The Spanish Inquisition was an institution that had precedents in other Inquisitions. The reconquest of Spain
from the Moors resulted in a relatively peaceful multi-religious society, but violent
antisemitic and anti-Islamic persecution
ensued and many Jews and Muslims converted to the Catholic faith or fled.
Summary
Some of these conversos were suspected of not being sincere converts. The Alhambra Decree in 1492 ordered all remaining Jews to leave the Kingdom of Spain, causing more Jews to
convert to Christianity rather than depart. Various motives have been proposed for the
monarchs to start the Inquisition, such as increased political authority, weakening opposition, doing away with conversos and
sheer profit.
Ferdinand II of Aragon pressured Pope Sixtus
IV to let him set up an Inquisition controlled by the monarchy by threatening to withdraw military support at a time when
the Turks were a threat to Rome. Sixtus IV later accused the Spanish inquisition of being overzealous, accused the monarchs of
being greedy and issued a bull to stop it, but he was pressured into withdrawing the bull. On
both occasions Sixtus IV went along with Ferdinand.[1]
During the 16th century a new target was found: Protestants. About 100 were burned as heretics. An index of prohibited books
was drawn up that were alleged to contain heresy. In time converts from Islam, called Moriscos, were also persecuted by the Holy Office. The
Spanish Inquisition was an institution at the service of the monarchy, but had to follow procedures set up by the
Holy See. Most of the inquisitors had a university education in law. The procedures would start with Edicts of Grace, where people were invited to step forward to confess
heresy freely and to denounce others. Denunciations were followed by detentions. The defendant was assigned a defense counsel, a
member of the tribunal itself, whose role was simply to advise the defendant and to encourage him or her to speak the truth. A
Notary of the Secreto meticulously wrote down the words of the accused. The archives of the Inquisition, in comparison to
those of other judicial systems of the era, are striking in the completeness of their documentation.
Torture was used in about two percent of the cases, and in this regard the Inquisition was rather enlightened, being much more
restrained than secular courts of the time. Sentences varied from fines to execution and those condemned had to participate in
the ritual of auto de fe. The arrival of the 18th
century slowed inquisitorial activity and it was definitively abolished on July 15,
1834. From 1476 to 1834 probably between 3,000 and 5,000 people were executed.
From the mid-16th century to the mid-17th century, a time when Europe was torn apart by Catholic-Protestant strife, there
began to appear from the pens of various European Protestant intellectuals, who generally had minimal or no direct access to or
experience of the Inquisition, what has come to be known as the Black Legend, as part of
the Protestant polemic in support of the Reformation.[citation needed] With the gradual ebbing of religious hostilities, professional
historians‹The template Weasel-inline is being considered for
deletion.› [weasel words] began investigations, giving a
detailed, nuanced and less exaggerated picture of the Inquisition.
Precedents
An Inquisition was created through the papal bull
Ad Abolendam, issued at the end of the 12th century by Pope Lucius III as a way
to combat the Albigensian heresy in southern France. There
were a number of tribunals of the Papal Inquisition in various European kingdoms
during the Middle Ages. 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. Its principal representative was Raimundo de Peñafort. With time, its importance was diluted, and, by the middle of the 15th century,
it was almost forgotten although still there according to the law.
There was never a tribunal of the Papal Inquisition in Castile. Members of the
episcopate were charged with surveillance of the faithful and punishment of
transgressors. However, in Castile during the Middle Ages, little attention was paid to heresy.
Background
The Spanish Inquisition was motivated in part by the multi-religious nature of Spanish society following the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors (Muslims). Much of the Iberian Peninsula was dominated by Moors following their invasion of the peninsula in
711 until they were expelled by means of a long campaign of reconquest. However, the reconquest did not result in the full
expulsion of Muslims from Spain, but instead yielded a multi-religious society made up of Catholics, Jews and Muslims.
Granada to the south in particular remained under Moorish control until 1492, and large cities,
especially Seville, Valladolid, and Barcelona, had large Jewish populations centred in Juderías.
The reconquest produced a relatively peaceful co-existence - although not without periodic conflicts - among Christians, Jews,
and Muslims in the peninsula's kingdoms. There was a long tradition of Jewish service to the crown of Aragon. Ferdinand's father
John II named the Jewish Abiathar Crescas
to be Court Astronomer. Jews occupied many important posts, religious and political. Castile
itself had an unofficial rabbi.
