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All Volumes (2001-2008) The sprO ey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry

2006 Ruthless Oppressors? Unraveling the Myth About the Spanish Drek Ortiz University of North Florida

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Suggested Citation Ortiz, Drek, "Ruthless Oppressors? Unraveling the Myth About the " (2006). All Volumes (2001-2008). 66. http://digitalcommons.unf.edu/ojii_volumes/66

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the The sprO ey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry at UNF Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Volumes (2001-2008) by an authorized administrator of UNF Digital Commons. For more information, please contact Digital Projects. © 2006 All Rights Reserved Ruthless Oppressors? introduction froze the earlier heretics of , , and Germany into Unraveling the Myth About orthodoxy… It arrested on suspicion, the Spanish Inquisition tortured till confession, and then punished by fire. Two witnesses… were Drek Ortiz sufficient to consign the victim to a Presented at the National Council on loathsome . Here he was Undergraduate Research Conference sparingly supplied with food, forbidden Virginia Military Institute to speak… and left to himself till famine Lexington ,VA and misery should break his spirit… [If April 2005 he confess to ,] whether innocent or not, he might then assume the sacred Faculty Advisor: Dr. J. Michael Francis, shirt, and escape with the confiscation of Associate Professor of History all his property. If he persists to avow his innocence, brought him to Abstract the chamber deep within the ground so no one could hear him wail. From its inception to the present, The victim, whether man, matron, or critics of the Spanish Inquisition has tender —was stripped naked and characterized the institution as stretched upon the wooden bench. omnipotent and oppressive and Water, weights, fires, pulleys, screws— highlighted its role in the expulsion, all the apparatus by which the sinews , and execution of could be strained without cracking, the supposed heretics. The latter perception bones bruised without breaking, and the is misleading. Revisionist historians by body racked exquisitely without giving the 1960s dismissed the latter portrayal up its ghost—was now put into and offered a more objective description operation. The executioner, enveloped in of the institution. A careful analysis of a black robe from head to foot, with his Inquisition records and secondary eyes glaring at his victim through holes literature reveals that the Spanish cut in the hood, practiced successively Inquisition was less powerful and more all the forms of torture which the benign than previously characterized. devilish ingenuity of the had invented.1 Creating the Myth Protestant critics used the Inquisition myth to further the conflict Opponents of the Spanish between Catholics and Protestants. Inquisition have dominated the narrative During the sixteenth-century of its past. All told, these critics left the and Protestant leaders were involved in impression of a terrible institution that bloody struggle over the beliefs, loomed over the . territories, and wealth of Western According to one of these critics, so . In 1572, twelve hundred powerful and oppressive was the Protestants in the were Inquisition that: slaughtered by Catholic troops after …it taught the savages of India and Protestants revolted against their Spanish America to shudder at the name of sovereign.2 In 1588, King Philip II of …, and that the fear of its sent his infamous armada to and came close to conquering and their reasons for disgracing the the kingdom of the nominally Protestant and the King, Henry VII.3 In order to bolster Church.8 support against Spain, the preeminent To an extent, the Inquisition’s defender of the Catholic cause, opponents have a valid claim in Protestants highlighted the Spanish portraying Spain, the Catholic Inquisition’s malign achievements and establishment, the Inquisition as brutal warned their Protestant readers that they and oppressive. After all, Spain and the could be the Inquisition’s next victims, if Roman did support the they allowed the and the King of Inquisition and the Inquisition did Spain to rule over them. persecute individuals base on their English and American historians religious beliefs. In accordance with trial affirmed the Protestant account three procedures outlined in Inquisitorial hundred years later. By the 1820s, Spain, manuals, not only was the accused kept with the backing of post-Napoleonic in the dark of who had accused them, France and Imperial , had plans of Inquisitors could—but not necessarily— restoring its former colonies.4 Motivated torture the accused if they refuse to by this proposed invasion, historians and incriminate themselves.9 Although they novelists in England and America wrote did not perform the actual burning of narratives describing the persecution and convicted heretics, Inquisitors were subjugation of Catholics and in responsible for sanctioning the execution Spain and its colonies, which persuaded of individuals, which was carried out by readers of the need to emancipate them secular authorities. In 1559-1566, from Spain’s tyranny.5 Backed with considered by Protestant as the bloodiest proof from Inquisition records and other period of Protestant repression, the corroborative sources, they blamed the Spanish Inquisition sentenced over a intolerance of the Spanish and hundred Lutheran heretics to death.10 In Catholic Church for establishing a “reign the late-eighteenth-century, another of terror” which devastated the lives of hundred plus individuals of Jewish and thousands.6 Jewish scholars writing Portuguese decent were burnt alive or in during the rise of Fascism in Europe also effigy. 11 Many more convicted heretics portrayed the Inquisition in a similar were executed during the Inquisition’s fashion and emphasized the anti-Semitic existence. attitude of Spanish and Catholic authorities. Cecil Roth held this view: in Unraveling the Myth his monograph, The Spanish Inquisition, he stated that the ruthlessness of the But the literature of its opponents Spanish Inquisition “nearly fulfilled its is misleading. Missing from their objective of having exterminated or else literature was the actions of other cowed into subjection the native Spanish tribunals that were just as brutal—if not .”7 more sadistic—than the Inquisition in Although long extinct the Spain. The Inquisition in Spain was not Inquisition still has critics highlighting the only tribunal in early-modern Europe its brutal past. One only has to type in that allowed the use of torture and the word “Spanish Inquisition” on the sentenced individuals to death base on Internet to find out its newest opponents their religious beliefs. Lord Burghley, a contemporary of the Inquisition, justified that hovered over Spanish society, she the torture of Catholics because the discovered an institution that rarely accused refused to incriminate disrupted the daily activities of themselves.12 While the Spanish communities. In the tribunal of Cuenca, Inquisition condemned over a hundred she noted that the chief , Pedro individuals to death during the period of Cortes, nor any of his subordinates, 1559-1566, the English authorities under hardly left their desk at work.20 Rather Queen Anne executed three times as than barge in the homes of suspicious many heretics during the same time individuals and coerce them to confess period, and the French under Henry II at of heresy, these Inquisition officials sat least twice as many.13 In the in their chairs behind their desk at the Netherlands, ten times as many were office and examined reams full of paper executed.14 work of unfinished cases.21 So Actual Inquisition records either under-funded and undermanned was completely dismiss or at least moderate Cortes’ tribunal, that they were still the assertions made by its opponents. work on the court cases of deceased Whereas the Protestant, Raimundo suspects. Only once in the period of six- Gonzales de Montes, claimed that the months did Inquisitor Cortes bother to Inquisition stripped every accused incarcerate and question a denounced heretic of all their wealth and property, heretic.22 the trial record of Inés López, presented The heretic that Inquisitor Cortes in Medieval Iberia: Readings from questioned was Bartolomé Sánchez, a Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources, poor and unemployed laborer with revealed how she only paid a fine to be visions of being the second Messiah of released from prison—only on the God. Sánchez was arrested after he second trial in which she was convicted repeatedly disrupted with his again for heresy, was her property heretical tirades and for denouncing the confiscated.15 Also, judges in López’s Catholic establishment as the work of trial did not accept every testimony at various locations in Cuenca.23 against the defendant.16 In her second Rather than condemned the self- trial, López’s attorney, afforded to her proclaimed Messiah to death for his by the tribunal, was given fifteen days to blatant heretical beliefs, Cortes gave him produce a list of questionable witnesses a month and a half to repent so he can that may have accused her out of acquit him and not condemn him to the enmity.17 Thus, she was given an fire. Cortes even debated with Sánchez opportunity to defend her innocence—a on the merits of Catholicism in order to far cry from the rash and malevolent persuade him back into the Catholic judges in Montes’ account that fold. “Patiently” he repeated to Sánchez considered the accused doomed to the meaning of the cross and pleaded torture and death once they were with him to cross himself before the imprisoned.18 and repent for his misplaced The trial records of Bartolomé conviction so that he could acquit him Sánchez, presented in Sara Tilghman and allow him to take care of his wife Nalle’s Mad For God, also presented a and children.24 Sánchez retracted from different impression of the Inquisition.19 his belief and was released from prison. In contrast to the powerful behemoth But he went back to prison for reverting back to his Messianic ways. Again, he . While they do not deny was acquitted but was arrested again for that occurred, torture was the same offense. On his third trial, used, and death sentences were handed Sanchez was spared from being burnt at down, they disagreed with how previous the stake on account that he was scholars have manipulated the facts and insane.25 Instead of burning Sanchez, the magnified the power and severity of the Inquisitors sent him to a mental hospital institution. Contrary to the bloodthirsty with the hope that doctors there