Sticks, Stones, and Broken Bones: The History of Anti-Catholic Violence in the U.S.

We do not recall these instances of anti-Catholicism to foster more animosity or violence, but recall them as part of our history, a history that, like so many others, included the targeting of ethnic and religious groups for persecution.

From left to right—Bishop John Hughes, New York, 1844; cartoon from Anti-Catholic book published by the Ku Klux Klan, 1926; Burning of St. Augustine Church, Philadelphia, 1844; Fr. James Coyle, Birmingham Alabama, murdered, 1921.

You have, no doubt, heard the children’s rhyme: “Sticks and stones may break my bones / But names will never hurt me.” That is not exactly true. For in the history of the Church in America, Catholics have been wounded by both physical violence and hate speech. This article will examine episodes of violence against American Catholics, considering the sticks and stones, the broken bones, and the words that encouraged such violence.

An Unmentioned History

If the presence of anti-Catholic violence in American history is unknown to many, it is for good reason. We as Catholics do not usually like to talk about being a minority; we do not like to talk about persecution. For generations, our immigrant ancestors and their descendants fought to be considered “100% American,” not “hyphenated” Americans: Irish-American, German-American, Polish-American, or Italian-American. We Catholics have spent decades trying to assimilate into “White, Anglo Saxon, Protestant” (“WASP”) America and have, consequently, downplayed our distinctiveness. We wanted to fit in, and to achieve the American dream—to get good jobs, get a college education, and move to the suburbs.

Aspects of Anti-Catholicism

In considering some episodes of anti-Catholicism, it should be noted that not all violence against Catholics was motivated exclusively by religion. In many cases, religious misunderstanding blended with nativism, and xenophobia, to bring about a toxic reaction to the United States’ Catholic newcomers. Consequently, anti-Catholic groups—that included the Know-Nothing party, the American Protective Association, and the Ku Klux Klan—espoused a form of bigotry, both religious and racially/ethnically motivated.

It should also be acknowledged that most manifestations of anti-Catholicism have not been violent. Much of anti-Catholicism in this country from the 18th century to today was more or less implicit: Protestants considered Catholics “the other.” Protestants often didn’t have Catholic friends, they (and Catholics!) frowned on Catholic-Protestant marriages, and non-Catholics refused to hire or promote Catholic workers. Other times, anti-Catholicism was muted, but real; non-Catholics questioned whether Catholics were even Christians, calling the Church the “Whore of Babylon” (of Revelation 17), and considered the pope the “Anti-Christ,” or taught unequivocally that all Catholics go to hell.

Other times, anti-Catholicism was more overt. In colonial times, laws forbade Catholics from voting, becoming lawyers, and teachers. Catholics, even in Maryland, which had at first tolerated them, demanded a “double tax” on Catholic property; parents could even be fined for sending their children to Europe to be educated as Catholics. The propagation of anti-Catholic ideas manifested itself in various ways: in newspapers, books, and pamphlets, in sermons, in laws, in popular discussion and debate, and, occasionally, in violence and property destruction.

The examples of violence that follow are admittedly among the most pronounced and outrageous forms of anti-Catholicism, but we should not be led to believe that anti-Catholicism was only the experience of a few. As a corrective, it is important to remember that in the 19th century, Catholic-Protestant debates and discussions, often acrimonious, took center stage. They were on everyone’s mind. When the anti-Catholic novel, Maria Monk’s Awful Disclosure—supposedly written by a former nun, telling stories of affairs between priests and nuns, and the murder of the children they conceived—was published in 1836, it became a near overnight sensation. By the start of the Civil War, it had sold 300,000 copies. Historians of this era claim it was among the most widely distributed book in America prior to the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the popular anti-slavery book.

Sticks

Anti-Catholic violence has taken the form of protest against Catholics who were taking their place in the public square. Catholics, it was feared, could subvert the American Republic, especially its democratic processes, and its “public” schools. When Franciscan priests and brothers first came to Cincinnati, Ohio, from Austria in 1844, onlookers did not know what to think of them, walking through the streets in their brown habits. But some recognized them immediately as “Catholic monks,” potential anti-American subversives. In his journal, one of the first Franciscans in Cincinnati, Fr. William Unterthiner, described the animosity directed at Catholics, especially priests, in mid-1840s Cincinnati:

As Catholic immigration increased throughout the 1840s and 1850s, concern mounted that Catholics were taking over America’s public schools—an attempt that would eliminate the Bible (particularly the King James version) from everyday classroom use. The challenge offered by Catholics to “public” schools, that were de facto Protestant schools, brought Catholics and Protestants into frequent conflict.

The so-called “Eliot School Rebellion,” which occurred in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1859, proves a dramatic example. The state law that required the Ten Commandments to be recited (always using the King James Bible) in every classroom every morning, pitted Catholics, who viewed non-Catholics’ Bibles as false translations, against Protestant teachers, parents, and schoolmates. Ten-year-old Thomas Whall, a Catholic, was asked to take his turn leading the recitation of the Ten Commandments. When Whall refused because of his Catholic faith (and his desire to only read from the Douay-Rheims translation, an approved Catholic translation), he was disciplined. Whall had been urged by his parish priest not to recite Protestant prayers, nor read from the King James Bible.

A few days later, when Whall refused again, his teacher struck him with a rattan stick for half an hour until he was bleeding; he refused to give in, and his fellow Catholic classmates cheered him on. The school’s principal demanded that Catholic children, who refused to recite the commandments, leave the school; hundreds left in protest. The “rebellion” helped extend the parochial school system in Massachusetts. Within a year, a Catholic school was established in Whall’s parish with an enrollment of over 1,000.

Stones

Not all anti-Catholic violence was physical. Sometimes it resulted in the destruction of property. These episodes represent the ferocity of anti-Catholic violence, though without physical assault or loss of life.

In 1834, an anti-Catholic mob burned the Ursuline Convent in Charlestown, near Boston. The convent school there educated primarily upper-class Protestant girls, and worries of the Protestant elites’ attraction to Catholicism festered. This, together with the rumor of an Ursuline sister being held in the convent against her will, and the anti-Catholic preaching of Rev. Lyman Beecher, father of Harriet Beecher Stowe, incited a riot.

An angry mob gathered outside the convent, calling for the release of the sister, but the Ursuline mother superior threatened the crowd: “The Bishop has 20,000 of the vilest Irishmen at his command, and you may read your riot act till your throats are sore, but you’ll not quell them.” The crowd broke down doors and windows to enter the convent, and began to ransack the buildings. The sisters and their students rushed out the back of the convent, and hid in the garden. At about midnight, the rioters set fire to the building, burning it to the ground. Of the 13 men arrested and charged with arson, all but one was acquitted. The governor pardoned him in response to a petition signed by 5,000 Bostonians. Distrust of sisters in convents led eventually to a number of state legislatures proposing “convent inspection laws,” authorizing the warrantless searches of Catholic buildings—convents, monasteries, rectories, and churches—for weaponry, and for young women supposedly seduced into the convent and held against their will.

In 1844, two Catholic churches were burned in Philadelphia after it was rumored Catholics were insisting on the removal of the Bible from public schools. The same scene might have been repeated in New York City, but New York’s Bishop, John Hughes, warned: “If a single Catholic church is burned in New York, the city would become a second Moscow,” a reference to the 1812 burning of Moscow in which its own citizens set fire to the city as Napoleon’s soldiers closed in.

In 1854, as the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., was being constructed, nine men, associated with the anti-Catholic Know-Nothing party, sneaked up to the base of the monument to steal a stone that had been engraved “Rome to America.” The stone, which was to have been placed inside the monument, along with other stones given as gifts from foreign governments, had been shipped from the Vatican. The men carried the stone to a boat waiting at the tidal basin, smashed it into pieces, and dumped it in the middle of the Potomac River. For them, the stone indicated the threat of the Catholic Church’s takeover of the U.S. government, a much talked about, but very unlikely, threat. The identity of the conspirators was shrouded in mystery; no one was ever convicted of the crime. In 1982, a replica of the stone, given by a priest from Spokane, Washington, was installed in the monument by the National Park Service.

The attack on the Shrine of Our Lady of Juan del Valle in San Juan, Texas, provides a final, modern example. In 1970, a non-denominational preacher intentionally flew a small airplane into the church while Mass was being celebrated. No one was injured except the kamikaze pilot who died. While the overall property loss was estimated at $1.5 million, many believed it a miracle that no one else was hurt or died in the tragedy. A new shrine was dedicated in 1980 where the previous church had stood.

Broken Bones

Infrequently, physical violence and death were the consequence of anti-Catholicism. In 1853, Pope Pius IX sent Archbishop Gaetano Bedini to visit the U.S. and report back to him on the state of the Catholic Church in America. Because many U.S. Protestants viewed the pope as sinister, and as an enemy of freedom, they blamed his representative.

In Cincinnati, hundreds of protesters marched towards the cathedral where Bedini was staying, carrying signs, a scaffold, and an effigy of the archbishop. The signs read “Down with Bedini!”; “No Priests, No Kings”; and “Down with the Papacy!” Fearing an attack on the residence, the police attempted to turn back the demonstrators. In the ensuing melee, one protester was killed, 15 were wounded, and 63 were arrested. Most of the city’s residents supported the protesters, blaming the police for exercising brutality. Those who had been arrested were released, the charges were dropped, and an investigation of the police commenced. As Bedini continued to tour the country, violent disturbances erupted in Cleveland, Louisville, Baltimore, Boston, and New York. Fearing further violence in New York, Bedini was secretly transported by way of a rowboat to the steamship on which he would depart for Europe.

Not long after Bedini returned to Italy, anti-Catholic mob violence struck Louisville, Kentucky. In an incident known as “Bloody Monday” (August 6, 1855), concern about Catholic influence over the electoral process contributed to a mob attack on Irish Catholic neighborhoods, resulting in 22 deaths, scores of injuries, and widespread property destruction. Five people were later indicted; none was convicted.

Religious and racial prejudice combined in the deep South, resulting in the murder of a priest in 1921. Father James Coyle, priest of Birmingham, Alabama, was shot and killed on his rectory front porch. Coyle had performed the wedding of a recent convert to Catholicism, the daughter of a Methodist minister and Ku Klux Klan member, to a Puerto Rican Catholic man. The Methodist minister’s daughter had become interested in Catholicism as a young girl; she converted at age 18 and was received into the Catholic faith by Father Coyle. Only a few months later, Coyle witnessed the girl’s marriage. When her father found out about the clandestine wedding, he confronted Coyle and shot him. The minister was charged with the priest’s murder, but was acquitted by a jury who found him not guilty by reason of insanity. In 2012, Bishop William H. Willimon of the United Methodist Church presided over a service of reconciliation and forgiveness in Birmingham, asking for forgiveness for the role his church had played in the death of Father Coyle.

Modern Persecution

In recent years the threat of anti-Catholic violence has surrounded fidelity to the Church’s teaching on marriage and family life. In 2002, Mary Stachowicz, the parish secretary of now Bishop, Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, was raped and murdered. Her killer stated to police that he attacked Stachowicz after she confronted him about his gay lifestyle. Bishop Paprocki, in public addresses on the Church’s approach to same sex attraction, relates the story of his former secretary’s murder in order to condemn all forms of violence based on bigotry. He feels compelled to speak about this form of anti-Catholic violence because it has been almost completely ignored by the media. Bishop Paprocki notes:

Mary Stachowicz was also brutally murdered, also the victim of a hate crime, yet, her death went unnoticed. Perhaps, this is a signal that, as in the past, various forms of anti-Catholic violence are still viewed by some as acceptable, or at least, not worthy of notice.

Conclusion: Hate and Love

Why examine these episodes of hate? Why not let them remain hidden in scarcely-read tomes of Catholic history? We do not recall these instances of anti-Catholicism to foster more animosity or violence, but recall them as part of our history, a history that, like so many others, included the targeting of ethnic and religious groups for persecution. Though the Church is often seen in overblown narratives as a perpetrator of violence, responsible for the horrors of the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Holocaust, the Church has also been afflicted by violence motivated by religion. If history teaches us anything, it is that the memory of the past is so often selective.