Nevertheless, in some parts of Spain towards the end of the 14th century, there was a
wave of anti-Judaism, encouraged by the preaching of Ferrant
Martinez, Archdeacon of Ecija. The pogroms of June 1391 were especially bloody: in Seville, hundreds of Jews were killed, and the synagogue was completely destroyed. The number of people killed was equally high in other cities, such as
Cordoba, Valencia and Barcelona.[2]
One of the consequences of these disturbances was the mass conversion of
Jews. Before this date, conversions were rare and tended to be motivated more for social rather than religious
reasons.[citation needed] But from the 15th century, a
new social group appeared: conversos, also called New Christians, who were distrusted by
Jews and Christians alike for their religious beliefs. By converting, Jews could not only escape eventual persecution, but also
obtain entry into many offices and posts that were being prohibited to Jews through new, more severe regulations. But converting
was a hard long process involving many crucial steps and could not be done overnight. Many conversos attained important
positions in 15th century Spain. 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 Colombus) were all conversos. Conversos - not without opposition -
managed to attain high positions in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, at times becoming severe detractors of Judaism.[3] 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
Jews.[4]
Motives for instituting the Spanish Inquisition
Historians differ about Ferdinand and Isabella's motives for introducing the Inquisition into Spain. A number of possible
reasons have been suggested:
- To establish political and religious homogeneity. The Inquisition allowed the monarchy to intervene actively in
religious affairs, without the interference of the Pope. At the same time, Ferdinand and Isabella's objective was the creation of
an efficient state machinery; thus one of their priorities was to achieve religious unity to promote more centralized political
authority.
- To weaken local political opposition to the Catholic monarchs. Strengthening centralized political authority also
entailed weakening local political opposition. Resistance to the installation of the Inquisition in the Kingdom of Aragon, for
example, was often couched in terms of local legal privileges (fueros).
- Out of fear. The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1991 (Vol XI, p.485) states that,
"It remains a fact that the Jews, either directly or through their correligionists in Africa, encouraged the Mohammedans to conquer Spain." Whether real or imagined there was a great fear among 15th Century Spaniards that they had a Fifth column living among
them.[5]
- To do away with the powerful converso minority. Many members of influential families such as the Santa Fés, the
Santangels, the Caballerias and the Sanchezes, were prosecuted in the Kingdom of Aragon. However the King of Aragon, Ferdinand,
continued to employ many conversos in his administration.
- Profit. The property of people found guilty by the Inquisition was confiscated. Sixtus IV openly accused the monarchs
of this sin.
Activity of the Inquisition
Beginnings
Alonso de Hojeda, a Dominican from Seville, convinced
Queen Isabel of the existence of Crypto-Judaism among Andalusian conversos during
her stay in Seville between 1477 and 1478.[6] 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,
corroborated this assertion. The monarchs decided to introduce the Inquisition to Castile to uncover and do away with false
converts, and requested the Pope's assent. At first the request was turned down for a number of reasons. One reason was that they
had requested the Spanish Inquisition to be under the control of the monarchs of Spain. This in turn would lessen papal authority
over the clergy involved and make methods difficult to keep in line with official papal rules of inquisition, and instead easily
become a mere political and semi-military tool of Spain. Ferdinand pressured Sixtus IV by threatening to withdraw militarily
support during a time when the Turks were a major threat to Rome. On November 1,
1478, Pope Sixtus IV published the bull Exigit Sinceras
Devotionis Affectus, through which the Inquisition was established in the Kingdom of Castile. The bull also gave the monarchs
exclusive authority to name the inquisitors. The first two inquisitors, Miguel de Morillo and
Juan de San Martín were not named, however, 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 the centre of converso activity. The first auto de fe was celebrated in Seville on February 6, 1481: six people were burned alive. The sermon was given by the same Alonso de Hojeda whose suspicions had given
birth to the Inquisition. 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.
