Inquisition

History and Myth: The Inquisition

The Spanish Inquisition

Most of the myths surrounding the inquisition have come to us wrapped in the cloak of the Spanish Inquisition. Traditional anti-Catholic presentations will discuss the papal decretal of 1184, Pope Innocent III and the Albigensian crusade beginning in 1208, then leap ahead to the Spanish Inquisition in the mid 16th Century. It is with the Spanish Inquisition that the lurid myth of the inquisition truly developed. It is the world of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum, with vivid descriptions of burning heretics in auto-de-fes, ghastly engines of torture, innocent Bible-believers martyred for their faith, and a once vibrant economic and social power hurled back into a papal-dominated "dark ages" from which it has yet to truly emerge. In many ways, the reality of the Spanish Inquisition has its own human tragedies, but it is not the tragedy presented in the common caricatures.

It is a curiosity of history that the medieval inquisition of the 13th and 14th centuries was little utilized in Spain or Portugal. It was only after the mid-fifteenth century that the Spanish Inquisition would develop, and its target would not be heretics in the traditional sense, but rather Jews who had converted to Christianity and were accused of secretly practicing their old faith. To many contemporary historians of the Spanish Inquisition, the story unfolds not as a "religious" persecution, but rather a racial pogrom. Additionally, the Spanish Inquisition had very little involvement with trials and punishments of Protestants, even with centuries of propaganda to the contrary.

Spain was unique in Western Europe for the diversity of its population. In addition to a large segment of Muslims, medieval Spain had the single largest Jewish community in the world, numbering some one hundred thousand souls in the 13th Century [The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision, by Henry Kamen (Yale University Press, 1997) p. 8.] For centuries Jews and Christians had lived and worked together in a rather peaceful though generally segregated co-existence. In the 14th Century, anti-Jewish attitudes were on the rise throughout Europe. In 1290, England expelled its Jews and France followed in 1306. Spain began to experience an increasing anti-Jewish sentiment. It exploded in the summer of 1391 with angry anti-Jewish riots. More religious than racial – though this has been disputed [See The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain, B. Netanyahu (Random House, 1995).] – these riots led to major forced conversions of Jews to Christianity. These Jewish converts would be called conversos or New Chistians, to distinguish them from traditional Christian families. The converso (or the more scornful term, marrano) identity would remain with such families for generations.

To the converso families, such conversions were not without benefit (not including the benefit of saving their lives in the 1391 riots). They were welcomed into a full participation in Spanish society not available to Jews and they would soon become leaders in government, science, business and the Church. Though it was legislated in certain areas that those forced to convert could return to their own religion, many did not. These converso families obviously faced the scorn of those who remained Jews. At the same time, however, over the years the Old Christians saw them as opportunists who secretly maintained the faith of their forefathers. It was a strong mixture of racial and religious prejudice against the conversos that would stir-up the Spanish Inquisition.

Spain in the 15th century was in the process of unifying the two traditional kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, while engaging in the final defeat of the Muslim stronghold of Granada. Isabella of Castile had married Frederick of Aragon in 1469. She came to the throne in 1474. When Ferdinand became king of Aragon in 1479, the two kingdoms were effectively united. War was waged with Granada beginning in 1482, with its final defeat coming 10 years later.

Isabella succeeded to the Castilian throne upon the death of her stepbrother, Henry IV. Henry had long protected both the Jews and the conversos. Upon his death, there was a widespread outbreak of anti-Jewish and anti-converso protest and violence. "From the mid-Fifteenth Century on, religious anti-Semitism changed into ethnic anti-Semitism, with little difference seen between Jews and conversos except for the fact that conversos were regarded as worse than Jews because, as ostensible Christians, they had acquired privileges and positions that were denied to Jews. The result of this new ethnic anti-Semitism was the invocation of an inquisition to ferret out the false conversos who had, by becoming formal Christians, placed themselves under its authority." [Peters, p. 84.] In 1478, Ferdinand and Isabella requested a papal bull establishing an inquisition, a bull granted by Pope Sixtus IV. In 1482 the size of the inquisition was expanded and included the Dominican Friar Tomas de Torquemada, though Pope Sixtus IV protested against the activities of the inquisition in Aragon and its treatment of the conversos. The next year, Ferdinand and Isabella established a state council to administer the inquisition with Torquemada as its president. He would later assume the title of Inquisitor-General. This was a major development as it would allow the inquisition to persist well beyond its initial intention, and to be extended to wherever Spanish power existed, including the New World. [Peters, p. 89.] The papacy would continue to complain about the treatment of the conversos, but the unity of the Spanish Inquisition with the State would remain a distinguishing characteristic, and a primary source of post-Reformation European hatred.

Why did Ferdinand and Isabella establish the Inquisition in Spain? Ostensibly, the reason was to investigate the allegations of Judaizing among the conversos. Historians have pointed to other reasons: as a means to consolidate power, as a source of revenue from the confiscation of converso wealth, as a means to eliminate the conversos from public life, and as part of the Reconquista of a united Spain to the faith. The stated reason for the inquisition was to root out "false" conversos. There seems to have been an allure to the claim that many conversos secretly practiced their old Jewish faith and, as such, were undermining the Faith. For centuries, such legends would persist in Spain, though most evidence shows that there were few "secret" Judaizers and that most conversos, particularly after the first generation of forced conversions, were faithful Catholics. This is why many historians have concluded that at the center of the inquisitorial storm was a racial, rather than a religious prejudice at work.

