The Spanish Inquisition

For 300 hundred years, the Spanish Inquisition held sway in Spanish-controlled territory.  Growing out of the Papal Inquisition of the 12 through 14th Centuries, from its founding in 1478, it rise to absolute power 1492 with the fall of Moorish Granada, and until it's official abolition in 1834, the Inquisition killed and tortured thousands.  It arrested on suspicion, tortured until confession, then punished by fire.  Although primarily rising, at least initially, as a reaction against Jews and a result of the Jewish Expulsion, the Inquisition touched many other lives: Christians, the merchant class, clergy, and the ruling class and became an instrument of class warfare, not only religious warfare.

"Tortures of the Inquisition," by Picat

For an account of a Papal Inquisition torture session, click here

For books on the Spanish Inquisition, click here.

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