Religion in Europe: Catholicism: The Inquisition

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Religion in Europe: Catholicism: The Inquisition

Special Tribunals. While the Inquisition stands out among few other events in history as an example of the human capacity for intolerance and cruelty, its motivation was the preservation of doctrinal purity. From the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries the Roman Catholic Church in western Europe employed aspects of Roman legal procedure and appointed clergy to carry out the task of preserving orthodox beliefs from heresy. These tribunals were institutionalized, and the personnel and procedures were termed “inquisitions.” In the beginning the inquisitors used persuasion to discover if those Christians suspected of heresy were, indeed, heretics. Over time, however, as heresy was feared to be increasing, persuasion gave way to coercion.

Spain. In Spain, from the fourteenth century on, economic and social transformations created political and economic upheaval. As a result non-Christians, Muslims, and Jews had new legal disabilities thrust upon them. Many Jews converted toward the end of the fourteenth century; they became known as conversos. In all, more than two hundred Jewish communities were destroyed, and 160,000 Jews either fled or converted. Those who fled were not allowed to take gold, arms, horses, or money out of Spain, and they wandered, often starving, in search of new homes. Now the inquisitors subjected conversos to the inquisitors’ inspections, and the former Jews were often accused of being false Christians or having gone through invalid conversions. Between 1440 and 1465 anti-Semitism intensified, and Spaniards were particularly hated. Conversos as worse than Jews, for the new Christians now had privileges and positions not available to them before. At the same time Spanish Christians believed their religious practices to be purer and superior.

Ferdinand and Isabella. In this climate the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella requested a papal bull establishing an inquisition. In November 1478 Pope Sixtus IV allowed them to appoint inquisitors. The monarchs assigned the task of naming priests to the Dominican Order, and by October 1480 the inquisition was at work. Many conversos fled Spain. After an alleged converso plot to destroy the inquisitors was discovered in Seville in 1481, the conversos were widely attacked, and the first public burning of condemned heretics was carried out.

Gaining Strength. Ferdinand took further measures to control the Inquisition. In 1482 he took the action of joining the inquisitions of two Spanish kingdoms, Castile and Aragon, thereby strengthening his own power. He and Isabella also issued an edict expelling the Jews from Spain in 1492. Thus the monarchy was actively engaged in combating heresy and ensuring religious “purity” in Spain.

Revitalization. The number of heretics had all but dwindled when, in 1520, new Protestant movements had sprung up in the German states to revitalize the Inquisition. The tribunals acted quickly and intensely to combat the offending Lutherans. Tribunals would come to towns harboring suspected heretics. Local preachers would define heresy in sermons and issue Edicts of Grace, in which parishioners could voluntarily confess or point out suspects to the inquisitors. After 1500 it became mandatory to identify suspects to the inquisitors. Those who did not, according to the 1500 Edict of Faith, would be excommunicated. Treatment of the accused became increasingly harsh: land and goods were taken; the suspected heretic was jailed at his own expense until the hearing was completed; and if, despite sufficient evidence, the accused did not confess, the inquisitors permitted torture. Lutherans were especially persecuted after 1558. Torture occurred relatively infrequently, since the inquisitors sought penitence rather than justice. Spanish territories were fair game for the Board of Inquisitors; both Mexico and Hispaniola, where conversos had fled, had inquisitions in place. The Inquisition was also present in Portugal and Italy. The Spanish Inquisition was particularly long-lived and was not abolished until 1814.

The Black Legend. One historian has suggested that the Spanish Inquisition as we perceive it today—as a single, continuous process replete with torture—is a myth. Protestants from the sixteenth century onward exaggerated its reach to show how brutal the Catholics could be to heretics. This “Black Legend” holds that Spain represented and epitomized repression, brutality, and political and spiritual intolerance. Such intolerance was not limited to Catholics: Protestants in England pursued Catholics, but without the official structure of the Inquisition.

The Return of the Lord

Most Of the prophecies of holy Scripture have already been fulfilled. The Scriptures say this and the Holy Church loudly and unceasingly is saying it, and no other witness is necessary. I will, however, speak of one prophecy in particular because it bears on my argument and gives me support and happiness whenever I think about it....

I have already said that for the voyage to the Indies neither intelligence nor mathematics nor world maps were of any use to me; it was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. This is what I want to record here in order to remind Your Highnesses and so that you can take pleasure from the things I am going to tell you about Jerusalem on the basis of the same authority. If you have faith in this enterprise, you will certainly have the victory....

The sons of the ones who humbled you will come, bending low to you; and all who disparaged you will worship the traces of your feet and will call you the city of the Lord, Zion of the Holy One of Israel. Although you have been forsaken and hated, with no one passing through, I will make you majestic forever, a joy throughout the ages. You will suck the milk of the people and be nursed at the breasts of kings; and you will know that I, the Lord, am your saviour and your redemptor, the mighty one of Jacob.

Source: The Book of Prophecies Edited by Christopher Columbus, edited by Roberto Rusconi (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 75, 203.