Yet, this discussion should not end by recalling the role of religious belief in contributing to violence, but should remember the role of religious faith in promoting love. Fundamental to the Church’s teaching is the importance of humanity’s dignity as sons and daughters of the Creator. Violence, if even partly motivated by religion, contradicts what St. John taught us about God—“God is love” (1 Jn 4:8, 16)—a divine love that humanity is called to mirror and extend.

The Spanish Inquisition by Jean Dumont

The following essay is taken the works of Jean Dumont, a professor of history at the Sorbonne in Paris. It is one of several essays in his book L’Eglise au Risque de l’Histoire - the Church at Risk from History. It is, in my opinion, the best work on this complex subject available. The translation for which I am responsible was approved by the author. I have tried without success to get it published in this country. Because of its importance, I have taken the liberty of placing it on my web page.

www.the-pope.com/spaninqc.rtf

THE SPANISH INQUISITION

The Spanish Inquisition is a subject of passionate polemic born of national, confessional, and then ideological confrontation. History - the only trustworthy witness - has not been given the freedom to speak. So much is this the case that a response to this true witness is and has always been forbidden. The basis of Father Lallemand’s contention has been forgotten However, as modern day specialists have shown, there is no doubt but that in a number of spheres (in dealing with sorcerers, blasphemers, writers, etc.) the Spanish Inquisition showed itself much more moderate and understanding than the civil justices (parliaments, provosts, bailiffs) which usurped the powers of the Inquisition in other countries.

TREMENDOUS SHAME AND INDIGNATION

Misinformed by the anti-inquisitorial attitudes promulgated successively and in a cumulative manner by the Protestants, the “philosophers,” the revolutionaries, the anticlericals and the liberals, Catholics themselves feel an insuperable shame and indignation whenever they hear the words “Spanish inquisition” mentioned.

This is particularly true of French Catholics who have been subjected to additional anti-Spanish polemic, carried on since the sixteenth century by “politicized” Catholics allied with Protestant Huguenots against the League, and then by the pamphleteers who engaged Cardinal Richelieu in his struggle against the Spanish hegemony. All this is further reinforced, even in our own times, by the official “secular” education.

This “black legend,” as Pierre Chaunu has justly brought out, was only “a cynical tool of psychological warfare” up to the time of the Renaissance and the classical period. Yet it is the foundation on which all the usual presentations of the Spanish Inquisition are based.

AN INAPPROPRIATE AND SHOCKING APOLOGETIC

What is worse is the inappropriate and totally unacceptable effort of Catholics, who in their desire to exculpate the Church, place the principal responsibility for this [seeming] abomination on the Spanish throne. Thus for example, at the start of the 19th Century, Joseph de Maistre in his Letters to a Russian gentleman on the Spanish Inquisition claimed that “everything attributed to this tribunal that was harsh or odious, especially the death penalty, should be charged against the government...While on the other hand, clemency was a characteristic of the Church.”

The affirmation is both inexact and offensive. The Spanish Inquisition was clearly, as we shall see, both in its actions and its methods, much more an ecclesiastical than a governmental institution. The faithful should not seek to win the respect of anyone by passing the blame onto others.
How is it that Catholics do not see that imputing what they consider to be the evils of the Inquisition exclusively to the Spanish monarchs is an indefensible naivete; a naivete which leads their adversaries to laugh at them, for quite the opposite is the case.

The Spanish monarchs only established the Inquisition by implementing the Papal Bull Exigit sincerae devotioinis of 1478. And in 1496, after sixteen years of intense inquisitorial activity, independent since 1494 from all possibility of appealing to Rome, these Monarchs, namely Isabelle and Ferdinand, by the Papal Bull Si convenit promulgated in the consistory of December 2, 1496. were given the official and unprecedented title of “Catholic Kings” which has always been retained by them. And this was after Pope Sixtus IV in 1482 for Castile (Bull Apostolicae Sedis), and in 1483 for Aragon (brief Supplicari Nobis completed in 1486) had personally named the famous Tomas de Torquemada as Inquisitor and then as Inquisitor-general.

AT LAST, SOME HIGHLY BALANCED JUDGEMENTS

And how is it that Catholics, especially those who claim to be historians, have not drawn attention to the fact that the masters of modern historiography who by the nature of things should be the antagonistic to the Spanish Inquisition, currently venture to disseminate highly balanced judgments on the Spanish Inquisition?

Thus Fernand Braudel, a professor at the College of France, makes note of “the relatively small number of victims” of the Holy Office. In like manner, the Israeli specialist Leon Poliakov develops the same observation in more than ten pages of his History of Anti-Semitism. Again, Marcel Bataillon, also a professor at the College of France, notes that “The Spanish Inquisition is characterized less by its cruelty than by the power of the apparatus [...] at its command.”

Similarly the Enciclopedia judaica castellana (The Spanish Jewish Encyclopedia) states that “The Spanish Inquisition was, for its time, much less inhumane than she is described as being. She was animated by idealism.” Thus, the Lutheran authority Ernst Schafer, like the Israeli specialist Haim Beinar, tells us that a careful study of the inquisitorial process reveals that the inquisitors were far from acting as arbitrarily as is so often claimed.

Returning once again to Braudel, we find he contradicts the claim that the Spanish Inquisition was unpopular, and states that it democratically incarnated “the most profound desire of the masses.” All this is confirmed and elaborated on by Spanish-Jewish professor Americo Castro at Princeton who in addition does a great deal to destroy the accusation of anti-Jewish racism so often laid at the door of the Inquisition. “The Church State [The Inquisition] was [in Spain] a quasi revolutionary conquest realized by the masses who considered themselves wronged, and by the Conversos (Jewish converts) or their descendants, who were anxiously seeking to forget their origins.”

THE JUST GLORIES OF CATHOLICISM

How is it that Catholics do not realize that in condemning the Spanish Inquisition in absolute terms, they also condemn the Papacy and the Catholic Kings, along with all those who actively participated in this enterprise, individuals who are the true glory of Catholicism (another fact which has escaped their attention)?

Many of the Inquisitors, starting with the Inquisitor-generals Torquemada and Deza, belonged to the Dominican Order, the same Dominican order which was at the same time the champion, even going to extremes, along with Vitoria and Las Casas, of the rights of man. Another Inquisitor-general was Jimenez de Cisneros, the well known reformer and promoter of humanism, who belonged to the Franciscan order.

Again, they included Jesuits such as the great historian, political theoretician and economist Juan de Mariana. Beyond this there was a long line of equally well known bishops such as Alonso Manrique, the reformer and friend of Erasmus, and Bernardo de Sandoval, the patron of Cervantes, known for his inexhaustible charity. The Inquisition also produced two great Catholic play-writers, Lope de Vega, an “intimate” of the Holy Office, and the “Inquisitorial poet” Calderon of Barca, the only Catholic who can be considered an equal to Shakespeare, etc.

The time has come to dispel the lies and present a honest picture of the Spanish Inquisition; to provide the true history which has been suppressed for so long by the passions of polemic. As will become obvious, this portrait will be provided because of the opportunity that we have had to study the subject in depth, and above all by the large number of documents and books of the period that we have collected or discovered. These documents quietly destroy the view which has been so systematically deformed.
By means of them we will shed light on the aggregated silence of history.

A VERY LIBERAL TRADITION

The first characteristic of an authentic portrayal: the Inquisition was not a Spanish, or to be more precise, a Castilian tradition. During the Middle Ages, when the Inquisition was imposed throughout France, the Castilians were ignorant of its existence. They knew nothing about the pyres of the Albigensians or of the Templers - not even about that of St. Joan of Arc.

Tolerance and the ability to live together with others were so well established in Castile - which was not the less Christian for all that - that the epitaph of the Saint King Ferdinand (cousin of the French Saint Louis) in the Cathedral of Seville was drawn up in four languages, Latin, Castilian, Arabic and Hebrew.

The prejudicial belief in “Spanish fanaticism” flies in the face of well established historic patterns and facts up to the time that the Inquisition was established in Castile. So much is this the case that in a letter addressed by the Spanish Franciscans to their Jeromite compatriots asking for the establishment of the Inquisition in Castile, dated August 10, 1461, one reads: “It is unnecessary to establish an inquisition in the kingdom against the heretics such as was done in France and in so many other Christian realms and provinces.

Moreover, in mediaeval Spain, there was no racism on the part of the Christians against their very numerous Jewish compatriots which constituted perhaps as much as 10% of the population. “During the Middle Ages,” Americo Castro notes, “many illustrious Christian families mixed their blood with the families of Jews for financial reasons or because of the beauty of the Jewish woman; before the 15th century no one was scandalized by this.” As a result, there was no racism of a biological nature. Nor was there any racism based on religion.

There was in fact a continuous dialogue between the Christians and the Jews. Such is exemplified by the debate in Tortosa (1414) where the Christian argument triumphed and where thirty out of 40 rabbis that participated were converted of their own free will to Christianity, followed shortly thereafter by thousands of their co-religionists.

The product of this double rapprochement - both biological and religious - was the highly significant Spanish converso, that is to say Christians with Jewish blood who were soon to wield a power highly disproportionate to their number. The conversos tended to monopolize finance, the collection of taxes, medicine, municipal government, the courts, the Church (innumerable bishops were conversos), the police (Santa Hermandad) and the Orders of Chivalry. By means of intermarriage, they penetrated the nobility.

This was to such a degree true that the future King, Ferdinand the Catholic, was born of Jewish blood, his mother being one Henriquez. In a similar manner the intelligentsia, ministers, secretaries, and chroniclers of the Catholic Kings were born of Jewish blood; men such as Diego de Valera, Hernando de Talavera, Hernando del Pulgar, Miguel Perez de Almazan (the first secretary of State who was placed in charge of Inquisitorial affairs).

It is hardly necessary to point out that in no other Christian country did such a situation prevail; certainly not in France from which the Jews had been completely and definitely expelled in 1394 (they had been expelled from England in 1290).

A DRAMATIC DETERIORATION

In the face of such prevailing conditions in Spain, why was the Inquisition required; how could it have been established; and why was it primarily directed against the conversos of Jewish origin? Only because there was a deterioration in the ability of these groups to live together starting at the end of the XIVth century and progressively increasing to a critical point during the second half of the XVth century.

Because of the increase in converso power, the older established Christians everywhere felt themselves increasingly threatened, both with regard to their property and their identity. At first they reacted in a disorganized manner, but then in an increasingly systemic way, against Jews who fostered the increasing influence and domination of their brother conversos. In 1391 there was a bloody slaughter of Jews throughout much of Spain. This resulted in a significant increase in the number of conversos because many Jews sought safety in baptism - though now it was under constraint, or at least indirectly so.

During the following half century the incessant preaching of Saint Vincent Ferrar, who was certainly not anti-Semitic, resulted in another wave of conversions, often of inadequately catechized Spanish Jews. As a result, while the numbers increased, the conversos phenomena became more and more mixed. This was particularly true in the religious domain where certain Jewish customs were introduced into the heart of Spanish Christianity. They were seen as Judaizing.

Beyond this, as the converso historians themselves noted, as this heterogeneous group of converts became more and more powerful, they displayed an arrogance towards the older established Christians and even oppressed them. Thus the converso Alonso de Palencia in writing to his brothers in Cordova stated: “extraordinarily enriched by special trades, they have become increasingly proud and display an insolent arrogance, seeking to gain control of public offices, after which by bribery and against all the rules, they get themselves admitted to the chivalrous orders where they seek to form cliques (bandos).”

