Spanish Inquisition

1. The Spanish
Inquisition
Text Wikipedia / slideshow Anders Dernback
World of slideshows: https://world-of-slideshows.mn.co/feed

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spanish_Inquisition_(Monty_Python)#/media/File:Monty_Python_Live_02-07-14_12_46_43_(14415411808).jpg
Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin and
Terry Jones playing "The Spanish
Inquisition" in Monty Python Live
(Mostly), London, 2014

4. Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition commonly known as the
Spanish was established in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon
and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in
their kingdoms and to replace the Medieval Inquisition, which was under
Papal control. It became the most substantive of the three different
manifestations of the wider Catholic Inquisition along with the Roman
Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition. The "Spanish Inquisition" may be
defined broadly, operating in Spain and in all Spanish colonies and territories,
which included the Canary Islands, the Kingdom of Naples,[citation needed]
and all Spanish possessions in North, Central, and South America. According
to modern estimates, around 150,000 were prosecuted for various offenses
during the three-century duration of the Spanish Inquisition, out of which
between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed (~2.7% of all cases).

5. Intended primarily to….
The Inquisition was originally intended primarily to identify heretics among
those who converted from Judaism and Islam to Catholicism. The regulation
of the faith of newly converted Catholics was intensified after the royal
decrees issued in 1492 and 1502 ordering Jews and Muslims to convert to
Catholicism or leave Castile. The Inquisition was not definitively abolished
until 1834, during the reign of Isabella II, after a period of declining influence
in the preceding century.
The Spanish Inquisition is often cited in popular literature and history as an
example of religious intolerance and repression. Some historians have come
to conclude that many of the charges levied against the Inquisition are
exaggerated, and are a result of the Black Legend produced by political and
religious enemies of Spain, especially England.

6. How many were killed in the Spanish Inquisition?
How many were killed in the Spanish Inquisition?
Some historians are convinced that millions died.
But according to Professor Agostino Borromeo, a
historian of Catholicism at the Sapienza University in
Rome and curator of the 783-page volume released
yesterday, only 1% of the 125,000 people tried by
church tribunals as suspected heretics in Spain were
executed.15 juni 2004

7. Seal for the Tribunal in Spain
Consisted of a Grand
Inquisitor, who headed
the Council of the
Supreme and General
Inquisition, made up of
six members. Under it
were up to 21 tribunals in
the empire.

8. Spanish Inquisition
The Inquisition was created through papal bull, Ad Abolendam, issued at the
end of the 12th century by Pope Lucius III to combat the Albigensian heresy in
southern France. There were a large number of tribunals of the Papal
Inquisition in various European kingdoms during the Middle Ages through
different diplomatic and political means. In the Kingdom of Aragon, a tribunal
of the Papal Inquisition was established by the statute of Excommunicamus
of Pope Gregory IX, in 1232, during the era of the Albigensian heresy, as a
condition for peace with Aragon. The Inquisition was ill-received by the
Aragonese, which led to prohibitions against insults or attacks on it. Rome
was particularly concerned about the 'heretical' influence of the Iberian
peninsula's large Muslim and Jewish population on the Catholic.

9. Spanish Inquisition
It pressed the kingdoms to accept the Papal Inquisition after Aragon. Navarra
conceded in the 13th century and Portugal by the end of the 14th, however its
'Roman Inquisition' was famously inactive. Castile refused steadily, trusting on
its prominent position in Europe and its military power to keep the Pope's
interventionism in check. By the end of the Middle Ages, England, due to
distance and voluntary compliance, and Castile (future part of Spain) due to
resistance and power, were the only Western European kingdoms to
successfully resist the establishment of the Inquisition in their realms.

11. Spanish Inquisition
Medieval Inquisition in Aragon
Although Raymond of Penyafort was not an inquisitor, as a canon lawyer and
the king's advisor, James I of Aragon, had often consulted him on questions
of law regarding the practices of the Inquisition in the king's domains. The
lawyer's deep sense of justice and equity, combined with the worthy
Dominican's sense of compassion, allowed him to steer clear of the excesses
that were found elsewhere in the formative years of the inquisitions into
heresy.
Despite its early implantation, the Papal Inquisition was greatly resisted
within the Crown of Aragon by both population and monarchs. With time, its
importance was diluted, and, by the middle of the fifteenth century, it was
almost forgotten although still there according to the law.