Establishing the new Inquisition in the Kingdom of Aragón was more difficult. In reality, Ferdinand did not resort to new
appointments, he simply resuscitated the old Pontifical Inquisition, submitting it to his direct control. The population of
Aragón was obstinately opposed to the Inquisition. In addition, differences between Ferdinand and Sixtus IV prompted the latter
to promulgate a new bull categorically prohibiting the Inquisition's extension to Aragon. In this bull, the Pope unambiguously
criticized the procedures of the inquisitorial court, affirming that,
many true and faithful Christians, because of the testimony of enemies, rivals, slaves and other low people--and still less
appropriate--without tests of any kind, have been locked up in secular prisons, tortured and condemned like relapsed heretics,
deprived of their goods and properties, and given over to the secular arm to be executed, at great danger to their souls, giving
a pernicious example and causing scandal to many.[7]
Nevertheless, pressure[citation needed] by Ferdinand caused the Pope to suspend this bull, and even promulgate
another one, on October 17, 1483, naming Tomás de Torquemada
Inquisidor General of Aragón, Valencia and Catalonia. With it, the Inquisition became the only institution with authority
throughout all the kingdoms 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 periods of revolt, like in Teruel
from 1484 to 1485. However, the murder of inquisidor Pedro Arbués in
Zaragoza on September 15, 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.
The Inquisition was extremely active between 1480 and 1530. Different sources give different estimates of the number of trials
and executions in this period; Henry Kamen estimates about 2,000 executed, based on the documentation of the Autos de Fé, the
great majority being conversos of Jewish origin.[8]
The number of Jews who left Spain is not even approximately known. Historians of the period give extremely high figures:
Juan de Mariana speaks of 800,000 people, and Isaac Abravanel of 300,000. Modern
estimates are much lower: Henry Kamen estimates that, of a population of approximately 80,000 Jews, about one half or 40,000
chose emigration [9]. The Spanish Jews emigrated mainly to
Portugal (from where they were expelled in 1497) and to Morocco. Much later the Sefardim, descendants of Spanish Jews,
established flourishing communities in many cities of Europe, North Africa, and, mainly, in
the Ottoman Empire.
Many Jews were baptised in the three months before the deadline for expulsion, some 40,000 if one accepts the totals given by
Kamen: probably most were to avoid expulsion, rather than a sincere change of faith. These conversos were the principal
concern of the Inquisition; continuing to practice Judaism put them at risk of denunciation and trial.
The most intense period of persecution of conversos lasted until 1530. From 1531 to 1560, however, the percentage of
conversos among the Inquisition trials dropped to 3% of the total. There was a rebirth of persecutions when a group of
crypto-Jews was discovered in Quintanar de la Orden in 1588; and there was a rise
in denunciations of conversos in the last decade of the 16th century. At the beginning of the 17th century, some
conversos who had fled to Portugal began to return to Spain, fleeing the persecution of the Portuguese Inquisition, founded in 1532. This led to 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.
During the 18th century the number of conversos accused by the Inquisition decreased significantly. Manuel Santiago Vivar, tried in Cordoba in 1818, was the last person tried for being a crypto-Jew.
Repression of Protestants
Conversos saw the 1516 arrival of Charles I, the new king of Spain, as
a possible end to the Inquisition, or at least a reduction of its influence. Nevertheless, despite reiterated petitions from the
Cortes of Castile and Aragon, the new monarch left the inquisitorial system intact.[10]
During the 16th century, however, the majority of trials were not focused on conversos. Instead, the Inquisition became an
efficient mechanism to prune the few buds of Protestantism that had begun to appear in
Spain. A large percentage of these Protestants were of
Jewish origin.[citation needed]
Depite much popular myth about the Inquisition relating to Protestants, it dealt with very few cases involving actual
Protestants, as there were so few in Spain. About 100 persons in Spain were found to be Protestants and turned over to the
secular authorities for execution in the 1560s and in the last decades of the century, an additional 200 Spaniards were accused
of being followers of Luther. “Most of them were in no sense Protestants...Irreligious sentiments, drunken mockery, anticlerical
expressions, were all captiously classified by the inquisitors (or by those who denounced the cases) as ‘Lutheran.’ Disrespect to
church images, and eating meat on forbidden days, were taken as signs of heresy.”[11]
The first of these trials 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. Nevertheless, the subject of the "Alumbrados" put the Inquisition on the trail of many
intellectuals and clerics who, interested in the Erasmian ideas, had strayed from
orthodoxy (which is striking because both Charles I and Philip II of Spain were
confessed admirers of Erasmus). Such was the case with the humanist Juan de Valdés, who was forced to flee to Italy to escape the process that
had been begun against him, and the preacher, Juan de Ávila, who spent close to a year in
prison.
