How Did Religion Influence The Spread Of Iberia

Throughout Iberia’s history, religion has had a big influenced throughout the centuries. From the Visigoths introducing Christianity, to the introduction of Judaism in Iberia, the introduction of Christianity via the Roman Empire, Then the Moorish conquest in 711, and creation of Muslim Iberia, lasting till 1491. In the Reconquest of Iberia, led by the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, both Christian and Muslim blood was spilled. With the fall of Granada in 1971, the last outpost of the Moors fell to the Christian Monarchs. After 781 years of Islamic rule, Iberia once again became a Christian island. In the aftermath, under the watch of Cardinal Gonzalo Jimenez de Cisneros, the Spanish Inquisition took place. In the Spanish Inquisition,
Isabella and Ferdinand sought to glorify the Spanish Catholic culture and unified Spain under the Catholic religion, in part by trying to rewrite Spain history by erasing, downplaying or eliminate references to the Islamic past of Spain.
Isabella and Ferdinand, known as the Catholic Monarch, married in 1469.
Isabella of Aragon, and Ferdinand of Castile in marriage unified the two kingdoms to unify Spain. Isabella was a fervent Catholic who sought to protect and expand the Catholic religion. The Spanish Inquisition was formally established by papal bull in 1478, granted by Pope Sixtus IV to Isabella and Ferdinand to deal with their problem of the Muslim and Jews living in Spain. The immediate task of the Spanish Inquisition, according to Isabella and Ferdinand was to deal with the problem of the conversos and Moriscos, Jews and Muslims who practiced their religion rites in secret. The Spanish Inquisition was means to protect the Catholic faith in Spain, from Jews, Muslim and
Protestants.
Isabella and Ferdinand issued the Edict of Expulsion in 1480, allowing for the Spanish Inquisition to seek Muslim and Jews to either be exiled, convert to Catholicism and give up their religion, or be killed for failing to leave or convert (Brown). With the Inquisition focused on Jews and Muslim who had converted but continue to practice their religion in secret (Brown).
For many Spaniards the motivating factor was greed and jealousy rather than preservation of the unity of faith. The Spanish Inquisition created a distinction between the Old Christians and the New Christians. The New Christians were the converted Jews and Muslims and their heirs. The Old Christians were the individuals who had been Christian for many generations. The New Christians were the ones who have recently converted. It was important for Spaniards to make a distinction between the new and old Christians, the distinction served as a way of preventing new Christians from gaining more power and political and government positions. It was a form of oppressing the New Christians.
However for the rulers, the Spanish Inquisition served as way of expressing strong Christian values and creating religious and cultural uniformity across Spain.
Under the Spanish Inquisition, for the next 300 years, Spain underwent a cleansing of its religion, people, and culture. Whitewashing away its Muslim and Jewish history.
Shortly after Ferdinand appointed Tomás de Torquemada to be the first Inquisitor. Tomas de Torquemanda was a Dominican friar, and the general inquisitor under who tribunals initially focused on converted Jews and Muslims in Spain. Autos de fe, in english known as Acts of Faith, were a form of formal church rite of public penance in which condemned heretics and apostates received their sentences. These were public ceremony in which the accused repented their sins committed against Spain and the Catholic
faith.
To battle religious impurities, The Spanish Inquisition turned into a reign of violence, terror and torture, in which the accused were tried and passed judgment. The accused were often the victims of jealousy and lies. The accused faced uninformed charges were forced to testify and no legal counsel was offered. The accused, the conversos, marranos, and moriscos would be arrested and accused of practicing Judaism or Islam in secret, and not being true Christians. Evidence against them was held in secret, and would not be allowed to face their accusers. Most were tortured into confessing, as a mean of sparing their life, however they would often be killed upon confessing to being heretics. Most heretics that were killed, were done by a plublic ceremony of “ burning at the stake” however they had the option of being hung and being spare the horrible pain of being burnt alive if “they were willing to kiss the cross” (Spiro).
In order to get a confession, torture was used as tool to achieve a confession. Torture was not the punishment, the punishment for their crimes could be death in the form of burning, public hanging, or the sword. Inquisitors would use different forms of torture including “starvation, force feeding, applying burning coals on parts of their body” (Freeman).