The Inquisition : The Reign Of Fear

Within Spain, for a time Jews were accepted as productive and unthreatening members of society. This continued until it was decided that the Jewish community was not doing what was expected of them, at which time the Inquisition began. Jews had become accepted because they practiced and accepted the Christian faith in the public eye, however in private they

These two views do not contradict each other, but they do look at the shift in thought differently. Schwartz takes the idea that, “each person can be saved in his own religion, “and develops a study of Christian perspectives on Islam and Judaism through the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition documentation and trials. Schwartz analyzed cultural attitudes and thoughts towards religious differences from the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries in Spain and Portugal (Schwartz, pg. 6). Spanish and Portuguese inquisitional records captured the stories from unknown common folk and what they thought about the world they lived in, and their feelings towards what was right when dealing with religious tolerance (Schwartz, pg. 6). By not only questioning individuals but also looking at the people around that individuals and how they interacted and practiced their beliefs, Schwartz uncovered evidence for religious toleration over a course of a few centuries. These views varied from different religious individuals such as Jews, Christians, and Muslims throughout his whole book. It is important for readers of this book to decipher between “tolerance” and “toleration.” Schwartz’s book is about “the history of religious toleration, by which is usually meant state or community policy, but rather of tolerance, by which I mean attitudes or sentiments” (Schwartz, pg. 6). European leaders believed unity of religious beliefs facilitated political stability, showing religious tolerance advocates were the protagonists in this book. People during these centuries were still eager to discover how to gain salvation. Salvation began to play its own role in the spiritual and political atmosphere of society. This change in roles started to challenge the churches views of the natural world and how much

Like the Holocaust in the 1930s-1940s, Jews during this time were treated with brutality. Manchester describes it as, “Jewry was luckier - slightly luckier - than blacks. If the pogroms of the time are less infamous than the Holocaust, it is only because anti-Semites then lacked twentieth-century technology” (35). In the year 1492, the Spanish had regained control of Spain. The rule of Spain was now under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. They were not fond of Jews in their nation. The Jews in Spain were given three months to convert to christianity or to leave. After seeing what the Spanish were doing in Spain, the king of Portugal ordered the expulsion of all Portuguese Jews. Any Jews who wouldn’t leave or were slow to leave were massacred. Around four thousand Lisbon Jews were killed during a single night in 1506. Only three years later persecution of Jews in Germany began. Jews throughout history have been treated badly but during the medieval period it was especially hard if you were a Jew.

The Inquisition mostly dealt with the conversos, or "Jews who had converted either under duress or out of social convenience, and were suspected of secretly practicing the Jewish faith." (The Spanish Inquisition, n.d.) While this is given as a definition of conversos, some people believe that the majority of conversos were excellent

Henry Charles Lea’s monumental study of the inquisition during the Middle Ages was originally published in 1887. In volume three of his work, he devoted a chapter to both Guglielma and Fra Dolcino. Lea provides a brief history of Guglielma intersected with his condescending

The book, communities of violence: Persecution of the minorities in the middle ages, written by David Nirenberg, examines violence between the Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Lepers, primarily in the Crown of Aragon. Nirenberg focuses on the history during narrow time period of the first half of the 14th century. Through analyzing the history during this period, Nirenberg makes the argument that persecution of minority groups were politically or economically motivated and not completely driven by hatred or prejudices.

The actions against Jews first began with Constantine, after Christianity was officially accepted as a religion in the fourth century, with heavy penalties for those who “visited a pagan temple or converted to Judaism.”6 Through history, they were again faced with injustices through the punishment of mixed Jewish-Christian marriages

The book Modern Inquisitions: Peru and the Colonial Origins of the Civilized World was written by Irene Silverblatt. This book described the medieval civilization of Peru and colonial Andes. It also went into great detail about the inquisitions of the Roman Catholic church. Irene Marsha Silverblatt was born on September 14, 1948 in Philadelphia, PA. She graduated college from the University of Michigan. She is now a Professor at Duke University.

