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One of the darker periods of Spanish history is the Spanish Inquisition, which entrenched Spain for over 350 years. Also known as The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, it was created in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. Following their kingdom-uniting marriage, the famous Catholic monarchs Fernando and Isabel had a huge project ahead of them. Not only did the two kingdoms of Aragón and Castilla become one amongst mixed opinions, but the monarchy was closing in on the remaining Moorish kingdoms with the end of the Reconquista. It was intended Catholic orthodoxy be maintained in their kingdoms whilst replacing the Medieval Inquisition, which was under Papal control.

To manage, unite and strengthen their enlarging and culturally diverse kingdom it was decided the means of unification would be through Catholic orthodoxy. Therefore in 1478, permission was requested from Pope Sixtux IV to establish a special sect of the Inquisition - permission he reluctantly granted, which began the Spanish Inquisition.

What followed was an era of severe censorship, paranoia, torture, autos-da-fé, death, and the persecution of heretics or anyone who deliberately disagreed with the principles of the Catholic church lasting lasted until 1834.

This period became the most substantive of the three different manifestations of the wider Christian Inquisition along with the Roman Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition. This Inquisition operated in Spain and in all Spanish colonies and territories, which included the Canary Islands, the Spanish Netherlands, the Kingdom of Naples, and all Spanish possessions in North, Central, and South America. The Inquisition was originally intent was to ensure the orthodoxy of those who converted from Judaism and Islam. Regulating the faith of the newly converted intensified after royal decrees issued in 1492 and 1501 ordered Jews and Muslims to convert or leave Spain.

The monarchy feared the intervention of Jewish and Moorish alliances from oversees and forced non-Catholics to choose between conversion to or expulsion from the country to abolish any possibility of dissent. Those suspected of practicing Protestantism, non-Catholic-approved sexual acts, black magic or any other activity the monarchy deemed a threat, also were among the persecuted.

Within a few years later suspicions and paranoia arose again. This time regarding the loyalty of those conversos (converted Jews) and moriscos (converted Moors) to Catholicism. The Inquisition persued converts with suspicion, obsessed with the notion they had only convert to escape persecution, were continuing to practice their own religion covertly planning to undermine the church.

Religious Turmoil

Much of the Iberian Peninsula was dominated by Moors following their invasion of the peninsula in 711 until they were finally defeated in 1492. The re-conquest did not result in the expulsion of Muslims from Spain, instead producing a multi-religious society comprised of Catholics, Jews and Muslims. Larger cities such as Granada, Seville, Valladolid, the capital of Castile, and Barcelona, the capital of the Kingdom of Aragon, had large Jewish populations centered in juderias (Jewish Quarters).

The period was known as the Reconquista and produced a moderately peaceful co-existence with intermittent periods of conflict among Christians, Jews and Muslims in the peninsular kingdoms. There was a long tradition of Jewish service to the Aragon crown: Ferdinand's father John II named Abiathar Crescas a Jew, as court astronomer and many other Jews occupied important posts both religious and political even Castile itself had an unofficial rabbi.

Nevertheless, towards the end of the fourteenth century in some parts of Spain there was a wave of anti-Semitism, encouraged by the preaching of Ferrant Martinez, archdeacon of Ecija. The pogroms of June 1391 were incredibly bloody: in Seville, hundreds of Jews were killed the synagogue completely destroyed and there were similar numbers of victims in other cities, such as Cordoba, Valencia and Barcelona

The Jewish Population

Towards the end of the 15th century, the Reconquista was drawing to an end, nearly finished, however, the desire for religious unity became more of a pervasive force.. Spain's Jewish population, amongst the largest in Europe became a target.

Over the centuries, the Jewish communites throughout Spain had flourished and grown in numbers and strength , despite anti-Semitism surfacing from time to time. During the reign of Henry III of Castile and Leon (1390-1406), Jews faced increased persecution and were pressured to convert to Christianity. The pogroms of 1391 were especially brutal, and the threat of violence hung over the Jewish community in Spain. Faced with the choice between baptism and death, many converted and many others were killed. Those who adopted Christian beliefs-the so-called conversos (Spanish: "converted")-faced continued suspicion and prejudice.

Conversos

One of the consequences of these disturbances was the massive conversion of Jews. Prior to this, conversions were rare, motivated more by social than religious reasons. From the fifteenth century a new social group appeared: conversos, also called new Christians, distrusted by Jews and Christians alike. By converting, not only could Jews escape eventual persecution, but also obtain entry into many offices and posts prohibited to Jews be means of new, more severe regulations.

Many conversos attained important positions in fifteenth century Spain. Among them, physicians Andres Laguna and Francisco Lopez Villalobos (Ferdinand's Court physician), writers Juan del Enzina, Juan de Mena, Diego de Valera and Alonso de Palencia, and bankers Luis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez (who financed the voyage of Christopher Columbus) were all conversos. Conversos face much opposition but managed to attain high positions in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, at times becoming severe attackers of Judaism. Some received titles of nobility and as a result, during the following century it was claimed that virtually all Spanish nobility descended from Jews.

Inquisition Begins

Alonso de Hojeda, a Dominican from Seville, convinced Queen Isabel that crypto-Judaism existed among Andalusian conversos during her stay in Seville between 1477 and 1478. A report, produced at the request of the monarchs by Pedro González de Mendoza, archbishop of Seville and by the Segovian Dominican Tomás de Torquemada, confirmed this allegation. The monarchs decided to introduce the Inquisition to uncover and do away with false converts requesting the Pope's assent. On November 1, 1478, Pope Sixtus IV spread the bull Exigit sinceras devotionis affectus, establishing the Inquisition in the Kingdom of Castile. The bull gave monarchs exclusive authority to name the inquisitors. However, the first two inquisitors, Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martín were not named until two years later, on September 27, 1480 in Medina del Campo.

At first, the activity of the Inquisition was limited to the dioceses of Seville and Cordoba, where Alonso de Hojeda had detected converso activity. The first Auto de Fé was celebrated in Seville on February 6, 1481, where six people were burned alive. Alonso de Hojeda gave the sermon himself and following this the Inquisition grew rapidly. By 1492, tribunals existed in eight Castilian cities: Ávila, Cordoba, Jaén, Medina del Campo, Segovia, Sigüenza, Toledo and Valladolid.

Establishing the new Inquisition in the Kingdom of Aragón was more difficult, the population of Aragón being adamantly opposed to the Inquisition. Ferdinand did not resort to placing new appointments; rather he breathed new life into the old Pontifical Inquisition, submitting it to his direct control. In addition, differences between Ferdinand and Sixtus IV prompted the latter to spread a new bull downright prohibiting the Inquisition's extension to Aragon. In this bull, the Pope unambiguously criticized the procedures of the inquisitorial court.

The cities of Aragón continued to resist, and even saw periods of revolt, for instance in Teruel from 1484 to 1485. However, the murder of the inquisidor Pedro Arbués in Zaragoza on September 15, 1485, caused public opinion to turn against the conversos in favor of the Inquisition. Pedro Arbués was an official of the Spanish Inquisition who was assassinated in the La Seo Cathedral of Zaragoza in an alleged plot by conversos and Jews. He was quickly venerated as a saint by popular acclaim, and his death greatly assisted the Inquisition and its Inquisitor General, Tomás de Torquemada, in their campaign against heresy and crypto-Judaism. In Aragón, the inquisitorial courts focused specifically on members of the powerful converso minority, ending their influence in the Aragonese administration. Between the years 1480 and 1530, the Inquisition saw a period of intense activity. The exact number of trails and executions is debated, but it is said to be approximately 2,000 people.

