In 1478, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain unleashed the Inquisition to find, punish and correct heretics.
Who Was a Heretic?
According to Catholic doctrine, a heretic was anyone who publicly declared beliefs contrary to accurate interpretations of the Bible and refused to denounce them, even after correction by church authorities. These actions had to be a function of free will and not of influence by the devil.
In Spain, the Catholic monarchs sought to achieve ecumenical homogeneity – as well as to remove political opposition and increase the royal coffers – by forcing Jews and Muslims to convert to Christianity. They took this step in the wake of the centuries-long Reconquista that established national unity and drove the Moors from power.
The converted Jews, (Conversos) and Muslims (Moriscos) faced fear, hostility and suspicion by their new co-religionists. Fearing that they would act in league with the unconverted, and convinced that they continued to practice their old religions in secret, church officials targeted them with the tribunal system known as the Inquisition.
The Inquisitorial Trial
Under the Inquisition, a judge, or Inquisitor, tried the accused and passed judgment. The accused – uninformed of the charges – was forced to testify, and no legal counsel was offered. Refusal to testify was regarded as proof of guilt. Moreover, anyone could testify against the accused – family, neighbors, criminals or other heretics – and these witnesses were never publicly identified. Witnesses rarely appeared for the accused, because they, themselves, would fall under suspicion. Accused individuals were strongly encouraged to indict other heretics.
The first trials were held in Seville, where more than 700 Conversos were burned at the stake. Five thousand repented. Tribunals followed in Aragon, Valencia and Catalonia. Other trials were held in Ciudad Real, Toledo and Barcelona, where the tribunal was at first resisted because of the prominence of the city’s Conversos.
Better educated than their subjects – and trained in confusing interrogation techniques and leading questions – Inquisitors sought to extract confessions. They believed it was their duty to bring the accused back to the faith. If a confession could not be obtained, the accused heretic might be sentenced to years in prison until he relented. If he never confessed, he might end his days in a dungeon.
Torture
If prison proved insufficient motivation, Inquisitors did not hesitate to resort to torture, a practice authorized by Pope Innocent V’s papal bull in 1252. Torture did not constitute punishment. It was used only to obtain a confession and could be administered by either civil authorities or the Inquisitors, themselves. If the accused confessed under torture, a second confession, when not under torture, still had to be obtained for validity.
The Inquisition employed many types of torture:
•Starvation
•Forcing the accused to consume vast quantities of liquid
•The application of burning coals
•Strappado: raising the subject to the ceiling with pulleys to pull the shoulders out of their sockets
•The rack: stretching the limbs on a roller-table until the joints became dislocated or the limbs were pulled off
While the accused suffered the horrors of strappado or the rack, Inquisitors often further encouraged them to confess by simultaneously applying other torture devices, such as thumbscrews, boots or other devices designed to mutilate, tear, burn or otherwise injure the hands, feet and bodily orifices.
Under the 1256 papal decree of Pope Alexander IV, Inquisitors had the power to absolve each other from any wrongdoings that might occur during torture sessions.
Sometimes, a “true confession” resulted in forgiveness. The accused generally performed a penance, such as making a pilgrimage or wearing heavy crosses about the neck. Often, as was the case with convicted heretics, they were forced to forfeit their worldly goods.
Repeat offenders, those who confessed and then returned to their heretical ways, were abandoned to civil authorities who had the power to put them to death – often by burning them at the stake. Inquisitors did not execute heretics.
Under the first 12 years of the Inquisition led by Torquemada and his two lieutenants, Dominican monks Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martin, more than 13,000 Conversos underwent trial The Inquisitors may have abandoned as many as 2,000 heretics to the secular authorities and death at the stake.
The Auto de Fe
Tribunals featured the auto de fe (act of faith), a formal church rite of public penance in which condemned heretics and apostates received their sentences. The auto de fe included a Catholic Mass, a public procession of the guilty and a reading of their sentences. The rites took place in public squares or esplanades and lasted for several hours. Ecclesiastical and civil authorities attended, as did the general public. The spectacles were popular, and attendance often exceeded that of bullfights. The first auto de fe in Spain occurred in Seville in 1481. Six of the guilty were later executed. However, in contrast to artistic representations, neither torture nor execution occurred at these religious ceremonies.
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