The Inquisition spans centuries of European and American history as an institutional framework that united religious power and civil authority to monitor, judge, and punish doctrinal dissent. It originated in the Middle Ages, evolved in the Modern Era, and, in its Hispanic version, became a bureaucratic machine with state-level reach. To speak of it is to delve into a world of autos-da-fé, book censorship, denunciations, confiscation of property, and extremely regulated judicial procedures.
In Spain, its memory is linked to shocking events: persecutions of converts and Moriscos, trials of Protestants and those accused of “superstitions ,” and a Seville tribunal that set the pace of repression in the early stages. There are also dark aspects: methods of torture, internal corruption, the pedagogy of fear, and an iron grip on ideas and behavior that lasted for more than three centuries.
What was the Inquisition: origin, ideas and methods
Popularly known as the Holy Inquisition, it was the tribunal created by the Catholic Church to persecute and punish heretics and dissidents. The historian J. Guiraud defined it as a “system of repressive measures” of both spiritual and temporal nature, deployed by civil and ecclesiastical authorities to safeguard orthodoxy and social order. In 1542, under Pope Paul III, the Holy Office was institutionalized in Rome, consolidating a formal structure for the investigation and punishment of heresy.
Its medieval roots trace back to the Synod of Toulouse in 1229, which mandated the appointment, in each parish, of a priest and several laymen "of impeccable reputation" tasked with examining houses, caves, and shelters where heretics or their accomplices might be hiding. This legislation ordered the prevention of escapes, the reporting of heretics to the authorities, and the destruction of any such hiding places, with the active collaboration of the local lords. In practice, it was a systematic mechanism for seeking out and neutralizing centers of doctrinal deviation.
Who were the targets of the repressive force? Primarily Muslims and Jews, Protestants after the Reformation, and people accused of witchcraft or demonic possession . There was also a “manual” that shaped the repression of witchcraft: the Malleus Maleficarum (1487), written by the Dominican friars Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger. Beyond “proving” the existence of witches, it outlined a veritable procedural code of torture and punishment , prescribing burning at the stake as a form of punishment. The text exudes explicit misogyny: it portrayed women as more fragile, carnal, and prone to superstition—a pseudo-theological reinterpretation that served as an intellectual pretext for the witch hunts . It is not surprising that, in accusations of witchcraft, around 90% of the victims were women.
It's worth remembering that this wasn't a Catholic monopoly: Protestant churches also established structures to monitor and purge heresies. Doctrinal control was a widespread desire across confessional Europe, with particularities in each territory, but with one common element: an obsession with uniformity.
The coercive methods of the Inquisition have been studied in detail. The historian José Antonio Escudero described three tortures used by the Spanish Holy Office: the garrucha , the toca , and the potro . In the garrucha, the accused was tied with their hands behind their back and hoisted up with a rope while weights hung from their feet, sometimes being released abruptly to cause dislocations; the toca consisted of placing a blindfold over the mouth and pouring water to cause a sensation of drowning, the severity being measured by the number of jugs (six or eight were not unusual); and the potro girded the body with ropes tightened by a mechanism that progressively increased the pain. These practices could affect young and old alike, and confessions extracted under torture had to be ratified within 24 hours to be valid. Everything was meticulously recorded by the tribunal's scribes.
Alongside the “procedural” tortures, a repertoire of infamous devices proliferated, as described by various sources: the garrote , the inquisitor's chair, the iron maiden, the rack or stretching bench, the breast-ripping machine, the skull-crushing machine, the thumb-crushing machine, and the knee-breaking machine . The actual presence or frequency of some of these instruments has been debated by historians, but their mere mention encapsulates the climate of legalized violence that enveloped the inquisitorial process.
- Instruments and torments: pulley, hoist and colt were canonical in the Spanish inquisitorial practice.
- Symbolic catalogue of cruelty: vile club, thumb crusher and knee breaker They represented the imaginary of punishment.
- Scrupulous record: the notary documented moans, pauses and ratifications with bureaucratic asepsis.
