2. What is it?
The Inquisition was established in the
Middle Ages by the Roman Catholic
Church. It was an ecclesiastical court
established to investigate and punish
crimes against faith, free thinking, popular
anti-feudal movements and to the
suppression of heresy
The medieval Inquisition, from which all the
others derive, was founded in 1184 in the
area of southern France to combat heresy.
Years later it was implanted in other
territories such as Spain, Latin America ...
All the suspects were prosecuted and
convicted, and those who were convicted
were serving sentences that could vary
from temporary or perpetual prison to
death at the stake, where their convicted
were burned alive in the public square.
3. PROCESS When someone denounced a person, they were
automatically judged by these courts and he/she didn´t have
the right to know who had denounced them. Sentences that
could vary from temporary or perpetual prison to death at
the stake and other types of medieval torture.
Many scientists were persecuted, and condemned. One of
the best known cases was that of Galileo Galilei by saying
that the Earth revolved around the sun (heliocentrism) but
he fortunately escaped the fire.
Women also suffered during this period and were constant
targets. The inquisitors considered witchcraft all the
practices involved in healing through herbal infusions or
herbal remedies or other substances. Medieval witches who
were nothing more than connoisseurs of the healing
properties of plants were tortured, full of violence and
cruelty.
greater AFFECTED
4. Inquisition in Spain
The Inquisition movement became increasingly powerful,
and this fact attracted political interests. During the XV
century, Catholic Kings took advantage of this force to
persecute the nobles and the Jews. In the first case, they
reduced the threatening power of the nobility; in the
second, they took advantage of this power to torture and
kill the Jews, taking their goods and wealth.
One of the bloodiest inquisitors who punished the
greatest number of heretics during the XV century was
Tomás de Torquemada (1420-1498) . He was known as the
Grand Inquisitor and acted in the persecution and
punishment of Muslims and converted Jews who lived in
Spain.