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.[12] The trials signaled a notable
intensification of the Inquisition's activities. A number of enormous Autos de Fe were held, some of them presided over by
members of the royal family.[13] After 1562, though the
trials continued, the repression was much reduced, and it is estimated that only a dozen Spaniards were burned alive for
Lutheranism by the end of the 16th century, although some 200 faced trial.[14] The Autos de Fe of the mid-century virtually put an end to
Spanish Protestantism which was, throughout, a small phenomenon to begin with.
Censorship
An image frequently misinterpreted as the Spanish Inquisition burning prohibited books. This is actually
Pedro Berruguete's
La Prueba del Fuego (1400s). It depicts a legend of
St Dominic's dispute with the
Cathars: they both consign their writings
into the flames, and while the Cathars' text burn, St Dominic's miraculously leaps from the flames.
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 Louvain 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, though special attention was dedicated to religious works, and, particularly, vernacular translations of the
Bible.
Included in the Indexes, at one point or another, were many of the great works of Spanish literature. Also, a number of
religious writers who are today considered saints by the Catholic Church saw their works appear in the Indexes. At first, this
might seem counter-intuitive or even nonsensical — how were these Spanish authors published in the first place if their texts
were only to be prohibited by the Inquisition and placed in the Index? The answer lies in the process of publication and
censorship in Early Modern Spain. Books in Early Modern Spain faced prepublication licensing and approval (which could include
modification) by both secular and religious authorities. However, once approved and published, the circulating text also faced
the possibility of post-hoc censorship by being denounced to the Inquisition — sometimes decades later. Likewise, as Catholic
theology evolved, once prohibited texts might be removed from the Index.
At first, inclusion in the Index meant total prohibition of a text, however this proved not only impractical and unworkable,
but also contrary to the goals of having a literate and well educated clergy. Works with one line of suspect dogma would be
prohibited in their entirety, despite the remainder of the text's sound dogma. In time, a compromise solution was adopted in
which trusted Inquisition officials blotted out words, lines or whole passages of otherwise acceptable texts thus allowing these
expurgated editions to circulate. Although, in theory, the Indexes imposed enormous restrictions on the diffusion of culture in
Spain, some historians, such as Henry Kamen argue that such strict control was impossible in practice and that there was much
more liberty in this respect than is often believed. And Irving Leonard has conclusively demonstrated that, despite repeated
royal prohibitions, romances of chivalry, such as Amadis of Gaul, found their way to the
New World with the blessing of the Inquisition. Moreover, with the coming of the Age of
Enlightenment in the 18th century, increasing numbers of licenses to possess and read prohibited texts were granted.
Despite repeated publication of the Indexes and a large bureaucracy of censors, the activities of the Inquisition did not
impede the flowering of Spanish literature's "Siglo de Oro," although almost all of its major authors crossed paths with the Holy
Office at one point or another. Among the Spanish authors included in the Index are: Bartolomé Torres
Naharro, Juan del Enzina, Jorge de
Montemayor, Juan de Valdés and Lope de Vega,
as well as the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes and the Cancionero General by Hernando del Castillo. La Celestina, which was not included in the Indexes of the 16th century, was expurgated in 1632 and
prohibited in its entirety in 1790. Among the non-Spanish authors prohibited were Ovid,
Dante, Rabelais, Ariosto, Machiavelli, Erasmus, Jean Bodin and Thomas
More, known in Spain as Tomás Moro. One of the most outstanding cases, and best known, in which the Inquisition directly
confronted literary activity is with Fray Luis de León, noted humanist and religious
writer of converso origin, who was imprisoned for four years,(from 1572 to 1576) for having translated the Song of Songs directly from Hebrew.
The Inquisition and the Moriscos
The Inquisition did not exclusively target Jewish conversos and Protestants, but also the
moriscos, converts to Catholicism from Islam. The
moriscos were mostly concentrated in the recently conquered kingdom of Granada, in
Aragon, and in Valencia. Officially, all
Muslims in Castile had been converted to
Christianity in 1502; those in Aragon and Valencia were obliged to convert by Charles I's
decree of 1526.