Expulsion of the Jews

Jews who continued practicing their religion were not persecuted by the Holy Office, however, it was suspicious of them because it was thought that they urged conversos to practice their former faith. In the trial at Santo Niño de la Guardia in 1491, two Jews and six conversos were fated to be burned for practicing an allegedly sacrilegious ritual.

March 31, 1492, only three months after the reconquest, concluded with the fall of Granada, Ferdinand and Isabella publicized a decree ordering the expulsion of Jews from all their kingdoms. Jewish subjects were given until July 31, 1492 to choose between accepting baptism and leaving the country. Although they were allowed to take their possessions with them, land-holdings, of course, had to be sold. Gold, silver and coined money were surrendered. The reason given to justify this order was that the proximity of unconverted Jews served as a reminder of their former faith and persuaded many conversos to relapsing and returning to the practice of Judaism.

The number of the Jews that left Spain is not recorded and therefore difficult to accurately estimate. Historians cite figures between 300 and 800,000. Nevertheless, more populist estimates are significantly lower. Henry Kamen, who wrote the book, "The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision, estimates that of a population of approximately 80,000 Jews, about one half or 40,000 chose emigration. The Spanish Jews emigrated mainly to Portugal, where they were later expelled in 1497 as well as to Morocco. Much later, the Sefardim, descendants of Spanish Jews, established thriving communities in many cities of Europe, North Africa and mainly in the Ottoman Empire.

The most intense period of persecution of conversos lasted through 1530. From 1531 through 1560, the percentage of conversos among the Inquisition trials lowered significantly, down to 3% of the total. There was a rebirth of persecutions when a group of crypto-Jews were discovered in Quintanar de la Orden in 1588. The last decade of the sixteenth century saw a rise in denunciations of conversos. At the beginning of the seventeenth century some conversos who had fled to Portugal began to return to Spain, fleeing the persecution of the Portuguese Inquisition that was founded in 1532. This translated into a rapid increase in the trials of crypto-Jews, among them a number of important financiers. In 1691, during a number of Autos de Fe in Mallorca, 36 chuetas, or conversos of Mallorca, were burned.

Repression of Moriscos

The Inquisition did not exclusively target Jewish conversos and Protestants. Moriscos, who were converts from Islam, suffered its rigors as well, although to a lesser degree. The moriscos were concentrated in the recently conquered kingdom of Granada, Aragon, and Valencia. Officially, all Muslims in Castile had been converted to Christianity in 1502; those residing in Aragon and Valencia were obliged to convert by Charles I's decree of 1526.

In the first half of the century, many moriscos were under the jurisdiction of the nobility, so persecution would have been attacking the economic interests of this powerful social class. However, even though the moriscos were mostly ignored by the inquisition in the first half of the century, things changed in the second half of the century under Phillip II. Between 1568 and 1570, the revolt of the Alpujarras occurred, which was repressed with unusual harshness. Beginning in 1570, in the tribunals of Zaragoza, Valencia and Granada, morisco cases became much more abundant. In Aragon and Valencia moriscos formed the majority of the trials of the Inquisition during the same decade. In the tribunal of Granada itself, moriscos represented 82 percent of those accused between 1560 and 1571. However, the moriscos did not experience the same harshness as Jewish conversos and Protestants, and the number of capital punishments was proportionally less.

Cruelty to Protestants

During the sixteenth century, Protestant reformers bore the brunt of the Inquisition. Interestingly, a large percentage of Protestants were of Jewish origin.

The first target were members of a group known as the alumbrados of Guadalajara and Valladolid. The trials were time-consuming, and ended with prison sentences of different lengths. However, no executions took place. In the process, the Inquisition picked up on rumours of intellectuals and clerics who, interested in the Erasmian ideas, had allegedly strayed from orthodoxy. Juan de Valdés was forced to flee to Italy to escape the Inquisition, whilst the preacher, Juan de Ávila spent almost a year in prison.

The first trials against the Protestants influenced by the Reformation took place between 1558 and 1562 in Valladolid and Sevilleas, at the beginning of the reign of Philip II, against two communities of Protestants from these cities. These trials signaled a notable escalation of Inquisition activities. A number of enormous Autos de Fe (the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates) were held. Some of these were presided over by members of the royal family, and approximately one hundred people were executed. After 1562 the trials continued but the repression was reduced. It is estimated that only a dozen Spaniards were burned alive for Lutheranism through the end of the sixteenth century, although some 200 faced trial. The Autos de Fe of the mid-century virtually put an end to the largely diminished Spanish Protestant population.

Torture Methods

Torture was used only to get a confession and wasn't meant to actually punish the accused heretic for his crimes. Some inquisitors used starvation, forced the accused to consume and hold vast quantities of water or other fluids, or heaped burning coals on parts of their body. But these methods didn't always work fast enough for their liking.

Strappado is a form of torture that began with the Medieval Inquisition. In one version, the hands of the accused were tied behind his back and the rope looped over a brace in the ceiling of the chamber or attached to a pulley. Then the subject was raised until he was hanging from his arms. This caused the shoulders to pull out of their sockets. Sometimes, the torturers added a series of drops, jerking the subject up and down. Weights could be added to the ankles and feet to make the hanging even more painful.

The rack was another renowned torture method associated with the inquisition. The victim had his hands and feet tied or chained to rollers at one or both ends of a wooden or metal frame. The torturer turned the rollers with a handle, which pulled the chains or ropes in increments and stretched the subject's joints, often until they dislocated. If the torturer continued turning the rollers, the accused's arms and legs could be torn off. Often, witnessing someone going through this intense torture on the rack was painful enough to extract another person's confession.

Whilst the accused heretics were on strappado or the rack, inquisitors often applied other torture devices to their bodies. These included heated metal pincers, thumbscrews, boots, or other devices designed to burn, pinch or otherwise mutilate their hands, feet or bodily opening. Although mutilation was technically forbidden, in 1256, Pope Alexander IV decreed that inquisitors could clear each other from any wrongdoing that they might have done during torture sessions.

Inquisitors needed to obtain a confession because they believed it was their duty to bring the accused back to the faith. A true confession resulted in the accused being forgiven, but he was usually still forced to clear himself by performing penances, such as pilgrimages or by wearing multiple, heavy crosses.

If the accused didn't confess, the inquisitors could sentence him to life imprisonment. Repeat offenders were people who confessed, then retracted their confessions and publicly returned to their sacrilegious ways. They could be 'abandoned' to the 'secular arm.' (what does this mean?)

Capital punishment allowed for burning at the stake. In some cases, accused heretics who had died before their final sentencing had their corpses or bones dug up, burned and cast out. The last inquisitorial act in Spain occurred in 1834, but all of the Inquisitions continued to have a lasting effect on Catholicism, Christianity and the world as a whole.

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Study Guide: The Spanish Inquisition - The Official Globe Trekker Website

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One of the darker periods of Spanish history is the Spanish Inquisition, which entrenched Spain for over 350 years. Also known as The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, it was created in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile.