12. Spanish Inquisition
In addition to the above discriminatory legislation, Aragon had laws specifically targeted at
protecting minorities. For example, crusades attacking Jewish or Muslim subjects of the King
of Aragon while on their way to fight in the reconquest were punished with death by
hanging. Up to the 14th century, the census and weddings records show an absolute lack of
concern with avoiding intermarriage or blood mixture. Said laws were now common in most
of central Europe. Both the Roman Inquisition and neighbouring Christian powers showed
discomfort with Aragonese law and lack of concern with ethnicity, but to little effect. High-
ranking officials of Jewish religion were not as common as in Castile, but were not unheard
of either. Abraham Zacuto was a professor at the university of Cartagena. Vidal Astori was
the royal silversmith for Ferdinand II of Aragon and conducted business in his name. And
King Ferdinand himself was said to have Jewish ancestry on his mother's side

13. Spanish Inquisition
Medieval Inquisition in Castile
There was never a tribunal of the Papal Inquisition in Castile, nor any
inquisition during the Middle Ages. Members of the episcopate were charged
with surveillance of the faithful and punishment of transgressors, always
under the direction of the king.
During the Middle Ages, in Castile, heresy was paid little to no attention by the
Catholic ruling class or by the population. Castile did not see the proliferation
of anti-Jew pamphlets like England and France did during the 13th and 14th
century, and those which have been found had modified, watered down
versions of the original stories. Jews and Muslims were tolerated and
generally allowed to follow their traditional customs in domestic matters.

14. Spanish Inquisition
The legislation regarding Muslims and Jews in Castilian territory varied greatly,
becoming more intolerant during the period of great instability and dynastic
wars that occurred by the end of the 14th century. The Castilian law is
particularly difficult to summarize since due to the model of the free Royal
Villas mayors and the population of border areas had the right to create their
own fueros (law) that varied from one villa to the next. In general, the
Castilian model was parallel to the initial model of Islamic Spain. Non-Catholics
were subject to discriminatory legislation regarding taxation and some other
specific discriminatory legislation-such as a prohibition on wearing silk or
"flashy clothes" - that varied from county to county, but were left alone
besides that. Forced conversion of minorities was against the law, and so was
the belief in the existence of witchcraft, oracles or similar superstitions.

15. Spanish Inquisition
In general, all "people from the book" were permitted to practice their own
customs and religions as far as they did not attempt proselytizing on the
Christian population. Jews particularly had surprising freedoms and
protections compared to other areas of Europe and were allowed to hold
high public offices such as the counselor, treasurer or secretary for the crown.
During most of the medieval period intermarriage with converts was allowed
and encouraged. The intellectual cooperation between religions was the
norm in Castile. Some examples are the Toledo School of Translators from the
11th century. Jews and moriscos were allowed to hold high offices in the
administration

16. Spanish Inquisition
A tightening of the laws to protect the right of Jews to collect loans during the
Medieval Crisis, was one of the causes of the revolt against Peter the Cruel and
catalyst of the anti-semitic episodes of 1490 in Castile, a kingdom that had
shown no significant antisemitic backlash to the black death and drought crisis
of the early 14th century. Even after the sudden increase in hostility towards
other religions that the kingdom experienced after the 14th-century crisis,
which clearly worsened the living conditions of non-Catholics in Castile, it
remained one of the most tolerant kingdoms in Europe.

17. Spanish Inquisition
The kingdom had serious tensions with Rome regarding the Church's attempts
to extend its authority into it. A focus of conflict was Castilian resistance to
truly abandon the Mozarabic Rite, and the refusal to grant Papal control over
Reconquest land (a request Aragon and Portugal conceded). These conflicts
added up with a strong resistance to allow the creation of an Inquisition, and
the kingdom´s general willingness to accept the heretics that came in seeking
refuge from prosecution in France.

18. Spanish Inquisition
Creation of the Spanish Inquisition
There are several hypotheses of what prompted the creation of the tribunal after centuries of tolerance
(within the context of medieval Europe). The truth is probably a combination of varieties of them.
The "Too Multi-Religious" hypothesis
The Spanish Inquisition (Inquisición Española) can be interpreted as a
response to the multi-religious nature of Spanish society following the
reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim Moors. After invading
in 711, large areas of the Iberian Peninsula were ruled by Muslims until 1250,
when they were restricted to Granada, which fell in 1492. However, the
Reconquista did not result in the total expulsion of Muslims from Spain,
since they, along with Jews, were tolerated by the ruling Christian elite.
Large cities, especially Seville, Valladolid and Barcelona,