In March, 1492, Isabella and Ferdinand ordered the expulsion – or conversion – of all remaining Jews in their joint kingdoms. The intent of the declaration was more religious than racial, as Jewish conversion rather than expulsion was certainly the intent. While many Jews fled, a large number converted, thus aggravating the popular picture of secret Judaizers within the Christian community of Spain. Up through 1530, the primary activity of the inquisition in Spain would be aimed at pursuing conversos. The same would be true from 1650 to 1720. While its activities declined thereafter, the inquisition continued to exist until its final abolition in 1824.

The Spanish Inquisition had been universally established in Spain a few years prior to the expulsion of the Jews in 1492. Records show that virtually the only "heresy" prosecuted at that time was the alleged secret practice of the Jewish faith. In all, between the establishment of the Inquisition in Spain through 1530, it is estimated that approximately 2,000 "heretics" were turned over to the secular authorities for execution. [Kamen, p. 74.] Many of those convicted of heresy were conversos who had fled. These were burned in effigy.

The most famous period of the Spanish Inquisition, under the legendary Torquemada, had little to do with the common caricature of simple "bible-believing" Protestants torn apart by ruthless churchmen. The true picture is unsettling enough: it was a government-controlled inquisition aimed at faithful Catholics of Jewish ancestry. The motivations seemed far more racial than religious, if not in Ferdinand and Isabella, then certainly among those who carried it out. The papacy, under Sixtus IV (1471-1484) and Innocent VIII (1484-1492), rather than controlling the Spanish Inquisition, protested its unfair treatment of the conversos with little result.

 

History and Myth: The Inquisition

Reformation Response
Under Charles V, successor to Ferdinand and Isabella, the Inquisition became an established part of Spanish justice. With the outbreak of Luther’s Reformation in Europe and the spread of its ideas in the 1520s, it was entrenched as a means to both protect the faith in Spain from infiltration of this new heresy, and as a further means to buttress royal power.

The Reformation would have little impact in Spain. One on the one hand, the existence of an active State-sponsored inquisition can be viewed as one reason it never took hold. On the other hand, however, Spain’s traditional Catholicism so identified with the Reconquista of the late 15th Century surely played a strong role. "Unlike England, France and Germany, Spain had not since the early Middle Ages experienced a single significant popular heresy. All its ideological struggles since the Reconquest had been directed against the minority religions, Judaism and Islam. There were consequently no native heresies (like Wycliffism in England) on which German ideas could build."[Kamen, p. 92.] Humanism itself also had a rather weak impact in Spain. Scholars and essayists such as Erasmus had only a minimal following.[Erasmus (1466-1536), who served for a short time as counselor to Charles V, was a Dutch humanist and scholar. Though a harsh critic of the Church he would not join the Reformation and was friendly with St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, both martyrs to the Reformation in England. Though he was offered a cardinal’s hat in 1535, his writings were eventually condemned in the Catholic Counter Reformation.] The small number of humanists with an understanding of Erasmus were viewed suspiciously, however, and Erasmus would eventually become equated with Luther in Spain.

The image of a Spanish Inquisition burning hundreds of thousands of Protestant heretics has no basis in historical fact. There were so few Protestants in Spain that there could be no such prosecution, no matter how strong the inquisition and no matter how much anti-Catholic propagandists tried to create such an image in the 16th Century and thereafter. During the Reformation period, the inquisition in Spain certainly searched for evidence of Protestantism, particularly among the educated classes. Mystical spiritual movements were investigated, leading to persecution of a small group of illuminists, or alumbrados. This was an interior spiritual movement based on a passive union of the soul with God. While its condemnation in Spain affected only a few, it did impact on a generation of spiritual writers, including St. Theresa of Avila who would be questioned for alleged illuminist leanings. [Peters, p. 89.] "The Lutheran threat, however, took a long time to develop. In 1520, Luther had probably not been heard of in SpainHowever, a full generation went by and Lutheranism failed to take root in Spain. There was, in those years, no atmosphere of restriction or repression. Before 1558 possibly less than 50 cases of alleged Lutheranism among Spaniards came to the notice of the inquisitors." [Kamen, p. 91.]

The discovery of a small cell of Protestants in Seville and Valladolid in the late 1550s, however, generated concern in the highest quarters in Spain. The Seville group "totaled around one hundred and twenty persons, including the prior and members of the Jeronimite convent of Santa Paula. The group managed to exist in security until the 1550s, when some monks from San Isidro opportunely fled. The exiles…played little part in Spanish history but were glories of the European Reformation."[Kamen, p. 93.] The Seville Protestants were discovered in 1557, which led to the arrest of the Valladoid group as well in 1558. Spain reacted in horror to the discovery, and Charles V from his monastery retirement wrote in an infamous letter to his regent daughter Juana in Spain that so "great an evil" must be "suppressed and remedied without distinction of persons from the very beginning." [Kamen, p. 95.] Though Spain braced for a tidal wave of revelations and discoveries – with finger-pointing and accusations of pseudo-Protestants everywhere – in all, just over 100 persons in Spain were found to be Protestants and turned over to the secular authorities for execution in the 1560s. In the last decades of the century, an additional 200 Spaniards were accused of being followers of Luther. "Most of them were in no sense Protestants...Irreligious sentiments, drunken mockery, anticlerical expressions, were all captiously classified by the inquisitors (or by those who denounced the cases) as ‘Lutheran.’ Disrespect to church images, and eating meat on forbidden days, were taken as signs of heresy." [Kamen, p. 98.]

