especially Spain and Italy, between 1300-1650. Her book, Religious Authority in the Spanish Renaissance, was published in 2000 by The Johns Hopkins University Press, and named by Choice as an outstanding academic book of the year. She also authored the first English-language, primary source reader on the Spanish Inquisition, published by Hackett in 2006. Based on a decade of research in Pamplona’s archives, her book Village Infernos and Witches’ Advocates: Witch Hunting in Navarre, 1609-1614, appeared in January 2022 with Penn State University Press.  

Professor Homza published a new primary source reader, The Child-Witches of Olague in 2024, also with Penn State University Press. Her volume of essays—Evidence, Crime, and Forensics in the Early Modern Mediterranean—co-authored with Amanda L. Scott, was published in August 2025 with Routledge. Her next edited volume, The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Inquisition, is slated to appear in January 2026.

“Recent articles and book chapters include:

“Entre el deber y el privilegio:  Los Inquisidores y la Caza de Brujas en Navarra, 1609-1614.” In El paraíso de los altares: Élites eclesiásticas, poder, mediación y mecenazgo en el mundo ibérico modern, siglos xvi-xviii, eds. Héctor Linares and Daniel Ochoa, Doce Calles Ediciones, 2023, pp. 359-380.

 “Webs of Conversation and Discernment: Looking for Spiritual Accompaniment in Sixteenth-Century Spain,” The Catholic Historical Review 106 (June 2020): 227-255.

 “A Reluctant Demonologist and Perceptive Lawyer: Alonso de Salazar Frías, Spanish Inquisitor.”  In The Science of Demons, ed. Jan Machielsen (Routledge 2020), pp. 299-312. 

 “Witch-Hunting in Spain: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” Routledge History of Witchcraft, ed. Johannes Dillinger (Routledge, 2020), pp. 134-144.

  “When Witches Litigate: New Evidence from Early Modern Navarre,” The Journal of Modern History 91 (June 2019): 245-275.