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intermarriage between catholics/converts and jews was forbidden due to the need for a 'pure christian race' ... 'purity of blood' was important
Jews were supposed to have been driven out of Spain or killed, although there were still many Jews living in Spain by the time the Inquisition was suppressed, roughly 500 years after it's initial establishment

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'The Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478 as a court for the detection of heretics, although its true purpose remains somewhat obscure. While most historians point to a combination of political, economic, and religious motives, the latter were certainly predominant.' - donquixote.org

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In talking with audiences about my new book, " God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World," I've found that the same questions come up over and over. Here are the Top 10.
1. I know what the word "Inquisition" means, even use the word myself sometimes, but my history is shaky. What does it refer to?
It was a means used by the Church to enforce orthodoxy. Inquisitors would go out into troublesome regions, question people intensively, conduct tribunals and mete out punishments, sometimes harsh ones, like burning at the stake. Depending on the time and place, the targets were heretics, Jews, Muslims, Protestants, rationalists and sometimes people who held superstitious beliefs. The Inquisition everyone has heard of is the Spanish Inquisition, but there was more than one Inquisition, and the earliest, at the start of the 13th century, wasn't in Spain. And although Jews were sometimes the focus of that first Inquisition, as they primarily were in Spain, the more urgent targets were Christian heretics in the south of France and northern Italy.
2. How many people were burned at the stake?
No one really knows. The inquisitors were excellent record-keepers -- at times truly superb. One surviving document gives the expenses for an execution down to the price of the rope used to tie the victims' hands. But a lot of the records have been lost. An estimate that has wide credibility among historians is that about 2 percent of those who came before Inquisition tribunals were burned at the stake, which would mean several tens of thousands of people. The rest suffered lesser punishments.
3. Over what period of time are we talking about?
Roughly 700 years. The official start is usually given as 1231 A.D., when the pope appoints the first "inquisitors of heretical depravity." The Spanish Inquisition, which begins under Ferdinand and Isabella, doesn't end until the 19th century -- the last execution was in 1826. At the outset, the main focus was on Jews and "judaizers" -- Christian converts of Jewish ancestry who were accused of secretly adhering to Judaism. The Roman Inquisition, created to fight the Reformation, and run from the Vatican, doesn't come to an end until the 20th century.

4. Does it survive in any form? I sometimes hear about theologians today getting into trouble.

The Vatican's Congregation of the Inquisition was formally abolished in 1908 -- but it may be more correct to say it was renamed. It was turned into the Holy Office, which in the 1960s became the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This is the department that Cardinal Josef Ratzinger ran before he became Pope Benedict XVI. It occupies the palazzo built for the Inquisition in the middle of the 16th century. And it's still the department that keeps an eye on what theologians write, sometimes calling them on the carpet.

5. Does the Inquisition explain why Spain in some ways took longer to modernize than France or England?

Historians do ask this question, but you'll get different opinions. The "yes" answer will point to the wholesale expulsion from Spain in 1492 of many thousands of Jews -- people who were often highly educated professionals. And it will point to the attempted suppression, over centuries, of intellectual inquiry of all kinds. The same kind of suppression occurred in Italy. The problem is figuring out how effective the suppression really was, not to mention disentangling the influence of the Inquisition from other factors. Bottom line, though: No one argues that the Inquisition was a force for enlightenment.

6. Did Torquemada himself have Jewish ancestry?

Historians have looked into this pretty carefully. The consensus seems to be that Tomas de Torquemada, who directed the Spanish Inquisition in its earliest (and bloodiest) years, did not have Jewish ancestry, but other members of his extended family probably did. This wouldn't have been unusual in Spain. Over the centuries there was considerable mixing among Christians, Muslims and Jews, especially in the higher ranks.

7. When I think "Inquisition," I think "torture" -- is that real or is it a myth?

Torture was an integral part of the inquisitorial process, mainly to extract confessions -- just as it was part of the systems used by secular courts of the time. Modern historians explain that the Church tried to regulate torture, establishing clear guidelines for its use. Unfortunately, limitations on torture never really work -- that's one lesson from the Inquisition, and from the recent American experience. It's never hard to justify applying a little more physical coercion once you've decided that physical coercion is fine to begin with. Medieval inquisitors, limited to one session of torture per person, sometimes conducted a second or third or fourth, arguing that it was just a "continuance" of the first.

8. Is waterboarding torture?

Vice President Dick Cheney called waterboarding "a dunk in the water." The Justice Department attempted to define torture so narrowly that nothing came up to the torture threshold unless it risked causing irreversible impairment, organ failure or death. The inquisitors believed that waterboarding was torture. That's why they used it.

9. How does the Index of Forbidden Books fit into the picture?

It was created by the Roman Inquisition to deal with the onslaught of books -- many of them advancing ideas the Church didn't like -- made possible by the printing press, and over the centuries the Index grew and grew. It existed for a very long time -- it wasn't abolished until 1966. The impulse to criticize still has some life. A decade ago Josef Ratzinger expressed concern over the "subtle seductions" of Harry Potter.

10. The "Making of the Modern World" part of your title -- what's the argument?

The Inquisition was based on intolerance and moral certainty. It tried to enforce a particular view, often with violent means. There's nothing new about hatred and persecution; human beings have been very good at this for millennia. What's new about the Inquisition is that persecution is institutionalized. It persists for generation after generation. That requires organizational tools that were being newly developed in the Middle Ages. How do you create and manage a bureaucracy? How do you collect information and organize it in a way so that you can find what you need? How do you discover what people are doing and thinking? We take the ability to do all these things for granted. When you look at the Inquisition, you see these capabilities coming into existence. You see the world becoming modern.

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The Top 10 Questions Everyone Has About The Inquisition

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In talking with audiences about my new book, " God's Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World," I've found that the same questions come up over and over. Here are the Top 10. 1. I know what the word "Inquisition" means, even use the word myself sometimes, but my history is shaky.

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Although early Christians experienced heavy persecution, by the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church had significant religious and political power in Europe. To maintain its authority, the church suppressed heretics. The church had a very specific definition of heresy: A heretic publicly declared his beliefs (based upon what the church considered inaccurate interpretations of the Bible) and refused to denounce them, even after being corrected by the authority. He also tried to teach his beliefs to other people. He had to be doing these things by his own free will, not under the influence of the devil.

The Inquisition officially began with Pope Gregory IX (the Papal Inquisition). In 1231, he issued a bull, or decree, that set up a tribunal court system to try heretics and punish them. He chose the Dominican Order, known for being very well-educated and knowledgeable about complex theology, to conduct the Inquisition.

The Spanish Inquisition was unique in that it was established by secular rulers, King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella, with the approval of Pope Sixtus IV. The monarchy was Catholic, and it had just united two kingdoms, Aragon and Castile, as a single country in the late 15th century. Reasons for the Inquisition included a desire to create religious unity and weaken local political authorities and familial alliances. Money was another motive -- the government made a profit by confiscating the property of those found guilty of heresy. Historians speculate that the monarchy convinced Pope Sixtus IV to allow the inquisition by threatening to remove Spanish troops from Rome, where they were needed to prevent an attack by Turkey.

Many prominent citizens were concerned about their country's religious diversity and had bigoted attitudes toward non-Catholics. Jews were subjected to violent attacks known as pogroms and isolated in ghettos. Many were killed. The Inquisition was officially established in 1478, and Jews were banished a few years later when King Ferdinand II issued the Alhambra Decree in 1492, ordering them to leave on pain of death. Many Jews converted to Catholicism. These converts were sometimes called marranos (Spanish for "pig" and a very derogatory term) and accused of secretly continuing to practice Judaism. They became targets of the Inquisition.

Spain conquered Granada, a region populated mostly by Muslim Moors, in the late 15th century. Muslims suffered opposition and persecution similar to that of the Jews, until they were banished in 1502 in the name of religious and cultural unity. Muslim converts to Catholicism, called Moriscos (Spanish for "Moorish"), were targeted for the same reasons as Jewish converts. In the late 16th century, Protestants, mainly Lutherans, also became the target of the Inquisition.

The Spanish Inquisition spread to Spanish-controlled colonies in the New World, including Mexico. Inquisition was abolished in Spain in 1834 by Queen Isabel II.

We'll look at how these inquisitorial trials were conducted next.

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Although early Christians experienced heavy persecution, by the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church had significant religious and political power in Europe. To maintain its authority, the church suppressed heretics. The church had a very specific definition of heresy: A heretic publicly declared his beliefs (based upon what the church considered inaccurate interpretations of the Bible) and refused to denounce them, even after being corrected by the authority.

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Spanish Inquisition - History of the Spanish Inquisition

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Learn about the history of the Spanish Inquisition. History lessons brought to you by Enforex Spanish schools in Spain and Latin America.

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The Spanish Inquisition, Free Study Guides and book notes including comprehensive chapter analysis, complete summary analysis, author biography information, character profiles, theme analysis, metaphor analysis, and top ten quotes on classic literature.

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Spain - The Spanish Inquisition: With its large Muslim and Jewish populations, medieval Spain was the only multiracial and multireligious country in western Europe, and much of the development of Spanish civilization in religion, literature, art, and architecture during the later Middle Ages stemmed from this fact.

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Essay The Spanish Inquisition -- Political Power, Religious Reasoning

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Political Power, Religious Reasoning - The Spanish Inquisition

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From 1478 a new 'Inquisition' against Christian 'heresy' spread throughout Spain and its overseas possessions in Europe (Sicily) and America. It would last until the 19th century and acquire a reputation for almost totalitarian cruelty, but was attacked at the time by Spain's enemies and by lovers of religious liberty.

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Nowadays a site like thermostat.com can point you in the direction of a great thermostat to help control the temperature in your home, and will even walk you through the some key things to look for. Controlling the temperatures that human beings are exposed to hasn't always been so benign, though. Before there were thermostats there were some more dubious methods for controlling body temperature, and, unfortunately, the Catholic Church was at the center of some of these questionable practices in various periods of history. Some of the most controversial methods were used during a forgettable period known as the Spanish Inquisition. Below you'll find 5 examples of how the Spanish Inquisition turned up the heat on some innocent people, but be warned - you may find this material a little graphic.

Heated Metal Pincers

One of the favorite methods of torture during the Spanish Inquisition was the use of heated metal pincers. These were long pieces of metal that were heated on hot coals until the metal was almost hot enough to melt; then they were applied to the skin of what was, usually, an innocent victim. It's important to keep in mind that during the time of the Spanish Inquisition anyone who spoke out against the church was putting their lives in serious jeopardy. Those that experienced the agonizing torture of heated metal pincers applied to their skin were normally doing nothing more than expressing a fairly benign opinion.

Witches on the Stake

Most of us are familiar with the Salem witch trials, but this type of persecution had been around a long time before it found its way to the shores of North America. In fact, it was a very popular method of torture and execution used during the Inquisition. On almost all occasions the women that were targeted as witches were nothing more than average people. Some used herbal remedies to cure illness, and some were slightly more promiscuous than was tolerable in those days, but the reasons they were targeted were generally nothing more than that.

Burning the Remains

You might think that when you're dead you'd no longer be a target of the Inquisition, but you'd be wrong in that assumption. It was not unusual for supposed heretics to be found guilty posthumously, and on these occasions members of the Inquisition would often dig up the remains and then burn them. Apparently you couldn't escape the fires of the Inquisition in either life or death.

Molten Lead

The torture techniques we've discussed so far were horrific enough, but what about having heated metal poured over you? It happened. In fact, pouring molten lead over torture victims was a relatively common practice during the Inquisition. As hard as it is for us to understand today, those responsible for the Inquisition barely blinked an eye at such methods.

Boiling Water

One of the most accessible torture materials during the Inquisition was the use of boiling water. This was a painful way to extract the supposed truth from a sinner, but it didn't necessarily kill them. In many cases the Inquisition was perfectly content with simply extracting a confession while inflicting a little pain, and eventually allowing their victims to return to their lives.

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Nowadays a site like thermostat.com can point you in the direction of a great thermostat to help control the temperature in your home, and will even walk you through the some key things to look for. Controlling the temperatures that human beings are exposed to hasn't always been so benign, though.

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The other day, as I was surfing through pictures of medieval torture devices (don't ask), I kept noticing that many such tools were invented by, or at least used in, the Spanish Inquisition. Soon I found myself jumping from one site to another learning more and more about this joint venture between the ultra-conservative government of 15th Century Spain and many of the higher-ups and rank-and-file Christian warriors within the Roman Catholic Church at the time. I found it fascinating, gruesome, and most upsetting, still relevant to the world today.

The Spanish Inquisition began in the late 1470s when Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella wanted to do away with many of their political adversaries. These opponents were called the conversos, former Jews and Muslims who had been forced to convert to Christianity but had nevertheless managed to rise through the Spanish political and business ranks.

Threatened by their growing power, the King and Queen concocted a plan to purge these competitors from their positions in government and business. Because the couple knew that they didn't have any secular basis for taking on the conversos, who were by most accounts law-abiding and peaceful citizens, they decided to enlist the aid of the Cathoilc Church to lend some religious credibility to their planned attack.

To that end, the royal couple tooks steps to create an Inquisition, the purpose of which would be to identify false converts (fake conversos) within the Spanish Empire.

Initially, the Pope rejected the request. But after the King and Queen threatened to withdraw Spain's troops from defending the Vatican and leaving Christianity undefended against the growing threat of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, the Pope caved and issued the Exigit Sinceras Devotionis Affectus, through which the Inquisition was established in the Kingdom.

Although the papal bull stated that the Inquisition was to be a religious institution, it gave the King and Queen exclusive rights to name the inquisitors. As a result, the King and Queen were, by 1480, running what was essentially a secular witch hunt (pardon the mixed metaphor) aimed at purging the Kingdom of political enemies, and did so with the blessing and the full assistance of the Church and its priests.

One can see why three hundred years later, the founding fathers of the United States decided it was time to erect a wall between church and state. And when you see what happens next, you'll be glad that you were born in America in the 20th Century, and never had to endure the type of shit that so often occurs when the Church joint ventures with the State to whack political dissidents and religious competitors.

The first official act of the Inquisition seems to have taken place on February 6, 1481, when six conversos were burned alive in public. Their public conflagration was accompanied by a full sermon given by a Catholic priest. This public mass murder, however, was just the beginning.

Torture In the Spanish Inquisition

The ostensible goal of the Inquisition, you'll recall, was the discovery of false converts. In other words, the Inquisition was trying to find out which of the people whom they had forced under penalty of death to convert to Christianity weren't really Christians.

To achieve this end, the Inquisitors employed several means of torture to aid their victims in confessing their hidden allegiance to the Pentateuch or the Koran. One of the most popular techniques was something called called tortura del agua (water torture), which consisted of introducing a cloth into the mouth of the victim, and forcing them to ingest water spilled from a jar so that they had the impression of drowning. (The current American term for this torture technique is "waterboarding," and it is being employed against alleged enemy combatants at the direction of the President and the Department of Justice.)

But this form of psycho-physical torture was tame compared to the more painful methods employed by Spanish torturers as priests stood by and urged the alleged sinner to confess.

These included the following.

1. The Strappado

Strappado is a form of torture in which a victim is suspended in the air by a rope attached to his hands which have been tied behind his back.

There are at least three variants of this torture. In the first, the victim has his arms tied behind his back; a large rope is then tied to his wrists and passed over a beam or a hook on the roof. The torturer pulls on this rope until the victim is hanging from his arms. Since the hands are tied behind the back, this action causes extreme pain and possible dislocation of the arms. The full weight of the subject's body is then supported by the extended and internally-rotated shoulder sockets. While the technique shows no external injuries, it caused long-term nerve, ligament, or tendon damage.