19. Spanish Inquisition
Post-reconquest medieval Spain has been characterized by Americo Castro
as a society of relatively peaceful co-existence (convivencia) punctuated by
occasional conflict among the ruling Catholics and the Jews and Muslims.
However, as historian Henry Kamen notes, the "so-called convivencia was
always a relationship between unequals. Despite their legal inequality, there
was a long tradition of Jewish service to the Crown of Aragon and Jews
occupied many important posts, both religious and political. Castile itself had
an unofficial rabbi. Ferdinand's father John II named the Jewish Abiathar
Crescas to be Court Astronomer

20. Spanish Inquisition
Antisemitic attitudes increased all over Europe during the late 13th century
and throughout the 14th century. England and France expelled their Jewish
populations in 1290 and 1306 respectively. At the same time, during the
Reconquista, Spain's anti-Jewish sentiment steadily increased. This prejudice
climaxed in the summer of 1391 when violent anti-Jewish riots broke out in
Spanish cities like Barcelona To linguistically distinguish them from non-
converted or long-established Catholic families, new converts were called
conversos, or New Catholics. This event though must be understood in the
context of the fierce civil war and new politics that Peter the Cruel had
brought to the land, and not be confused with spontaneous antisemitic
reactions to the plague seen in northern Europe.

21. Spanish Inquisition
According to Don Hasdai Crescas, persecution against Jews began in earnest
in Seville in 1391, on the 1st day of the lunar month Tammuz (June). From
there the violence spread to Córdoba, and by the 17th day of the same lunar
month, it had reached Toledo (called then by Jews after its Arabic name
"Ṭulayṭulah") in the region of Castile. From there, the violence had spread to
Majorca and by the 1st day of the lunar month Elul it had also reached the
Jews of Barcelona in Catalonia, where the slain were estimated at two-
hundred and fifty. So, too, many Jews who resided in the neighboring
provinces of Lérida and Gironda and in the kingdom of València had been
affected, as were also the Jews of Al-Andalus (Andalucía), whereas many died
a martyr’s death, while others converted in order to save themselves.

22. Spanish Inquisition
Encouraged by the preaching of Ferrand Martinez, Archdeacon of Ecija, the
general unrest affected nearly all of the Jews in Spain, during which time an
estimated 200,000 Jews changed their religion or else concealed their
religion, becoming known in Hebrew as "Anūsim", meaning, "those who are
compelled [to hide their religion]." Only a handful of the more principal
persons of the Jewish community managed to escape, who had found
refuge among the viceroys in the outlying towns and districts.

23. Spanish Inquisition
Forced baptism was contrary to the law of the Catholic Church, and
theoretically, anybody who had been forcibly baptized could legally return to
Judaism. Legal definitions of the time theoretically acknowledged that a
forced baptism was not a valid sacrament, but confined this to cases where it
was literally administered by physical force: a person who had consented to
baptism under threat of death or serious injury was still regarded as a
voluntary convert, and accordingly forbidden to revert to Judaism. After the
public violence, many of the converted "felt it safer to remain in their new
religion.

24. Spanish Inquisition
Thus, after 1391, a new social group appeared and were referred to as conversos or New
Christians. Many conversos, now freed from the anti-Semitic restrictions imposed on
Jewish employment, attained important positions in fifteenth-century Spain, including
positions in the government and in the Church. Among many others, physicians Andrés
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 – not without opposition – managed to attain high positions in
the ecclesiastical hierarchy, at times becoming severe detractors of Judaism. Some even
received titles of nobility, and as a result, during the following century, some works
attempted to demonstrate that virtually all of the nobles of Spain were descended from
Israelites.

25. Spanish Inquisition
The "Enforcement Across Borders" hypothesis
According to this hypothesis, the Inquisition was created to standardize the
variety of laws and many jurisdictions Spain was divided into. It would be an
administrative program analogous to the Santa Hermandad (the "Holy
Brotherhood", a law enforcement body, answering to the crown, that
prosecuted thieves and criminals across counties in a way local county
authorities could not, ancestor to the Guardia Civil), an institution that would
guarantee uniform prosecution of crimes against royal laws across all local
jurisdictions.

26. The inside of a jail of the
Spanish Inquisition, with a
priest supervising his scribe
while men and women are
suspended from pulleys,
tortured on the rack or
burnt with torches.
Etching.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition#/media/File:The_inside_of_a_jail_of_the_Spanish_Inquisition,_with_a_prie_Wellcome_V
0041650.jpg

27. Spanish Inquisition
The Kingdom of Castile had been prosperous and successful in Europe thanks
in part to the unusual authority and control the king exerted over the nobility,
which ensured political stability and kept the kingdom from being weakened
by in-fighting (as was the case in England, for example). However, under the
Trastamara dynasty, both the kings of Castile and Aragon had lost power to
the great nobles, who now formed dissenting and conspiratorial factions.
Taxation and varying privileges differed from county to county, and powerful
noble families constantly extorted the kings to attain further concessions,
particularly in Aragon.

