Essay The Times of the Spanish Inquisition

“ The arrival of the inquisitor caused panic. The Inquisition was created in Spain within the past few years to target alleged bad Christians among the Conversos, and three years previously the first auto had been staged, in Seville.” (Green

When the Spanish Inquisition was put into effect it was to keep political and religious unity in Spain. The Spanish Inquisition “aimed primarily at Catholic conversos of Jewish heritage and, later, similar converts from Islam” (Robert P. Lockwood). The leaders of the Catholic Church and the King and Queen of Spain at the time wanted to keep any person from changing religions. If a person was caught abandoning their Catholic religion they could face torture and even execution.

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

Although the Spanish Inquisition does not start until around 1480, it has its roots in the late fourteenth century. Anti-Semitism began in the fourteenth century during a period of plague and economic hardship in Europe. The resulting violence and hatred along with campaigns to get Jews to convert to Catholicism persuaded many Jews to convert. However, these New Christians once again became the object of hatred because it was believed that many of them were faking being Christian and still practicing Judaism. It was during this period that the Spanish Inquisition began. The Inquisition’s main goal was to rid Spain of all Jews in an effort to keep the New Christians from reverting back to their Jewish ways. Disregarding the fact that the inquisition was completely immoral, it was successful in ridding Spain of Jews and the uniting the country in Catholicism; but, the goal was also to end anti-Semitism, and the inquisition only strengthened and extended the reign of the anti-Semitic ideology.

The Spanish Inquisition mainly dealt with acts of Heresy, crimes that went against the faith and crimes that did not match with how the crown wished to structure society. Crimes against the faith

The Spanish Inquisition was a court system established in 1478 that tried and sentenced heretics. Victims of these trials were predominantly “conversos”, Jewish people that had converted to Catholicism. The Spanish Inquisition was not formally abolished until 1834 by Queen Isabella II. Although the severity of the Inquisition is most likely exaggerated, it still remains a dark point in the history of the Catholic Church.

This book focused mainly on the Spanish inquisition of Peru from 1570 to 1820. In this time Spanish colonists brought the European way of life to Peru. An inquisition was a judicial stystem in the Roman Catholic church that aimed to fight heresy.

Bartolomé de Las Casas presents, for its time, an astounding claim human equality before God. Defending the native people of the New World from the violence executed by Spain and the claims to authority given voice by Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, Las Casas provides a precocious assertion of human rights and the limits on civil and church authority. In this paper I will argue that Las Casas makes a nuanced assessment of civil government, to which he gives a vital but limited authority. I further propose that Las Casas, even while holding to the traditional and scriptural authority of the church, ascribes a similarly circumscribed earthly authority. The effect of these positions is to afford to non-Christians rationality and the freedom of

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.

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?

Time and time again, throughout history, Jews faced immeasurable intolerance. The infamous Spanish Inquisition propelled those of the Jewish faith and heritage into the New World. Historians specializing in the Spanish Inquisition itself often begin their research mid-story, ignoring completely its roots, which date back to the thirteenth century. Instead, it is common for a book on the Inquisition to begin in the fifteenth century, with the expulsion of North African Muslims, or Moors, from Spain. Even in Toby Green’s Inquisition: The Reign of Fear, a fourteen chapter book devoted to the subject, the author evasively states, “The Inquisition had been created in Spain within the past few years to target alleged bad Christians among the conversos.” As noted by one historian, Gale Stewart, conversely, “the Inquisition had been an active force in Europe for over 250 years before it came to Spain.”

Eventually, Dominican Tomás de Torquemada and some of the other inquisitors got restrained. Even though it was often to have burnings at the auto-da-fe, it was checked out by some degree. Because they had no other place to go in Spain so they tried to set the inquisition again but ended up failing.

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.

The Inquisition executed Jews and Muslims. However, even the ones who converted to Christianity or born Christian were tortured if they once were of another faith or if it could be traced back in their roots. The ones who had the Jewish blood, or of any other faith and were born Christian, were tortured more severely. The accused was not allowed to have a lawyer or counsel for their defense.