Building the enemy. The anti-Masonic writing in eighteenth-century Spain

Abstract

The specter of Freemasonry haunted the Spanish Empire since the mid-18^th century. Although this kind of sociability was not efficiently implemented until Napoleon’s invasion, anti-masonic publications made an early appearance in the Iberian Peninsula and from there into its colonies. Afterwards, with the arrival of the revolution, the specter of Freemasonry was used as an explanation for the political change and as one of the axis of reactionary discourses against liberalism. Thus, our objective is to analyze the circulation of anti-masonic writings in the European era of the Enlightment, specifically the hispanic production and its mutation during the revolutionary period. In order to do so we have studied the works of authors such as José Torrubia and Lorenzo Hervas y Panduro, as well as the vast press production belonging to the period between 1810 and 1830 on both sides of the Atlantic.