The auto-da-fé was the public reenactment of the verdict: in town squares or churches, the condemned abjured, were reconciled, or handed over to the secular authorities to carry out the death penalty, often by burning at the stake. Beyond their religious dimension, these were civic acts with a ceremonial structure that reinforced the power of the Holy Office and its exemplary function.
Book censorship was organized through the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of works banned for contravening faith or morals. The list included, among others, five practical categories: 1) texts contrary to the faith , including Scripture and controversies in vernacular languages when deemed dangerous; 2) works of necromancy, astrology, or superstition (with limited tolerance for horoscopes based on physical constitution); 3) lewd or obscene writings considered harmful to good morals; 4) publications without author, printer, place, or date, subject to prohibition after examination; 5) libels and slanders, attacks on ecclesiastics or princes, and propositions against ecclesiastical jurisdiction and immunity . To manage this control, Rome established the Sacred Congregation of the Index, with specialists dedicated to reading, identifying, and prohibiting. Among the banned authors were Rousseau, Diderot, Montaigne, Hume, Bruno, Pascal, Darwin, Descartes and Voltaire , to name a few of major renown.
The list of famous victims illustrates the breadth of the repressive radar: Giordano Bruno (burned at the stake in 1600), Galileo Galilei (tried and condemned to recant in 1633), and Nicolaus Copernicus (whose heliocentric theories irritated the orthodoxy) embody the clash between scientific curiosity and dogmatic limits . In other cases, the punishment was imprisonment, censorship, or forced retirement.
The Inquisition also permeated popular culture, cinema, and even Sevillian painting, as shown in Murillo's works . Several films have recreated the climate of fear and control: The Scarlet Letter , Life of Galileo , When the Witches Burn , The Holy Office , and The Inquisitor bring to the screen the tension between belief, power, and freedom of conscience.
The Spanish Inquisition and the Seville tribunal
The Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478 and lasted until 1834. Although closely linked to religion, it operated independently of the ecclesiastical hierarchy , and not even the Pope controlled its day-to-day operations. Tomás de Torquemada, the first Inquisitor General, transformed it into a centralized machine with tribunals spread throughout the kingdom. The typical procedure included denunciations from neighbors, secret trials, autos-da-fé, and sentences that, without repentance, could result in life imprisonment or death at the stake . Reconciliation was accompanied by fines, penances, and confiscations, and often by the denunciation of other alleged heretics.
The breeding ground for anti-Christian sentiment in Andalusia had been brewing for some time: at the end of the 14th century, Jewish quarters were attacked (pogroms of 1391) in cities such as Toledo, Seville, Écija, Córdoba, and Barcelona. Fear and violence precipitated forced conversions, and the social category of New Christians or conversos emerged . Distrust ran deep: the “Old Christians” suspected that many conversos were secretly practicing Judaism. In Seville, the Dominican friar Alonso de Hojeda fueled this rejection with anti-converso sermons , urging the monarchs to take decisive action.
Isabella and Ferdinand first attempted a pastoral approach, commissioning Friar Hernando de Talavera to preach evangelizing messages to guide the converts; when this failed, they resorted to the inquisitorial tribunal. In 1478, Sixtus IV granted the papal bull, and after a strategic waiting period, the first inquisitors arrived in Seville at the end of 1480: the jurist Dr. Ruiz de Medina and the Dominicans Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martín . Their establishment was discreet: it was known that it could provoke resistance or flight to the Kingdom of Granada , and it was kept secret until the city's assistant, Diego de Merlo, informed the city council of the order to house the judges of the Holy Office.
In that atmosphere, prominent figures in the converso community—such as Pedro Fernández Benadeva , Diego de Susán, and others—deliberated on an armed response, with weapons “for one hundred men,” or on a cautious, expectant approach . The conspiracy reached the ears of the inquisitors—it was said due to an indiscretion attributed to Susán's daughter—who lured Benadeva to the Monastery of San Pablo with a ruse and arrested him by surprise . It was the prelude to a wave of repression.
