The Inquisition Studies during the Covid Era: The Importance of Digital Archives and Libraries

After the COVID-19 pandemic breaking out in 2020, how could we continue our investigations when universities, libraries, archives and museums were closed and the population was unable to leave their homes other than to carry out essential tasks? That is when a paradigm shift occurs. The sources of our investigations, at least for a time, had to stop being physical, to became virtual. Digitized documents become important and indispensable for study and analysis. Historical science has not remained oblivious to all this and has used this new way of going to texts, previously despised, now essential, but, would it be possible to make viable studies in this field of knowledge based on digitized sources? What can we really find on the internet? In this article I will focus on a specific case and institution, that of the Spanish Inquisition, trying to guide potential readers through different archive and library web pages that have taken the step of offering free and open access to their collections, if not totally, at least partially, giving the opportunity to use them at any time and from anywhere.