These cliques succeeded in forming a band of “three hundred well armed cavaliers” in Cordova. Secure in their impunity, the conversos of this city “became so audacious as to have no fear of celebrating Jewish ceremonies whenever they wished.” Another converso chronicler, Diego de Valera, future principal counselor of the Catholic Kings confirmed that “the new Christians oppress the old established ones in all sorts of ways.”

A BLOOD BATH

A violent reaction soon occurred. The older established Christians revolted savagely against the conversos. In 1449 they regained control of Toledo after a bitter struggle with the converso bandos who had been in power there as they had been in Cordova. And the victorious rebels promulgated the “statutes regarding the purity of blood lines” which only allowed the old established Christians access to positions of public authority. The same year, 1449, Ciudad-Real “liberated” itself along the same lines.

When in 1467 the conversos tried to regain their powers, the two cities initiated an orgy of killing and destruction. In 1468 the blood bath spread from Vieille-Castile to Sepulveda; and in 1473 to Andalusia. The fight against the conversos of Cordova, heavily armed as we have said, lasted for two whole days. When the old established Christians won, it was in the midst of immense destruction and many deaths. They then proceeded to regain control throughout the region and the routed conversos were killed by the peasants in the fields.

A generalized bloody pogrom spread throughout the vast territory of Almodovar del Campo south of la Mancha, to Cabra in the direction of Malaga. Soon Jaen was “liberated” in the same way that Cordova had been.

The following year, 1474, Vielle-Castile was involved in a new blood bath. Segovia, after a bitter struggle, was also won over by the old established Christians. But this time - most importantly - the blood bath occurred directly before the eyes of the Catholic Kings. When they entered the city the battle had just terminated. “There were still marks of fresh blood in the streets and on the walls of the houses. The city reeked from the number of slaughtered, the rotting carcasses and the destruction.” That very day the Catholic Kings came to a clear decision.

THE CRY FOR PUNISHING THE “CONVERSO

From this moment, in the face of the imprudent actions of their blood brothers and the brutality of the reactions of the older established Christians, the more prominent conversos, sincerely attached to their new faith, promulgated a detailed denunciation of the “judaising danger.” They further called for an institutional vigilance that was not arbitrary but regulated, which little by little took on the shape and character of an Inquisition.

For example, from the very start of the insurrection in Toledo, the Diaz de Toledo, the recorder of the court of royal justice, while fully respecting the rights of his converso brothers, declared: “If there is any new Christian convert who conducts himself badly, he should be punished and chastised severely. And I will be the first one to bring the wood to burn him, and to light the fire. I will go further and state that if he is of Jewish lineage, he should be more severely and more cruelly punished, because he should know what is involved better than others in so far as he has a knowledge of the Law and the Prophets.”
As one knows, the Law and the Prophets were quite rigorous with regard to prescriptions and punishments”

The aged Rabbi Solomon Halevi who became bishop of Burgos under the name of Pablo de Santa Maria, wrote a Dialogus contra Judaeos. Similarly, the ancient Rabbi Jehoshua Ha-Lorqui, who in religion took the name of Jeronimo de Santa Fe (Jerome of the Holy Faith) wrote an anti-Jewish pamphlet entitled Hebraeomastix. And the Aragonais converso Pedro de la Caballeria, wrote his Zelus Christi contra Judaeos.

Finally, and with more violence than the others, a Franciscan converso, Alonso de Espina, wrote in his Fortalitium fidei (1459): “I believe that if there was a real Inquisition in these days, a great many would be thrown into the fire, which would include all those who were found to be Judaizers.”

Thus as Henry Kamen noted: “It is a fact that the principle anti -Jewish polemicists were the ex-Jews.” And that the fearful term “Inquisition” was used by them in the precise sense that is attached to this word.

THE WAY THINGS STARTED AND THE REACTION

Now, as we have seen, the Catholic Kings - Ferdinand was of converso blood - who were surrounded by conversos such as their chief of state Hernando de Talavera took a position similar to that of the relator Diaz de Toledo.

Now what happened is that the kings rapidly found for the conversos, their only possible alternative in the face of the bloody repression initiated by the old established Christians. As the Israeli historian Cecil Roth noted: “In comparison to the killing of the Jews that occurred in 1391, there was a great difference. At that time those who had been attacked could save themselves by accepting baptism. Now they no longer had this alternative.”

The only solution was a new baptism dispensed and attested to by an authority which the old established Christians would not dare to contradict. In face of the general massacres which progressively spread from one place to another in the provinces of the kingdom of Castile, the rigor of the “new baptism” took its justification or its pretext, or at least its strength, from the fact that it could not be disputed. For none of the old established Christians would dare to inveigh against a Tribunal of the faith founded by a Pope and established by the full force of the royal power. Once the organization was in place, its power and its strictness practically and morally defused the obsession of the old Christians.

All the conversos “qualified” by the Tribunal of the faith, were protected by being certified as Christians and Spaniards with full legal rights. Repression was replaced by a process of assimilation. This response sacrificed a small number of trees but saved as it were the forest. In order to achieve a good result, the Catholic Kings knew they could count on the sincere conversos: they placed the Tribunal of the faith in their hands.

Such are the facts. During these years 1475, the Catholic Kings requested the Pope for the authority to create an Inquisition which would also be royal, and which would curb the Judaizing conversos. In doing so they were repeating a similar demand made in 1461 by their predecessor Henri IV of Castile - a fact most are unaware of. Pope Sixtus IV acceded to this demand with his Bull Exigit sincerae devotionis of Novermber 1, 1478.

Then the Pope, following the recommendation of the Kings, named as Inquisitor-general, as we have already pointed out, the Dominican Tomas de Torquemada, who the royal chronicler and converso Hernando del Pulgar tells us was a relative of Cardinal Juan de Torquemada, and who like him was “of Jewish lineage and a convert to our holy Catholic faith.” Perez de Almazan, converso Secretary of State and the person responsible for the Inquisition, backed up this guarantee of a good result which was carried on by the successor of Torquemada, Diego Deza, another Dominican and yet another converso, as was proclaimed urbi et orbi in the first years of the Sixteenth century.
The Spanish Inquisition was created to cure a dangerous illness which suddenly and unexpectedly occurred during a national process of tolerance and Christianization. Daughter of these forces, she assured the definite success of the process in so far as it could be saved, namely Christianization. In Spanish eyes, the result of this good though risky effort, does not deserve the contempt of other nations such as France and England, nations which refused to take the same risks and which from the start rejected and expelled their Jewish communities.
THE FIRST EVENT THAT IS QUIETLY IGNORED
The Spanish Inquisition having been established in this spirit, two events rapidly occurred, two events about which current historians keeps silence, sometimes deliberately.
The first is the fact that, before giving the Inquisition permission to freely function, the Spanish monarchs suppressed the pontifical Bull of 1478 for a period of two years while they made a great effort to pacify the situation by means of persuasion. It was only in 1480, in the face of the “obstinacy of the Judaizers” that they appointed the first inquisitors in Seville.
During this period a campaign appealing to what Hernando del Pulgar describes as “sweet reasons and tender admonitions” was developed in Seville and throughout South-Western Spain. It was initiated with a pastoral letter - a veritable catechism for the conversos - by the Archbishop Gonzalez de Mendoza, who also published a special catechism especially meant for the Jews. A greater effort at evangelization was undertaken, including visits to homes and the placing of bulletin-boards in each parish on which the pastoral-catechism of the Archbishop was posted. It is the converso Pulgar himself who tells us in his chronicle that: “The religious to whom this mission was entrusted, initially worked to convert the Judaizers by sweet admonitions, then by harsh reprimands. But this was only minimally successful. In their obstinacy, the Judaizers gave proof of their blindness and stupidity and of such a passionate ignorance that they denied they were Judaizers and hid their errors, and then secretly returned to these errors and practices in order to preserve their Jewish rites.”
One searches in vain in the recently published Inquisition espagnole of the Toulouse professor Bartolome Bennassar and his five co-authors for any mention of these pacific efforts during the period prior to the initiation of Inquisitorial activities. As for the Histoire de l’Inquisition espagnole written by the British professor Henry Kamen, and which appeared in a French translation some thirteen years ago, it doesn’t hesitate to proclaim just the opposite: One reads in it that “no other measure was taken during the two following years [after 1478]. Pulgar[...] denounced any recourse to coercion at a time when no attempt at evangelization was even outlined.”
THE SECOND EVENT THAT IS QUIETLY IGNORED
The second event shows that the Inquisition not only envisioned the use of persuasion, but also that of reconciliation and assimilation. This is demonstrated by another important event which took place fifteen to nineteen years later, in 1495-1497.
This important episode is the Law of Rehabilitation (habilitation) initiated at that time by the Catholic Kings. By this procedure the monarchs exchanged the modest tax levied on all those condemned by the Inquisition during the course of the preceding 15 to 17 years, for the right to take public office and to ply the trades which had been prohibited to them and their decedents.
This general Rehabilitation of 1495-97 was laid out in detail in the archives dealing with the matter. Thus, for Toledo by F. Cantera Burgos, and of Seville by Father Azcona.The reading of these documents is of great interest for they give the names of the condemned, their professions, the reason for their condemnation and the penalties incurred during this initial period, the most rigorous of the Inquisition. One immediately sees that the number of those condemned was far fewer than the number given by the anti-Inquisitorial histories. So much for Seville.
One can find here a typical case. Thus, for example, among those rehabilitated in Toledo was a merchant named Juan de Toledo, or Juan Sanchez, the grand-father of St. Teresa of Avila, who despite the fact that he was condemned as a Judaizing converso, was given back all his professional and civil rights which made it possible for him to subsequently hold public office, that of tax-collector of royal and ecclesiastical revenues in Avila. And which further allowed him to see the nobility of his sons officially proclaimed by the chancery of Valladolid.
This is a model example of reconciliation and assimilation, especially when one considers the fact that the grand-daughter of this rehabilitated converso was to become one of the glories of Tridentine Catholicism, welcomed with respect and supported by Gaspar de Quiroga, the Inquisitor-general of her epoch.“I am happy to know you, for it is something that I greatly desire. Please see me as your chaplain. I will help you in any way necessary... I wish to tell you that some years ago a book of yours was presented to the Inquisition. Its doctrine was examined with great care. I have read the entire book and I maintain that the doctrine is very correct, very true and very profitable... You can take it back whenever you wish. I authorize you [to publish] it as you asked... I ask you to always remember me in your prayers.” The Spanish text is found in the Obras de Santa Theresa by Father Silvero de. S. T., T. I, p. 226: French translation of Marcelle Auclair.
But the reader will search in vain for any mention of this general Rehabilitation in the current histories about the Inquisition, even the most recent. The Inquisition espagnole of Bennassar and his collaborators only makes an obscure reference to “dispensations” which could be bought, and which only resulted in the further “weakening of the descendants of the old religious minority.”! As for the Histoire de l’Inquisition espagnole of Henry Kamen, it goes so far as to offer the reader a new falsification to the effect that “the Catholic Kings continued to apply the regulations” published by Torquemada in 1484 which imposed all sorts of professional and civil restrictions on the condemned and on their children and grand-children.
One sees that the attitude of people like Braudel who totally reject the current histography of the Spanish Inquisition is only too well justified. Unfortunately however, he offers the reader nothing as an alternative.
AN INCREDIBLE FAIRYTALE
It is clear then that what has been imposed on the public is an incredible fairytale: “The conversos were eliminated,” writes Henry Kamen; the Inquisition resulted in “the progressive extermination of the Jews,” claim two of the co-authors of Bartolome Bennassar. We have seen what happened to the Jewish converso grand-father of St. Teresa of Avila who became the wealthy tax-collector for the king and Church as well as the father of hidalgos to whom respect, franchises and honorable careers were opened by submission to the “executory letters of His Majesty” who raised them to the nobility. A Jewish converso became the grandfather of a saint revered as much by the Inquisitor-general as by “Don Felipe,” that is, King Philip II. This King was able to persuade the Papal Nuncio to recognize and support her Carmelite reform by means of this dry injunction: “It is time for you to honor virtue.”