could Inquisitors of previous literature, they cure his illness.26 noted that it rarely tortured and The monographs of revisionists condemned their prisoners to death. influenced Nalle’s case study. to While Inquisition manuals allowed the revisionist literature, scholars like Henry use of torture, Richard Kagan and Charles Lea and Cecil Roth affirmed the Abigail Dyers discovered that the legend of a merciless monolith that Inquisitors in Spain sparingly used terrorized Spain by citing evidence from torture and by the seventeenth-century the Inquisition records. But these some of its judges discounted the use of scholars misconstrued the facts. When torture entirely.27 In the tribunal of they looked at the Inquisition records of 1566-1609, out of the they only focused on the cases that approximately 3,075 convicts, only 2 resulted in the bankruptcy or execution percent were burned, the rest were either of convicted heretics. They neglected to humiliated in public, whipped, fined, or mention the less severe and more had their case suspended.28 According to prevalent penalties handed down by the another estimate, which considered the Inquisition. Nor did they mention actions of nineteen tribunals over the instances in which Inquisitors spoke out period of 1540-1700, under two percent against the discrimination and violence of the accused were executed.29 plaguing Spanish society. Someone Revisionist like Henry Kamen studying the United States judicial emphasized how few in number were the system could make the same mistake, if Inquisitors. For every district the size of he were to judge the institution base on Rhode Island or Delaware, there were the thousands it has sentenced to death only two or three Inquisitors (who were over the past two centuries and the racist either a trained theologian or jurist), an policies that it has upheld, which assessor, a constable, and a prosecutor, unfairly subjected Africans into slavery with a few other necessary and the Chinese to the status of perpetual subordinates.30 How can two or three foreigners (i.e. the fifty year Chinese Inquisitors with perhaps, ten Exclusion act). But such an assessment subordinates impose a on of the US federal and state court system a region the size of Delaware? Or thirty is misleading. It does not account for the or forty Inquisitors terrorized the entire actions of Judges and lawyers who ? Contrary to the fought against such discriminatory Inquisition officials “cloaked in virtual policies and the countless of cases in inviolability,” Kamen argued that the which the refrained from Inquisition relied on the testimony and draconian measures. support of local communities.31 Without Revisionist recognized these their testimony and support, the errors in previous Inquisition Inquisition was ineffective. While the majority of the locals in Toledo they were the cause of the outrages and welcomed and supported the Inquisition quarrels “that was responsible for over and readily denounced their political ninety percent of the civil and criminal rivals, Catalonians jailed their trials in Spanish courts.”36 If this policy Inquisitors and afterwards, honored the of racial discrimination continued, he mayor who led the imprisonment with went on to say, “then the greater part of music and banquet.32 In the city of Spanish society would soon be branded Tarragona, municipal leaders barred as impure, and the only remaining Inquisitors from entering their city as the guarantee of blood would Inquisition fled from a plague.33 For the be one’s plebian origin.”37 most part, communities tolerated the Inquisition because it barely intruded in Conclusion their lives; only in 1834, amidst mounting liberal opposition, was the Those who control the Inquisition completely abolished from production of history shape our Spain.34 understanding of the past, regardless of On some occasions the whether the narrative is accurate or Inquisition even played a mitigating role not.38 The conflict over the nature of the against unwarranted discrimination Inquisition in Spain is an example of this against minority groups. Stephen power-struggle. From its inception to the Haliczer made this argument in his study present, critics of the Inquisition have of the tribunal in Valencia: used the Inquisition to disgrace Spain and the Catholic establishment. They By contrast with the Old Christian generated a story about the Inquisition’s (Christians who claim to have no Jewish invincibility and blamed Spain and the or Muslim ancestry) demand for Papacy for supporting its malign discrimination against all on achievements. But the blame placed on the basis of their Jewish background, the Spain, the Catholic establishment, and Inquisition provided a rational means for the Inquisition is inaccurate. Their distinguishing the sheep and the goats in opponents singled out the Inquisition in the community. The Spain, exaggerated its intolerance, and Inquisition would punish converso silenced the benign role that some of its Judiazers with fines and confiscation and officials played. Although intolerant by bar them from public offices, but design, the Inquisition in Spain was not simultaneously would confirm the an omnipotent institution that terrorized orthodoxy of the rest, thereby Spain. While it did prosecute, penalized, guaranteeing them immunity from and even condemned individuals to the further attack.35 