The Spanish Inquisition: King Ferdinand And Queen Isabella

The Spanish Inquisition was a movement begun in 1478 by the Spanish monarchs of the time: King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. It was meant to seek out non-catholics in Spain, because Ferdidand and Isabella wanted religious, and subsequently political unity in their country. Their first goal to begin the Inquisition was to appoint inquisitors over each region throughout Spain, to figure out who was Catholic, and who was not. In 1478, Ferdinand and Isabella received the reluctant permission of Pope Sixtus IV to appoint inquisitors, who began seeking out non-catholics. This Inquisition began in 1478, and continued all the way to it's final end in 1834. Like all of its kind, the Spanish Inquisition did involve torture and executions. However, contrary to the many rumors about it, the torture was not done by monks and priests, but rather by the official torturers of the state. Although the Inquisitors, who were often churchmen did hold the trials of these men, and give out the punishments for those who would confess to having been heretics or other such sins, they would not torture or perform the executions. The punishments given out by the torturers were not often and light as Diane Moczar asserts by saying: “torture was in fact rarely used, and even when it was,
it was very limited.” (93) We also see that the convicted had every opportunity to confess, as expressed by Fernand Hayward, who affirms this by stating “[The convicted] were given every opportunity … to prove their innocence or to retract and to give full guarantees of true repentance.” A totally separate issue is the conviction and execution of witches, who are people in using the power of, or in league with the devil. According to Edward Burman, “between 200,000 and 1,000,000 people, mainly women, died during the the witch craze in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” (179) a massive number, meaning that there must have been some reason for this “witch craze.” However, there was not much evidence of this in Spain. Edward Burman says that this is because the Suprema decided: “witches reconciled to the Church may have suffered delusions and were not therefore to be handed over to the secular arm.” (181) One major group involved in the Spanish Inquisition were the Conversos.
These were Jews or Muslims who were Catholic in name only. The Inquisition was mainly aimed at finding these fake Catholics, and for good reason, as it is so eloquently put by Fernand Hayward: “Since the Jews occupied an important place in the Spain of this period … the sincerity of their Catholicism and of their personal acceptance of the teachings of the Church was a matter of major importance.” (127) For example, if a Jew or Muslim pretended to be Catholic, and rose to a high point in the Church, they might gain a certain amount of power (so to say) within the Church, and could easily abuse this power to cause disharmony in the
Church. The people who mostly brought about the Spanish Inquisition were King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Although they did receive Pope Sixtus IV's approval, it was reluctant, and only received because the Pope thought that all that they were going to do was try the Conversos in accordance with the laws of the Church. Ferdinand and Isabella instigated this Inquisition because they were worried that non-catholics, especially Conversos would cause dissonance within the Church and state. They also wished to unify Spain under one religion, because this would help to unify it as a country. As aforementioned, in order to have an inquisition, there must be in inquisitors. The leader of these inquisitors was called the Grand Inquisitor, and his name was Tomas de Torquemada, and this name has become almost synonymous with the Spanish Inquisition. Torquemada was Dominican friar, and an upholder of many Church doctrines such as the Immaculate Conception. Torquemada was known, not only because of his severity in the judging of alleged heretics, but also because he was very talented, and rose to great power, almost equaling that of the monarchs at the time. When he became Grand Inquisitor, he placed new inquisitors over regions which previously had none, and removed those who refused to acquiesce to his authority. He also made much of the Inquisition autonomous, so that it did not have to rely on episcopal authority very much at all, and gave the Spanish monarchs what they wanted. He became “the very incarnation of the Spanish Inquisition.” (Hayward 136)