The second variation is similar to the first, but with a series of drops from a suspended height. In addition to the damage caused by the suspension, the repeated drops caused major stress to the extended arms, leading to broken shoulders.

In the third variant, the victim's hands are tied to the front. The victim is also hung from the hands, but his ankles are tied and a heavy weight is attached to them. This will cause pain and possible damage not only to the arms, but also to the legs and hips. This variant was known as squassation.

2. The Rack

The rack consists of an oblong rectangular, wooden frame, slightly raised from the ground, with a roller at one, or both, ends, having at one end a fixed bar to which the legs were fastened, and at the other a movable bar to which the hands were tied. The victim's feet are fastened to one roller, and the wrists are chained to the other.

As the interrogation progresses, a handle and ratchet attached to the top roller are used to increase tension on the chains, which induces excruciating pain as the victim's joints slowly dislocate. Once muscle fibers had been stretched past a certain point they lose their ability to contract, the victims who were released had ineffective muscles as well as problems arising from dislocation.

Because of its mechanically precise, graded operation, the rack was well-suited for hard interrogation, and led to many "confessions."

One gruesome aspect of being stretched too far on the rack is the loud popping noises made by snapping cartilage, ligaments or bones. Eventually, if the application of the rack is continued, the victim's limbs were ripped right off.

3. The Judas Chair

This method is particularly brutal. Just reading about the Judas Chair is enough to make one clench. So if you have a weak tummy (or other soft, vulnerable body parts), I suggest that you skip past it.

The Judas Chair was a pyramid-shaped seat (see right). The person being asked to confess his sins against Christ was placed on top of it, with the point inserted into the anus or vagina. Then, as the questioning advanced, the Inquisitor very slowly lowered the defendant further and further onto the point by overhead ropes.

Some theories suggest that the intended effect was to stretch the orifice over a long period of time, or to slowly impale. The victim was usually naked, adding to the humiliation already endured.

Many Other Forms of Torture

There were many other forms of torture used during the Inquisition. These included the Boot (a wooden framed shoe that was placed on the foot of a witness and was tightened slowly and methodically to crush the bones of the feet and the lower leg), the Thumbscrew (which slowly and methodically crushed the fingers of the alleged non-believers), the Whip and the Breast Ripper.

Perhaps the cruelest aspect of the torture process was that after the victim recanted his alleged sins, he was then punished for them. The Inquisition was just the trial to extract a confession. The ensuing punishment ranged from forfeiture of all assets to the Crown and the Cross to, you guessed it, death by torture.

One must keep in mind that the Spanish Government could not have carried out the Inquisition without the active assistance of the Church. This type of mass trial by ordeal, bloody torture, and confiscation of the assets of the accused probably could not have taken place for merely secular reasons.

By including the Church as an arm of the government, however, the King and Queen were able to eliminate their political opponents without very much resistance from the Spanish people, who were told that the Inquisition was something aimed to get everyone to believe the one great truth of Christianity. It was a way to root out evil bogeyman and either kill them or, at the very least, force them to confess their alleged sins against Christ and repent.

All tolled, Spanish Inquisitors tortured or killed as many as 150,000 people people between the years of 1480 and 1530. Most of the victims were Jewish or Muslim. Then, as Protestantism began to rise, the Church turned its ire towards those followers of Martin Luther, a group who claimed to be true Christians but according to the Church, were heretics. Persecution of Protestants continued on for another 150 years.

Torquemada: The Grand Inquisitor

Remember the Inquisition

There is a lesson to be learned here. Well, there are many lessons. One is that a sharp pyramid shoved up the ass can convince a person to admit anything. Another is that when stretched beyond capacity, connective tissue will tear, rip, pop and eventually kill its owner.

But the most important lesson here, perhaps, is the dangers that can be created by a government who uses religion and religious institutions to justify its politically motivated persecution of those who may challenge the government's power. Because if you kill simply in the name of government, you are going to face a lot of resistance. But if you kill in the name of God, it gets much, much easier for the people to accept. Especially for those who belong to the dominant religion.

Watch out. Keep religion and government apart.

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Torture Techniques of the Spanish Inquisition

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The other day, as I was surfing through pictures of medieval torture devices (don't ask), I kept noticing that many such tools were invented by, or at least used in, the Spanish Inquisition. Soon I found myself jumping from one site to another...

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Torture was used only to get a confession and wasn't meant to actually punish the accused heretic for his crimes. Some inquisitors used starvation, forced the accused to consume and hold vast quantities of water or other fluids, or heaped burning coals on parts of their body. But these methods didn't always work fast enough for their liking.

Strappado is a form of torture that began with the Medieval Inquisition. In one version, the hands of the accused were tied behind his back and the rope looped over a brace in the ceiling of the chamber or attached to a pulley. Then the subject was raised until he was hanging from his arms. This might cause the shoulders to pull out of their sockets. Sometimes, the torturers added a series of drops, jerking the subject up and down. Weights could be added to the ankles and feet to make the hanging even more painful.

The rack was another well-known torture method associated with inquisition. The subject had his hands and feet tied or chained to rollers at one or both ends of a wooden or metal frame. The torturer turned the rollers with a handle, which pulled the chains or ropes in increments and stretched the subject's joints, often until they dislocated. If the torturer continued turning the rollers, the accused's arms and legs could be torn off. Often, simply seeing someone else being tortured on the rack was enough to make another person confess.

While the accused heretics were on strappado or the rack, inquisitors often applied other torture devices to their bodies. These included heated metal pincers, thumbscrews, boots, or other devices designed to burn, pinch or otherwise mutilate their hands, feet or bodily orifices. Although mutilation was technically forbidden, in 1256, Pope Alexander IV decreed that inquisitors could clear each other from any wrongdoing that they might have done during torture sessions.

Inquisitors needed to extract a confession because they believed it was their duty to bring the accused back to the faith. A true confession resulted in the accused being forgiven, but he was usually still forced to absolve himself by performing penances, such as pilgrimages or wearing multiple, heavy crosses.

If the accused didn't confess, the inquisitors could sentence him to life imprisonment. Repeat offenders -- people who confessed, then retracted their confessions and publicly returned to their heretical ways -- could be "abandoned" to the "secular arm" [source: O'Brien]. Basically, it meant that although the inquisitors themselves didn't execute heretics, they could let other people do it.

Capital punishment did allow for burning at the stake. In some cases, accused heretics who had died before their final sentencing had their corpses or bones dug up, burned and cast out. The last inquisitorial act in Spain occurred in 1834, but all of the Inquisitions continued to have a lasting impact on Catholicism, Christianity and the world as a whole. In the next section, we'll see how the Inquisitions are viewed today.

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Torture was used only to get a confession and wasn't meant to actually punish the accused heretic for his crimes. Some inquisitors used starvation, forced the accused to consume and hold vast quantities of water or other fluids, or heaped burning coals on parts of their body.

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The Inquisition Comes to Spain

The Inquisition did not originate in Spain and did not originally target Jews. In the 1200s, the Pope established the Holy Inquisition Against Depraved Heresy to deal with breakaway Christian sects. It remained relatively powerless, as secular rulers, suspicious of Papal meddling in their own internal affairs, did not allow it access to their countries. In a period of more than 200 years, very few heretics were burned at the stake. In 1481, however, after extracting a promise from the Pope that the Inquisition would remain under the Crown's control, thus ensuring that confiscated assets of heretics would revert to the throne, Ferdinand and Isabella established the Inquisition in Seville. While it is commonly assumed that the Inquisition was brought to Spain out of a concern that Jews were trying to influence conversos toDefense counsel was allowed, but was virtually impossible to obtain leave the Christian fold, one prominent historian is of the opinion that by 1481 Jewish consciousness was virtually nonexistent among the conversos, and that Jews did not attempt any such outreach. Rather, he believes, the Inquisition was an outgrowth of the attitudes of Spain's Old Christian population. In the words of one Spanish historian, "The Inquisition was a genuine expression of the soul of the Spanish people."