If one goes on, beyond the period of origin, and examines the Inquisition in the 17th Century, what does one find? From 1607 to 1618 the Inquisitor-general was cardinal Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, who we have already noted as a patron of charity. And this Inquisitor-general was none other than a descendant on both his paternal and maternal sides, of those conversos who had been “eliminated” and “exterminated.”
On his mothers side he was a direct descendant of Juan Pacheco, the Marquis of Villena and the Grand-master of the Order of Santiago. This is the same person who Henry Kamen reminds us was a “descendant on both sides of the ancient Jewish family of Ruy Capon.” On his paternal side this cardinal was the direct descendant of Henrique Henriquez, the maternal uncle and the major-domo of Ferdinand the Catholic, and another person of Jewish origins.
At the same time, the Inquisitor-general, Pacheco et Henriquez were being “eliminated” and “exterminated,” these conversos controlled enormous seigneural estates in Spain. They also included among their number the Dukes of Escalona, the admirals of Castile, the Viceroys of Peru, Mexico, Sicily and even of Castile (Henriquez) in the absence of Charles V.
THE “CONVERSOS” WERE ALWAYS IN CONTROL, ESPECIALLY IN THE INQUISITION
The sister of the Inquisitor-general Sandoral married Pedrarias Davila, the Count of Punoenrostro and the direct descendant of Alfonso Cota, the Jewish treasurer of Henry IV of Castile. As a result she had step-cousins and step-uncles of Jewish origin which included Juan Arias Davila the Bishop of Segovia; the Latin poet Alvaro Gomez de Ciudad-Real; the seigneur of Pioz, the childhood page of young Charles the Fifth and his companion at Pavia; the conquistador Pedrarias Davila, the first governor appointed to the Americas; Louis Cota, the chaplain of Charles V and bishop of Ampurias; Sancho Cota, the private secretary of Eleonore, sister of Charles V and queen of Portugal, and later of France (she married Francis I); the Lords of Ventosa, Cota-Sandoval, etc., etc. It is obvious that all of these were among those who were “eliminated” and “exterminated.”
In reality, throughout the 17th Century, everywhere and above all in the Inquisition, the conversos of Jewish blood more than ever remained in power. More than ever they constituted the very marrow of Spanish civilization. They filed the most sought after positions in the chivalric orders, the highest positions in the religious hierarchy; they constituted the nobility, the government and the intellectuals of the nation.
Such a widespread and successful assimilation is without parallel in any other land or period of history. It was moreover, an assimilation inseparable from the Inquisition which was in turn supported and directed by the conversos themselves. Under such conditions the Inquisition could never have been used for the elimination or extermination of their blood-brothers; indeed, just the opposite was the case.
AFTER ALL, EVERYONE KNOWS IT IS SO
One is forced to ask oneself why current historiography tries to impose this fairytale of the “elimination” and “extermination” of the Jewish conversos everywhere outside of Spain, and this at a time when one cannot but be scandalized by the Jewish omnipresence among the Spanish elite. Such was recognized in Rome, France and the Protestant countries.
In the capital of Christianity this was noted by the Inquisitor-general Guevara at the beginning of the 17th century. In Holland Erasmus declared that “In Spain there are hardly any Christians to be found.” In France, or rather, in Pantagruel, Rabelais declared that all the Spanish are more or less Marranos (an insulting title given to the conversos suggesting that they were pigs). And again in France, the Huguenot Languet, a pamphleteer employed in turn by the Lutheran Elector of Saxony and the Calvinist Holland wrote in his Apologie du prince d’Orange (Apology for the Prince of Orange) (1581) that “I am not surprised a what the greater part of the world believes: namely, that the majority of the Spanish, especially those considered as aristocrats, are of the Moorish race or are Jewish.” All this should make us question the issue of Spanish racism.
A DECISIVE SUCCESS
Moreover, this is just as true with regard to quality as it was with regard to quantity. At no time in history did the conversos achieve the same glories as they did under the Spanish Inquisition. The process of assimilation resulted in such a striking synthesis that it changed the course of European history. In the face of the Reformation, the converso genius was a model of Catholicism both in the strength of its resistance as well as in its ability to regain what had been lost.
Moreover, the Spanish Jewish conversos of that period, were not limited to Inquisitor-generals, to people like Sandoval, the great patron of letters, or St. Teresa of Avila, the Carmelite responsible for the magisterial renovation of mystical monasticism. It also included people like the layman Luis Vives, the glory of Catholic humanism in the outpost of Flanders ;Francisco de Vitoria, the Dominican renovator of social and moral theology who was also the head of the University of Salamanca; the great Augustinian poet and theologian Luis de Leon; Jean d’Avila, the apostle of Andalusia and the person responsible for inspiring Ingatius of Loyola; Diego Lainez, successor of Ignatius of Loyola, general of the Jesuits, the person responsible for animating the Council of Trent, and a person who almost became the Pope of the Counter-Reformation; and Arias Montano, the great bible scholar of the period. And finally one must mention innumerable Jesuits, for the Spanish conversos flocked to the Company of Jesus which had taken over the leadership of humanist and religious culture, blocking and even driving back the Reformation throughout Europe.
A typical example is that of the five sons of a wealthy merchant of Medina del Campo (who was no more “eliminated” or “exterminated” then were the other conversos), all of whom entered the Company of Jesus. Among them was Father Jose de Acosta, one of the first naturalists to use modern scientific methodology, the author of the remarkable Historia naturel y moral de las Indias (de America), and a close advisor to Philip II. Another brother was Father Jeronimo de Acosta who warmly approved the apology for the Inquisition written by the prior Juan-Francisco de Villava, declaring its “holy and Catholic doctrine most profitable and necessary for our times,” and describing it as a “most fruitful and savory work... worthy of the great master of Avila.”

