The Spanish Inquisition: 300-Year-Long Period of Religious Scrutiny

After the Spanish took back the Iberian Peninsula from Moorish invaders in 1238 A.D., in an effort to unify the separate kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, in 1478, King Ferdinand the 2nd of Aragon and Queen Isabella the 1st of Castile established the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, intended to weed out heretics from the Catholic Church.

What Was the Spanish Inquisition?

Known simply as the Spanish Inquisition, after the Medieval Inquisitions swept through Europe with an equal emphasis on violent antisemitism towards Jews and Muslims, a three-century-long period of inquisitions by the Catholic Church witnessed the prosecution of an estimated 150,000 people, leading to the torture and execution of approximately 3% of all those placed under scrutiny.

While Jews and Muslims were at first tolerated in major cities like Seville and Barcelona, after the expulsion of Jews from England and France in 1290 and 1306 respectively, anti-Jewish sentiment climaxed in the summer of 1391 in cities like Barcelona, forcing many Jews to convert to Christianity or flee the country.

Conversos of the Spanish Inquisition

Known as conversos or Moriscos in the case of Muslims, after the royal Alhambra Decree of 1492, Jews and Muslims were ordered to convert to Catholicism or face expulsion from Spain, leading hundred of thousands of Jews and Muslims comply, in what the Hebrew language calls Anusim, or the forced hiding of one’s true faith.

Academics point to multiple hypotheses regarding the underlying triggers that sparked the Spanish Inquisition, including the enforcement across borders hypothesis, which unified the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon behind their commonly-shared embrace of Catholicism. Another is the Placate Europe hypothesis, since many Europeans expressed their displeasure with the “dirty blood” of Spaniards, who continued to tolerate Jews and Muslims after most of Europe had expelled these minorities from their Christian kingdoms, prompting Spanish monarchs to turn away from their African allies to appear more European and aligned with the Pope.

A third hypothesis is known as the Ottoman Scare, after the alleged discovery of Morisco plots aimed at supporting a possible Ottoman invasion of Spain, making the Spanish Inquisition a time of fear and persecution until its abolition in 1834.