We explain what the Inquisition was, its origin, history and objectives. In addition, persecutions and characters of the Spanish Inquisition.
What was the Inquisition?
It was known as the Holy Inquisition or simply the Inquisition, a set of institutions belonging to the Catholic Church, whose purpose was to combat heresy and impose a socio-religious order in medieval Catholic territories.
For this he carried out campaigns of persecution and punishment. Torture sessions, public acts of atonement or simply the imposition of financial sanctions could take part in them, by ecclesiastical officials known as inquisitors.
This institution arose within the Catholic Church in a Europe medieval characterized by its political fragmentation. In this context, Christianity through the Catholic Church (and this through the different Christian monarchies) sustained the social order.
The inquisition manifested itself through different chapters or inquisitorial facilities, known by the names of their nations: the Spanish, Portuguese, and Roman inquisitions. The medieval inquisition is also often spoken of, to distinguish it from the one that survived to the Modern age.
This institution was famous for its relentless trials of anyone who was accused of heresy, sodomy, bestiality or any other practice considered aberrant.
Depending on the severity of the crime and of the repentance shown by the heretic, the penalties could range from public derision or the payment of fines, to execution. Its operation was accompanied by a rigorous apparatus of bureaucracy, which kept a record of each interrogation and each burning of people alive.
On the one hand, the inquisition fulfilled a role of religious vigilance, through its trials of people and even animals, accused in turn of various crimes of the spirit or of being possessed by evil entities. On the other hand, he persecuted Jewish converts (called "new Christians") and Muslims.
This function was especially important in times when Catholicism came under attack, such as at the time of the Crusades or during the period of the Reform. At the same time, he collaborated with the economic strengthening of the theocratic order, since the properties confiscated from heretics were, generally, designated as ecclesiastical patrimony.
However, despite how terrible the inquisition was, much of its fame is due to the dissemination of numerous writings against it by Protestant authors. It is possible that they somehow exaggerated its horrors and released even more dire versions than the written evidence of the time suggests.
Protestantism, in fact, was as cruel or more cruel in the persecution of heresy, as evidenced by the infamous witch burnings in Protestant Europe, or the publication of the Malleus malleficarum ("The hammer of the witches") in Germany in 1487, an exhaustive manual for the identification, persecution and hunting of witches written during the Renaissance.
Origin of the Inquisition
Although the practice of corporal punishment of heretics had a long history within Christianity, the first formal appearance of the inquisition took place in the 12th century, in the south of France. There, the Albigensian doctrine or Catharism, a particularly influential European Gnostic movement in the Languedoc region, contradicted the social and religious models of the Catholic Church.
To end the Cathar heresy and restore order, Pope Lucius III issued the bull Ad abolendam of 1184, granting the local bishops the power to judge and convict in their name. This organization was called the Episcopal Inquisition.
After its failure, it was replaced between 1231 and 1244 by the Papal Inquisition or Pontifical Inquisition, created by Pope Gregory IX with the bull Excommunicamus. This new institution was subject to his direct authority and was in the hands of the mendicant orders, especially the Dominicans, which guaranteed him a more strict spirit.
Thanks to the bull Ad extirpates under Pope Innocent IV, starting in 1252 the Inquisition was formally allowed to use torture as an instrument to obtain confessions from prisoners.
In the Modern Age, the Inquisition expanded into colonial territories, especially in Spanish and Portuguese America. There, during the conquest, different processes of idolatry were carried out against the Purépecha and other indigenous peoples.
Once the colony began, the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition was established both in Mexico City and in Peru. It operated there for almost 500 years, dedicated to especially persecuting Jewish and Muslim converts, since most of the indigenous people considered themselves to be in the process of evangelization, that is, "new Christians" and were outside their competence.
The Spanish Inquisition
Of all the chapters of the inquisition, the Spanish has been the one with the worst fame throughout history. In part this is because, being the bastion of the Counter-Reformation, the Spanish Monarchy had the Inquisition at its entire disposal and command, to persecute Protestants, Jews and heretics.
Thus, he used it to ensure political and social stability, not just religious. So, too, they had the worst propaganda from their Protestant enemies, who also had the help of Johannes Gutemberg's recent invention: the printing.
However, it is true that the Spanish Inquisition was terrible. Founded in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabel I of Castile, and by the papal bull Exigit sincere devotionis affectus under Pope Sixtus IV, it had jurisdiction over all Christian Spain and its colonies.
He was particularly relentless in the persecution of the Jews, expelled completely from Spain in 1492, as well as the Judeo-converts, many of whom practiced their faith in secret. Later he focused on Protestants and Moors (Muslim converts), on censorship, the persecution of superstition and witchcraft, and on prosecuting transgressions of a social nature, such as bigamy and homosexuality.
One of the main figures of the Spanish inquisition was the Castilian Dominican Tomás de Torquemada (1420-1498), assigned as First Inquisitor General of Castile and Aragon in the 15th century, who was described as the “hammer of heretics”, “ lightning of Spain ”or“ protector of his country ”. The number of people executed during his tenure ranges between 2,000 and 10,000, according to the historical sources consulted.
The abolition of the Spanish Inquisition was decreed in 1812, in the Cortes of Cádiz, but it did not materialize in Spain until 1834. Already in the Hispano-American nations, mostly independent or in the process of being independent, it had lost all kinds of presence and power. .