Procedure of the Inquisition

Once the court was set up, a 30-day grace period was granted in which voluntary confessions of wrongdoing received light sentences, such as small fines. However, a confessor had to agree to spy on his friends and relatives, and if he did not produce evidence, he would be under suspicion as a heretic and could receive the death penalty. Naturally, this system encouraged great corruption, for people fabricated false evidence against others either out of fear, jealousy, and hatred, or to receive a reward. To make matters worse, any accused person was not permitted to know the identity of his accusers, or even the evidence, and thus had no way to refute the charges, which were always believed by the court. Defense counsel was allowed, but was virtually impossible to obtain, because defending heresy was also considered heretical, and punishable by death, thus discouraging any potential advocates.

The Inquisition publicized signs of heretical behavior for faithful Christians to watch for and report, including changing linens on Friday, buying vegetables before blessing children without making the sign of the cross, fasting on Yom Kippur, and refraining from work on the Sabbath. Interestingly enough, Jews who never converted to Christianity were not under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, and could practice their religion freely and openly. It was only conversos who were considered heretics for forsaking the Christian creed and practicing Judaism.

Tortures

If the Inquisitors could not obtain a confession from a suspected heretic, they employed torture to extract one. Interestingly, as gruesome as these tortures were, they were designed not to spill blood, a practice forbidden under Christian law. In the rope torture, for example, the victim's hands were tied behind him, and the rope was connected to a pulley. Weights were attached to the victim's legs, and he was raised to the ceiling. When he was suddenly lowered, his arms and legs were painfully dislocating. The water torture consisted of laying a wet cloth over the prisoner's mouth and nostrils and running a small stream down his throat. As the victim gagged and pulled the cloth into his throat, it was yanked away, causing excruciating pain. Torture by fire was also employed, in which the victim's feet were smeared with a flammable material and held near a fire, causing a slow, painful burning. If the accused fainted during interrogation, a physician standing nearby revived him; if the official administering the torture caused the victim to die, he was not held responsible. Overall, no person was safe from the clutches of the Inquisition - even children and pregnant women underwent these horrific tortures.

Punishments

The penalties imposed by the Inquisition included monetary fines, confiscation of all property, public humiliation, and flogging. Most severe of all punishments were the death sentences. Since the Church did not spill blood, but only saved souls, the victims were handed over to the secular authorities for execution. Bloodless deaths were preferred, such as strangling and burning alive. Periodically, an auto-de-fe (act of faith) was held, inMost severe of all punishments were the death sentences which all the victims of an area were punished together. These became great public spectacles, taking on a holiday atmosphere, as people brought their families to watch the proceedings and jeer the victims. Condemned people wore yellow sanbenitos, cloaks, with red crosses and the letter X painted on them. Those given the death penalty wore tunics with paintings of flames and devils. The procession marched through the town to the burning area where the judges sat. The cases involving lesser penalties were judged first, then those receiving strangulation before burning, and finally those condemned to be burned alive.

The first auto-de-fe was held in 1481, and the last in 1731, an old woman who was accused of "being influenced by the Devil, after which she laid eggs with prophecies written on them." In 1680, the most spectacular of all autos-de-fe was held to celebrate the wedding of King Carlos and his bride. At that time, the Inquisition spread to Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the New and Old Worlds, with victims burned in Havana, Cuba; Mexico City, Mexico; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Goa, India. After 350 years, the Inquisition was finally abolished in 1834. In all, more than 400,000 people were accused of heresy, with 30,000 of those put to death.

Torquemada

In 1483, Queen Isabella's personal confessor, the Dominican priest Tomas de Torquemada, was appointed head of the Inquisition. Of converso origin, Torquemada was a fanatic Jew-hater who was wholly incorruptible. Unlike other monks, he kept his vows of poverty, never eating meat, not wearing linen near his body, or sleeping on anything softer than a board. It was precisely his complete zeal to the cause of Christianity that made Torquemada such an implacable foe. He personally turned the Inquisition into the terrifying institution it would become. Under his administration, the Inquisition amassed enormous assets confiscated from its victims, much of it used to finance the war to conquer the last Muslim stronghold of Granada.

Quickly, Torquemada began taking steps to weaken the unconverted Jewish community and eventually expel it from Spain. In 1485, he forced all rabbis, under pain of death, to report conversos who were practicing Judaism, and to pronounce a rabbinic curse on any Jew who failed to notify the Inquisition of such behavior. This cruel edict badly split the Jews of Spain. Alarmed by the greatly increasing power of the Inquisition, that year a group of conversos plotted to kill the inquisitor of Saragossa, Pedro de Arbues, hoping to begin a popular uprising against the Inquisition. However, the assassination had the opposite effect. The townspeople were enraged, rampaging through the streets, killing many conversos. All the conspirators were caught and executed, and the Inquisition grew even stronger.

The Holy Child of La Guardia

In 1486, Torquemada petitioned Ferdinand and Isabella to expel the Jews from Spain, but they refused. Therefore, Torquemada needed to create a sensation in order to poison the atmosphere, stir public wrath against the Jews, and force their expulsion. In 1490, the Inquisition fabricated the tale of the Holy Child of La Guardia. Several Jews and conversos were accused of kidnapping a seven-year-old boy in the town of La Guardia and taking him to a cave, cutting out the child's heart, and using it in magical rites designed to overthrow Christian Spain and turn it into a Jewish country. Although no body was ever found, under torture all the defendants admitted to the charges. In late 1491, for the first time unconverted Jews were burned at the stake in a spectacular auto-de-fe, which people traveled manyUnder torture all the defendants admitted to the charges days to witness. (Before being killed, the Jews were punished spiritually by being excommunicated from the Catholic Church, to which they had never belonged.) Torquemada wasted no time in sending reports of the episode all over Spain, whipping the populace into an even greater anti-Jewish frenzy.

The Myth Today

The myth of the Holy Child of La Guardia entered the history of Spain, where it helped keep anti-Semitism alive for centuries. Missing details of the "Holy Child's" name, age, birthplace, and place of murder were obligingly provided by willing contributors. (The embarrassing lack of a corpse was attributed to the child's body ascending to heaven, along with his soul.) In 1989, a book on the history of Spain quoted the story as justification for the expulsion of the Jews. In 1993, the author Erna Paris visited La Guardia and described what she saw:

"The church stands in glorious tribute to the Holy Child, patron saint of La Guardia, whose feast day has just passed. A statue of the child graces an alcove, and votive candles burn brightly at his feet. A priest approaches, eager to talk about his church's claim to fame. The child, I learn, was five years old and his name was Juan. He was kidnapped by the Jews and crucified. This act, says the priest, was the ultimate reason for the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. The cave where he was martyred is not far from here. I may see it if I wish, he says, smiling. 'Is the story true?' I ask the priest.

"Well," he replies slowly, "the Jews did admit to taking the child into the cave. I suppose that is all we can know," he concludes, turning his head away."

