The Spanish Inquisition

[Mustapha]

Sailor,

This thread reminds me of a British documentary on new interpretations of history. One part was on the Spanish Inquisition, and a number of its findings were as you’ve listed them here (esp that religous persecution was not confined to Spain or any worse).

The episode’s main contention was that the horror stories attributed to the Inquistion were actually started/fabricated by Protestant propagandists (who of course became a target).

It was remarked upon how efficient, methodical and, relatively speaking, fair the trials were. They showed footage of whole rooms filled volumes of trial records of the day.

But then, efficiency isn’t necessarily a good thing when attached to something of this nature.

[sailor]

Mustapha, what bothers me is that children in school are being taught crap at every level and in every subject.

This is not new. Scholars know it and it is all in good history books. In fact, many of the best books about Spanish history were written by English and American authors. It is just the elementary education is really crappy and perpetuates itself. The teachers who were taught crap, now teach the same crap. Not only in history but in other subjects (as has been discussed in other threads).

[betenoir]

*Originally posted by sailor *
**
When people learn their history from Mel Brooks and Monty Python, well, it may be fun… but it’s not the kind of history I am interested in. So, if you please, let us leave Monty Python and Mell Brooks aside for a moment and i would like to propose a more serious discussion of the Spanish Inquistion. If all you have to add is bad jokes **

Ahem. {commencing to be overly sensitive} Just because I quote Mel Brooks does not mean I learn my history from him.And, in the rest of my post,if you read it, I was trying to determine what kind of discussion you WERE proposing. As has been pointed out your initial post was not framed to illicit serious response. Furthermore those happen to be GOOD jokes.{easing off the defensivness thing}

I couldn’t agree with you more about the dangers of simplifying history. It’s absurd to think about any event in isolation.
I would like to point out one other historical element that bares on the SI:

**
The Inquisition was concerned with preserving the purity of the Catholic doctrine and only dealt with Catholics who were suspected of heresy, including Jews and Muslims who were suspected of being false converts: ie. those that professed to be converted to catholicsm but were in reality still practicing and believing their previous religion.

I do not believe there is one single case of the inquisition processing any person who was not under its jurisdiction but I would like to hear it if you know any.
**

This is entirely true. But we have to keep in mind, that the New Christians (if I’m not mistaken the Spanish Inquistion, as opposed to the Holy Roman Inquisitions conducted elsewhere, was mainly directed at the New Christian, ie former Jews and Muslims. But I’ll have to check on that) were usually not exactly voluntary converts who were complelled by the commpassion of Christ. They converted under threat of other persecution, exile from public life, the constant threat of deportation that European Jews lived under.I dunno, I think that’s relevant to a consideration of the validity of the Spanish Inquisition and it’s claim to jurisdiction.

And while there is a danger in judging history by comtemporary standards, there is also a danger is saying “Well that’s how they did thing back then.” and not making any judgement at all.
I doubt if the thousand of abolitionists of the 18th and 19th century would appreciate it if historian looked at slavery and said it was the standard of the time so it wasn’t wrong.

Like I said, Karen Armstrong had some very interesting things to say about Spaim in the 14-1500’s, that I’d like to add. Lemme go get the book…

[betenoir]

Well I look this stuff up so I’m posting it.

1. It was Spanish. That is, the Spanish one was. The 1483 Inquistion was started by Ferdinand and Isabella. Everything I read called it Ferdinand and Isabella’s Inquistion. Though of course it was done through the Church.

2. By the standards of the times, a lot of people of the time were alarmed by the excesses of the SI. Not, of course, by the idea of inquistions or the fittingness of torture and burning for heretics, but because of the secrecy of the proceeding, the fact that they asked people to inform on other lapsed Christians (which had not been standard procedure before that. It was supposed to be about personal confession and repentence) and that a number of the accused conversos were actually good Christains who were accused so there property to be confiscated. Apparently Pope Sixus IV asked for the proceeding to be supended so the abuses could be looked into, but they wern’t.

3. There was a good deal of resentment towards the conversos (also called Marranos, meaning pig) and numerous riots against them between 1449 and 1474, not because they were still practising Judeism, but because so many of them were doing so well. Ferdinand and Isabell saw them as a destablizing force in their fragile monarchy (yeah, it was hardly a nation at that point). I don’t think you can say it was souly a matter of Church purity.

4. Karen Armstrong cite the conversos, cut off from their old religion, and alienated from their new one due to the excesses of the Inquistion, as seeds of the rise of atheism and skeptisim in the West. Interesting idea.