ABSTRACT
This final chapter begins by asking a basic question: how was conversion understood in early modern Catholicism? The act of conversion (like many other transformative practices discussed in previous chapters) was imagined in very material terms, and had a curious temporal structure as well. Catholic conversion began at baptism, when holy water branded the soul with the mark of Christ. That brand could never be erased: the baptized person was, irrevocably, a Christian. Henceforth the question was not whether or not they would live as a Christian, but whether they would live as a “good Christian” or a “bad Christian.” Good Christian practice was communally defined, which is why the requirements for converted Muslims were not the same as the requirements for converted Native Americans. But conversion was just one example of a broader early modern concept, that of reduction, and so the chapter concludes by looking at other reductive practices on both sides of the Atlantic (involving urban space, language, and time itself), transformations that affected Muslims, Old Christians, and Native Americans alike.