One aspect of the Spanish Inquisition that played into the hands of the Reformation propagandists was when it claimed jurisdiction over foreigners on its soil. Sailors and traders from foreign countries made up the bulk of the accusations of "Lutheranism" in Spain, leading to clashes with these governments. (Well into the 20th Century, all nations outside of Spain were referred to as tierras de herejes, or the "heretical countries.") Tales from these people who had faced the Spanish Inquisition were a favorite form of anti-Catholic literature and provided an unreliable source for the whole "black legend" that surrounded it.

 

Reformation Response (continued)
In many ways, the inquisition in Spain mirrored the structures of the medieval inquisitions. An inquisition began with the arrival in a community of its officers who would announce it at a Mass with all the community assembled. As in the medieval inquisition, an "edict of grace" was usually given to self-confess offenses without serious penalty. An "edict of faith," was often read that listed the heresies under investigation. By the 16th Century, inquisition trials were not public. The names of accusers were kept secret from the accused. Evidence was collected and presented to theologians for assessment. If proof were deemed sufficient, an arrest would take place (a rule often violated, as some arrests seemed to take place before any proof was established). Arrest was followed by immediate seizure of the property of the accused, which would be held until the case was settled.

As in the medieval Inquisition, torture was used to elicit confessions when there was insufficient proof. Torture was common throughout Europe in judicial actions and Spain was no exception. Torture could only be used in cases of heresy, which meant that it was not used for the minor offenses that made up the majority on inquisitorial activity. After 1530, however, torture appeared more frequently when the inquisition was specifically investigating alleged Judaizers and Protestants. However, the "scenes of sadism conjured up by popular writers on the inquisition have little basis in reality, though the whole procedure was unpleasant enough to arouse periodic protests from Spaniards." [Kamen, p. 189] Those conducting the tortures were not clergy, as often portrayed in artistic representations, but were professionals normally used in the secular courts. The torture could not cause bloodletting or result in loss of life or mutilation. The purpose of the torture, unlike in secular tribunals, was to gain either information or confession, not punishment. It was used only in a minority of cases, and normally as a last resort. [For a full outline of the Spanish Inquisition and the use of torture see Kamen, pp. 174-192.]

Since evidence and witnesses were gathered before the arrest, the inquisition did not see its function as a trial to determine guilt or innocence. The accused was arrested with the goal of gaining a confession. The accused was usually given three opportunities to admit to the wrongs after which, the prosecutor would read the charges and the accused had to respond immediately. Unlike the medieval inquisition, the accused was allowed legal counsel, though these counselors were officers of the inquisition and not terribly helpful. The accused could then muster a defense based on witness testimony, or pleas of extenuating circumstances, such as drunkenness. A body called the consulta de fe, made up of inquisitors, a representative of the local bishop and theological consultors would then issue a ruling.

Those found guilty were sentenced to varying degrees of penances that could go from donning the sanbenito, a yellow penitential garb to be worn at all times in public, to servitude on a Spanish galley. As in the medieval inquisition, most cases did not involve heresy. Charges such as bigamy, adultery, lewd living and blasphemy were the majority of cases. Only unrepentant heretics or relapsed heretics could be "relaxed" – turned over – to the secular authorities to be burned at the stake. After the bitter persecution of the conversos in the first 20 years of the inquisition, in the 17th and 18th centuries fewer than three people a year were executed throughout Spain. [Kamen, p. 203.] In fact, most condemned were burnt only in effigy, having previously died or fled the country.

The auto de fe that followed trials is the most infamous, and misunderstood, part of the Spanish Inquisition. An auto de fe was a unique aspect of the Spanish Inquisition, a public, liturgical "act of faith." Usually held in a public square, an auto de fe involved prayer, a Mass, public procession of those found guilty and a reading of their sentences. The event could certainly take the entire day and the public was encouraged to witness it. Artistic representations of the auto de fe by propagandists usually involved images of torture and the burning of the accused. As such, they became a major source for creating the image in the popular mind of the Spanish Inquisition. However, no such activities took place during what was essential a religious act stressing the "reconciliation" of those accused with the Church. There was no torture as trials had been concluded, and if executions were to take place, they were separate from the auto de fe and conducted less publicly after the fact.See [Kamen, pp. 192-213.]

The Spanish Inquisition was unique. Wrestled early from the papacy, it was controlled by the Spanish monarchy. Its aim, certainly, was to maintain a Catholic Spain, but its use was primarily centered on Catholic conversos of Jewish and, later, Muslim ancestry. It was certainly a force that kept Protestant – and, to a degree, Enlightenment – thought out of Spain, though the number of those actually prosecuted for such activity was very small. It would persist with various flare-ups in activities through the 17th and 18th centuries, though the auto de fe became less frequent. The last major outburst in activity was aimed once again at alleged Judaizing among conversos in the 1720s. It was formally ended by the monarchy in 1834, though it had effectively come to an end years prior. [Kamen, p. 304.]