Many moriscos continued to practice Islam in secret. Initially they were not severely persecuted, but experienced a
policy of peaceful evangelization, a policy never followed with Jewish converts. There were various reasons for this: in the
kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon, a large majority of the moriscos were under the jurisdiction of the nobility and
persecution would have been viewed as a frontal assault on the economic interests of this powerful social class. In Granada, the
principal problem was fear of rebellion in a particularly vulnerable region during an era when Ottoman Turks ruled the Mediterranean.[original research?]
In the second half of the century, late in the reign of Philip II, things changed. The 1568-1570 Morisco Revolt in Granada was harshly suppressed, and the Inquisition intensified its attention to the
moriscos. From 1570 morisco cases became predominant in the tribunals of Zaragoza, Valencia and Granada; in the tribunal of Granada, between 1560 and 1571, 82% of those
accused were moriscos. [15] Nevertheless, the
moriscos did not experience the same harshness as Jewish ' conversos and Protestants, and the number of capital
punishments was proportionally less.
On the 4th of April 1609, during the reign of Philip III a staged expulsion to conclude in 1614 was decreed. Hundreds of thousands of converts
from Islam to Catholicism were expelled, some of them probably sincere Christians. An indeterminate number of moriscos
remained in Spain or managed to return and, during the 17th century, the Inquisition pursued some trials against them of minor
importance: according to Kamen, between 1615 and 1700, cases against moriscos constituted only 9 percent of those judged by the
Inquisition.
Other offenses
Two priests ask a heretic to repent as torture is administered.
Although the Inquisition was created to halt the advance of heresy, it also occupied itself with a wide variety of offences
that only indirectly could be related to religious heterodoxy. Of a total of 49,092 trials from the period 1560–1700 registered
in the archive of the Suprema, appear the following: judaizantes (5,007); moriscos (11,311); Lutherans (3,499); alumbrados (149); superstitions (3,750);
heretical propositions (14,319); bigamy (2,790); solicitation (1,241); offences against the
Holy Office of the Inquisition (3,954); miscellaneous (2,575).[citation needed]
This data demonstrates that not only New Christians (conversos of Jewish or
Islamic descent) and Protestants faced persecution,
but also many Old Christians were targeted for various reasons.
The category "superstitions" includes trials related to witchcraft. The witch-hunt in Spain had much less intensity than in other European countries
(particularly France, England, and Germany). One remarkable case was that of Logroño, in which the witches of
Zugarramurdi in Navarre were persecuted. During the Auto
de Fe that took place in Logroño on November 7 and
November 8, 1610, 6 people were burned and another 5 burned in
effigy.[16]. In general, nevertheless, the Inquisition
maintained a sceptical attitude towards cases of witchcraft, considering it as a mere
superstition without any basis. Alonso de Salazar Frias, who, after the trials of Logroño took
the Edict of Faith to various parts of Navarre, noted in his report to the Suprema that, "There
were no witches nor bewitched in the region after
beginning to speak and write about them". [17]
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 behaviour
of the clergy. Many were brought to trial for affirming that simple fornication (sex without the explicit aim of
procreation) 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 lead to severe penalties.
The Inquisition also pursued offences against morals, at times in open conflict with the jurisdictions of civil tribunals. In
particular, there were numerous 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 five years in the
galley (tantamount to a death sentence). Women too were accused of bigamy. Also, many cases of solicitation during confession were adjudicated, indicating a strict vigilance over
the clergy.
Inquisitorial repression of the sexual offences of homosexuality and bestiality, considered, according to Canon Law, crimes against nature,
merits separate attention. Homosexuality, known at the time as sodomy, was punished by death by civil authorities. It fell under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition only in
the territories of Aragon, when, in 1524, Clement VII,
in a papal brief, granted jurisdiction over sodomy to the Inquisition of Aragon, whether or not it was related to heresy. In Castile, cases of
sodomy were not adjudicated, unless related to heresy. The tribunal of Zaragoza distinguished itself for its severity in judging these offences: between 1571 and 1579 more
than 100 men accused of sodomy were processed and at least 36 were executed; in total, between
1570 and 1630 there were 534 trials and 102 executions.[18]
In 1815, Francisco Xavier de Mier y Campillo, the Inquisitor General of the Spanish
Inquisition and the Bishop of Almería, suppressed Freemasonry and denounced the lodges as
“societies which lead to sedition, to independence, and to all errors and crimes.”[19] He then instituted a purge during which Spaniards could be arrested on the charge of being “suspected of Freemasonry”.[19]
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 where there were two Inquisitor Generals, 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.
