ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the manner in which, within the Iberian peninsula, in the Atlantic world and in Asia, societies were characterised by their adherence to the Roman Catholic faith. It seeks to analyse the way in which, within different Iberian worlds, multiple Catholic identities were forged during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, contributing to different expressions of early modern Catholicism, which, despite its indisputable intolerance and violence, also showed a certain degree of flexibility and a certain capacity to adapt. Indeed, the Iberian monarchies made the Catholic faith a central element of their identity as kingdoms and as composite political entities. In the Iberian peninsula, the ambition for religious uniformity began to materialise in the final decades of the fifteenth century, when both the Spanish and Portuguese Crowns attempted to expel Jews and Muslims from their respective territories. The degree of control determined the religious identities of the Iberian Crowns in Asia.