Catholics cannot but recognize their debt to this unique achievement - the spiritual renewal in the heart of the Church - given to the world by the Spanish Jewish conversos. To anyone who considers the facts objectively, this happy result is one of the great facts of civilization
A BREATH-TAKING SCENE
But, on the other hand it will be objected that, the Inquisition forced the expulsion of the non-converted Jews from Spain starting in 1492, twelve years after the establishment of the first Inquisitorial tribunals. This is what the anti-Inquisitorial historians affirm and have affirmed since the historian Llorente made the claim based on an anecdote recounted by Paramo, an Inquisitor in Sicily, at the end of the 16th Century.
This story claims that Torquemada in a fit of anger, threw a Crucifix before the feet of the Catholic Kings and told them that, having been blinded by the brilliance of Jewish gold which was being offered them at the time, they had sought like Judas, to sell Christ. The Catholic Kings, terrorized by the Grand Inquisitor, hastened to sign the decree for expulsion which was before them.
This dramatic scene was made very popular by Emilio Sala, a “hack” painter at the end of the 19th Century who made a profession of painting many historical scenes. Subsequently it has been repeatedly reproduced and disseminated.
The fact is that this breath-taking scene cannot be confirmed from any records or witnesses of the period. Paramo, who Braudel, as we know, considers a very unreliable authority, obviously invented the story to please the anti-Jewish Spaniards of his time.
Even Jewish historians refuse to authenticate this anecdote. The Chebet Jehuda, a sort of history of the persecutions which the people of Israel have undergone, cites Abrabanel, Jewish financier to the Catholic Kings, as witness that Torquemada and the Inquisition in no way intervened in the decision to expel the Jews which this text imputes to Queen Isabella. According to Abrabanel’s own testimony: “Do you believe this came from me?” Isabella said. “The Lord put this thought in the heart of the King.”
Regardless of whether the monarch who was most responsible was Isabella or Ferdinand, the decision to expel the non converted Jews was a royal one and completely outside of the Inquisitorial framework. This is confirmed by the preliminaty statement of the decree for expulsion: the inquisitors are mentioned among those responsible for providing information which led the monarchs to take this decision, but also, according to the declarations made by the Cortes (Parliament) of Toledo which met in 1480,”many other people, religious, ecclesiastic and lay.”
A PROCESS OF DECOLONIZATION
Among “the great number of reasons” (Azcona) for the expulsion, the preliminary statement mentions the havoc resulting from the pressures exerted by the Jews on the conversos, as well as the crimes imputed to the Jews. Beyond these justifications one must remember that the decision immediately followed the capture of Grenada which put an end to the Moslem occupation in Spain and that the event was obviously seen, as Braudel put it, as the final “liberation” from these “strangers from across the sea.”
This author adds: “In order to be part of Europe, the Spanish peninsula, in a process which to some degree resembled that of decolonization, refused to be African or Oriental.”
The Inquisition had no part in the execution of this decision. The orders were given solely to governors, judges and inspectors. And none of the goods of the Jews benefitted members of the Inquisition. The possibility of avoiding the expulsion was offered to the Jews if they converted, and 50,000 of them chose baptism which went to further swell the number of conversos. The royal instructions made it clear that in cases of conversion, the Inquisition would create no problems during the years necessary for their adaption, and that they would receive special consideration. Once again, in the mind of the Catholic Kings, the Inquisitorial aim appeared in itself to be good, not one of repression at any price, but of assimilation. This was made even more clear in that the monarchs agreed to act as God-parents to some of the new conversos when they were baptized. Thus for example, they function as God-parents in the celebrated baptism of the financier Abraham Seneor and the Rabbi Mayer de Guadalupe monastery, to whom they later committed important functions of state.
A TRULY BIRACIAL SYMBIOSIS
In point of fact the real number of those expelled was only about 100,000, of which a considerable number returned to Spain a few years later where they were accepted without being required to give very exacting proofs of their conversion. This was shown by the complaint addressed in a memoir to Charles V by the licentiate Tristan de Leon. Once again the number of conversos increased.
At the end of the 15th Century, as a result of successive waves of conversos from the peak of the Middle Ages to the time of Charles V, the conversos constituted the greater majority of the Spanish Jews, some 400,000 persons in a population in Aragon and Castile that totaled 5 million.
This important fact and the proportion off conversos to Old Catholics should not be forgetten if one wishes to understand the enterprise of assimilation undertaken by the Inquisition. Moreover, most of the conversos belonged to the economic, cultural and administrative elite and had equal opportunity in these areas with the older established Christians. The cultural and religious outcome of the Inquisition was thus a veritable biracial symbiosis involving the nearly total assimilation of the Jewish population.
THE VICTIMS OF THE INQUISITION - STATISTICS GONE MAD
But it will still be objected that this effort involved an incredible number of victims, a veritable orgy of killing. If one believes the recent denunciations of Inquisitorial horrors such as those made by Pierre Guenoun, the air of the Peninsula was “infested with the smell of burning flesh” during this period. And another recent historian, Pierre Dominique, gives us details of the number of victims, reign by reign, victims which were, at least in the beginning, mostly Jewish conversos. Thus, during the reign of the Catholic Kings (Isabella and Ferdinand):
Burnt alive Burnt in Effigy Punished 16,376 9,901 178,382
And according to the enormous figures cited by Henry Kamen, from the end of the 15th to the beginning of the 19th Century the victims added up to:
Burnt alive Burnt in effigy Punished 31,912 17,659 341,021
Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and scholarly publications have repeated these figures so often that the public mind is convinced they correspond to the truth and that the Spanish Inquisition was one of the most ferocious and most criminal oppressions ever known to History. Prejudice is so strong that these numbers continue to be accepted without criticism, despite the devastating criticism of them by the German historians such as Ernst Schafer from the 1900s, or the Spanish historians such as Alfonso Junco and Nicolas Lopez Martinez between the year 1930 to 1950. Thus it was necessary for Braudel to note in passing that “the number” of victims of the Spanish Inquisition “was relatively small,” and for the British author Kamen to note in the French translation of his Spanish Inquisition that the numbers given “are not based on any foundation” in order to enable our historical studies to begin to raise doubts about them. However it was necessary to wait until 1975 before any publication reaching university circles dealt in a definite manner with the issue, and which demonstrated that they were truly a product of preposterous statistics .
A NAIVE IMPOSTURE
These [false] numbers come from the first historian of the Inquisition, the Spanish Llorente, a refugee in France because he had been the representative of Joseph Bonaparte during the occupation of Spain by Napoleonic troops. He wrote the Anales de la Inquisicion de Espana (Madrid, 1812), and then a Histoire critique (sic) de l’Inquisition d’Espagne (Paris, 1817-1818). A restatement and correction of these numbers was made in 1975, and then only in the single study of Professor Gerard Dufour of the University of Rouen under the title of “Les victimes de Torquemada (Les calculs de Llorente: sources et methodes), published in Cahiers du monde hispanique et lusobresilien, a bulletin of very limited circulation published by the university of Toulouse-Le-Mirail.
Professor Gerard Dufour shows that the impressive numbers of Llorente which are almost universally accepted are “not at all convincing.” They are in no way a reasonable statistic, but only the naive imposture of purely conjectural numbers established on the basis of insupportable fragility and exaggeration. How did Llorente arrive at his figures? The answer is quite simple. Totally ignorant of the number of victims of the Inquisition, he fabricated them from conjectural accounts available to him with regard to the tribunal of Seville during the first years of its activity, numbers provided by the early chroniclers and historians and a lost inscription. As Mariana, one of the ancient historians, pointed out, Llorente did not take note of the fact that these numbers were only rumors. Moreover, carried away by his passions, Llorente quoted inexactly and exaggerated greatly in his additions. For, as Gerard Dufour noted, among the 2,000 victims mentioned by Mariana were included some added up by Llorente, and the 700 mentioned by Bernaldez, the anti-Semitic chronicler who moreover had inflated the number to satisfy the needs of his cause. Llorente did not take all these facts into account.
Having thus taken “entirely erroneous numbers,” and these only from Seville during the early years, Llorente tranquilly multiplied them by the total number of Inquisitorial tribunals and by the number of years they functioned.
But as he arrived by means of this method of blind multiplication of inflated figures at a total figure that was so enormous as to be absolutely unbelievable, he reduced them on a completely arbitrary basis by 50% in general, and by 90% for the first year after each tribunal was established because they would not have had sufficient time to pronounce sentence on anyone during the first year.
In summary, all of Llorente’s numbers, which Pierre Dominique, declared as late as 1969, “constituted the basis for our knowledge on this subject” and merited “to be believed” were from beginning to end, nothing but suppositions. Anti-Inquisitorial passions were so strong that during a century and a half, historians, authors of dictionaries, encyclopedias, manuals, and all the readers of Llorente pretended not to have read what he so ingeniously proclaimed himself... Thus he wrote in Chapter VIII, Article IV of Volume I of his so badly named Histoire critique: “I was satisfied with supposing that the thousand condemned were simply burnt in person; that only five hundred were burnt in effigy: based on this calculation, each year 32 individuals were burnt in person,” etc.
SEVERAL HUNDRED
In fact, concludes Gerard Dufour: “In the absence of precise documents and limited to a given tribunal or a given time period, it is impossible to claim to be able to ‘imagine’ the total number of victims of the Holy Office at that time.” And nothing could be worse then to base one’s opinion, as did Kamen, on the estimations given by the American Henry-Charles Lea, the author of the enormous History of the Spanish Inquisition which is as prejudiced as Llorente’s work while being (much) less ingenuous, a fact which makes it even more one sided.
Fortunately, objective historians exist today, men for whom only the facts as reported in the archives can be relied upon. Thus the Franciscan Father Tarsicio de Azcona, who we have already quoted with regard to the reign of Isabella the Catholic, draws exclusively from the archives of the period which he often uncovers for the first time. This enables him to rectify innumerable gross errors on a wide variety of topics such as public mandates, financial reform, the preparation for and the financing of the conquest of America and the assimilation of the Moors after the fall of Grenada, etc. These are all subjects about which Joseph Perez, the most recent French specialist and author, among other works, of L’Espagne des Rois Catholiques , expresses his heavy debt to Father Azcona who he characterizes with praise as being a “ scrupulous historian.”
Now after the most rigorous and extensive research possible on the period of the reign of Isabelle the Catholic, Azcona draws this conclusion about the victims of the Inquisition: “Those condemned to death during the reign of Isabella [which is to say between 1480 and 1504 were unquestionably in the hundreds.” .
EXECUTION WAS THE EXCEPTION
One should not mistrust the estimates of Father Azcona because he is a religious and a Spaniard; historians in every land and in various fields accept his authority. One can also have confidence in the work of Gustav Henningsen, a layman of Lutheran persuasion from the North (Denmark) who also restricts himself to information derived from the archives. For a later period of the Inquisition he gives us an estimate which agrees with that of Father Azcona. Having discovered in the 1970s some 50,000 inquisitorial procedures dating from 1560 to 1700, he concludes “only about one percent of those accused were executed.” This would be about 500 victims for a period of 140 years during this most important period of Inquisitorial activity.
Admittedly the Inquisition would have been more moderate during this period, as compared to the Isabellan era, for the problem of conversos had been resolved as a result of assimilation. But the estimate of victims given by Azcona was only for a 24 year period. And the only numbers from the very beginning of the Inquisition concerning continental Spain, and not found in Lea are those quoted by Kamen of the tribunal of Badajoz furnished by a recent inquiry published in the Revue des etudes juives. And this source reduces the number to some 20 executions in 106 years between 1493 and 1599 in one of the “hottest” regions of Spain.
Once again it is confirmed that repression was not the essential goal of the Inquisition. Once the danger of a socio-national explosion was passed, they refused to apply the ultimate penalty in 99% of the cases. The historian is forced to note that the estimate of the number of victims of the Spanish Inquisition as revealed by Azcona and Henningsen are much lower than those that one fears would have occurred with the spontaneous massacre of conversos had the Catholic Kings not stopped the blood bath by the institution of the Inquisition. In Toledo alone, more people were killed in the two massacres which lasted several days, than were killed by the Inquisition during the 25 years of Queen Isabella’s reign. And in addition to Toledo, there was Ciudad Real, Jaen, Sepulveda, Cordoba, Segovia and all the other cities which would have followed their example. The situation in neighboring Portugal provides further evidence of this. There the Inquisition, such as existed in Spain was not established until 1586, and massacres of Jewish conversos continued to claim thousands of victims in a population that was barely a quarter that of Spain, and this only in a few decades.

