The Spanish Inquisition By Tomas De Torquemada

The Spanish Inquisition started was when Pope Sixtus the IV approved it in 1478. Their early goals

Based on part of the XVIII century, when the prevalent times of the Spanish Inquisition dominated the powers of the society and the people was ruled by an orthodox way of thinking, Gabriel Garcia Marquez gives birth to "Of Love and Other Demons". According to The American Heritage Dictionary, Inquisition was a former Roman Catholic tribunal established to suppress heresy. The term Heresy originally meant a belief that one arrived at by oneself (Greek hairesis, "choosing for oneself"), and it is any religious doctrine opposed to the dogma of a particular church, especially a doctrine held by a person professing faith in the teachings of that church. Surrounded by

Those who were considered social outcasts like peasants, old people and even disliked officials were targeted through the reformation. In Document Group D, number 1, a chart of the occupations of all the husbands of the women who were accused of witchcraft. This chart showed that nearly all of the wealth standings were either laborers or farmers yet hardly any upperclassmen had to deal with such accusations. Not only were those who were poor but those who were non-religious were also attack. In those days, those who tried to spread a different faith or did not believe at all were heretics that were also attacked. In Document 6 of Group A, the brother of a Chief Justice points out a certain judge that believed in witches and immediately went into detail that he is the cause of much of the troubles by not handing the woman from the trial to the Inquisition attendants. Such decisions are looked down upon and immediate draw attraction to the person who does not become involved with the

Torture was often

The Counter-Reformation sought to reform four major elements; ecclesiastical reconfiguration, religious orders, spiritual movements, and political dimensions. Seminaries for proper training of priests, returning of orders to their spiritual foundations, and new spiritual movements focusing on ones devotional life and relationship with Christ. Among these reforms was the Inquisition. The Inquisition was responsible for the "purifying" of Christians. They were mostly peaceful but were also known for burning many people at the stake. At times as many as two hundred in one day were burned under accusations of witchcraft. They aimed to retake areas that had previously been converted to

Some other punishments were leather strap used on to hit anywhere on the body, beating with fists, and until unconscious, burning and scalding the hands, starvation, public

To begin, the Protestant Reformation began in reaction to the Catholic Church’s rather corrupt practices. Prior to the Reformation, the only major Christian denomination in Western Europe at the time was Catholicism, headed by the Pope in Rome. Through many acts of violence such as the formation of the Spanish Inquisition and the slaughter of the Cathars, amongst others, Europe’s Monarchs had wiped out and suppressed any form of religious competition. With the Catholic Church holding a tight stranglehold over Europe, Catholicism was the only option. This allowed

The arrival of the Inquisition was swift and powerful, the decline of the Inquisition was drawn out and pathetic. Laws slowly began to be abolished around the eighteenth century. The distinction between Old and New Christians was no longer legally binding, the Moriscos had all but been erased from Spain, and Judaism had no influence. The job was done. Over hundreds of years and a multitude of rulers hellbent on eradicating religious diversity, a mild amount of success had been achieved. As the decades rolled on, however, rulers became more and more disinterested with the inquisitorial rule. The looming French Revolution severely hurt the seemingly dormant Inquisition. The Revolution brought new condemnation for the movement, and more specifically, condemnation for the unnecessarily violent actions of the church. The Inquisition was truly crippled early in the nineteenth century as a Constitution was being constructed by Rafael Riego, an Asturian battalion commander. Through this, and various civil wars and revolts within the nineteenth century, the Spanish Inquisition was officially demolished. The movement that had thousands tortured, imprisoned, and murdered had finally

Around the 15th century, when the Americas were discovered, Europe was going through a great religious change. There were many disputes in Europe about the Roman Catholic Church and its teachings. Later, the two prominent religious figures that completely impacted the way people view religion in a different light were a German monk named Martin Luther, and a Frenchman named John Calvin. That’s when they started a religious reformation. Some countries, such as France and England, were most affected by the sudden change, which caused them to become slow to colonize in the New World. However, the Spanish and the Portuguese were unaffected and were the first to arrive in America, so their Catholic church and beliefs also went with them. Thus, Catholicism

The Inquisition started because the Catholic Church was worried that the devil was stealing people’s souls. To fight the devil the church founded a new court. The Inquisition, were those priests whose job it was to find and punish anyone who was against the church or working with the devil. They called people who worked against the church a heretic and any action against the church was heresy. The inquisition could place people under arrest and torture them until they confessed to heresy; even if u weren’t and heresy but they suspected that you were they still torture you. But, if you confess right away before torture, will be punished, but you can redeem yourself. If you didn’t confess you were torture until you did.

This was the start of the first inquisition. After that, it was a common practice in much of Europe to take Heretics before a trial, then inflict torture on them forcing them to convert. Those that did not convert were sent to a public burning or hanging. In 1252 AD, Pope Innocent IV agreed to use inquisitors to torture sinners who would not repent their sins and confess. By the fifteen hundreds, the Inquisition became corrupt, powerful, and greedy.

The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision by Henry Kamen, was released in 1997 and is the third edition of the acclaimed book centered around the infamous tribunal. The years following the first publication saw increases in the quality of scholarship and an influx of research.  New historical interpretations subsequently began to demonstrate an enhanced insight, as works like Benzion Netanyahu’s The Origins of the Inquisition presented original perspectives. Kamen was consequentially compelled to reevaluate the evidence surrounding the Inquisition, ultimately causing him to divert from his previous conclusions and adopt a revisionist perspective exploring historical causation. The Spanish Inquisition has been repeatedly studied for

They tortured people to gain confessions. The church handled all confessions, however could not witness the bloodshed that they caused to get the accused to confess. All punishments were vary physical two of the most infamous were the strappado and aselli. The strappado, meaning pulley, was a device containing ropes to strap a person down from their arms and legs and weights were attached on the ropes. The person would be raised and their body would stretch causing mass amounts of pain and sometimes-immediate death. The aselli was a water torment. A person would lie down and be drowned rapidity until it looked like their veins would explode.

Catholicism was a prominent religion for over 1,000 years. Before the Reformation of the 1500s, anyone who was Christian belonged to the Catholic Church— any other form of Christianity was considered a denomination. To eliminate denominations, the Church turned to inquisition. The Papal Inquisition began in the late 12th century, when Pope Innocent III sent cardinals to Southern France, where heresy was popularizing. However, the official inauguration is considered 1231, when Pope Gregory IX sent Dominicans to Southern France, Germany, Austria, Lombardy, and Aragon to convict heretics. Heretics were granted the chance to admit their deceit and return to the Roman Catholic Church. If their heresy was sustained,

Some tortures included strapping the accused's feet in a pair of metal boots and then filling the boots with boiling hot oil. The accused were often whipped for their purification, sometimes they were left out in the open for hours after having been whipped while the torturers went out to lunch. They had to hang there and wait until they returned and often they received additional torture after their wait just to be certain they had been purified. Tortures were so extreme that many people took their practices underground to avoid the Inquisition.