Spanish Inquisition

The Spanish Inquisition was originally established in 1478 when Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile requested a papal bull establishing an inquisition in Spain in response to the Marrano Jewish population who had converted to Catholicism but returned to Judaism.

In 1483, Ferdinand and Isabella established a state council to administer the inquisition with the Dominican Friar Tomás de Torquemada (1420 – September 16, 1498) acting as its president. This branch of the inquisition was an organization of men with the authority to punish or even execute Spanish heretics.

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. Soon anyone who was not loyal to the Roman Catholic church was in danger of being called a heretic and being put to death by being burnt at the stake. The Inquisition swiftly became the only institution that held authority across all the realms of the Spanish monarchy.

One of the ways in which the Inquisition operated was by sending letters, known as "Edict of Grace," to people who were suspected of heresy or other offenses against the Catholic Church. These letters gave the accused 30 days' notice to present themselves to the Inquisition for questioning and possible punishment.

The Edicts of Grace were read out during Sunday Mass in local churches, ensuring that the entire community was aware of who was being targeted by the Inquisition. This public shaming was intended to deter others from committing similar offenses and to create a climate of fear and suspicion.

Inquisition Scene by Francisco Goya. 

Torquemada developed an oppressive network of spies and secret police. His courts summoned thousands of individuals, most of whom were completely at a loss as to what they were supposed to have done. One third were tortured. The methods most used were to be hung by the arms until they were pulled from their sockets; to be forced to swallow gallons of water; and to be racked. The latter, in which the limbs were slowly pulled apart, was the instrument of torture used most frequently.

During the Spanish Inquisition all torture instruments were ironically regularly dowsed with holy water.

As part of the Spanish Inquisition, close to 200,000 Jews, who refused to be baptized, were driven out of Spain. This was inspired by Ferdinand and Isabella interpreting the January 1492 fall of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold on the Iberian peninsular, as a sign that Christ’s second coming was imminent; the removal of the Jews being required before Jesus returned. The Alhambra Decree was issued on March 31, 1492, by the royal pair ordering the expulsion of practicing Jews from the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by July 31st of that year. Their departure brought great economic distress to Spain for in turning out their most talented and industrious citizens, Spain became speedily crippled economically.

Jews who refused to convert or leave Spain were called heretics and could be burned to death on a stake. A ceremony at which heretics were burnt was called an auto-da-fé.

By http://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/

It was an offence under the Spanish Inquisition for believers to read the Bible. Thousands were given the choice of either confessing their heretical ways and denouncing others as a result of which they would only have to do penance which would involve the paying of fines and/or beating themselves, or denying their heresy and being burnt at the stake. It only required one denouncer for a particular "heretic" to be charged.

The Inquisition of the Netherlands was an extension of the Spanish Inquisition in the Spanish Netherlands, established during the reign of Charles V. With the rapid spread of Calvinism in the early years of the reign of his son Phillip II, a champion of the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation, its scope widened vastly. In 1567 Philip II's Council of the Troubles set up the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands to crush Calvinism. This has lead to the execution of 18,000 people and another 100,000 were driven into exile.

The burning of a 16th-century Dutch Anabaptist, Anneken Hendriks

The Spanish Inquisition was still in force in the late eighteenth century, but much reduced in power. A schoolmaster, Cayetano Ripoll, was the last person to be executed by the Spanish Inquisition in 1826. He was strangled to death for allegedly teaching Deist principles in Valencia.

It has been estimated that from 1480 to 1826 around 150,000 were prosecuted for various offenses during the duration of the Spanish Inquisition, out of which between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed.

The Queen Mother Cristina officially closed down the Tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition in 1834 when she declared "that the Tribunal of the Inquisition is definitely suppressed."

Source Christianity