RELATIVE TO WHAT?
We thus come back to what is described by Braudel as the “relatively limited number of victims” of the Spanish Inquisition. But what does “relative” mean? It means that, not only in Portugal, but throughout most of Europe, the victims of religious intolerance were much larger. In England the Reform of Henry VIII led to the execution of two cardinals, two archbishops, 18 bishops, 13 abbots of large monasteries, 500 priors and monks, 38 University Doctors , 12 Dukes or Counts, 164 noblemen, 124 private citizens and 110 women. And this without the excuse of any particular reasons of State (the Jews had been expelled from England in 1290), while Spain was faced with the need to establish an expensive line of defense against the anarchic massacres of conversos. And in England the “Bloody” Tudor Mary, this time on behalf of the Catholics, did the same thing as Henry VIII. And Queen Elizabeth I indiscriminately killed Catholics and Calvinists in even larger numbers. And the English Puritans under Cromwell who engaged in pure and simple genocide in Ireland - 40,000 victims killed or sold as slaves in 1649 in the Oradours of Drogheda and Wexford alone.
Was there not a succession of horrors in Germany and throughout the areas under Lutheran control claiming hundreds of thousands of victims from the very start of the Reformation? The War of the Knights, the War of the Peasants, the subversion of the Anabaptists, all operations initiated in the name of the Reform, all drowned in blood, and all instigated by the oft frenetic leadership of Luther himself. In Germany and in Sweden the Lutheran Inquisitions were continuously employed, as were in Switzerland the Zwingalian or Calvinist Inquisitions, killing the Anabaptist Manz, or the Osiandriste Funke, or the tolerant chancellor Crell, or the “libertine” Gruet, or the anti-trinitarian Servet, or the Karlstattian Jonas, etc., etc.
And finally France. Even without speaking of the Wars of Religion in which hundreds of thousands of victims were killed, the repression of heresy among the people was extraordinary bloody. As is documented, in Paris from 1530 the execution blocks continuously were reddened with the blood of the victims. And after this the 3000 victims of the massacre of the Vaudois of Provence ordered by Francis I in 1545. And then the 500 condemned to death by the Parliament of Paris alone between the years 1547 and 1550.
And what if we add to all this, to the Lutheran killings in Germany, to those of the Puritans in England, to the Calvinist killings in Switzerland, the tens, and even hundreds of thousands of victims of the suppression of “sorcerers and witches” which the Inquisition in Spain alone, as we shall see, was able to prevent.
TWO CONTEMPORANEOUS WITNESSES
Again, those living at that period of history, if they were in a position to make a comparison, were not likely to be wrong. Thus Philip II, who tried to moderate the actions of his wife Mary Tudor, and who had a first secretary inherited from his father Charles V, Gonzalo Perez who was a converso and who had a “decisive part” in state affairs. Familiar with the situation in Flanders after having been the regent of Spain, Philip II noted on his return to the Peninsula that the Inquisition in the Low Countries had been “much more cruel than here.”
Thus Antonio del Corro, a Protestant pastor born in Seville and related to a well known Inquisitor of the same name. He had known the works of Luther and the other reformers because the official Inquisitors in Seville gave him confiscated copies of their works. Converted by reading them he became the pastor of the reformed French Churches in Aquitaine, then at Anvers, and finally in London. He wrote in 1567 that the Spanish inquisitors before his departure from the Peninsula “had a great deal of respect for him.” He was on the other hand insulted, menaced and anathematized by his new Calvinest brothers, especially by Theodore of Beze, and then excommunicated by the Bishop of London. He wrote the following statement in London in 1569: the Protestant Inquisitions exercised “a much greater and more unjust oppression and tyranny [on its victims] than did the Spanish Inquisitors.”
THE FRIGHTFUL “GANG OF INQUISITORIAL COLLABORATORS”
But let us look at things in the concrete. Let us start by following a man or a woman who assisted the Spanish Inquisition. That is to say, one of the “collaborators” who we are told were omnipresent and terrible denouncers, the “spies spread abroad,” a sort of “secret police” appointed as Kamen specified, “without any record of their appointment being kept.”
Now these assertions are completely disavowed by the documents. Let us take the case of a typical small Spanish city near Toledo, Talavera de la Reina, which we have studied in great detail. Who were the individuals chosen there as Inquisitorial “collaborators”? Were they a filthy gang of paid denunciators? Just the contrary: they were members or associates of the most distinguished and noble families, such as the Meneses who the aristocratic historian Salazar y Castro wrote at the end of the 17th Century were: “of the highest lineage, one which throughout Spanish history had merited the greatest respect.” During the 17th Century the Meneses consisted of a number of eminent individuals of which one was a celebrated judge, president of the Counsel of Ordres and another a famous chief of the tercio, and a member of the Council of War. They were either directly, or by close association, the Counts of Cifuentes, the Counts of Pedrosa, the Marquis of Baydes, the Counts of Villafranca, the Marquis of Las Navas, etc.
Were they appointed in a secret manner such that no trace of their engagement is to be found? Not at all. One can find diplomas certifying such “Collaborators,” beautiful examples of calligraphy surrounded with painted decorations, in collections of ancient manuscripts that can be purchased even today. Thus for example, the diploma of Bernardino of Meneses, named an associate in 1634, was recently offered to collectors by a German dealer in Antiquities. We have a photocopy of this before us. The signatures of the concerned party, of the Inquisitors of Toledo (on which Talavera was dependant) are perfectly clear below the note of registration signed by the Inquisitorial notary. This conformed to the Inquisitorial instructions which saw to it that collaborators always carried on their persons the certification of the powers given them by the inquisitors and that lists of these powers always be conserved in the archives of each and every tribunal. We even find on this diploma of Bernardo de Meneses, the seal of the Inquisition on paper still attached to the left side. Such is also the case in 1653 of the diplomas of “collaborators,” of Juan Suarez de Toledo, of the illustrious family of the Counts of Oropesa, and of his wife Catalina de Meneses Manrique; it is a fine piece of calligraphy, the first line, written in letters of gold, and adorned with the arms of the Inquisition displayed in color. This piece has been offered to collectors for some years by a French purvayor of autographs.
In point of fact then, “collaborators” clearly had an official and public status, and were chosen from among the notables of a community, thus providing an important guarantee for moderation in inquisitorial activities. None of these notables would be willing to use indecent methods or to allow for fanatical aggressions against the people among whom they lived and who they represented as leaders. These prestigious “Collaborators” assisted the inquisitors in their work, protecting these men of religion, not used to living in the world of snares, from badly informed representations. The Inquisition was not imposed on the population from outside as an oppression; it was imposed by the population itself, and by the elite. The inquisitorial ceremonies celebrated on holidays with great pomp in which the “collaborators” publicly assisted, the statements of faith, and the autos de fes, demonstrated this. The “collaborators” were in no way spies employed by a secret police.
THE “PERIOD OF GRACE”
Let us now see how the Spanish Inquisition treated the actual denunciations, whether they were self-confessed or those of others. For there were frequent cases of confessions made in order to benefit from the indulgences which were guaranteed during a period of 30 to 40 days - a “period of grace” which followed the proclamation of an inquisitorial “edict of faith” in any given locality.
As with every department of justice or police force, the Inquisition desired that the guilty point out possible accomplices: they had to “tell the truth about their own errors and those of the people who participated with them.” If they had no accomplices, they could benefit from a “secret absolution,” in order to allow them to preserve the secret of their fault.
Disclosures during the “period of grace” were not received in some underhanded manner, but in solemn form with a guarantee being given to the interested party: “in writing, before the inquisitors, a notary, two witnessing members of the Inquisition, or in their absence, among honest persons.” By means of an oath on the Four Gospels “in the form required by law.” After that, always during the “period of grace,” the only thing that could be imposed on the guilty were “salutary penances for their souls.” The goods of the guilty were neither seized nor sequestered, and they were free from all other penalties.
This was a great novelty at the time, for the civil law then prevailing throughout Europe stipulated that a heretic was ipso facto deprived of his possessions. The First Instruction of Torquemada stressed that this leniency was the express wish of the Catholic Kings: “because their Highnesses were pleased to employ clemency towards those who truly desired to be reconciled.” Once again the evidence makes it clear: reconciliation took precedence over repression.
THE DENUNCIATIONS
With regard to denunciations made by other persons than those involved, these were only accepted in a solemn form and with extreme prudence, after great care was repeatedly taken against the possibility of false witnesses.
The denouncer was first admonished before being heard, the inquisitor reminding him in solemn manner that any mark of enmity or of hate risked placing his soul in grave danger of damnation. Then he was asked if the accusation had as its only purpose the glory of God and in no way the glory of the denouncer; and if the denouncer had anything financial to gain at the expense of his neighbor, etc. With regard to this one should not forget that the inquisitors were priests and religious and that their sacred character gave these admonitions, for the Christian who was making the denunciation, a powerfully dissuasive religious constraint.
Then, before interrogating of the denouncer, the inquisitor made him swear on the Holy Gospels that all his responses would conform to the truth; yet another dissuasion against the possibility of false witness.
The interrogation of the denouncer was as meticulously detailed as that of an accused. It took place in the presence of a notary who had to record with exactitude each question and each answer. On what did the denouncer base his statements? If it was something he saw or only something he heard? Where, when, how many times, in what manner, and in the presence of whom? What were his own means of support, his possessions, his age, his family? Etc.
Then the denouncer had to name at least two witnesses capable of confirming his statements.
After this the inquisitors made a detailed inquiry into the background of the denouncer. They also called in the two witnesses which he had cited. They listened to their declarations after the same admonitions, with the same oaths, and with the same meticulous and solemn form of questioning.
Even if the accusation was confirmed - it was in fact, a triple accusation (this guarantee was absolutely respected), the inquisitors could only proceed against the accused if there was an immediate danger to the faith. If not, they had to further investigate and interrogate other witnesses.
WITH GREAT PRUDENCE
Since the Preliminary Instructions, Torquemada went on to insist on the need for great prudence in this preliminary phase of the prosecution. “The inquisitors,” he wrote, “ought to carefully observe and examine the witnesses, make an attempt to know whether they were induced by hate or enmity, or by any other form of corruption. They should be questioned with great care and inquiries should be made of others as to whether they were credible individuals and as to their moral character.”All this was to be left to the consciences of the inquisitors.” Beyond this, all dispositions had to be signed by the denouncers or witnesses.
Finally, “the inquisitors must punish with public penalties conformable to the law, any witnesses who were found guilty of falsifying the truth,” a disposition confirmed on the part of the Kings by the instruction on punishment of false witnesses given in Granada on November 1, 1501.
This entire procedure was, with rare exceptions, scrupulously respected. One sees that the inquisitorial tribunals were in no way the abominable pits of iniquity, blindly and gladly welcoming the basest information such as the legend would have us believe.
AN EXTERNAL REVIEW
Before being able to proceed with the arrest of the accused, three further prudent steps had to be taken.
As we have indicated in one of our marginal notes, the propositions drawn, one by one, “from the very words of the witnesses,” had to be declared to be truly heretical by a separate commission of “special theologians” unconnected with the inquisition, individuals who had to be “proven theologians both of learning and of matters dealing with the conscience (lit. of science and conscience”).” The decision of these “special theologians” was taken after deliberation and by a vote which was formally recorded. If their conclusion was in the negative, or if it was one that did not justify the infliction of an important penalty (as for example, prison) there was no further prosecution.
If the decision was clearly positive, not the inquisitor, but the lawyer for the inquisitorial tribunal, a professional magistrate, had to prepare the order for arrest. This order for arrest could not be executed by the inquisitor until he had once again “meditated on the issue.”
The reader should note that the inquisitor was much less free to act than our examining magistrates are today, who are not required to bring together and record three concordant accusations of three different witnesses before initiating a prosecution. And who are not tied and limited in an obligatory manner to a review by any outside “specialist.”
Moreover, our examining magistrates in no way act with the habitual leniency of the Spanish inquisitors who liberally accepted the numerous challenges against witnesses that were suspected, no matter how slightly, of partiality; as is proven by Bartolome Bennassar.
Let us next consider the imprisonment and the sequestering of the goods of an individual who up to this point has only been accused.
The sequestering was in no way a confiscation, but only placing of property under administrative control in order to guarantee their security which the individual in prison could no longer do. This procedure was initiated by an inventory of the goods made before a “notary for sequestrations,” signed by him and by the alguacil (chief of police) of the Inquisition. The Fifth instruction of Torquemada mandated that “If the accused was released from prison, all his goods were returned to him in accordance with the same inventory.”
AN HONEST AND OPEN-HANDED ADMINISTRATION OF THESE GOODS
The administrator, called the sequestrador, had to pay out to third parties the debts of the accused which appeared “impeccable and clear.” He had to sell or rent perishable goods that would lose their value, but could only do this at public auction. He had to provide a precise accounting and return all the profits, providing records of sales and rents, to the receptor of the inquisitorial tribunal. And no sale could be made or accounts rendered without the assistance of two escrivanos (court recorders) and unless authorized and formally signed by the inquisitors.
At then end of the sequestration, the sequestrador rendered his accounts. Everything was strictly recorded and the archives of the sequestrations of the Inquisition have become an essential source for historians who wish to study the economy and daily life of the period, for one can find there a host of inventories and administrative acts of the greatest interest.
If the accused had children or other persons dependent upon him the Instructions of the Inquisitor-general Valdes (1561) mandated that the sequestrador had to give sufficient funds to the children or other dependents in order to sustain them. The definition of dependents was more liberal than our current fiscal administration: “The aged, infants, young girls, and those who for any other cause would not live in an honest manner apart from the household of the accused.”
Further, in cases where the accused were not guilty of the most serious charge of “formal heresy,” which is to say, the great majority of cases, the alguacil who made the arrest was happy and satisfied if the accused himself appointed the person to manage his goods, after an inventory was made. This in order that he could sustain “himself, his wife, his infants, and that these might benefit from efforts of the person who seemed to the accused to be the best administrator.”
Thus Henry Kamen has absolutely no right to state, as he does, that: “Every arrest was accompanied by the immediate seizure of the goods of the accused.” They were only taken under administrative control and even this was not done in most of the cases. Here once again Bartolome Bennassar bears witness to the truth when he says: “We can produce innumerable examples where the goods were effectively returned.”
But we have not as yet spoken of the prisons of the Inquisition where the accused were incarcerated.
ATTACKED BY THE RATS
According to Pierre Dominique, the prisons were “small, dark, dirty and damp” and the prisoners were “often attacked by rats.” According to the Israelite historian M. Kayserling, they “rotted there for years, having nothing to eat but bread and water.” Another Israeli historian, H. Graetz affirms that “on the door of each prison one could have written the phrase which Dante placed over the gates of hell: “abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
Fortunately, these characterizations, worthy of a horror movie, only induce informed historians to smile. First of all, quite often the Spanish Inquisition did not even have prisons, or if they did, they were insufficient. In a number of cases the Instructions of Torquemada mandated that the accused only be placed under house arrest, or even more liberally, only restricted to the city where he lived. And three quarters of a century later the Instructions of Valdes once again noted that: “In many of the Inquisitions there are no prisons.” Even when prisons were available, culprits who were poor or ill were dispensed. And even when indigents, for one reason or another, were incarcerated, they had permission to leave during the day in order to “beg for alms.”
The reason for this is that, on the one hand the Inquisition had its roots in the people and hence could have confidence in the people to guard the accused. On the other hand, when it was judged necessary to have the accused placed in prison, this was because a new residence had to be assigned to them in order to maintain secrecy about the inquest (hence the name of “secret prisons”). Here also, just as when they were at home, the accused had to pay for their own upkeep.
This is what explains the dispensations granted the indigent and the very liberal character of the inquisitorial “prisons.” The accused also provided for his own living quarters. The alguacil of the Inquisition arranged for the accused’s bed and linen to be transported from his home. The accused had available all that was necessary in order to write, and also the help of servants if he had any. He could have any kind of food that he wished “at his will.” He had free access to the chapel which was placed at his disposition.
Even more, when imprisoned, the accused person could exercise his profession. The governor of the residence had to provide “for everything necessary to his trade to be brought” in such a manner - the instructions were specific - that “the person incarcerated could sustain himself and pass the time.” This goes a long way towards portraying the spirit that motivated the policy of the Holy Office in incarcerating the accused. While these were the rules of Valdez, they also figure under the pen of Torquemada in his Quiatriemes instructions. The prisoners incapable of supporting themselves were taken care of by the tribunal which furnished them with shirts, pants and other personal effects. Like all the other prisoners, they were well nourished with bread, meat and wine. If they became ill, they were cared for “with diligence,” “in compliance with the advise of the physicians who treated them,” according to the stipulations of Valdes, which continued: “if the prisoner demands a confessor, one should provide one, qualified and trustworthy.”
THE MISSING HELL
What about the “Dantian Hell”that no one can find? One knows from a number of examples of people imprisoned in civil or episcopal jails, who accused themselves of heresy just in order to be transferred to the jails of the Inquisition. Even cases of priests, for whom the crime of heresy was theoretically extremely serious. This occurred in Valladolid in 1629 and again in 1675. Frequently prisoners were carried away to the point of stating that they ate better in the inquisitorial prisons than at home. Such was the case of Hernando Diaz, quoted by Schafer, a person who previously had never eaten as much meat.
When the Inquisition no longer had any “prisoners,” the civil authorities eagerly seized these prisons in order to place their own prisoners in them because the Inquisitorial prisons were far superior to those of the civil authorities. Thus in Cordova where the accounts speak of the “prison” of the Inquisition as being “clean and spacious,” suited (we have seen why) as “places for work,” having “ample running water,” and being “well planned for the comfort of prisoners with partitions and ventilation such as are required for good health.”
IS THIS HOW HISTORY IS WRITTEN?
Let us now consider the passing of judgment on the accused, whether or not he was in “prison.” First of all, let us properly evaluate a rule observed by the Spanish Inquisition which has also been the but of unfounded condemnations on the part of history. This rule is that of secrecy with regard to the names of denouncers and witnesses against the accused, names which were not made available to them. A similar rule was usually observed by the Mediaeval Inquisition, and it was the practice in civil law in almost all of Europe (in France according to the edict of 1498 and the Statute of 1670).
Now this rule was not consubstantial with the Spanish Inquisition and the secrecy at issue was not in the Instructions of Torquemada, except as a possibility left to the judgement of the inquisitors: “The inquisitors are not obliged to publish the names of the witnesses.” The rule of secrecy was not enforced until certain incidents occurred to which Torquemada previously made allusion, but which recurred, causing serious harm to the witnesses. In effect, the conversos did not hesitate to have recourse to extreme means against their denouncers, as well as against the inquisitor. In Talavera a marrano killed a witness against an accused.
The two humanist Inquisitor-generals, Jimenez de Cisneros and Adrien d’Utrecht (the future Pope Adrien VI), strongly defended this rule of secrecy, the first basing himself on what occurred at Talavera. Charles V, although surrounded with strongly anti-inquisitorial conversos, decided in favor of it. From that time, till the end of the inquisitorial institution, the rule of secrecy was no longer left in question.
Current historiography uses this rule of secrecy as a pretext for drawing highly abusive conclusions. “In other words,” writes Kamen, “the accused remained in complete ignorance about the charges brought against him.” Similarly Bennassar would have us believe that “The accused did not know of what they were, or by whom they were, accused.”