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jewish history spanish & portuguese expulsion; inquisition spain

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The Inquisition did not originate in Spain and did not originally target Jews. In the 1200s, the Pope established the Holy Inquisition Against Depraved Heresy to deal with breakaway Christian sects. It remained relatively powerless, as secular rulers, suspicious of Papal meddling in their own internal affairs, did not allow it access to their countries.

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Encyclopedia of Jewish and Israeli history, politics and culture, with biographies, statistics, articles and documents on topics from anti-Semitism to Zionism.

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King Fernando and Queen Isabel

In 1469, Prince Fernando of Aragon married his cousin, the Castilian heiress Isabel. Five years later, Isabel ascended her country's throne. It was a formidable alliance, both of personalities and of political destinies. Although intensely pious, Isabel was described by her contemporaries as a "mistress of dissimulation and simulation," a woman capable of pursuing her goals without scruple or sentiment.

Fernando, in turn, although a dynamic and attractive figure, a brave soldier and respected commander, could be as ruthless and duplicitous as his wife. When informed that Louis XI of France complained of having twice been deceived by him, Fernando protested: "The king of France lies. I deceived him not twice, but 10 times."

Isabel and Fernando operated from a base of promising strength. By law, Castile and Aragon remained separate and independent. In actual fact, the linked resources of their kingdoms enabled the "Catholic Monarchs" to transform Spain into a major European empire. During the 1470s and 1480s, the two rulers conducted a vigorous, unrelenting campaign to break the power of the nobility. To that end, they shrewdly discerned the political advantage implicit in a joint campaign of reconquista (reconquest). By pressing the onslaught against Granada, Islam's last foothold on the peninsula, Fernando and Isabel might harness the support of the church and the religious passions of their subjects, including the fractious on behalf of "Christian civilization." At the same time, under the mantle of reconquest, a second goal might be achieved. This was an expedient and unifying crusade against heresy within the Christian community itself.

For the Jews, the new royal strategy was a matter of grave moment. On the one hand, such men as Abraham Senior and Isaac Abravanel held important positions [as court Jews] under Fernando and Isabel and enjoyed the warm esteem of their rulers. Indeed, it was specifically the queen's political ambition that revived their historic fiscal talents, and those of other Spanish Jews. "All the Jews in my realm," Isabel declared as late as 1477, "are mine and under my care and my protection and it belongs to me to defend them and keep justice." Yet by then, her "care and protection" hardly could be reconciled with the royal intention of manipulating the nation's religious fervor. Within the frontiers of Christian Spain, the issue of conversos was fast becoming an inflamed public lesion. To treat that wound, and to foster their subjects' ideological unity, Isabel and her husband turned to a mechanism of vast latent potential. It was an "inquisition into heresy and backsliding."

The Inquisition Comes to Spain

As early as the 13th century, the church itself had established an Inquisition to deal with Christian schismatics. These were Albigensians, Waldensians, and Pasagians, most of them in southern France. Finding precedent in Roman law, the church's investigative machinery during those years was administered by individual diocesan bishoprics. Dominican and Franciscan monks acted as the principal inquisitors. If the operation was ill‑coordinated, the threat of heresy was not particularly serious then.

But now, in 15th‑century Castile and Aragon, suspected heretics no longer were isolated Christian apostates or Christian deviants but large masses of former Jews, individuals in the tens of thousands who appeared to be clinging suspiciously to their ancestral traditions. Popular sentiment no longer would tolerate the anomaly, and the question therefore arose of the appropriate means to correct it. An Inquisition based on the practice of intermittent diocesan inquiries seemed incapable of rooting out this vast Jewish netherworld. Equally unfeasible was an Inquisition centrally directed from Rome; Fernando and Isabel were not prepared to forfeit royal control.

To resolve the issues of both the structure and the authority of the Inquisition, the Catholic monarchs thereupon entered into protracted negotiations with the Vatican. Finally, in 1478, they reached an agreement with Pope Sixtus IV. To begin with, an Inquisition would be limited initially to the diocese of Seville, embracing much of Castilian Andalusia. Here a large and still affluent converso (Jews who had converted to Christianity)population lived directly adjacent to the Moorish kingdom of Granada. Indeed, it was fear of this lingering Muslim enclave that induced Pope Sixtus to accept the Spanish Inquisition's new and unique status. Its personnel, although clerics every one, would be answerable not to Rome but to royal, secular authority. Thus, the first inquisitors were two Dominican friars, Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martin; but it was the Crown of Castile that confirmed their appointment, as it would those of all other inquisitors.

The rationale for the new enterprise was the need to root out heretics who "daily return to the superstitious and perfidious sect of the Jews. . ... Not only have they persisted in their blind and obstinate heresy, but their children and descendants do likewise." To achieve this goal of doctrinal cleansing, the Inquisition in the years after 1478 gradually developed a set of procedures. It allowed a brief state of "grace" for backsliding Christians ‑- that is, former Jews - to turn themselves in. By the same token, all others who possessed knowledge of secret judaizers were obliged to transmit their information forthwith, on pain of excommunication.

Once the identity of the accused individuals was established, they would be seized, thrust into inquisitional dungeons, interrogated (occasionally under torture), and sentenced to a variety punishments, ranging from terms of penitential service to imprisonment or to "relaxation," that is, death. Thus, even in its earliest phase, between 1479 and 1481, in a ferocious reign of terror, nearly four hundred individuals were burned at the stake for heresy in the city of Seville alone. Throughout Castilian Andalusia, some two thousand persons were burned alive, seventeen thousand others were "reconciled," that is, spared the death penalty but subjected to such punishments as imprisonment, confiscation of property, and debarment from all employment, public and private, Their wives and children faced destitution.
Reprinted with permission from Farewell Espana: The World of the Sephardim Remembered, published by Alfred Knopf.

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Inquisition in Spain | My Jewish Learning

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In 1469, Prince Fernando of Aragon married his cousin, the Castilian heiress Isabel. Five years later, Isabel ascended her country's throne. It was a formidable alliance, both of personalities and of political destinies. Although intensely pious, Isabel was described by her contem­poraries as a "mistress of dissimulation and simulation," a woman capa­ble of pursuing her goals without scruple or sentiment.

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Encyclopedia of Jewish and Israeli history, politics and culture, with biographies, statistics, articles and documents on topics from anti-Semitism to Zionism.

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Have you ever heard someone say "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition"? The line comes from a series of sketches by British comedy troupe Monty Python. In the sketches, one character gets annoyed at another character for asking him question after question. At the height of his frustration, he yells, "Well, I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition!" Suddenly, three Catholic Cardinals burst into the room to comically " torture" the first two characters into admitting their sinful ways.

From the sketches, you can guess that the Spanish Inquisition must've involved torture and the Catholic Church. But why? Who was on the receiving end of that torture?

The Spanish Inquisition was just one of several inquisitions that occurred between the 12th and 19th centuries. In addition to the term being used for the historical events, the word "inquisition" refers to the tribunal court system used by both the Catholic Church and some Catholic monarchs to root out, suppress and punish heretics. These were baptized members of the church who held opinions contrary to the Catholic faith.

The inquisitorial system was based on ancient Roman law. It was different from other court systems because the court actually took part in the process of trying the accused. The term "inquisition" has a third meaning also -- the trials themselves.

Because of its association with torture and execution, inquisition remains a controversial and difficult subject. More than one hundred years after the last official act by the Office of the Holy Inquisition (now called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), the Vatican opened its secret archives to researchers to get at the truth of the inquisitions. In the next section, we'll find out how it all began.

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Have you ever heard someone say "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition"? The line comes from a series of sketches by British comedy troupe Monty Py­thon. In the sketches, one character gets annoyed at another character for asking him question after question. At the height of his frustration, he yells, "Well, I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition!"