 

History and Myth: The Inquisition

The Inquisition in Italy

Unlike the inquisition in Spain, the inquisition in the Papal States and in various Italian cities had no conversos to be targeted. (Many Spanish conversos would find refuge in Rome and other Italian cities where they were never bothered.) By the mid-sixteenth century and the publishing of the reforms of the Council of Trent (1563), the inquisition in Rome focused on keeping out Protestant thought. "Like the Spanish Inquisition, the Roman Inquisition and its subordinate tribunals appear to have been generally successful in keeping any substantial Protestant influence from spreading widely in the peninsula…once the immediate problem of Protestantism was reduced, (the inquisition) turned the bulk of its operation to the question of internal ecclesiastical discipline and to offenses other than Protestantism." [Peters, p. 111.]

The early inquisition in Rome also focused on the so-called "popular religion," the superstitious practices, including witchcraft, that were survived in the fifteenth and 16th centuries. The Spanish Inquisition would also flirt at times with these practices. Unlike the Protestant reformers, however, the inquisitions in both Italy and Spain eventually began to see these difficulties as the result of poor catechesis, rather than active heresy and took less interest in its prosecution. After early rather intense prosecution, the inquisitions generally turned skeptical toward accusations of witchcraft and sorcery and established rigorous rules of prosecution and evidence. In most cases in Catholic countries in the 17th century and beyond, the inquisitions had less and less to do with prosecution of superstition.[Peters, p. 111.]

The inquisitions as they existed in the Papal States and the cities and kingdoms throughout Italy were never viewed with the same approbation as the Spanish Inquisition. For the most part, these inquisitions focused on clerical abuses and, outside the Papal States, had a strong mix of political intrigue. However, three famous cases that contributed to the myth of the Inquisition took place in Italy. They were the trials of Savonarola (1498), Giordano Bruno (1593-1599) and Galileo (1633).

"Savonarola was the Middle Ages surviving into the Renaissance, and the Renaissance destroyed him."[The Renaissance, by Will Durant (Simon & Schuster, 1981) p.161.] A Dominican friar, Girolamo Savonarola was a firebrand speaker who denounced the immorality of his time, and did not spare Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503). Preaching in Florence, he formed his own renewed monastic order, as well as becoming an influential leader in the new Florentine Republic proclaimed in June 1495. Poor statesmanship – as well as a populace that grew tired of his puritanical reformation as seen in the "bonfire of the vanities" where worldly items were burned – led to his downfall. Pope Alexander VI was little concerned about Savonarola’s personal criticism. But when his friends proclaimed him a prophet from God, and he attempted to convince the French king to call a general council and depose the pope as "an infidel and a heretic," he was summoned to Rome to explain himself. Savonarola claimed ill health and Alexander ordered an investigation of his sermons. A Dominican reviewed them favorably and convinced the pope that not only should he not be tried, but that he should be named a cardinal. The offer was made and was rejected in a thunderous series of Lenten sermons denouncing the Church and the papacy. He issued letters to the kings of Europe demanding a council to overthrow what he saw as a corrupt papacy.

Florence was being torn apart by the controversial friar. He was soon abandoned by Florentine leadership and arrested along with two others from his order. The pope asked that they be sent to Rome for an ecclesial trial, but Florentine authorities, tired of the meddlesome friar, wanted him killed. He was tried under the local inquisition on charges of schism, heresy, revealing confessional secrets, false prophecies and visions, as well as causing civil disorder. He was found guilty and executed on May 23, 1498. Though seen by some as a pre-Reformation martyr, his meddling in Florentine politics, rather than his call for moral reforms and his attacks on Pope Alexander VI caused Savonarola’s downfall. Though certainly tried with the approbation of the pope, his death was more a civil act than an inquisitorial judgment.[The Renaissance, by Will Durant (Simon & Schuster, 1981) pp. 143-162.]

Giordano Bruno was born near Naples in 1548. He was ordained a Dominican in 1572, but he quickly came to doubt most fundamental Christian belief. Unlike the Protestant reformers, Bruno saw himself as a philosopher. He left the monastery, ending up for a time in Geneva where he was tried for citing heresy by a Calvinist theologian. He apologized and was freed. Bruno wandered Europe, where he was recognized in various courts as a masterful philosopher as well as a common nuisance. Vain, arrogant and a misogynist, he would be denounced a heretic by the reformed churches as well as the inquisition. His philosophy, as disorganized as it was, identified God with an infinite universe. [The Age of Reason Begins, by Will and Ariel Durant (Simon & Schuster, 1989) pp. 620-621.] After 16 years of wandering, Bruno decided to return to Italy thinking "should be questioned by the Inquisition, he could (as well he might) quote enough orthodox passages from his works to deceive the Church into thinking him her loving son."[The Age of Reason Begins, by Will and Ariel Durant (Simon & Schuster, 1989) p. 621.] In 1592, the Venetian inquisition had him arrested. He was arrested not only for his heretical views, but also as a priest who had abandoned his vocation. In 1593, he was sent to Rome. After years of imprisonment and questioning, he was condemned in 1599 for his writings on the Trinity and the Incarnation. He was ordered to recant. He appealed to the pope who judged the propositions heretical. Bruno refused to recant and he was turned over to the secular authorities. He was burned on February 19, 1600. [In the late 19th century funds were raised internationally to place a "spike" commemorative at the site where Bruno was burned. Demonstrations – usually anti-Catholic – are held there annually on the anniversary of his death.] Bruno was an excessive character – and a bit of a charlatan – who rejected fundamental beliefs of Catholicism and was condemned by the reformers as well. A man who abandoned the priesthood, in the difficult days of the Reformation and the Counter Reformation, he was certain to be prosecuted and seemed to court his own martyrdom.