28. Spanish Inquisition
The main goals of the reign of the Catholic Monarchs were to unite their two
kingdoms and strengthen royal influence to guarantee stability. In pursuit of
this, they sought to further unify the laws of their realms and reduce the
power of the nobility in certain local areas. They attained this partially by raw
military strength, by creating a combined army between the two of them that
could outmatch the army of most noble coalitions in the Peninsula. However,
it was impossible to change the entire laws of both realms by force alone,
and due to reasonable suspicion of one another, the monarchs kept their
kingdoms separate during their lifetimes.

29. Spanish Inquisition
The "Placate Europe" hypothesis
At a time in which most of Europe had already expelled the Jews from the
Christian kingdoms the "dirty blood" of Spaniards was met with open suspicion
and contempt by the rest of Europe. As the world became smaller and foreign
relations became more relevant to stay in power this foreign image of "being
the seed of jews and moors" may have become a problem. In addition, the coup
that allowed Isabella to take the throne from Joana of Avis and the Catholic
Monarchs to marry had estranged Castile from Portugal, its historical ally, and
created the need for new relationships. Similarly, Aragon's ambitions lay in
control of the Mediterranean and the defence against France. As their policy of
royal marriages proved, the Catholic Monarchs were deeply concerned about
France's growing power and expected to create strong dynastic alliances across
Europe.

30. Spanish Inquisition
The "Ottoman Scare" hypothesis
No matter if any of the previous hypotheses were already operating in the
minds of the monarchs, the alleged discovery of Morisco plots to support a
possible Ottoman invasion were crucial factors in their decision to create the
Inquisition.
At this time, the Ottoman Empire was in expansion and making its power
noticeable in the Mediterranean and North Africa. At the same time, the
Aragonese Mediterranean Empire was crumbling under debt and war
exhaustion. Ferdinand reasonably feared that he would not be capable of
repelling an Ottoman attack to Spain's shores, especially if the Ottomans had
internal help

31. Spanish Inquisition
Philosophical and Religious Reasons
The creation of the Spanish Inquisition would be consistent with the most
important political philosophers of the Florentine School, with whom the kings
were known to have contact (Guicciardini, Pico della Mirandola, Machiavelli,
Segni, Pitti, Nardi, Varchi…). Both Guicciardini and Machiavelli defended the
importance of centralization and unification in order to create a strong state
capable of repelling foreign invasions, and also warned of the dangers of
excessive social uniformity to the creativity and innovation of a nation.
Machiavelli considered piety and morals desirable for the subjects but not so
much for the ruler, who should use them as a way to unify its population. He
also warned of the nefarious influence of a corrupt church in the creation of a
selfish population and middle nobility, which had fragmented the peninsula
and made it unable to resist either France or Aragon.

32. Spanish Inquisition
The "Keeping the Pope in Check" hypothesis
The hierarchy of the Catholic Church had made many attempts during the
Middle Ages to take over Christian Spain politically, such as claiming the
Church's ownership over all land reconquered from non-Christians (a claim
that was rejected by Castille but accepted by Aragon and Portugal). In the
past, the papacy had tried and partially succeeded, in forcing the Mozarabic
Rite out of Iberia. Its meddling attempts had been pivotal for Aragon's loss of
Rosellon. The meddling regarding Aragon's control over South Italy was even
stronger historically. In their lifetime, the Catholic Monarchs had problems
with Pope Paul II, a very strong proponent of absolute authority for the
church over the kings.

33. Spanish Inquisition
Start of the Inquisition
Fray Alonso de Ojeda, a Dominican friar from
Seville, convinced Queen Isabella of the
existence of Crypto-Judaism among Andalusian
conversos during her stay in Seville between
1477 and 1478. A report, produced by Pedro
González de Mendoza, Archbishop of Seville,
and by the Segovian Dominican Tomás de
Torquemada- of converso family himself-
corroborated this assertion.
Torquemada

34. Spanish Inquisition
Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella requested a papal bull establishing
an inquisition in Spain in 1478. Pope Sixtus IV granted a bull permitting the
monarchs to select and appoint two or three priests over forty years of age
to act as inquisitors. In 1483, Ferdinand and Isabella established a state
council to administer the inquisition with the Dominican Friar Tomás de
Torquemada acting as its president, even though Sixtus IV protested the
activities of the inquisition in Aragon and its treatment of the conversos.
Torquemada eventually assumed the title of Inquisitor-General.

35. Spanish Inquisition
Thomas F. Madden describes the world that formed medieval politics: "The
Inquisition was not born out of desire to crush diversity or oppress people; it
was rather an attempt to stop unjust executions. Yes, you read that
correctly. Heresy was a crime against the state. Roman law in the Code of
Justinian made it a capital offense. Rulers, whose authority was believed to
come from God, had no patience for heretics"

36. Spanish Inquisition
Ferdinand II of Aragon pressured Pope Sixtus IV to
agree to an Inquisition controlled by the monarchy by
threatening to withdraw military support at a time when
the Turks were a threat to Rome. The pope issued a bull
to stop the Inquisition but was pressured into
withdrawing it. On 1 November 1478, Sixtus published
the Papal bull, Exigit Sinceras Devotionis Affectus,
through which he gave the monarchs exclusive
authority to name the inquisitors in their kingdoms. The
first two inquisitors, Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San
Martín, were not named, however, until two years later,
on 27 September 1480 in Medina del Campo.

39. First burning (alive) of people 6 February 1481
The first auto-da-fé was held in
Seville on 6 February 1481: six people
were burned alive. From there, the
Inquisition grew rapidly in the
Kingdom of Castile. By 1492,
tribunals existed in eight Castilian
cities: Ávila, Córdoba, Jaén, Medina
del Campo, Segovia, Sigüenza,
Toledo, and Valladolid. Sixtus IV
promulgated a new bull categorically
prohibiting the Inquisition's
extension to Aragón.

40. The burning of a 16th-century Dutch
Anabaptist, Anneken Hendriks, who
was charged with heresy

41. 1483
In 1483, Jews were expelled from all of Andalusia. Though the pope wanted to crack down
on abuses, Ferdinand pressured him to promulgate a new bull, threatening that he would
otherwise separate the Inquisition from Church authority. Sixtus did so on 17 October 1483,
naming Tomás de Torquemada Inquisidor General of Aragón, Valencia, and Catalonia.
Torquemada quickly established procedures for the Inquisition. A new court would be
announced with a thirty-day grace period for confessions and the gathering of accusations
by neighbors. Evidence that was used to identify a crypto-Jew included the absence of
chimney smoke on Saturdays (a sign the family might secretly be honoring the Sabbath) or
the buying of many vegetables before Passover or the purchase of meat from a converted
butcher. The court could employ physical torture to extract confessions once the guilt of
the accused had been established. Crypto-Jews were allowed to confess and do penance,
although those who relapsed were executed.

42. 1484 - 1485
In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII attempted to allow appeals to Rome against the
Inquisition, which would weaken the function of the institution as protection
against the pope, but Ferdinand in December 1484 and again in 1509 decreed
death and confiscation for anyone trying to make use of such procedures
without royal permission. With this, the Inquisition became the only institution
that held authority across all the realms of the Spanish monarchy and, in all of
them, a useful mechanism at the service of the crown. However, the cities of
Aragón continued resisting, and even saw revolt, as in Teruel from 1484 to 1485.
However, the murder of Inquisidor Pedro Arbués in Zaragoza on 15 September
1485, caused public opinion to turn against the conversos and in favour of the
Inquisition. In Aragón, the Inquisitorial courts were focused specifically on
members of the powerful converso minority, ending their influence in the
Aragonese administration.

43. Spanish Inquistion 1480 – 1530 – killed 2 000
The Inquisition was extremely active between 1480 and 1530.
Different sources give different estimates of the number of trials
and executions in this period; some estimate about 2,000
executions, based on the documentation of the autos-da-fé, the
great majority being conversos of Jewish origin. He offers striking
statistics: 91.6% of those judged in Valencia between 1484 and 1530
and 99.3% of those judged in Barcelona between 1484 and 1505
were of Jewish origin.

44. Though not subject to
the Inquisition, Jews
who refused to
convert or leave Spain
were called heretics
and could be burned
to death on a stake

45. False conversions
The Inquisition had jurisdiction only over Christians. It had no power to
investigate, prosecute, or convict Jews, Muslims, or any open member of
other religions. Anyone who was known to identify as either Jew or Muslim
was outside of Inquisitorial jurisdiction and could only be tried by the King. All
the inquisition could do in some of those cases was to deport the individual
according to the King's law, but usually, even that had to go through a civil
tribunal. The Inquisition only had the authority to try those who self-identified
as Christians (initially for taxation purposes, later to avoid deportation as well)
while practicing another religion de facto. Even those were treated as
Christians. If they confessed or identified not as "judeizantes" but as fully
practicing Jews, they fell back into the previously explained category and
could not be targeted, although they would have pleaded guilty to previously
lying about being Christian

46. Expulsion of Jews and Jewish conversos
The Spanish Inquisition had been established in part to prevent conversos
from engaging in Jewish practices, which, as Christians, they were supposed
to have given up. However this remedy for securing the orthodoxy of
conversos was eventually deemed inadequate since the main justification the
monarchy gave for formally expelling all Jews from Spain was the "great harm
suffered by Christians (i.e., conversos) from the contact, intercourse and
communication which they have with the Jews, who always attempt in various
ways to seduce faithful Christians from our Holy Catholic Faith", according to
the 1492 edict.
During the eighteenth century, the number of conversos accused by the
Inquisition decreased significantly. Manuel Santiago Vivar, tried in Córdoba
in 1818, was the last person tried for being a crypto-Jew.

47. Protestants and Anglicans
The Spanish Inquisition had jurisdiction only over Christians. As such, those who self-
identified as Christians could be investigated and trialed by it. Those in the group of
"heretics" were all subject to investigation. All forms of heretic Christianity (Protestants,
Orthodox, blaspheming Catholics, etc.) were considered under its jurisdictio
Despite popular myths about the Spanish Inquisition relating to Protestants, it dealt with
very few cases involving actual Protestants, as there were so few in Spain. The Inquisition
of the Netherlands is here not considered part of the Spanish Inquisition. Lutheran was a
portmanteau accusation used by the Inquisition to act against all those who acted in a way
that was offensive to the church. The first of the trials against those labeled by the
Inquisition as "Lutheran" were those against the sect of mystics known as the
"Alumbrados" of Guadalajara and Valladolid. The trials were long and ended with prison
sentences of differing lengths, though none of the sect were executed.

48. The first trials against Lutheran groups 1558 - 1562
The first trials against Lutheran groups, as such, took place between 1558 and
1562, at the beginning of the reign of Philip II, against two communities of
Protestants from the cities of Valladolid and Seville, numbering about 120.
The trials signaled a notable intensification of the Inquisition's activities. A
number of autos-da-fé were held, some of them presided over by members
of the royal family, and around 100 executions took place. The autos-da-fé of
the mid-century virtually put an end to Spanish Protestantism, which was,
throughout, a small phenomenon to begin with.
After 1562, though the trials continued, the repression was much reduced.
About 200 Spaniards were accused of being Protestants in the last decades
of the 16th century.

49. Witchcraft and superstition
The category "superstitions" includes trials related to witchcraft. The witch-hunt in Spain
had much less intensity than in other European countries (particularly France, Scotland, and
Germany). One remarkable case was that of Logroño, in which the witches of Zugarramurdi
in Navarre were persecuted. During the auto-da-fé that took place in Logroño on 7 and 8
November 1610, six people were burned and another five burned in effigy. The role of the
inquisition in cases of witchcraft was much more restricted than is commonly believed. Well
after the foundation of the inquisition, jurisdiction over sorcery and witchcraft remained in
secular hands. In general the Inquisition maintained a skeptical attitude towards cases of
witchcraft, considering it as a mere superstition without any basis. Alonso de Salazar Frías,
who took the Edict of Faith to various parts of Navarre after the trials of Logroño, noted in
his report to the Suprema that, "There were neither witches nor bewitched in a village until
they were talked and written about"

50. Number of alleged witches and wizards killed in each European country
during Early Modern Era

51. Mexican Inquisition
The Mexican Inquisition was an extension of the Spanish Inquisition to
New Spain. The Spanish Conquest of Mexico was not only a political
event for the Spanish, but a religious event as well. In the early 16th
century, the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation and the Inquisition
were in full force in most of Europe. The Catholic Monarchs of Castile
and Aragon had just re-conquered the last Muslim stronghold in the
Iberian Peninsula, the kingdom of Granada, giving them special status
within the Roman Catholic realm, including great liberties in the
conversion of the native peoples of Mesoamerica.

52. When the Inquisition was brought to the New World, it was employed
for many of the same reasons and against the same social groups as
suffered in Europe itself, minus the Indians to a large extent. Almost all
of the events associated with the official establishment of the Holy
Office of the Inquisition occurred in Mexico City, where the Holy Office
had its own “palace”, which is now the Museum of Medicine of UNAM
on Republica de Brasil street. The official period of the Inquisition lasted
from 1571 to 1820, with an unknown number of victims.
Although records are incomplete, one historian estimates that about 50
people were executed by the Mexican Inquisition. Included in that total
are 29 people executed as "Judaizers" between 1571 and 1700 (out of
324 people prosecuted) for practicing the Jewish religion.

53. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Inquisition#/media/File:FacadeInquisDF.JPG
Facade of the
Palace of the
Inquisition-
Museum of
Mexican Medicine
facing Santo
Domingo Plaza in
Mexico City

54. Torture of Francisca Nuñez de Carabajal
at Mexico, from El Libro Rojo, 1870
Around 1580 Don Luis de Carabajal, Spanish governor of Nuevo
León, brought with him to Mexico his brother-in-law, Don
Francisco Rodríguez de Matos, and his sister, Doña Francisca
Nuñez de Carabajal, with eight of their nine children, Doña
Isabel, the oldest, 25 years of age, widow of Gabriel de Herrera;
Doña Catalina, Doña Mariana, Doña Leonor, Don Baltasar, Don
Luis, Miguel and Anica (the last two being very young). Another
son, Gaspar, a pious young man, perhaps a monk, in the convent
of Santo Domingo, Mexico, had arrived a short time before.
Doña Catalina and Doña Leonor married respectively Antonio
Diaz de Caceres (see Caceres family) and Jorge de Almeida—two
Spanish merchants residing in Mexico City and interested in the
Taxco mines. The entire family then removed to the capital,
where, in the year 1590, while in the midst of prosperity, and
seemingly leading Christian lives, they were seized by the
Inquisition.

55. Blasphemy
Included under the rubric of heretical propositions were verbal offences,
from outright blasphemy to questionable statements regarding religious
beliefs, from issues of sexual morality to misbehaviour of the clergy. Many
were brought to trial for affirming that simple fornication (sex between
unmarried persons) was not a sin or for putting in doubt different aspects of
Christian faith such as Transubstantiation or the virginity of Mary. Also,
members of the clergy itself were occasionally accused of heretical
propositions. These offences rarely led to severe penalties

56. Sodomy
The first sodomite was burned by the Inquisition in Valencia in 1572, and
those accused included 19% clergy, 6% nobles, 37% workers, 19% servants, and
18% soldiers and sailors.
Nearly all of almost 500 cases of sodomy between persons concerned the
relationship between an older man and an adolescent, often by coercion,
with only a few cases where the couple were consenting homosexual adults.
About 100 of the total involved allegations of child abuse. Adolescents were
generally punished more leniently than adults, but only when they were very
young (under ca. 12 years) or when the case clearly concerned rape did they
have a chance to avoid punishment altogether. As a rule, the Inquisition
condemned to death only those sodomites over the age of 25 years. As
about half of those tried were under this age, it explains the relatively small
percentage of death sentences

57. Censorship
As one manifestation of the Counter-Reformation, the Spanish Inquisition
worked actively to impede the diffusion of heretical ideas in Spain by producing
"Indexes" of prohibited books. Such lists of prohibited books were common in
Europe a decade before the Inquisition published its first. The first Index
published in Spain in 1551 was, in reality, a reprinting of the Index published by
the University of Leuven in 1550, with an appendix dedicated to Spanish texts.
Subsequent Indexes were published in 1559, 1583, 1612, 1632, and 1640. The
Indexes included an enormous number of books of all types[citation needed],
though special attention was dedicated to religious works, and, particularly,
vernacular translations of the Bible.

58. Bigamy
The Inquisition also pursued offenses against morals and general social order,
at times in open conflict with the jurisdictions of civil tribunals. In particular,
there were trials for bigamy, a relatively frequent offence in a society that only
permitted divorce under the most extreme circumstances. In the case of men,
the penalty was two hundred lashes and five to ten years of "service to the
Crown". Said service could be whatever the court deemed most beneficial for
the nation but it usually was either five years as an oarsman in a royal galley for
those without any qualification (possibly a death sentence), or ten years
working maintained but without salary in a public Hospital or charitable
institution of the sort for those with some special skill, such as doctors,
surgeons, or lawyers. The penalty was five to seven years as an oarsman in the
case of Portugal.

59. Diego Mateo López Zapata in his cell before his trial by the
Inquisition Court of Cuenca
Diego Mateo Zapata
Diego Mateo Zapata (1664-1745) was a
Spanish physician and philosopher. In
1724, he and Juan Muñoz y Peralta were
both denounced to the Spanish Inquisition
as judaisers. Spanish philosopher Diego
Mateo Zapata was tortured during the
Inquisition for following and endorsing the
teachings of Judaism.