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Spanish Inquisition - New World Encyclopedia

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The Inquisition, as a tribunal dealing with religious heresy, had jurisdiction only over baptized Christians. During a large part of its history, however, freedom of religion did not exist in Spain or its territories, so in practice the Inquisition had jurisdiction over all royal subjects.

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Inquisition - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com

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Find out more about the history of Inquisition, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts on HISTORY.com

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How many people died during the Spanish Inquisition?

How did the Spanish Inquisition work?

When did the Spanish Inquisition end?

Did anyone expect the Spanish Inquisition?

Spanish Inquisition, (1478-1834), judicial institution ostensibly established to combat heresy in Spain. In practice, the Spanish Inquisition served to consolidate power in the monarchy of the newly unified Spanish kingdom, but it achieved that end through infamously brutal methods.

The rise of the Spanish Inquisition

The medieval inquisition had played a considerable role in Christian Spain during the 13th century, but the struggle against the Moors had kept the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula busy and served to strengthen their faith. When toward the end of the 15th century the Reconquista was all but complete, the desire for religious unity became more and more pronounced. Spain's Jewish population, which was among the largest in Europe, soon became a target.

Spain: The Spanish Inquisition

Over centuries, the Jewish community in Spain had flourished and grown in numbers and influence, though anti-Semitism had surfaced from time to time. During the reign of Henry III of Castile and Leon (1390-1406), Jews faced increased persecution and were pressured to convert to Christianity. The pogroms of 1391 were especially brutal, and the threat of violence hung over the Jewish community in Spain. Faced with the choice between baptism and death, the number of nominal converts to the Christian faith soon became very great. Many Jews were killed, and those who adopted Christian beliefs-the so-called conversos (Spanish: "converted")-faced continued suspicion and prejudice. In addition, there remained a significant population of Jews who had professed conversion but continued to practice their faith in secret. Known as Marranos, those nominal converts from Judaism were perceived to be an even greater threat to the social order than those who had rejected forced conversion. After Aragon and Castile were united by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella (1469), the Marranos were denounced as a danger to the existence of Christian Spain. In 1478 Pope Sixtus IV issued a bull authorizing the Catholic Monarchs to name inquisitors who would address the issue. That did not mean that the Spanish sovereigns were turning over to the church the struggle for unity; on the contrary, they sought to use the Inquisition to support their absolute and centralizing regime and most especially to increase royal power in Aragon. The first Spanish inquisitors, operating in Seville, proved so severe that Sixtus IV attempted to intervene. The Spanish crown now had in its possession a weapon too precious to give up, however, and the efforts of the pope to limit the powers of the Inquisition were without avail. In 1483 he was induced to authorize the naming by the Spanish government of a grand inquisitor (inquisitor general) for Castile, and during that same year Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia were placed under the power of the Inquisition.

The Inquisition at its peak

The grand inquisitor acted as the head of the Inquisition in Spain. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction that he had received from the Vatican empowered him to name deputies and hear appeals. In deciding appeals, the grand inquisitor was assisted by a council of five members and by consultors. All those offices were filled by agreement between the government and the grand inquisitor. The council, especially after its reorganization during the reign of Philip II (1556-98), put the effective control of the institution more and more into the hands of the civil power. After the papacy of Clement VII (1523-34), priests and bishops were at times judged by the Inquisition. In procedure the Spanish Inquisition was much like the medieval inquisition. The first grand inquisitor in Spain was the Dominican Tomás de Torquemada; his name became synonymous with the brutality and fanaticism associated with the Inquisition. Torquemada used torture and confiscation to terrorize his victims, and his methods were the product of a time when judicial procedure was cruel by design. The sentencing of the accused took place at the auto-da-fé (Portuguese: "act of faith"), an elaborate public expression of the Inquisition's power. The condemned were presented before a large crowd that often included royalty, and the proceedings had a ritualized, almost festive, quality. The number of burnings at the stake during Torquemada's tenure was exaggerated by Protestant critics of the Inquisition, but it is generally estimated to have been about 2,000.

At Torquemada's urging, Ferdinand and Isabella issued an edict on March 31, 1492, giving Spanish Jews the choice of exile or baptism; as a result, more than 160,000 Jews were expelled from Spain. Francisco, Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros, promoted the suppression of Muslims with the same zeal that Torquemada had directed at Jews. In 1502 he ordered the proscription of Islam in Granada, the last of the Muslim kingdoms in Spain to fall to the Reconquista. The persecution of Muslims accelerated in 1507 when Jiménez was named grand inquisitor. Muslims in Valencia and Aragon were subjected to forced conversion in 1526, and Islam was subsequently banned in Spain. The Inquisition then devoted its attention to the Moriscos, Spanish Muslims who had previously accepted baptism. Expressions of Morisco culture were forbidden by Philip II in 1566, and within three years, persecution by the Inquisition gave way to open warfare between the Moriscos and the Spanish crown. The Moriscos were driven from Granada in 1571, and by 1614 some 300,000 had been expelled from Spain entirely.

When the Reformation began to penetrate into Spain, the relatively few Spanish Protestants were eliminated by the Inquisition. Foreigners suspected of promoting Protestant faiths within Spain met similarly violent ends. Having largely purged the country of Jews and Muslims-as well as many former members of those faiths who had converted to Christianity-the Spanish Inquisition turned its attention to prominent Roman Catholics. Saint Ignatius of Loyola was twice arrested on suspicion of heresy, and the archbishop of Toledo, the Dominican Bartolomé de Carranza, was imprisoned for almost 17 years. Nominally Christian groups that diverged from the Inquisition's orthodoxy, such as the followers of the mystical Alumbrado movement and adherents of Erasmianism (a spiritualized Christian belief system influenced by the teachings of humanist Desiderius Erasmus), were subjected to intense persecution throughout the 16th and into the 17th century.

Resistance and the decline of the Inquisition

Under the supreme council of the Spanish Inquisition were 14 local tribunals in Spain and several in the colonies; the tribunals in Mexico and Peru were particularly harsh. The Spanish Inquisition spread into Sicily in 1517, but efforts to set it up in Naples and Milan failed. In 1522 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V introduced it into the Low Countries, but its efforts to wipe out Protestantism were unsuccessful. John III of Portugal, with the permission of Pope Paul III, introduced a tribunal like the Spanish Inquisition against Portuguese Jews in 1536. Though John III's methods led the pope to revoke the grant, the Inquisition was definitely established in Portugal in 1547, at which time its scope was also widened.

The Inquisition remained a force in Spain and its colonies for hundreds of years-indeed, autos-da-fé were a common occurrence into the mid-18th century-but the excesses seen under Torquemada were checked to some degree. Ironically, the well-established bureaucratic structure of the Inquisition would help insulate Spain from the effects of ad hoc witchcraft trials that swept Europe and claimed tens of thousands of lives in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The Spanish Inquisition was suppressed by Joseph Bonaparte in 1808, restored by Ferdinand VII in 1814, suppressed in 1820, restored in 1823, and finally suppressed permanently in 1834. The Portuguese Inquisition was suppressed in 1821.
Edward A. Ryan The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Spanish Inquisition | Definition, History, & Facts

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Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834), judicial institution ostensibly established to combat heresy in Spain. In practice, the Spanish Inquisition served to consolidate power in the monarchy of the newly unified Spanish kingdom, but it achieved that end through infamously brutal methods.

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The Spanish Inquisition - History of Spain - don Quijote

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The Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478 as a court for the detection of heretics, although its true purpose remains somewhat obscure. Learn more!