The Galileo affair entered the mythological corpus of Western secularism as symbolizing the Church as anti-science. Galileo was tried by the papal inquisition in 1633 for publishing in defiance of a mandate he was allegedly given in 1616. Galileo taught as fact that the earth rotated on its axis and orbited the sun. Both views appeared to violate Scripture. His 1633 trial is most often portrayed as Galileo the scientist arguing the supremacy of reason and the tribunal judges demanding that reason abjure to faith. The trial was neither. Galileo, a firm and orthodox Catholic, and the tribunal judges shared a common view that science and the Bible could not stand in contradiction. If there appeared to be a contradiction, such a contradiction resulted from either weak science, or poor interpretation of Scripture. In context, the trial exhibited both faults. Galileo’s technology was far too limited at the time to scientifically prove his assertion of the earth’s double rotation. At the same time, the tribunal judges were at fault for a literal interpretation of biblical passages and making scientific judgments never intended by the Scriptural authors. Galileo was sentenced to a comfortable house arrest after he recanted his views. He died in 1642.

In each of the above cases, a myth grew that became useful to anti-Catholic propagandists. Savonarola symbolized the "debasement" of the papacy and the Catholic world prior to the Reformation. He was seen as a symbol of moral reform in the alleged moral squalor of the world of the Renaissance popes. Bruno became the martyr to "free thought"; Galileo to science versus religious superstition. All were seen as the victims of an inquisition that came to be seen as the driving force of papal power, the creator of "millions" of Protestant martyrs, and the enemy of Enlightenment and Progress. It was this myth that persists today.

 

History and Myth: The Inquisition

The creation of the myth of the Inquisition

"The Inquisition was an image assembled from a body of legends and myths which, between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries, established the perceived character of inquisitorial tribunals and influenced all ensuing efforts to recover their historical reality. That body took shape in the context of intensified religious persecution as a consequence of the Reformation of the sixteenth century and of the central role of Spain, the greatest power in Europe, in assuming the role of defender of Roman Catholicism." [Peters, p. 122]

Edward Peters in Inquisition explains how the myth of the all-embracing inquisition developed in European thought. Protestant reformers used the inquisition – which they presented as a unified, papal-dominated event from the 13th century through the 17th century – as a source for creating centuries of alleged Christian martyrs and a hidden, Bible-believing Church that they claimed had always existed. It also served as a means to generate anti-Catholic sentiment, particularly during the Revolt of the Netherlands against Spain. The creation of the myth of the Inquisition was tied to the creation of an image of Spain in the consciousness of the West. "An image of Spain circulated through late sixteenth-century Europe, borne by means of political and religious propaganda that blackened the characters of Spaniards and their ruler to such an extent that Spain became the symbol of all forces of repression, brutality, religious and political intolerance, and intellectual and artistic backwardness for the next four centuries. Spaniards and Hispanophiles have termed this process and the image that resulted from it as ‘The Black Legend,’ la leyenda negra." [Peters, p. 131.]

The building of the myth of the Inquisition, particularly the Spanish Inquisition, had nothing to do with the actual racial persecution of the conversos. That critical aspect of the Inquisition would not be rediscovered until historical studies of the actual documents of the Spanish Inquisition late in the 19th Century, study that continues today. The crucial element in the 16th Century was the inquisition in Spain of a small number of Protestants from 1559 to 1562. In Germany in 1567, two Spanish Protestants under the pseudonym Reginaldus Gonzalvus Montanus published Sanctae Inquisitionis Hispanicae Artes. Though a basic propaganda tract, it would be reprinted throughout Europe and be considered the definitive source on the inquisition for over 200 years. Most inquisition "histories" written thereafter, virtually until the late 19th Century, would rely on Montanus, which became a primary source, though written by anything but an unbiased eye.

Curiously, another source for the myth of the inquisition was Catholic Italy. Italian Catholics – the papal representatives included – had a dislike for the Spanish whom they considered rural racist bumpkins. The attacks in Spain on the conversos were viewed as despicable in Rome. Italians "felt that Spanish hypocrisy in religion, together with the existence of the Inquisition, proved that the tribunal was created not for religious purity, but simply to rob the Jews. Similar views were certainly held by the prelates of the Holy See whenever they intervened in favor of the conversos. Moreover, the racialism of the Spanish authorities was scorned in Italy, where the Jewish community led a comparatively tranquil existence." [Kamen, p. 309.] Another Catholic source was Bartolome de las Casas. Las Casas was writing to condemn Spanish governmental policies in the New World and the use of slavery. His work was used by anti-Spanish propagandists to paint a portrait of evil Spain despoiling innocent natives, as they would surely do in any land over which they ruled, Old World or New.

