It targeted mainly Jews, Muslims, and Protestants with the aim to eradicate any elements that weren't Catholic. Contemporary accounts estimate that some 50,000 are killed while resisting expulsion while another 60,000 die before reaching their destinations. The law allowed relatives of individuals who were expelled to apply for dual citizenship. Furthermore, in the 15th century the territory of present-day Spain was at war with Italy and the Catholic Monarchs had recently reconquered Granada, making poor economic conditions widespread among the majority of the population. At the moment when the country needed all its economic resources to sustain its new European position and its overseas empire, however, it was deprived of many of its most economically active citizens and was laid open to exploitation by German and Italian financiers. Francisco, Cardinal Jimnez de Cisneros, is appointed grand inquisitor. The inquisitorial process consisted of a series of hearings, in which both the denouncers and the defendant gave testimony. In the sketches, one character gets annoyed at another character for asking him question after question. Who was on the receiving end of that torture? In practice, the Spanish Inquisition served to consolidate power in the monarchy of the newly unified Spanish kingdom, but it achieved that end through infamously . These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Queen Isabella of Castile: Drama, Inquisition, and Exploration He also tried to teach his beliefs to other people. The Inquisition did not exclusively target Jewish conversos and Protestants. The term 'Inquisition' originally referred to any court process based on Roman Law. These expurgated editions were then allowed to circulate. At the end of the 15th century there may have been up to 300,000 conversos in Spain, and the majority of these remained. During a large part of its history, however, freedom of religion did not exist in Spain or its territories, so in practice the Inquisition had jurisdiction over all royal subjects. He compares these figures with those condemned to death in other European countries during the same period, concluding that in similar periods. Torture, terror, imprisonment. Create beautiful notes faster than ever before. 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. [35] Investigations find that the Inquisition was most active in the period between 1480 and 1530, and that during this period the percentage condemned to death was much more significant than in the years studied by Henningsen and Contreras. Why was Granada significant in terms of warfare? What century did the Spanish Inquisition occur in? The statutes helped to perpetuate a set of values that equated pure ancestry, orthodoxy, and personal honour. The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. As one manifestation of the Counter-Reformation, the Spanish Inquisition worked actively to prevent heretical ideas spreading in Spain by producing "Indexes" of prohibited books. The last 40 years have seen the development of a revisionist school of Inquisition history, a controversial field of history whose purported aim is to re-examine the traditional history of the Inquisition. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Foundation, the European Institutes for Advanced Study, the Israel Institute for Advanced Study in Jerusalem, and the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. Over the course of the trial, their identities often became apparent. The number of the Jews that left Spain is not known. Curiously, though, a large percentage of Protestants were of Jewish origin. Subsequent Indexes were published in 1559, 1583, 1612, 1632, and 1640. What were the Inquisitions? | GotQuestions.org If the accused didn't confess, the inquisitors could sentence him to life imprisonment. It is believed that sentences of death were frequent mainly in the first stage of the history of the Inquisition. The Catholic Monarchs, Queen Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, were key figures in the Spanish Inquisition. HeresyA belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious doctrine (here that doctrine. Massacre of Jews in Barcelona during the anti-Jewish riots of 1391. If the torturer continued turning the rollers, the accused's arms and legs could be torn off. How did the inquisition prevent internal wars in Spain? "How the Spanish Inquisition Worked" The Spanish Inquisition spanned almost 400 years, so its best to have an overview of the key events to understand its effects on Spain and across the world. [1] Due to creation of the "Black Legend", the Spanish Inquisition may have gained a reputation for inhumanity disproportionate to what actually took place. This was effective, and many voluntarily presented themselves. Included under heretical propositions were verbal offenses, from outright blasphemy to questionable statements regarding religious beliefs, from issues of sexual morality, to behavior of the clergy. Spanish Inquisition, (1478-1834), judicial institution ostensibly established to combat heresy in Spain. Animosity toward the Jews was stimulated further by Jewish converts to Christianity who issued polemics against their former coreligionists. With time, the Edicts of Grace were substituted by the Edicts of Faith, which made no offer of painless reconciliation. But in the 1530s and 40s the enemies of the Erasmians, especially the Dominican order, launched a systematic campaign against them. Spanish Inquisition: 527 years ago, Jews in Spain made impossible However, the murder of the inquisidor Pedro Arbus in Zaragoza on September 15, 1485, caused public opinion to turn against the conversos in favor of the Inquisition. Most Spanish theologians did not believe in the existence of witchcraft and held that spells and sorceries were only female vapourings that could be safely ignored or dealt with by shutting the witch-women up in convents. Alonso de Hojeda, a Dominican from Seville, convinced Queen Isabel that crypto-Judaism existed among Andalusian conversos during her stay