We have here a typical example of the sloppy and exaggerated arguments which pass for history. The important instructions with regard to procedures as well as the practice of the Inquisition were exactly the opposite.”At the time of notification, [the accused] should be given in detail everything relating to the offense, such as what the witnesses have deposed, only holding back such as would lead to the identification of the witnesses. And if the depositions of the witness are very extensive and can be divided up, they should be divided article by article, in order that the accused may better understand them and respond to them in a more exact manner.” Such are the Instructions of Valdez on this issue. And a little farther on he specifies, in order to avoid all confusion: “The deposition of the witness should be communicated to the accused in the greatest possible detail, and not just the substance of what they said.” As for the practice of the Inquisition: as soon as he was “notified,” they gave the accused a copy of the charges against him.
A “LITTLE FACT”
Beyond this, the communication of charges could not be made to the accused until after a supplementary procedural act, one of those “little facts” as Stendhal would say, that clearly proves the true spirit of an institution: in this case opposed to the spirit of injustice and - it bears repeating - repression at any price.
Prior to the “notification” of charges, the accusers were once again called before the tribunal. Once again, they had to declare under oath whether or not they persisted in maintaining their accusations. And this, a point of great interest, apart and away from the inquisitors and before two priests who had no connection with the Inquisition. Obviously the purpose of this was to allow the witnesses against the accused to more easily retract, because of doubts or possible errors, their accusations in a sort of free confession.
But current historians fail to mention this “little fact”, the need for a confirmation of the accusation on “neutral” territory, a practice which is unknown to our modern day judges. And this played an important role in the Instructions of Valdes (question 30).
FAMOUS DEFENSES
On the other hand - one must be thankful to him - Henry Kamen has usefully and exactly delineated the means of defense available to the accused.
First of all, he had the assistance of an advocate, generally, but not always, appointed by the Inquisition, who for all that did not perform his duty less conscientiously. The fee of the advocate was paid from the sequestered goods of the accused. If these were insufficient, the Inquisition paid the advocate from confiscated goods taken from condemned individuals and placed in the royal treasury. (Preliminary instructions of Torquemada, q 16.)
Next followed the right to produce witnesses for acquittal. The right to bring forth proof that the witnesses making the accusation were inspired by enmity, which if demonstrated would lead to the challenging of witnesses - a right liberally accorded as we have noted.
And beyond this, the possibility of invoking attenuating circumstances (drunkedness, youth, old age, stupidity, etc.). And finally the ability to call back even the judges themselves because of personal animosity; other judges then being appointed by the Suprema after a process of arbitrage between a representative of the accused and one of the tribunal (process Carranza).
Let us add that the Instructions of Valdes were greatly concerned with giving these means of defense their greatest possible efficacy. They encouraged the accused to call “a great number of witnesses, in order that the most qualified among them could be examined.” And they stressed to the inquisitors that they should “consider the fact that the accused, being incarcerated, could not do all that he might consider necessary and all that he would have done if he had been able to prepare his defense in freedom.” These are significant considerations.
Let us further note that some of the great advocates were able to win fame and reputation in the defense of those accused by the Inquisition. Thus, the advocate Gutierre de Palma gained his reputation in the defense of the conversos of Toledo. Thus also the bachelor Sanz, in the particularly contested case of the “Holy Infant of La Guardia” killed by the conversos in a ritual crime. And again, Dr. Palacios Rubios, to whom the Catholic Kings confided the editing of the code for the colonization of the Americas, and who published a sort of manual of defense before the Inquisition, the Allegatio in materia haeresis which went through many editions.
THE BUGABOO OF TORTURE
But the reader will object, surely you know that the Spanish Inquisition systematically applied prolonged and sadistic torture to those which fell into its grasp, thus obtaining from them the admissions it desired?
There is no need to insist upon this point. The unanimity of expert historians has justly dealt with this accusation which began to spread at the beginning of the 16th century and was fostered by Protestant or Catholic anti-Spanish propaganda. Florid prints, especially those of Bernard Picard (18th Century), and which have been repeatedly reproduced have perpetuated this baseless imputation.
Thus Lea writes: “The popular belief according to which the inquisitorial torture chambers were a theater [...] where ferocious efforts were made to extort admissions, is an error imputable to sensational writers who wished to exploit the credibility of the public.”
And the English Kamen states: “At a time when torture was universally utilized in criminal courts throughout Europe, Even in Spain torture was willingly and savagely employed, not onoly by the civil justice, but also by the police and the administration. As an example, consider what happened to a young simpleton who arrived at the house of the governor of the city of Toledo at the start of the 17th Century. Those who are curious will find the story of this frightul episode, a veritable Calvary, written by the victim himself in the Commentarios del desenganado of Diego Duque de Estrada (Madrid, 1860, pp. 51-52). the Spanish Inquisition followed [in this regard] a policy of moderation and circumspection about which one can entertain a favorable opinion.”
The archives speak for themselves. In the 300 processes preserved and reviewed that came before the inquisitorial tribunal of Toledo before 1500 , torture was used in no more than 5 or 6, about 2%. In Valence, between 1480 and 1530, with more than 2,000 processes, there were only 12 cases in which torture was clearly used. Less than 1%. And this was in the most merciless era, that of the 15th to the beginning of the 16th century.
And this was because the inquisitorial Instructions surrounded the use of torture, like everything else, with recommendations and resolutions demanding great prudence. “The inquisitors should take great care,” wrote Valdes, that the sentence of torture be justified and that it be carried out with propriety.” How was the decision taken? The use of torture required a special judgement signed not only by the inquisitors, but also by the bishop or his representative. This was in conformity with the decree handed down by the Council of Vienna (1311) approved by Pope Clement VI and applied by him, at a somewhat later time, to the Mediaeval Inquisition.
The Instructions also stipulated that, during the period of torture, a representative of the bishop and a physician be in attendance. It was forbidden to put the accused’s life in danger and it was obligatory that medical care be given as soon as the torture was terminated. In fact, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the turning of the tide against the use of torture in modern history started with the Spanish Inquisition.
THE BUGABOO OF THE INQUISITORIAL PENALTIES
When we come to the judgment, the accused, if his faults or crimes had been proven, and if he was not a negativo, that is, a person refusing repentance or a person who had relapsed and returned to his errors despite a prior condemnation, was not condemned to the block, which, as we have seen, was a very rare exception.
Even for “grave sins of heresy” the guilty party, if it was the first time and he was repentant, was only given a very small sentence. Such was the case of the converso Jew Juan Sanchez, the grand-father of St. Teresa of Avila, who for such “grave crimes” was only obliged to present himself in procession dressed in a sanbenito - the distinctive mark of heretics (a sort of chasable-sack, usually yellow in color, and on which was painted a cross) for seven consecutive Wednesdays in the churches of Toledo.
The next level of minor sentence was that of flagellation, again in procession or in a series of processions. But this flagellation was essentially symbolic; and administered in the familiar and humerus way of the Spanish crowds in procession. We have a witness which tells us that such was the case. The witness, who as it were lends us his eyes, was a Frenchmen embued with the “philosophic” spirit of the times, later an ambassador to the revolutionary Convention in Madrid. A beggar who had made some love-potions based on disreputable magic was condemned by the Inquisition in Madrid in 1784 for acts of “sorcery” and “profanation,” and condemned to be flagellated in the principal quarters of the city. The procession for flagellation, like all inquisitorial affairs, was solemn, led by the “collaborators” belonging to the Spanish aristocracy, and surrounded by an immense crowd both in the streets and on the balconies. However, as our witness tells us, the spectacle “in no way offended one’s sensibilities. Never was any well merited sentence administered with greater sweetness. Every so often the beggar stopped and the ‘executioner’ gently tapped his shoulders with the whip, while a charitable hand offered him a glass of Spanish wine in order to restore his strength and provide nutrition for his endeavors.”

A glass of wine! One could hardly understand such a thing if one did not understand the spirit by which the Inquisition was inspired - such is also to be noted with regard to the “collaborators” and the use of house arrest. It was also the spirit which inspired the population in general, a Christian population who saw “reconciliation”, purchased by the penitence of the condemned, as a happy event which changed the accused into a fraternal companion.
But, our French “philosopher” adds, the beggar was also condemned “to be permanently incarcerated.” We find here yet another and a most serious mistake, one typical of observers unfamiliar with the inquisitorial archives.

THE “SLOW’ DEATH
The penalty of “perpetual imprisonment” or “prison from which no pardon was possible,” was, apart from execution, one of the most serious sentences possible, but it was not such as Pierre Dominique believed and claimed, “a slow death from rotting flesh and madness” (once again, the horror movie), or “a slow death which could be prolonged over a period of twenty or thirty years.”
In fact, as Henry Kamen notes, “the sentence of perpetual incarceration rarely lasted more than three years [...] and the ‘prison from which no pardon was possible’ was generally translated into a period of incarceration of about eight years.” The same author points out that in the decrees one finds apparently absurd sentences like “perpetual prison for one year”! What this involved was the application of a most ancient Inquisitorial law, such as was codified by the Dominican Eymerich, from the 14th century, and brought to light by his confrere Pena, in the 16th century. The harshness of scholastic formulas like “perpetuity” and “unpardonable” were softened in practice where forgiveness, charity and confidence fully regained their rightful place.
And beyond this, prison sentences were served in supervised residences such as we have described, and had nothing in common with the houses of “slow death.” Those condemned to prison went to solemn high Mass in the cathedral on Sundays and on Holy Days of Obligation. On Saturdays they could go on pilgrimage to some sanctuary or hermitage.” In other words, the week-ends were so set up as to allow for long walks outside of prison. And on other days they also had permission to go out for any personal reasons as is noted in a report on the tribunal of Grenada dated 1655: the prisoners “were authorized to go out at all hours of the day without restrictions, to walk in the town and the surrounding areas, to spend time with their friends, and did not have to return to prison until dusk; thus they enjoyed comfortable lodging rent free.” The same situation prevailed in Seville around 1607. It is no wonder then that the Sevillans who revolted in 1652 saw no point in “freeing” the comfortable prisoners of the Inquisition, And the confiscation of his property which had been part of his sentence was no more effective than it was in an infinite number of other cases. He entered France with an straoredinary amount of wealth, as depicted by his friend Dufort de Cheverny. “He lived like a grand duke spending all his days in feasting.” (Memoires, chap. XV) towards whom the latter once again played to the hilt the game of “reconciliation” by means of a kindness pushed to the extreme.
CONDEMNED TO THE STAKE
This benignity it will be said, is strongly contradicted by those condemned to the stake, regardless of how few they may turn out to be.