The true explosion in inquisition rhetoric was in the period just prior to and through the revolt in the Netherlands from Spanish control. That revolt involved a fragile alliance of Catholic and Calvinist leaders against Catholic Spain. Beginning in 1548, the "printing press and propaganda turned to the service of political reform, with the inquisition as a major focus, on such a wide scale and with comparatively devastating effects." [Peters, p. 144.] Though the Dutch themselves were trying heretics with their own state-run inquisition, it was argued that King Philip II of Spain (who succeeded Charles V) would introduce specifically a Spanish Inquisition in the Netherlands, not only crushing Protestants but denying Catholics their own freedoms as well. Popular literature created a horrific picture of an all-encompassing Spanish Inquisition that dominated the king and controlled every aspect of Spanish life.

As the Calvinist element began to dominate in the Dutch revolt, one of the most famous documents in the creation of the myth of the inquisition was published in 1581, the Apologie of William of Orange. Written by a French Huguenot, the Apologie detailed a horrific inquisition, generated by Spaniards who "are of the blood of the Moors and Jews." [Kamen, p. 310.] "With the Apologie, all of the anti-Inquisition propaganda of the past 40 years was enshrined in a political document that validated the Dutch revolt."[Peters, p. 153.] When the English under Elizabeth I prepared to defend themselves against the Spanish armada, and the pope called for an English crusade, nationalistic fervor was fueled in England by anti-Catholic propaganda. Central to the propaganda campaign are a series of books and pamphlets detailing the horror of the Spanish Inquisition. The inquisition would become a hallmark of English anti-Catholic literature for 200 years, and be passed on to the popular anti-Catholic mythology in the United States.

Relying on these histories, fantastic accounts of alleged survivors and pure propaganda, an image of the inquisition was created that persists today. Fueled as well by the 18th Century Enlightenment and 19th Century Age of Scientism, the myth was created of "the universal oppressor of those who sought political liberty as well as true religion. In a series of specific circumstances and the articulation of local experience, the instruments of the Roman Church and the Spanish Empire merged into a single awesome institution: The Inquisition. Serving the diverse purposes of many sixteenth-century thinkers well, the Inquisition became a common object of reference in the debates over the problem of religious and civil toleration. Many people who found it difficult to agree with each other on many issues found it easy to agree upon The Inquisition." [Peters, p. 154]

 

History and Myth: The Inquisition

Conclusion
Historical studies of the archives of the inquisitions in the 20th Century have created a different picture beyond the steamy rhetoric of Reformation polemics. At the beginning, a number of common assumptions concerning the inquisition were outlined. In conclusion, they should be briefly revisited:

• The inquisition as a singly, unified court system directly responsible to the pope and controlled solely by the papacy.

• Even within the Papal States in the 16th century, the papacy had difficulty maintaining effective control over local inquisitions. Inquisitorial courts were usually controlled by the local church in alliance with local secular authority. Though it began in the 13th century as a papal-designated juridical system to remove "heresy-hunting" from control of the mob or secular authorities, it evolved rather quickly as a device of the local church and secular authorities to address local, and later national or dynastic goals. There were many inquisitions, rather than a singular "Inquisition."
• The inquisition existed throughout Europe for nearly 700 years and focused its efforts on a "secret" and "hidden" church, similar to that of the Reformation churches. The many inquisitions that took place existed sporadically in different regions, at different times, and to meet different local needs. The medieval inquisition barely existed, for example, in Spain and Portugal. For hundreds of years, the inquisition in many places existed only sporadically, if at all. In the 16th century, it existed primarily in Spain, Portugal, the Papal States and other Italian cities. It existed – dominated by the State – in France and, early in the century, in England. It did not exist as a single continuous entity, nor did it prosecute a "secret" church that was a precursor of Protestantism. Early heresies – such as the Albigensians – held doctrinal positions that were essentially unchristian that would have horrified the Protestant reformers.
  [*]It was primarily aimed at the early Protestant reformers of the 16th century and the Spanish Inquisition alone killed and tortured hundreds of thousands of Protestant reformers. The Spanish Inquisition was aimed primarily at Catholics of Jewish ancestry. In total, it is unlikely that even three thousand, let alone hundreds of thousands, Protestants suffered at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition. While those alleged to be Protestants were inquisitorial victims in England and Europe, there numbers were small and most were protected by Protestant or sympathetic rulers. Much of the focus of the various inquisitions were clerical abuses and what was considered scandalous behavior. Most cases in the inquisitions involved adultery, drunkenness, failure to attend to religious devotions, sacrilege, verbal abuse of clergy, etc.
• Vicious tortures were routinely used. Torture was utilized, but under rules far stricter than the norm in secular courts of the time. Torture was never used for punishment. Exotic torture mechanisms were the creation of propagandists. Torture could only be used in cases involving a charge of heresy or a relapsed heretic. As the far majority of inquisitorial cases did not involve such issues, torture was a rare occurrence and a last resort.
• The Spanish Inquisition existed independent of Spanish secular authority and existed solely as an arm of the church, as did other inquisitions. Though established with papal mandate, the Spanish Inquisition was an office of the Spanish government and existed so long because of that support. The crown and the Church in Spain, not the papacy that often took issue with its activities, controlled it. For the most part, inquisitions in Spain and elsewhere were under the control of the local church working with local secular authorities.
• The inquisition was a means for the Church to exercise its authority over science. Inquisitions rarely involved themselves in the area of science, despite the well-known case of Galileo. Even in the Galileo case, the concern of Church authorities was not in the discussion of the theory of the orbit of the earth around the sun – a theory that appeared to contradict Scripture – but teaching what was then scientifically unverifiable as scientific fact.
• Persecution of religious dissent was unique to the inquisitions and to the Catholic Church in Europe. Religious dissent was punished in all Protestant lands throughout the Reformation period, whether of Catholics or Protestants dissenting from the majority Protestant viewpoint. The difference was that this was considered solely a judicial activity of the state, rather than involving an ecclesial court.

