--- On Sat, 6/20/09, Gilbert Lawrence <[email protected]> wrote: > > It is nice to know that the members of the 'The Inquisition > Trinity' named by Fred, none of them is a historian. > Yet individuals who condemned my writings were > referring (without reading) the writings of these > individuals whom Fred gave a good expose. >
I don't know how Gilbert knows that his "writings" are less deserving of condemnation that those of the three individuals selectively referred to by Frederick Noronha in an arbitrary and misleading manner. Neither Gilbert nor Noronha appears likely to have more authentic knowledge about Goan inquisition than them. Is Gilbert claiming that Anant Kakba Priolkar who wrote "The Goa Inquisition, Being a Quatercentenary Commemoration Study of the Inquisition in India", a book published by Bombay University Press, is not a historian? Is he also claiming that historical figures who visited Goa during the inquisition period or little later, namely Charles Dellon and Claudius Buchanan did not witness or learn what they were writing about? Gilbert is right to point out, however, the distortion of selective reporting engaged in by Frederick Noronha. Noronha misled readers into believing that there were only three sources for historical accounts about the Goan inquisition. Gilbert rightly provided Alfred de Mello's article that gives several 19th century or prior descriptions of the inquisition. The historians and eyewitnesses referred to by de Mello, which Noronha ignored, are: Teófilo Braga Judges Magalhães and Lousada Ferdinand Denis Joao Felix Pereira Coelho da Rocha J.C. Barreto Miranda Alexandre Herculano Alfred Demersay It is unlikely that Gilbert has access to more accurate and better information about the inquisition than the eyewitnesses and historians listed above. Cheers, Santosh
