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.  Village Infernos is now in Spanish and Russian translation.

Professor Homza's primary source reader, The Child-Witches of Olague, appeared in 2024. Her co-edited volume with Amanda L. Scott, Evidence, Crime, and Forensics in the Early Modern Mediterranean, appeared in August 2025, and her edited volume, The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Inquisition, was published in December 2025. 

Forthcoming book chapters include:

•  “Powers and Practices,” in The Cambridge Companion to Witch-Hunting, eds. Mikki Brock and Martha Askew. Cambridge University Press.
• “Catholicism in Early Modern Spain,” in The Cambridge Companion to Early Modern Catholicism, eds. Thomas Worcester and Alison Fleming. Cambridge University Press.
• “Catholicism in Spain,” in Catholicism in the Early Modern World, ed. Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia. Oxford University Press.
• “The Demonic Body,” in Catholicism in the Early Modern World, ed. Ronnie Po-Chia Hsia. Oxford University Press.
• “The Parish in Italy and Spain, 1500-1700,” co-authored with Celeste I. McNamara. A Companion to Medieval and Early Modern Parishes, eds. Beat Kümin and Arndt Reitemeier. Brill, 2027.