Katrina B. Olds explores the history and legacy of one of the world's most compelling and consequential historical frauds: Spain's infamous "false chronicles." These invented sacred histories, which were the creation of a sixteenth-century Jesuit priest, transformed the religious landscape of Counter-Reformation Spain. The texts continued to shape scholarly discourse and religious practice well into the twentieth century, despite having been debunked as forgeries two centuries earlier. In the first major work in English on the subject, Olds offers a richly nuanced history of these remarkable documents, how they came to be, and why they had such a profound, far-reaching influence.