The history of the Jewish people in Spain is certainly a pivotal time period that changed the future of the Jews and specifically, the Sephardic Jews. At the time of the issuing and signing of the Edict of Expulsion on March 31, 1492, Spanish Jews were experiencing the most persecution that had been felt in the many centuries of which the Jews had been in Spain. Spanish Jewry came to a dramatic end after almost a millennium of Jewish presence in the country. Spanish Jewry’s golden age, however, the Jews experienced almost no persecution, resulting in a new centre of Talmudic study, before suffering from a relapse of anti-Semitism that eventually led to the Inquisition and the Edict of Expulsion. (SOURCE 1) This essay will discuss and analyze

The Spanish Inquisition was originally an institution developed in Spain to conduct trials by the Catholic Monarchs. The Inquisition’s trial courts focused on ensuring that the Catholic Doctrine was enforced. After the conquering and colonization of indigenous groups within the New World the colony of New Spain was formed. The Spanish Crown sought to use the Inquisition to prosecute those guilty of heresy or blasphemy, which is the act of denouncing God or demeaning religious ideas. Comparing and analyzing Spanish Inquisition blasphemy trial documents demonstrate the recorded history and process by which these trials started and ended. Which presents us with the question, how did blasphemy trials effect the personal lives of indigenous groups within New Spain?

In the late 15th century, Spain gained its freedom from the Moors. They were Islamic North African people that were and controlled much of Spain. The wealthy, educated Jewish population financially assisted the monarchy to regain Spain from the Moors. Large prosperous Jewish communities existed in Spain. They were respected, unlike other areas of Europe where the Jews were persecuted and victims of organized massacres. In Spain, they remained the financial and scientific leaders in the 15th century. Many of Jews married into Catholic families, consequently, many of Spain’s Christian leaders were of Jewish descent. As Spain became a unified country, many Hispanics forgot the services from which the Jewish had provided them. The economy plummeted, and to many, the Jews became a scapegoat. They became targets for bigotry. Stories were created to lessen the Jews image. These stories included Jews murdering innocent Christian children. Such legends fueled the expulsion of the Jews from

Many Americans have little to no knowledge of the Spanish Inquisition; the Inquisition included institutions within the Catholic church whose aim was to “purify” the people of Spain. In The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea, author, Robert Wald says, “The Spanish Inquisition was established to ensure that those of Jewish ancestry were kept apart and out of the mainstream of society.” Wald goes on to say “Although it was mainly directed at Jews, the inquisition also focused on Christianized Muslims.” Even in the 12th century, any religion besides Catholicism

Kamen notes the ambiguous pressure on Jews, as despite the anti-semitism of contemporary Europe, the ‘Aragonese crown protected the Jews and conversos firmly, rejecting all attacks on them‘ and how any existing anti-Semetic legislation went unenforced (Kamen 15). Even after Ferdinand and Isabella initiated their reign in 1474, the monarchs were ‘never personally anti-Semitic’ and their intervention in domestic politics demonstrated an ‘impressive picture of the monarchy protecting its jews’ (Kamen, 16). In actuality, the inception of the Inquisition and the subsequent expulsion of the Jewish population was prompted by the actions of ‘Judaizers’, who were made up of conversos who had attempted to persuade newly assimilated Christians to return to their original Jewish faith. The efforts of these Judaizers concerned the crown and as a result the Inquisition was officially founded on September 27, 1480 as a means of regulating the the disruptive and disobedient conversos.

Over the years in history, there have been many formidable executions that were caused by the aspect of different faiths and races. Period after period there have been many leaders who lashed out onto others because of what they believed in. All of these incidents have never been forgotten; one very infamous one would be the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition was started to “cleanse” the Church of heretics and purify Spain. They executed Jews, Muslims, and other minorities not of Christian faith. Ferdinand and Isabella were in crown of Spain and appointed the Church to start the Spanish Inquisition. These cases will be discussed in the fallowing paper.

As if that were not enough, “Between 1648 and 1658, in organized massacres called pogroms, over 700 Jewish communities were destroyed. Jewish deaths numbered in the hundreds of thousands” (Esposito 107). Finally I learned of the Spanish Inquisition where Jews were once again treated as something separate from humanity. “Many were tortured and burned at the stake. The Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492” (Esposito 108). They endured this suffering for no crime they committed. They endured this suffering because of their faith. It is unfathomable to me. The Jews have a long history of violence against them and of others trying to eradicate them, a history that I was not fully aware of until this class.