The institution developed by the Roman Church to combat heresy in the Old World operated in several forms in the New World. Initially organized under papal authority in Italy, France, and Germany during the thirteenth century, inquisitions emerged under royal auspices in the Iberian kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal in the late fifteenth and mid-sixteenth centuries. They became part of the colonial apparatus in Spanish and Portuguese America from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. Although its procedures and goals were essentially the same in both hemispheres, the institution confronted several unique and changing circumstances in the New World and adapted its organization, jurisdictions, and operations accordingly. Beginning with the delegation of authority to a series of bishops and missionaries, the Holy Office of the Inquisition (as the institution was known in both Spain and Portugal...