Ugly History The Spanish Inquisition Kayla Wolf
It’s 1481.
In the city of Seville,
devout Catholics are turning themselves
in to the authorities.
They’re confessing to heresy— failure to
follow the beliefs of the Catholic Church.
But why?
The Spanish Inquisition
has arrived in Seville.
The Inquisition began in 1478,
when Pope Sixtus IV issued a decree
authorizing the Catholic monarchs,
Ferdinand and Isabella,
to root out heresy
in the Spanish kingdoms—
a confederacy of semi-independent kingdoms
in the area that would become
the modern country of Spain.
Though the order came from the church,
the monarchs had requested it.
When the Inquisition began,
the Spanish kingdoms were diverse
both ethnically and religiously,
with Jews, Muslims, and Christians living
in the same regions.
The Inquisition quickly turned
its attention to ridding the region
of people who were not
part of the Catholic Church.
It would last more than 350 years.
On the ground, groups called tribunals ran
the Inquisition in each region.
Roles on a tribunal could include
an arresting constable,
a prosecuting attorney,
inquisitors to question the accused,
and a scribe.
A “Grand Inquisitor,” a member of the
clergy selected by the king and queen,
almost always led a tribunal.
The Inquisition marked its arrival in each
new place with an “Edict of Grace.”
Typically lasting 40 days,
the Edict of Grace promised mercy
to those who confess to heresy.
After that, the inquisitors persecuted
suspected heretics
on the basis of anonymous accusations.
So the confessors in Seville probably
didn’t see themselves as actual heretics—
instead, they were hedging their bets
by reporting themselves
when the consequences were low,
rather than risking
imprisonment or torture
if someone else accused them later on.
They were right to worry:
once the authorities arrested someone,
accusations were often vague,
so the accused didn’t know the reasons
for their arrest
or the identity of their accuser.
Victims were imprisoned
for months or even years.
Once arrested,
their property was confiscated,
often leaving their families
on the street.
Under these conditions, victims confessed
to the most mundane forms of heresy—
like hanging linen to dry on a Saturday.
The Inquisition targeted different subsets
of the population over time.
In 1492, at the brutal Grand Inquisitor
Tomás de Torquemada’s urging,
the monarchs issued a decree giving
Spanish Jews four months
to either convert to Christianity
or leave the kingdom.
Thousands were expelled
and those who stayed risked persecution.
Converts to Christianity,
known as conversos, weren’t even safe,
because authorities suspected
them of practicing Judaism in secret.
The hatred directed at conversos
was both religious and economic,
as conversos made up a large portion
of the upper middle class.
The Inquisition eventually
shifted its focus to the moriscos,
converts to Christianity from Islam.
In 1609, an edict passed forcing
all moriscos to leave.
An estimated 300,000 left.
Those who remained became
the Inquisition’s next targets.
The inquisitors announced the punishments
of those found guilty of heresy
in public gatherings called autos de fé,
or acts of faith.
Hundreds of people gathered to watch
the procession of sinners, mass, sermon,
and finally the announcement
of punishments.
Most of the accused received punishments
like imprisonment, exile,
or having to wear a sanbenito,
a garment that marked them as a sinner.
The worst punishment
was “relaxado en persona”—
a euphemism for burning at the stake.
This punishment was relatively uncommon—
reserved for unrepentant
and relapsed heretics.
Over 350 years after Queen Isabella
started the Inquisition,
her namesake, Queen Isabella II,
formally ended it on July 15th, 1834.
The Spanish kingdoms’ dependence
on the Catholic Church had isolated them
while the rest of Europe
experienced the Enlightenment
and embraced the separation
of church and state.
Historians still debate the number
of people killed during the Inquisition.
Some suggest over 30,000
but most estimate between 1,000 and 2,000.
The consequences of the Inquisition,
however, reach far beyond fatalities.
In some places, an estimated 1/3
of prisoners were tortured.
Hundreds of thousands of members
of religious minorities
were forced to leave their homes,
and those who remained faced
discrimination and economic hardship.
Smaller inquisitions in Spanish
colonial territories
in the Americas, especially Mexico,
carried their own tolls.
Friends turned in friends,
neighbors accused neighbors,
and even family members reported
each other of heresy.
Under the Inquisition,
people were condemned to live
in fear and paranoia for centuries.