 

Albigenses

Eliyahu, here are five short explanations of the Albigenses from five different sources. [Catholic, Anglican, Secularist, Lutheran, and Baptist]


1) From the Catholic Encyclopedia, "Albigenses":
A neo-Manichæan sect that flourished in southern France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries . . . They were also called Catharists (katharos, pure), though in reality they were only a branch of the Catharistic movement . . .


I. PRINCIPLES


(a) Doctrinal
The Albigenses asserted the co-existence of two mutually opposed principles, one good, the other evil. The former is the creator of the spiritual, the latter of the material world. The bad principle is the source of all evil; natural phenomena, either ordinary like the growth of plants, or extraordinary as earthquakes, likewise moral disorders (war), must be attributed to him. He created the human body and is the author of sin, which springs from matter and not from the spirit. The Old Testament must be either partly or entirely ascribed to him; whereas the New Testament is the revelation of the beneficent God. The latter is the creator of human souls, which the bad principle imprisoned in material bodies after he had deceived them into leaving the kingdom of light. This earth is a place of punishment, the only hell that exists for the human soul. Punishment, however, is not everlasting; for all souls, being Divine in nature, must eventually be liberated. To accomplish this deliverance God sent upon earth Jesus Christ, who, although very perfect, like the Holy Ghost, is still a mere creature. The Redeemer could not take on a genuine human body, because he would thereby have come under the control of the evil principle. His body was, therefore, of celestial essence, and with it He penetrated the ear of Mary. It was only apparently that He was born from her and only apparently that He suffered. His redemption was not operative, but solely instructive. To enjoy its benefits, one must become a member of the Church of Christ (the Albigenses). Here below, it is not the Catholic sacraments but the peculiar ceremony of the Albigenses known as the consolamentum, or "consolation," that purifies the soul from all sin and ensures its immediate return to heaven. The resurrection of the body will not take place, since by its nature all flesh is evil.


(b) Moral
The dualism of the Albigenses was also the basis of their moral teaching. Man, they taught, is a living contradiction. Hence, the liberation of the soul from its captivity in the body is the true end of our being. To attain this, suicide is commendable; it was customary among them in the form of the endura (starvation). The extinction of bodily life on the largest scale consistent with human existence is also a perfect aim. As generation propagates the slavery of the soul to the body, perpetual chastity should be practiced. Matrimonial intercourse is unlawful; concubinage, being of a less permanent nature, is preferable to marriage. Abandonment of his wife by the husband, or vice versa, is desirable. Generation was abhorred by the Albigenses even in the animal kingdom. Consequently, abstention from all animal food, except fish, was enjoined. Their belief in metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, the result of their logical rejection of purgatory, furnishes another explanation for the same abstinence. To this practice they added long and rigorous fasts. The necessity of absolute fidelity to the sect was strongly inculcated. War and capital punishment were absolutely condemned . . .


Properly speaking, Albigensianism was not a Christian heresy but an extra-Christian religion . . . What the Church combated was principles that led directly not only to the ruin of Christianity, but to the very extinction of the human race.


2) From The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church [Anglican] (ed. F.L. Cross, 2nd ed., ed. F.L. Cross & E.A. Livingstone, Oxford Univ. Press, 1983, "Albigenses," 31):
. . . Their doctrine in its purest form was strongly dualist, akin to the Manichaean beliefs, and they rejected the flesh and material creation as evil . . . [they taught that] Christ was an angel with a phantom body who, consequently, did not suffer or rise again, and whose redemptive work consisted only in teaching man the true (i.e., Albigensian) doctrine.


Rejecting the sacraments, the doctrines of hell, purgatory, and the resurrection of the body, and believing that all matter was bad, their moral doctrine was of extreme rigorism, condemning marriage, the use of meat, milk, eggs, and other animal produce . . .

 

Albigenses

3) From The Age of Faith, Will Durant [secularist] (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1950, 771-772):
The doctrines and practices of the Cathari were in part a return to primitive Christian beliefs and ways, partly a vague memory of the Arian heresy . . . , partly a product of Manichean and other Oriental ideas . . .

The theology of the Cathari divided the cosmos Manicheanly into Good, God, Spirit, Heaven; and Evil, Satan, Matter, the material universe. Satan, not God, created the visible world. All matter was accounted evil, including the cross on which Christ died . . . All flesh was matter, and all contact with it was impurity; all sexual congress was sinful; the sin of Adam and Eve was coitus. Opponents describe the Albigenses as rejecting the sacraments, the Mass, the veneration of images, the Trinity, and the Virgin Birth; Christ was an angel, but not one with God . . .

