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The Rise of the Modern Inquisition in Portugal and Brazil, and the Transformation of Jews and New Christians Into Heretics

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The Rise of the Modern Inquisition in Portugal and Brazil, and the Transformation of Jews and New Christians Into Heretics Chapter 8 The Rise of the Modern Inquisition in Portugal and Brazil, and the Transformation of Jews and New Christians into Heretics Lúcia Helena Costigan 1 Introduction The Holy Office of the Inquisition that was established in Spain in 1478, and in Portugal in 1536 derived from the medieval inquisitions that existed previously in Europe, but it differed from the old model in many ways. Instead of being itinerant and controlled by the Pope and the priests, this new form of Inqui- sition was heavily influenced and controlled by the Spanish and Portuguese crowns. The freedom that the kings had to select the inquisitors and the mem- bers of the tribunals of the Holy Office transformed the Spanish and the Por- tuguese Inquisitions into a modern institution that combined the church and the state apparatus. Also, different from the medieval inquisitions that aimed to combat all forms of heresies, this modern institution that emerged on the Iberian Peninsula during the reign of Isabel and Fernando (r. 1469–1516) was particularly concerned with the eradication of crypto-Judaism, or the secret practice of Judaism by descendants of Jews who became known in Spain as conversos and in Portugal as cristãos-novos1 after the imposition of mass bap- tisms in the Peninsula. As Helen Rawlings observes in her contribution to this special volume, “eager to assert its dominance as both a political and religious force” the Holy Office of the Inquisition that emerged in Spain in 1478 aimed “to root out the incidence of heresy within the crypto-Jewish community.” When comparing the Portuguese Inquisition with the Spanish one, we are intrigued by the fact that only in 1536, more than half a century after it had been established in Spain, the new Holy Office of the Inquisition apparatus arrived in the Lusitanian lands. It is noteworthy that that Iberian monarchs who de- scended from Isabel and Fernando of Spain played a major role in the process 1 Throughout the paper the terms New Christians and Crypto-Jews will be used to refer to the words cristãos-novos and conversos. Portions of this chapter are adapted from my book, Through Cracks in the Wall: Modern Inquisitions and New Christian Letrados in the Iberian Atlantic World (Leiden: Brill, 2010). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:�0.��63/9789004393875_0�0 <UN> The Rise of the Modern Inquisition in Portugal and Brazil 229 that resulted in the establishment of the Holy Office in Portugal. Due to the strong influence of the Spanish rulers in the creation of a new inquisitorial ap- paratus in Portugal, we came to the conclusion that the Portuguese Inquisition was an intervention of Spain. This can be demonstrated by the fact that after the death of his grandparents Isabel and Fernando, Charles v, who governed the Spanish Empire from 1516 until 1556, played a decisive role in persuad- ing Rome to comply with the request of his cousin, king John iii of Portugal (r. 1521–1557) to introduce the Holy Office of the Inquisition in the Lusitanian lands. Because both Charles v and John iii followed on the footsteps of their grandparents, the Spanish Catholic monarchs, in relying on the Holy Office to assert their dominance as both political and religious forces, it is pertinent to believe that the introduction of the Tribunal of the Holy Office in Portugal in 1536 derived from the influence and pressures of the Spanish Catholic kings. To further demonstrate the Spanish influence on the Portuguese monarch to use the Inquisition as an apparatus to assert political and religious dominance we refer to the fact that in 1547, eleven years after the introduction of the Inquisi- tion in Portugal, Pope Paul ii (1534–1549), complying with another request by king John iii, used the Bull Meditatio Cordis, to nominate his brother, Cardinal Dom Henrique, as General inquisitor of Portugal and its overseas domains. It was only then that the Holy Office begun to function without interruptions and started to systematically persecute descendants of Jews as heretics. Due to the contrastive aspects between the Spanish and the Portuguese In- quisition, and particularly in relation to the experiences of Jews and conversos in the two Iberian empires during the last centuries of the medieval period and the beginning of the modern times, beginning with a brief introduction and ending with a short conclusion, this essay will be divided into two major parts. The first one will focus on the ethnic, political, economic and religious devel- opments in the Iberian Peninsula that led to the establishment of the modern Inquisition in Portugal in 1536, and that made the Sephardic Jews who lived in the Lusitanian lands to be perceived no longer as allies to the kings but as her- etics and foes to the empire and to the Catholic religion. The second part of the paper addresses the changes that occurred in Portugal and in Brazil between 1580 and 1640, a period when Portugal and its overseas possessions were an- nexed to the Spanish crown, and the subsequent political developments that led to the last Inquisition trial of a New Christian accused of being a heretic, and the end of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1820. As it will be demonstrated in the second part of the essay, it was during the reign of Philip ii of Spain, who ruled the Lusitanian empire from 1580–1598 as king Philip I of Portugal, that the first representatives of the Holy Office were sent to Brazil in search of deviants of the Catholic faith. The systematic visitations of the Inquisition <UN>.
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