LEA, HENRY CHARLES

LEA, HENRY CHARLES. — Protestant historian and editor, born on 19 Sept. 1825 in Philadelphia, died there on 24 Oct. 1909. In 1843 he entered his father’s publishing house and became its director in 1865. From 1857 onward he devoted himself with zeal to the study of medieval European history, with particular regard to its religious aspects. Among his chief works are: A history of the Inquisition of the middle ages (New York 1888), in three volumes, completed by the History of the Inquisition of Spain (4 vols., ibid. 1906–1907); Inquisition in the Spanish dependencies. Sicily, Naples, Sardinia, Milan, the Canaries, Mexico, Peru and New Granada (ibid. 1908). In these works, rich documentation is not always matched by an equable evaluation of the facts or a secure historical method. He also published: History of auricular Confession and Indulgence in the Latin Church (3 vols., ibid. 1896), in which the author’s religious bias precludes any objective judgment.