in Seville between 1477 and 1478. The Inquisition existed to combat heresy but it was also occupied with a wide variety of offenses only indirectly related to religious heterodoxy. Garci Rodriguez De Montalvo, Herbert Behm, and Edwin Place. Torquemadas 28 articles outline the crimes that may be investigated by inquisitors, as well as the methods to be used for interrogation and punishment. While they counted some of the high aristocracy among their number, most of the Illuminists seem to have been conversos. Thus, the followers of Sister Isabel de la Cruz, a Franciscan, organized the centres of the Illuminists (Alumbrados), mystics who believed that through inner purification their souls should submit to Gods will and thus enter into direct communication with him. My Rutgers students and I were on a two-week trip to Spain to see the places we had studied all semester in an Honors Seminarrelics of centuries of coexistence between Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Often, simply seeing someone else being tortured on the rack was enough to make another person confess. The inquisitorial system was based on ancient Roman law. In Sevilla the first auto de f ("act of faith") of the Spanish Inquisition takes place. Members of the government and the council of Castile, as well as other members close to the court, obtained special authorization for books purchased in France, the Low Countries or Germany to cross the border without inspection by members of the Holy Office. La Celestina, which was not included in the Indexes of the sixteenth century, was expurgated in 1632 and prohibited in its entirety in 1790. This decision would result in the expansion of the Spanish Empire into the Americas throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. [2], One of the consequences of these disturbances was the massive conversion of Jews. Again, it was among the conversos that Erasmianism (named after the famous humanist Desiderius Erasmus), a more intellectual form of spiritualized Christianity, had its greatest successes in Spain. How would you like to learn this content? After 1492 their position remained precarious. Many converted to Christianity to avoid death, becoming conversos. The term "inquisition" has a third meaning also -- the trials themselves. Spanish Inquisition. Many were killed. This translated into a rapid increase in the trials of crypto-Jews, among them a number of important financiers. The line comes from a series of sketches by British comedy troupe Monty Python. Nevertheless, they thought of it primarily in religious and not in political terms. With the "Century of Lights" the Inquisition changed: Enlightenment ideas were the closest threat that had to be fought. Over time, the authority of the Suprema grew at the expense of the power of the Inquisitor General. The Spanish Inquisition removed Protestantism quickly, meaning that Spain did not face the same religious wars as other countries such as France. She is also the recipient of a Rutgers Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. The conquest of Granada freed up the Catholic Monarchs to invest resources and energy into overseas exploration. Stop procrastinating with our smart planner features. In time, a compromise solution was adopted in which trusted Inquisition officials blotted out words, lines or whole passages of otherwise acceptable texts. Religion motivated both acts: In Salem, colonists had left the Church of England and taken up Puritanism, a religion by which they wanted everyone to abide. Timeline of the Spanish Inquisition | Britannica She is the author of two books about Jewish-Christian relations in the Middle Ages: Between Christian and Jew: Conversion and Inquisition in the Medieval Crown of Aragon and Conversion, Circumcision, and Ritual Murder in Medieval Europe. The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, or the Spanish Inquisition, was established in 1478 under the reign of Ferdinand II of Aragon and his wife Isabella I of Castile. The Reconquista & Spanish Inquisition | Timeline & Causes - Video Nobody Expects The Spanish Inquisition | Know Your Meme Spain conquered Granada, a region populated mostly by Muslim Moors, in the late 15th century. The Worst Witch Trial In History Took Place In Spain, Not Salem Originally politically motivated, it aimed to use religion to foster national unity but later became the object of Protestant anti-Catholic propaganda which "painted Spaniards as barbarians who ravished women and sodomized young boys. The conquest of Granada was particularly significant as it marked a new period of Christian warfare. This might cause the shoulders to pull out of their sockets. Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article: Shanna Freeman It is likely that the total would be between 3,000 and 5,000 executed. StudySmarter is commited to creating, free, high quality explainations, opening education to all. Antisemitism in Spain reached its peak in the Pogrom of 1391. By the middle of the 16th century the Inquisition had largely run out of suspected heretics and Judaizers. The Erasmians had powerful supporters at court in the early years of Charles I as emperor, when his policy was directed toward the healing of the religious schism by a general reform of the church. 94% of StudySmarter users achieve better grades. Stop procrastinating with our study reminders. Nevertheless, they thought of it primarily in religious and not in political terms. Which dynasty ruled the Emirate of Granda? In the late 15th Century, King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella of Spain believed corruption in the Spanish Catholic Church was caused by Jews who, to survive centuries of anti-Semitism, converted. They were blamed for the Black Plague and labelled usurers - people who lend money at unreasonably high rates of interest. These converts were sometimes called marranos (Spanish for "pig" and a very derogatory term) and accused of secretly continuing to practice Judaism. Spanish Inquisition | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica