Spanish Inquisition, (1478–1834), judicial institution ostensibly established to combat heresy in Spain. 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 brutal methods. Spanish Inquisition Spanish Jews pleading before King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, while grand inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada argues for their expulsion from Spain, in a painting by Solomon A. Hart. © Photos.com/Thinkstock Top Questions How many people died during the Spanish Inquisition? Thousands were burned at the stake under Torquemada, the most notorious of the grand inquisitors, and tens of thousands were killed during the forced expulsion of Moriscos (Spanish Muslims who had been baptized as Christians) which began in 1609. How did the Spanish Inquisition work? When the Inquisition opened an investigation in an area, inquisitors typically would offer comparatively light penances to those who were willing to admit their own involvement in heresy. Those confessions were used to identify other “heretics,” who were brought before a tribunal. At this trial, the accused received no assistance to defend themselves, they were frequently ignorant of the charges against them, and confessions were often obtained through coercion, confiscation of property, or torture. If the accused were found guilty, the sentence would be announced at an auto-da-fé, an elaborate public spectacle. The accused would then be handed over to civil authorities for the carrying out of the sentence. When did the Spanish Inquisition end? The Spanish queen regent María Cristina de Borbón issued a decree abolishing the Spanish Inquisition on July 15, 1834. The papal Inquisition—founded in 1542 and formally known as the Congregation of the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition, or Holy Office—was reorganized by Pope Paul VI and renamed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1965. It remains one of the congregations of the Roman Curia and concerns itself primarily with questions of Roman Catholic dogma and doctrine. Did anyone expect the Spanish Inquisition? Pope Lucius III declared the first inquisition in 1184, nearly 300 years before the creation of the Spanish Inquisition, and the use of torture was authorized for inquisitors in 1252. As the Reconquista brought the territories of Moorish Spain under the control of Christian kings, many Jews in these areas declared their conversion to Christianity in an attempt to escape persecution. These conversos, as they came to be known, remained the targets of hatred and scorn, and Spanish officials in Córdoba did nothing to intervene during three days of anti-converso mob violence in 1473. When the Spanish Inquisition was created on November 1, 1478, it was not entirely unexpected. Timeline of the Spanish Inquisition Follow the origins and evolution of the Spanish Inquisition.

The rise of the Spanish Inquisition The medieval inquisition had played a considerable role in Christian Spain during the 13th century, but the struggle against the Moors had kept the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula busy and served to strengthen their faith. When toward the end of the 15th century the Reconquista was all but complete, the desire for religious unity became more and more pronounced. Spain’s Jewish population, which was among the largest in Europe, soon became a target. Spanish Inquisition Depiction of a Spanish Jew standing before the grand inquisitor in the late 1400s. Photos.com/Getty Images Over centuries, the Jewish community in Spain had flourished and grown in numbers and influence, though anti-Semitism had surfaced from time to time. During the reign of Henry III of Castile and Leon (1390–1406), Jews faced increased persecution and were pressured to convert to Christianity. The pogroms of 1391 were especially brutal, and the threat of violence hung over the Jewish community in Spain. Faced with the choice between baptism and death, the number of nominal converts to the Christian faith soon became very great. Many Jews were killed, and those who adopted Christian beliefs—the so-called conversos (Spanish: “converted”)—faced continued suspicion and prejudice. In addition, there remained a significant population of Jews who had professed conversion but continued to practice their faith in secret. Known as Marranos, those nominal converts from Judaism were perceived to be an even greater threat to the social order than those who had rejected forced conversion. After Aragon and Castile were united by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella (1469), the Marranos were denounced as a danger to the existence of Christian Spain. In 1478 Pope Sixtus IV issued a bull authorizing the Catholic Monarchs to name inquisitors who would address the issue. That did not mean that the Spanish sovereigns were turning over to the church the struggle for unity; on the contrary, they sought to use the Inquisition to support their absolute and centralizing regime and most especially to increase royal power in Aragon. The first Spanish inquisitors, operating in Seville, proved so severe that Sixtus IV attempted to intervene. The Spanish crown now had in its possession a weapon too precious to give up, however, and the efforts of the pope to limit the powers of the Inquisition were without avail. In 1483 he was induced to authorize the naming by the Spanish government of a grand inquisitor (inquisitor general) for Castile, and during that same year Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia were placed under the power of the Inquisition.