60. Organization
Beyond its role in religious affairs, the Inquisition was also an institution at the service of
the monarchy. The Inquisitor General, in charge of the Holy Office, was designated by the
crown. The Inquisitor General was the only public office whose authority stretched to all
the kingdoms of Spain (including the American viceroyalties), except for a brief period
(1507–1518) during which there were two Inquisitors General, one in the kingdom of Castile,
and the other in Aragon.
The Inquisitor General presided over the Council of the Supreme and General Inquisition
(generally abbreviated as "Council of the Suprema"), created in 1483, which was made up
of six members named directly by the crown (the number of members of the Suprema
varied over the course of the Inquisition's history, but it was never more than 10). Over
time, the authority of the Suprema grew at the expense of the power of the Inquisitor
General.

61. Composition of the tribunals
Initially, each of the tribunals included two inquisitors, calificadors
(qualifiers), an alguacil (bailiff), and a fiscal (prosecutor); new positions were
added as the institution matured. The inquisitors were preferably jurists
more than theologians; in 1608 Philip III even stipulated that all inquisitors
needed to have a background in law. The inquisitors did not typically remain
in the position for a long time: for the Court of Valencia, for example, the
average tenure in the position was about two years. Most of the inquisitors
belonged to the secular clergy (priests who were not members of religious
orders) and had a university education.

63. Auto-da-fé
An auto-da-fé (from Portuguese auto da fé [ˈaw.tu dɐ ˈfɛ],
meaning 'act of faith') was the ritual of public penance of
condemned heretics and apostates that took place when the
Spanish Inquisition, Portuguese Inquisition, or Mexican
Inquisition had decided their punishment, followed by the
carrying out by the civil authorities of the sentences imposed.
The most extreme punishment imposed on those convicted
was execution by burning. In popular usage, the term auto-da-
fé, the act of public penance, came to mean burning the
convicted person at the stake, although that was a
punishment for only the most serious offenses.

64. 1683 painting by Francisco Rizi depicting the auto-da-fé held in Plaza Mayor, Madrid in 1680.

65. End of the Inquisition
During the reign of Charles IV of Spain (1788–1808), in spite of the fears that
the French Revolution provoked, several events accelerated the decline of the
Inquisition. The state stopped being a mere social organizer and began to
worry about the well-being of the public. As a result, the land-holding power
of the Church was reconsidered, in the señoríos and more generally in the
accumulated wealth that had prevented social progress. The power of the
throne increased, under which Enlightenment thinkers found better
protection for their ideas. Manuel Godoy and Antonio Alcalá Galiano were
openly hostile to an institution whose only role had been reduced to
censorship and was the very embodiment of the Spanish Black Legend,
internationally, and was not suitable to the political interests of the moment:

66. The Peruvian Inquisition,
based in Lima, ended in 1820.
The Peruvian Inquisition was established on January 9, 1570
and ended in 1820. The Holy Office and tribunal of the
Inquisition were located in Lima, the administrative center of
the Viceroyalty of Peru.
Unlike the Spanish Inquisition and the Medieval Inquisition,
in the Peruvian Inquisition both the authorities and the
church were dependent of the Crown's approval to carry out
jurisdiction.
Although the Indigenous people were originally subject to
the jurisdiction of the inquisitors, they were eventually
removed from the control and not seen as fully responsible
for deviation from faith. They were still subject to trial and
punishment by the inquisition. In the eyes of the church the
Indigenous were seen as gente sin razón, individuals without
reason.

67. The End
Charles IV (Carlos Antonio Pascual Francisco Javier Juan
Nepomuceno José Januario Serafín Diego; 11 November
1748 – 20 January 1819) was King of Spain from 14
December 1788, until his abdication on 19 March 1808.
The Inquisition was first abolished
during the domination of Napoleon
and the reign of Joseph Bonaparte
(1808–1812). In 1813, the liberal
deputies of the Cortes of Cádiz also
obtained its abolition, largely as a
result of the Holy Office's
condemnation of the popular revolt
against French invasion.

68. The end 15 July 1834
Finally, on 15 July 1834, the Spanish Inquisition was definitively abolished by a
Royal Decree signed by regent Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies, Ferdinand
VII's liberal widow, during the minority of Isabella II and with the approval of
the President of the Cabinet Francisco Martínez de la Rosa. (It is possible that
something similar to the Inquisition acted during the 1833–1839 First Carlist
War, in the zones dominated by the Carlists, since one of the government
measures praised by Conde de Molina Carlos Maria Isidro de Borbon was the
re-implementation of the Inquisition to protect the Church). During the Carlist
Wars it was the conservatives who fought the liberals who wanted to reduce
the Church's power, amongst other reforms to liberalize the economy. It can
be added that Franco during the Spanish Civil War is alleged to have stated
that he would attempt to reintroduce it, possibly as a sop to Vatican approval
of his coup.