The Suprema met every morning, save for holidays, and for two hours in the afternoon on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The
morning sessions were devoted to questions of faith, while the afternoons were reserved for cases of sodomy, bigamy, witchcraft, etc. [20]
Below the Suprema were the different tribunals of the Inquisition, which were, in their origins, itinerant, installing
themselves where they were necessary to combat heresy, but later being established in fixed locations. In the first phase,
numerous tribunals were established, but the period after 1495 saw a marked tendency towards centralization.
In the kingdom of Castile, the following permanent tribunals of the Inquisition were established:
There were only four tribunals in the kingdom of Aragon: Zaragoza and Valencia (1482), Barcelona (1484), and Mallorca (1488). [21] Ferdinand the Catholic also
established the Spanish Inquisition in Sicily (1513), housed in Palermo and Sardinia.[22] In the Americas, tribunals were established in Lima and in Mexico City (1569) and, in 1610, in
Cartagena de Indias (present day Colombia).
Composition of the tribunals
Initially, each of the tribunals included two inquisitors, a calificador, an
alguacil (bailiff) and a fiscal (prosecutor); new positions were added as the institution
matured.
The inquisitors were preferably jurists more than theologians, and, in 1608, Philip
III even stipulated that all the inquisitors must 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.[23] Most of
the inquisitors belonged to the secular clergy (priests, rather than members of the religious orders), and had a university
education. Pay was 60,000 maravedíes at the end of the 15th century, and 250,000 maravedíes at the beginning of the 17th
century.
The fiscal was in charge of presenting the accusation, investigating the denunciations and interrogating the
witnesses. The calificadores were generally theologians; it fell to them to determine if the defendant's conduct
constituted a crime against the faith. Consultants were expert jurists who advised the court in questions of procedure. The court
had, in addition, three secretaries: the notario de secuestros (Notary of Property), who registered the goods of
the accused at the moment of his detention; the notario del secreto (Notary of the Secreto), who recorded the
testimony of the defendant and the witnesses; and the escribano general (General Notary), secretary of the
court.
The alguacil was the executive arm of the court: he was responsible for detaining and jailing the defendant.
Other civil employees were the nuncio, ordered to spread official notices of the court, and the
alcalde, jailer in charge of feeding the prisoners.
In addition to the members of the court, two auxiliary figures existed that collaborated with the Holy Office: the
familiares and the comissarios (commissioners). Familiares were lay collaborators of the Inquisition,
who had to be permanently at the service of the Holy Office. To become a familiar was considered an honour, since it was a public
recognition of limpieza de sangre — Old Christian status — and brought with it certain additional privileges. Although
many nobles held the position, most of the familiares many came from the ranks of commoners. The commissioners, on the
other hand, were members of the religious orders who collaborated occasionally with the Holy Office.
One of the most striking aspects of the organization of the Inquisition was its form of financing: devoid its own budget, the
Inquisition depended exclusively on the confiscaciones of the goods of the denounced. It is not surprising, therefore, that many
of those prosecuted were rich men. That the situation was open to abuse is evident, as stands out in the memorial that a
converso from Toledo directed to Charles I:
Your Majesty must provide, before all else, that the expenses of the Holy Office do not come from the properties of the
condemned, because if that is the case, if they do not burn they do not eat.[24]
Functioning of the inquisition
The Inquisition operated in conformity with Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church; its
operations were in no way arbitrary. Its procedures were set out in various Instrucciones issued by the successive
Inquisitors General, Torquemada, Deza, and Valdés.
Accusation
When the Inquisition arrived in a city, the first step was the Edict of Grace. Following the Sunday mass, the
Inquisitor would proceed to read the edict: it explained possible heresies and encouraged all the congregation to come to the
tribunals of the Inquisition to "relieve their consciences". They were called Edicts of Grace because all of the
self-incriminated who presented themselves within a period of grace (approximately one month) were offered the possibility
of reconciliation with the Church without severe punishment. The promise of benevolence was effective, and many voluntarily
presented themselves to the Inquisition. But self-incrimination was not sufficient, one also had to accuse all one's accomplices.