On February 6, 1481, the first auto-da-fé was held in Tablada: six people were burned at the stake . The plague forced the tribunal to move to Aracena, where on July 23, 1481, twenty-three Judaizers were condemned. When the epidemic subsided, they returned to Seville, and the autos-da-fé continued . Benadeva's turn came in the auto-da-fé of April 21, 1481: he was accused of Judaizing (keeping the Sabbath, eating unleavened bread, consuming kosher meat, and receiving rabbis) and of denying the resurrection and immortality. He was excommunicated, stripped of his property , and handed over to the civil authorities to be burned at the stake. In May 1482, an edict of grace was issued for voluntary confessions; meanwhile, the prison at Triana Castle was filled with prisoners.
In 1483, a series of extremely harsh acts of penance followed: on May 16, forty-seven conversos (entire families, including clergymen) were burned at the stake. In 1484, hundreds of penitents wearing penitential garments were paraded in procession . When the Catholic Monarchs returned to Seville, the city was suffering from plague, confiscations, and repression. The apparatus of repression was expanding: tribunals had already been established in Córdoba, Jaén, and Ciudad Real, under the presidency of Torquemada. According to the Sevillian inquisitor Diego López de Cortegana, between 1481 and 1524, 5.000 people were burned at the stake and 20.000 were reconciled in Seville and its surrounding district—figures that reflect the intensity of the first repressive cycle.
The Seville court's headquarters began in the Convent of San Pablo and later moved to the Castle of San Jorge (Triana), which housed courtrooms, a secret chamber, an archive, a torture chamber, the Church of San Jorge, and 26 prisons in appalling conditions . Major floods of the Guadalquivir River (1626-1627 and 1784-1785) forced relocations to the Tello Tavera Palace (until 1640) and, from 1785, to the Colegio de las Becas , where it remained until the court's dissolution.
From 1488, the tribunal was under the authority of the Council of the Supreme Inquisition, presided over by the Inquisitor General. " General Inspections " were conducted to audit its operations and the zeal of its officials. The inquisitors, initially theologians, were required from 1608 onward to demonstrate legal training . The 17th-century staff included between three and seven inquisitors, a prosecutor, six notaries of secrecy, one notary of confiscations, a receiver, and a judge of confiscated property; two ordinary judges (one in Cádiz and one in Seville); and a subordinate staff: warden, jailers, papal nuncio, doorkeeper, chaplains, supplier, tax collector, physicians, surgeon, lawyers, and sacristan. The network was completed by members of the Holy Office (very numerous in the districts of Cádiz, Huelva, and Seville), commissioners in ports and archpriestships, and qualifiers —religious figures who ruled on heresies—many without a fixed salary but with attractive privileges. There were numerous complaints of influence peddling and false "blood purity" claims , as the merchant Francisco Morovelli complained to the Council of Orders.
The tribunal's finances were volatile: irregular salaries and a reliance on confiscations led to a prioritization of cases against wealthy defendants. In 1655, an anonymous whistleblower lamented that in Seville, cases of faith were "not being processed," with those involving wealthy Portuguese being given preferential treatment . At the same time, abuses were documented: tribunal ministers involved in smuggling , leaks of procedural secrecy, bribery, the sale of genealogical information to the elite, manipulation of evidence by notaries, and even the administration of opium to prisoners to help them endure torture. The morale of some officials—wardens, executioners, and even inquisitors—fell to shameful lows in the 17th century.
The proceedings began with surveillance and denunciations, or with an Edict of Grace , which opened periods for confessing or denouncing heretical practices. If there was evidence and the accused did not confess, torture could be voted on: between 1635 and 1699, the crime of Judaism accounted for 38,3% of the votes for torture. The large-scale autos-da-fé (“general”) declined in the 17th century, leaving the more modest “particular” ones. In the general auto-da-fé of 1624, the procession with the Green Cross left the castle under a canopy, accompanied by cathedral music, salutes from boats on the river, and ringing bells; statues of absent or deceased prisoners and 44 penitents carrying candles were paraded. After the sermon, sentences were read for hours. Those who had been relaxed were taken to the San Sebastián meadow burning ground , outside the city walls: if they converted in the final stage, they were strangled before the bonfire.
The repressive phases show changes in objective. Between 1481 and 1530, the fight against Judaizers dominated , with enormous social reach. Confessions of Jewish practices abound: fasting on Yom Kippur , Esther, or Mondays and Thursdays, consumption of kosher meat , breaking Christian holidays, and praying with Jewish prayer books . Around the mid-16th century and until 1565, Spanish Protestants and other related heresies emerged forcefully; afterward, the number of Spaniards decreased while the number of foreigners (sailors, merchants) increased. In the auto-da-fé of 1559, 21 people were burned at the stake, among them Juan Ponce de León (brother of the Count of Bailén), the theologian and cleric Juan González , and the Blessed María Bohórquez . The preaching of "Doctor Egidio" (Juan Gil) and Constantino de la Fuente stood out . In 1560 his bones were burned, along with the statue of Juan Pérez de Pineda . Friars from the monastery of San Isidoro del Campo—such as Casiodoro de Reina and Antonio del Corro —fled to Protestant strongholds, where the famous Bear Bible was published.
Between 1570 and 1610, Moriscos and those fleeing to North Africa were intensely persecuted . From 1643, a major offensive was launched against Portuguese merchants suspected of practicing Judaism, which disrupted families and trade networks through fines, confiscations, court cases, executions, and escapes; the campaign did not cease until 1725. However, there was still room for maneuver for those who could corrupt ministers of the tribunal.
Already in the 18th century, the Holy Office of Seville remained active: in the early 1720s, Judaizing "complicities" were dismantled, resulting in 241 convictions and another 33 for various crimes. From 1725 onward, the surveillance of morality and the fight against the Enlightenment ideas arriving from Europe were reinforced. Bookstores and ports were inspected to prevent the entry of prohibited works, with varying degrees of cooperation from booksellers. The emblematic case was that of the intendant Pablo de Olavide , investigated in Seville from 1767 for indecent paintings, banned books, a relationship with Voltaire, and liturgical disdain; tried in Madrid (1778), he received an eight-year sentence of confinement in a monastery. In 1781, the last sentence to be burned at the stake was handed down: a blind nun accused of following the followers of Molin. With the Napoleonic invasion, part of the tribunal fled to Ceuta in 1810 with part of the archives. Joseph I formally suppressed it, Ferdinand VII restored it, and it was not until 1834 that it was definitively abolished.
The range of crimes prosecuted was broad: in addition to major heresies (Judaism, Islam, and Protestantism), bigamy, "simple fornication," sodomy , witchcraft, divination, and superstition were punished. Blasphemy was a central target, as was denying sacraments, the Mass, or the Resurrection, mocking images and rites, or formulating heretical propositions . There were trials for clergy soliciting female parishioners, against priests married before ordination, against those who impersonated priests, or false ministers of the Holy Office. Over time, physical and humiliating punishments in these areas declined, being replaced by fines and spiritual penances, except in the most serious cases.
Regarding the figures, estimates vary. Some sources indicate more than 34.000 deaths in Spain between 1481 and 1788, while for Seville alone, between 1481 and 1524, there have been reports of 5.000 burned alive and 20.000 reconciled with the Church. Beyond the discrepancies in numbers, what is undeniable is the long institutional legacy , with a system that normalized denunciation, coercion, and the teaching of fear.
Today, the study of the Inquisition allows us to understand how a power was forged that sought to impose orthodoxy at all costs : from the Synod of Toulouse and the Roman Holy Office to the Spanish network led by Seville. The echoes of the autos-da-fé remain, as does the shadow of the Index of Prohibited Books , the truncated biographies of scientists and dissidents, and the memory of a bureaucracy that combined religious zeal, political calculation, and social control on a scale rarely seen.