fire base on their religious beliefs, its officials did not ruthlessly torture and By the 1600s some Inquisitors execute every suspected heretic who even protested against the racial came to their courts. Instead, the discrimination dividing their nation. Inquisition was an institutionalized According to one of these advocates, version of the popular prejudices of Juan Roco Campofrio, such unfair Spanish society and its Inquisitors, hired policies were a “source of moral and from within the same society, either political scandal in the nation” and that shared or abhorred its values. At their worse, Inquisitors exploited societal prejudices and deliberately ended or property during the tyranny of inquisitor Diego made the lives of hundreds miserable; at Lucero. “Lucero horrified the land by gathering evidences” of a vast conspiracy that the Jews and their best, Inquisitors mitigated or conversos (Jews who converted to Christianity) moderated the intolerance of society and were secretly planning to overthrow prevented unwarranted acts of and reestablish the kingdom of discrimination. Israel in its place. So in an effort to prevent the Rather than use the Inquisition as supposed plot, a “horde of [inquisition] officials clothed in virtual inviolability (because King a tool for denouncing the ills of Spain Ferdinand supported their actions), was let loose and the Catholic establishment, it should upon a defenseless population. The “reign of be seen as a paradigm for other nations terror” only ended when masses of exasperated that has institutionalized the fear and , from the poor to the wealthy, rose up prejudices of its citizens. Before it against the crown, demanding that Lucero be punished for the Inquisition’s atrocities. Henry became an intolerant nation, Spain was Charles Lea, ALucero the Inquisitor,@ The once a diverse and tolerant society, American Historical Review, Vol. 2, No.4 (July, which fostered the co-existence between 1897), 614-615, 618, 623-624. , Christians, and Jews. How and 7 Cecil Roth, The Spanish Inquisition. The why did such a cosmopolitan society Norton Library, New York, 1968. 133 8,See the following for examples: Jason L. Slade become so intolerant? What prompted “The Spanish Inquisition,” August 6,1996, The the questioning and changing of ones Bible Study belief to become a crime? http://www.bibletopics.com/biblestudy/64.htm Understanding the Inquisition in Spain and Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, “Critics in those terms may offer some insight contend Pope’s Apology Ignored Holocaust and Inquisition,” 10 Adar II, Vol. 52, No. 28, March into other previous and current 17, 2000, phenomenon of institutionalized bigotry. http://www.jewishaz.com/jewishnews/000317/po pe.html References 9 Inquisitorial Inquiries: Brief Lives of Secret Jews and Other Heretics edited and Translated 1Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A by Richard L. Kagan and Abigail Dyer, Historical Revision, (New Haven and London: (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 38-61 Yale University Press, 1997), 306-307. 10 2 98, Kamen 305-309, Kamen, 1997. 11 3 ibid, 300-301 Henry Kamen, Empire: How Spain Became A 12 World Power 1492-1763, (New York: Harper William S. Maltby, The In Collins Publishers, 2003), 511-512, 318. England: The development of anti-Spanish sentiment, 1558-1660, (Durham, N.C.: Duke 4 J.D. Richardson, ed., Compilation of the University Press, 1971), 41. Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 2 13 98, Kamen (1907), 287. 14 ibid. 15 5 The novel, Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott and Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Washington Irving’s Conquest of were Muslim, and Jewish Sources. Edited by Olivia among the novelist to characterize the institution Remie Constable, (Philadelphia: University of in that manner. 311, Kamen. Pennsylvania Press, 1997), 334-335. 16 6 The American scholar, , was Gonzalez de Montes, Raimundo. A discouerie among these historians. In his 1897 essay and plaine declaration of sundry subtill practices “Lucero the Inquisitor,” Lea blamed the Holy of the Holy Inquisition of Spaine and the Office and the state which supported it for originall thereof: with certain speciall examples establishing a “reign of terror” that spread set apart by themselues... wherein a man may see throughout the entire peninsula in which the foresaid practices of the Inquisition, as they hundreds, if not thousands, lost their lives and bee practiced and exercised, very lively described. London: Printed for Iohn Bellamie, and are to be sold at his shop neere the royall Exchange, 1625. 45. 17 336-337, Medieval Iberia 18 11-12, Montes 19 Sarah Tilghman Nalle, Mad For God: Bartolomé Sánchez, The Secret Messiah of Cardenete. (Charleston and London: University Press of Virginia, 2001) 20 ibid, 25 21 ibid, 27-28 22 ibid. 23 15-21, 24, Nalle 24 ibid, 26-54 25 ibid, 138-144 26 ibid, 158-161 27 17-18, Inquisitorial Inquiries 28 199, Kamen 29 ibid, 198-199 30 ibid, 144 31 618, Lea 32 74, Kamen 33 ibid, 165 34 ibid, 304 35 ACastillian Urban Patriciate and the Jewish Expulsion of 1480-1492.@ The American Historical Review, Vol. 78, No. 1(Feb., 1973), 35-62. 44 36 249, Kamen 37 ibid, 250-251 38 Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and Production of History. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 23, 26.