As a result, the Inquisition had an unending supply of informants. With time, the Edicts of Grace were substituted by the
Edicts of Faith doing away with the possibility of quick, painless reconciliation.
The denunciations were anonymous, and the defendant had no way of knowing the identity of his accusers.[25] This was one of the points most criticized by those who opposed the
Inquisition (for example, the Cortes of Castile, in 1518). In practice, false denunciations were
frequent, resulting from envy or personal resentments. Many denunciations were for absolutely insignificant reasons. The
Inquisition stimulated fear and distrust among neighbours, and denunciations among relatives were not uncommon.
Detention
After a denunciation, the case was examined by the calificadores, who had to determine if there was heresy involved,
followed by detention of the accused. In practice, however, many were detained in preventive custody, and many cases of lengthy
incarcerations occurred, lasting up to two years, before the calificadores examined the case.[26]
Detention of the accused entailed the preventive sequestration of his or her property by the Inquisition. The property of the
prisoner was used to pay for procedural expenses and the accused's own maintenance and costs. Often the relatives of the
defendant found themselves in outright misery. This situation was only remedied following instructions written in 1561.
The entire process was undertaken with the utmost secrecy, as much for the public as for the accused, who were not informed
about the accusations that were levied against them. Months, or even years could pass without the accused being informed about
why they were locked up. The prisoners remained isolated, and, during this time, the prisoners were not allowed to attend
mass nor receive the sacraments. The jails of the Inquisition
were no worse than those of civil society, and there are even certain testimonies that occasionally they were much better. Some
prisoners died in prison, as was frequent at the time.
The trial
The inquisitorial process consisted of a series of hearings, in which both the denouncers and the defendant gave testimony. A
defense counsel was assigned to the defendant, a member of the tribunal itself, whose role was simply to advise the defendant and
to encourage him or her to speak the truth. The prosecution was directed by the fiscal. Interrogation of the defendant was
done in the presence of the Notary of the Secreto, who meticulously wrote down the words of the accused. The archives of
the Inquisition, in comparison to those of other judicial systems of the era, are striking in the completeness of their
documentation. In order to defend himself, the accused had two possibilities: abonos (to find favourable witnesses) or
tachas (to demonstrate that the witnesses of accusers were not trustworthy).
In order to interrogate the criminals, the Inquisition infrequently made use of torture, but not in a systematic way. It was
applied mainly against those suspected of Judaism and Protestantism, beginning in the 16th century[citation needed]. The Spanish Inquisition did use torture, as did all European tribunals of
the time, but did so much less often. [27] Contemporary
historians have determined that torture was implemented in only two percent of the cases, was restricted to a period of no more
than 15 minutes, and was only used a second time in one percent of the cases, never a third time. [28] The prisons of the inquisition were regarded as preferable and less cruel than
the secular or episcopal prisons, even to the degree that there are records of prisoners blaspheming or making a request in order
to be transferred to the inquisition's prisons. [29][30]
The methods of torture most used by the Inquisition were garrucha, toca and the
potro. The application of the garrucha, also known as the strappado, consisted
of suspending the criminal from the ceiling by a pulley with weights tied to the ankles, with a series of lifts and drops, during
which arms and legs suffered violent pulls and were sometimes dislocated.[31]. The toca, also called tortura del agua, 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 impression of drowning.[32] The potro, the rack, was the instrument of torture used most frequently.[33]
The assertion that "confessionem esse veram, non factam vi tormentorum" (the confession was true and free) sometimes follows a
description of how, presently after torture ended, the subject freely confessed to his offenses. [34]
Some of the torture methods attributed to the Spanish Inquisition were never used. For example, the "Iron Maiden" never existed in Spain, and was a post-Reformation invention of Germany. Thumbscrews on display in an English museum as Spanish were recently argued to be of English origin.
Once the process concluded, the inquisidores met with a representative of the bishop and with the consultores, experts
in theology or Canon Law, which was called the consulta
de fe. The case was voted and sentence pronounced, which had to be unanimous. In case of discrepancies, the Suprema
had to be informed.