There was no hell or purgatory in this theology; every soul would be saved, if only after many purifying transmigrations. To attain heaven one had to die in a state of purity; for this it was necessary to receive from a Catharist priest the consolamentum, a last sacrament which completely cleansed the soul of sin.

4) From Jaroslav Pelikan [Lutheran], The Growth of Medieval Theology (600-1300) (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1978, 238-241):
The doctrine of the Cathari went far deeper in its divergence from catholic orthodoxy than even the most radical of attacks on the church and its structures, penetrating to the very center of Christian monotheism, including the doctrines of the trinity and the person of Christ . . .

The Cathari stood in a succession, episcopal as well as doctrinal, with the Bogomils of Bulgaria, and through them - whatever the historical connection may have been - with the ancient Manichean heresy . . .

Both the confessional literature of the Cathari themselves and the writings of catholics against them identified the dualistic view of God as their primary tenet . . .

. . . the Trinity, which was obviously jeopardized by the assertion that there were two gods, but also the person of Christ. If the good God could not be the Creator of a visible world in which sin and evil took place, it had to follow that the human nature of Christ could not partake of such a world . . . Some of the Cathari apparently extricated themselves from this difficulty by resorting to the ancient docetic heresy that the humanity of Christ was only an illusion . . .

It was likewise a corollary of the dualism of the Cathari that the traditional Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body was unacceptable . . .

The contrast between the morality of the Old Testament and that of the New was due to the origin of the former in the evil god . . . 'the patriarchs . . . and all those who died before the passion [of Christ] were damned.' . . . John the Baptist came in for special condemnation from some of the Cathari as 'the one who had been sent by the devil to impede the way of Christ' and who had been damned.

5) From Kenneth Scott Latourette [Baptist]: A History of Christianity: vol. 1: Beginnings to 1500 (NY: Harper & Row, 1953, 454-455):
The Cathari were dualists, believing that there are two eternal powers, the one good and the other evil, that the visible world is the creation of the evil power, and that the spiritual world is the work of the good power . . .

Some put forth a variant of this dualism, saying that the good God had two sons, one of whom, Satanal, rebelled, and the other, Christ, became the redeemer . . .

They held that since flesh is evil, Christ could not have had a real body or have died a real death . . .

Some of their most caustic critics bore witness to their high moral character.

 

It looks like BobRyan WANTS to believe the myths of the Inquistion (in my opinion), the sources he gives are biased, (I could probably find some sources, that are biased toward Albert Einstein, that say that he was not really that smart.) And what is up with posting the same information twice???

If you want to read books that are not biased toward the Inquisition, see the mostly non-Catholic sources in the brief bibliography below, books that have been around for decades. The Inquisition by Edward Peters (Peters book is a fascinating account of the development of the myth of the inquisition and how polemics, art and literature enhanced this myth. Peters is the Henry Charles Lea Professor of Medieval History at the University of Pennsylvania.) and The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision by Henry Kamen (the best available study on the origins, methods and history of the Spanish Inquisition. Kamen is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a professor of the Higher Council for Scientific Research in Barcelona, Spain.) These are the books that I cited extensively in the posts. I highly recommend these books and the list of books below if you would like to know the real history of the Inquisition (not according to BobRyan, Heavenly Pilgrim, Dave Hunt) (I would ask anyone who has doubts about the information that I provided, please check out some of the resources in the following bibliography, which present different perspectives on the Inquisition, but the basic facts remain constant.)

A Critical History of the Inquisition of Spain by Juan Antonio Llorente/intro Gabriel Lovett (orig 1823, 1966)

A History of the Inquisition of Spain (4 volumes) and other works by Henry Charles Lea (orig 1906, 1966)

The Inquisition from its Establishment to the Great Schism by A.L. Maycock/intro Fr. Ronald Knox (orig 1926, 1969)

History of the Origin and Establishment of the Inquisition in Portugal by Alexandre Herculano (orig 1926, 1968)

The Inquisition: A Political and Military Study of its Establishment by Hoffman Nickerson/preface Hilaire Belloc (orig 1932, 1968)

The Spanish Inquisition by A.S. Turberville (orig 1932, 1968)

The Spanish Inquisition by Cecil Roth (orig 1937, 1964)

The Spanish Inquisition by Henry Kamen (1965)

The Spanish Inquisition: Its Rise, Growth, and End (3 books in one) by Jean Plaidy (The Citadel Press, 1967)

The Spanish Inquisition edited by Paul J. Hauben, et al (John Wiley and Sons, 1969), a series of essays by different authors

The Mexican Inquisition of the Sixteenth Century by Richard E. Greenleaf (Univ of New Mexico Press, 1969)

The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540-1605 by Paul F. Grendler (Princeton Univ Press, 1977)

Inquisition and Society in Spain in the 16th and 17th Centuries by Henry Kamen (Indiana Univ Press, 1985) re-work of 1965 book (Note: Kamen also has a more recent 1998 book on the Spanish Inquisition)

The Spanish Inquisition and the Inquisitorial Mind edited by Angel Alcala, et al (Columbia Univ Press, 1987), a series of essays by different authors

Inquisition by Edward Peters (The Free Press/Macmillan, 1988 [Univ of CA Press, 1989])

The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain by B. Netanyahu (Random House, 1995)

The End of Days: A Story of Tolerance, Tyranny, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain by Erna Paris (Prometheus Books, 1995)