Sentencing
The results of the trial could be the following:
- The defendant could be acquitted. In actual practice, acquittals were very rare.
- The process could be suspended, in which the defendant went free, although under suspicion, and with the threat that
his process could be continued at any time. Suspension was a form of acquittal without admitting specifically that the accusation
had been erroneous.
- The defendant could be penanced. Considered guilty, he had to abjure publicly his crimes (de levi if it was a
misdemeanor, and de vehementi if the crime were serious), and was condemned to punishment. Among these were the
sambenito, exile, fines or even sentence to the galleys.
- The defendant could be reconciled. In addition to the public ceremony in which the condemned was reconciled with the
Catholic Church, more severe punishments existed, among them long sentences to jail or the galleys, and the confiscation of all
property. Also physical punishments existed, such as whipping.
- The most serious punishment was relaxation to the secular arm, that implied burning at the stake. This penalty was
frequently applied to impenitent heretics and those who had relapsed. Execution was public. If the condemned repented, he was
garroted before his body was given to the flames. If not, he was burned alive.
Frequently, cases were judged in absentia, and when the accused died before the trial finished, the condemned were
burned in effigy.
The distribution of the punishments varied much over time. It is believed that sentences of death were frequent mainly in the
first stage of the history of the Inquisition (according to García Cárcel, the court of Valencia employed the death penalty in 40% of the processings before 1530, but later that percentage
lowered to 3%). [35]
The Autos de Fe
-
If the sentence were condemnatory, this implied that the condemned had to participate in the ceremony of an auto de
fe, that solemnized his return to the Church (in most cases), or punishment as an impenitent heretic. The autos de
fe could be private (auto particular) or public (auto publico or auto general).
Although initially the public autos did not have any special solemnity nor sought a large attendance of spectators,
with time they became solemn ceremonies, celebrated with large public crowds, amidst a festive atmosphere. The auto de fe
eventually became a baroque spectacle, with staging meticulously calculated to cause the
greatest effect among the spectators.
The autos were conducted in a large public space (in the largest plaza of the city, frequently), generally on holidays.
The rituals related to the auto began the previous night (the "procession of the Green Cross") and lasted the whole day
sometimes. The auto de fe frequently was taken to the canvas by painters: one of the better known examples is the painting
by Francesco Rizzi held by the Prado Museum in
Madrid and which represents the auto celebrated in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid on
June 30, 1680. The last public auto de fe took place in
1691.
Decline of the inquisition
The arrival of the Enlightenment in Spain slowed inquisitorial activity. In the
first half of the 18th century, 111 were condemned to be burned in person, and 117 in effigy, most of them for judaizing. In the
reign of Philip V, there were 728 autos de fe, while in the reigns of Charles III and Charles IV only four condemned were
burned.
With the Century of Lights, the Inquisition changed: Enlightenment ideas were the closest threat that had to be fought. The
main figures of the Spanish Enlightenment were in favour of the abolition of the Inquisition, and many were processed by the Holy
Office, among them Olavide, in 1776; Iriarte,
in 1779; and Jovellanos, in 1796. The latter sent a report to Charles IV in which he
indicated the inefficiency of the Inquisition's courts and the ignorance of those who operated them:
friars who take [the position] only to obtain gossip and exemption from choir; who are ignorant of foreign languages, who only
know a little scholastic theology...[36]
In its new role, the Inquisition tried to accentuate its function of censoring publications, but found that Charles III had
secularized censorship procedures and, on many occasions, the authorization of the
Council of Castile hit the more intransigent position of the Inquisition. Since the
Inquisition itself was an arm of the state, being within the Council of Castile, it was generally civil censorship and not
ecclesiastic that ended up prevailing. This loss of influence can also be explained because the foreign Enlightenment texts
entered the peninsula through prominent members of the nobility or government,[37] influential people with whom it was very difficult to interfere. Thus, for example, the
Encyclopedia entered Spain thanks to special licenses granted by the king.
However, with the coming of the French Revolution, the Council of Castile, fearing
that revolutionary ideas would penetrate Spain's borders, decided to reactivate the Holy Office that was directly charged with
the persecution of French works. An Inquisition edict of December 1789, that received the full approval of Charles IV and
.jpg)