And indeed, to offend God, to refuse His Word or reject His Law, and to persist in doing so, was seen as the greatest possible crime. For this there was no pardon, no charity, no possible trust with regard to a negativo, or a person who relapsed, refused all “reconciliation” and who persisted in his “divine lese-majesty.”

However, the Spanish Inquisition attempted to “reconcile” those condemned to death by fire, right up to the very end, at least before God. Up to the time of the stake, and on the stake itself, the Inquisition sought to convert the victim, and if successful, manifested its happiness, a joy that all those involved in the execution shared. In Logrono, on the 24th of August, 1719, an inquisitor recounted what happened when the condemned, a Judaizer, had been brought to the place of execution: “The religious showed a great deal of solicitude and zeal in encouraging the criminal to convert. With a perfect serenity he declared: “I wish to convert to the religion of Christ,” words which no one had heard him say before this day. All the religious, transported with joy, looked on the accused with warmth.” The hangman and the condemned embraced each other. Then the Inquisitor gave the order to immediately strangle the condemned as an act of “mercy,” as the common phrase of many lands puts it, in order to save him from the suffering of being burnt alive. And then he added, in order that the soul which had just given witness of his conversion “should not be lost. For it is essential not to lose the opportunity.”.
The story, with its warm approval of execution without delay carried out as a means of saving a soul, sounds horrible, at least to the modern reader. In a certain way it promises the heretic the very rank of the good thief in the Gospel, the criminal who saved his soul on the cross next to Christ and received from Christ a welcome. The story bears witness to exactly the opposite attitude that one meets with in the mechanical and unloving use of the our revolutionary guillotine or the blind hatred of the interminable French killings of Drogheda.
NO BARBARITY
And so, even if the Spanish Inquisition was scorching and harsh, it was not for all that really without pity. It maintained a certain discretion and dignity and safeguarded the dignity of its victims. For both it and the Spanish secular arm, as was the case with the first Mediaeval Inquisition, always avoided adding ignoble marks of shame, tortures and the butchery of mutilation, such as was typical of the French civil justices and Protestant Inquisitions, to execution. Consider for example the case of the “libertine” Gruet in Calvin’s Geneva. He was tortured morning and evening for an entire month - from the 28th of June to the 25th of July 1547, before being decapitated on July 26th; and after this his head was exposed on a pillar for a still longer period of time. Or again at Koenigsberg in 1566 where professor Funke of the university, labeled a heretic by the Lutherans, underwent prolonged torture before being also decapitated.
And in France, in 1525, Jean Leclerc, one of the first Lutherans, was publicly whipped for three days in the streets of Meaux, and then branded on the forehead with a fleur de lis by means of a red-hot iron. Fleeing to Metz, he was recaptured. “He was subjected to a frightful torture. He was condemned to be beaten with fists. His nose was cut off with pincers, then his arms, then his legs and his breasts. Finally he was burnt in a slow fire.” And this execution did not take place, as was customary in the Spanish Inquisition, in a relatively secluded quemadero, but “in the middle of an immense crowd surrounded by soldiers.” This episode was called by the local chronicler Meurisse “the wonderful and exemplary execution of the wool-carder Jean Leclerc.” In France, even the relatively minor sentences of banishment are often accompanied with shameful mutilations and marks of infamy. In the same city, a companion of Leclerc, the bookseller Jacques, before being banished was nailed to a pillory and then had his ears cut off.
A SENSE OF THE DIGNITY OF DEATH
Seville, the capital of the Spanish Inquisition, provides us with an astonishing example of the sense of dignity with which the inquisitors surrounded the death of heretics. This example is found in the quemadero (the place of execution) of this great city of Andalousa, situated outside the gates at the Prado de San Sebastian, a place of great significance because it was here that the greatest number of executions in the history of the Inquisition took place.
Why is it that more is not said about this exemplary quemadero? Pierre Dominique would lead us to think that the condemned were subjected to the shocking process of being roasted inside of hollowed out statues of limestone. “In Seville a quamadero was guilt, a large block of stone with four corners on which stood the statues of the four prophets. One could never tell if they were made of plaster and as a result, simple ornamentations, or on the contrary of limestone, hollowed and each one capapble of enclosing a heretic., which in this case, rather than being burnt alive and quickly, would roast little by little like a piece of meat in a cooking pot until it was done.”
The truth of the matter is that in order to decorate the place of execution, a large flat area made of bricks which is to be seen on all the maps of Seville published up to the 19th century, “one brought from the village of Los Palacios four columns of marble which were found there in the ancient palace which king Peter I of Castille used to use for vacations and hunting [...]. On each of these columns a statue depicting a religious allegory was placed, works of an artist from Florence.” This Florentine artist was none other than Jacobo Florentino, the companion of Michaelangelo in the workshop of Ghirlandaio established in Andalusia where he left several masterpieces such as the Placing of Christ in the Tomb, a work in painted wood which is so much admired in these days in the museum of Grenada.
The statues on the quemadero were then pure and simple decorations. The inquisitors were responsible for the death of heretics, but in Seville they wished this to take place surrounded by beauty. Just as they sought up to the very eve of the execution, to induce the conversion of the victims, so also they thought that the best Christian art of the period would be conducive to the uplifting of their souls at the final moment.

THE TRUE “AUTO DE FE,” A FESTIVAL OF THE FAITH
People do not understand what the “auto de fe” really was - the great ceremony which prece ded, but did not include the eventual execution - (let us once again point out that the executions occurred afterwards and in a separate place, in the quemadero, the place of burning ). And this misunderstanding once again shows the great importance of popular participation. The popular nature of the Inquisition is ignored. The auto de fe was another of those popular penitential processions which the Inquisition made available to the faithful. The auto de fe, when it wasn’t a private affair held in the inquisitorial residence, generally occurred once a year in a large place, bountifully decorated, in each of the cities where the Inquisitional tribunals sat and had jurisdiction. This “judgement of the faith,” the literal translation of the Spanish phrase, had as its purpose the publication of the sentences against the accused, the public expression of repentence on the part of those “reconciled,” and an appeal to Christian fidelity. It was an extraordinary spectacle. Enormous crowds spontaneously gathered from all the nearby cities and villages. It was a festival greatly enjoyed by everyone.
The auto de fe was announced a month in advance by a procession of the “collaboraters” and officials of the Inquisition that went through the streets of the city. Then immence processional chariots, sculptured and covered with candles and precious hangings, were set up in the center of tthe city. On the vigil of the ceremony a procession called the Green Cross, was established to carry the Cross of the Holy Office to these places. At this point the various houses of the Inquisition initiated a night of prayer. At dawn everyone attended Mass and a collation was served to all those who were directly involved in the procession, including the accused. Then at eight o’clock the enormous and colorful retinue set out for in the direction of the center of town. Behind a troup of men carrying pikes, and men with muskets in dress uniform, came the religious in gold-laced habits preceded by a Cross. Next followed the banner of the Inquisition carried by a knight or lord of great importance, the official protector of this banner. Next came the “collaboraters,” the sargents of the Inquisition in white and black, and the “charcoal burners” in black, men who furnished the fuel for burning at the stake, if such was to occur.
After these came the bearers of statues made of paper mache, large in size, and painted with the effigies of the accused who had escaped the hands of the Inquisition. Then followed the accused who were going to abjure their errors, ropes around their necks, brandishing torches, their heads covered with tall pointed bonnets made of paper mache on which their errors were also inscribed. These were followed by those condemned to do penance, the penitenciados, also carrying torches and dressed in yellow sanbenitos.
Finally there appeared - when there were such - those condemned to be burnt, wearing black sanbenitos and high conical bonnets, both painted with flames and demons. Each one of these were accompanied by two “collaboraters” and several religious who were preparing them for death. The entire population gathered in the main square. After they had settled down the authorities and persons of distinction arrived with great pomp on horseback and took their place on the platform. Finally the inquisitors arrived, also on horseback, and the governor personally, with a great show of respect, seated them in the central and most honored position on the platform. In Madrid, it was the president of the Council of Castille, who guided the Inquisitor-general, gowned in a robe of purple, to his seat.
The ceremony opened with a solemn high Mass and a major “sermon on the faith,” given by a popular preacher who was as eloquent as he was wise. Then the sentences, with detailed evidence, were read out. The first relating to the condemned who had escaped, and whose effigies in paper mache were placed on a special platform and symbolically incarcerated in jail-cages. Following this, one listened to the abjurations of error, often quite pathetic. Once again Mass was celebrated, this time in an atmosphere of repentance. Only then, with the arrival of evening, were those condemned to be burnt, if there were any, given over to the secular arm, which is to say, to the lay executioners, and were led to the quemadero, outside the gates of the city, accompanied only by the religious to assist them.
At this point the crowds of people who had spent the entire day according to Bartolome Bennassar, “really participating in the ceremony, in praying and chanting and crying,” began to enjoy themselves, without, we repeat, there necessarily being any condemnations to be burnt at the stake passed. Indeed, as Kamen points out, “hundreds of autodafes occurred without a single fagot being lightened.”
AN INTERIOR SADNESS
That the auto de fe was a great festival of the faith is further shown by the fact that the kings themselves attended them and did so with great devotion. Thus both Philip II, and Philip IV, and after them at the auto de fe held on June 30th 1680 at the Plaza Mayor of Madrid, Charles II. A eye witness tells us about the latter’s participation. “From eight o’clock in the morning His majesty supported himself on his balcony, despite the uncomfortable heat, without in any way being inhibited by his great affluence, and without the very long ceremonies causing him any boredom. His devotion and zeal overcame his fatigue to such a degree that he only took a 15 minute break in order to eat. At the end of the ceremony [it was evening] he asked if there were any other events, and if one could attend them.” (At this point those condemned to the flames had been led far off to the quemadero of the Gate of Fuencarral to the North of Madrid.)
The auto de fe, a festival of faith and hope, was, above all, a popular celebration. So much so was this the case that the people demanded it as a necessity that it was impossible to do without. A witness from the period cited by Dominguez Ortiz shows the fullness of this reality. We are in Seville in the year 1604.”An auto de fe had been announced for November 7 [...] The city was full of anticipation and was packed with people who had come from other cities, anxious to assist at this solemn act. The day before the Procession of the Green Cross 500 “collaboraters” assembled. On this night (the 6th or 7th of November), when the entire quarter of the Arsenel and the suburb of Triana were full of people waiting for the morning in order to see the prisoners come out, [news of the suspension of the auto de fe was received]. When the news of the suspension spread among the crowd a general feeling developed in which it was obvious that all the people shared. An interior sadness, as if everyone found himself offended and cheated [...]. One can gauge by this fact the love and respect joined to fear which the Inquisition inspired.”
THE INQUISITORS REPRESENTED THE PEOPLE
Other testimony, this time drawn from the very archives of the Holy Office, confirm the close relationship between the people and the Inquisition. It concerns the pecuniary sentences, starting with fines and culminating with the confiscation of goods which the Inquisition pronounced against certain heretics, entirely in conformity with the law, even the civil law, of the period throughout Europe. This testimony is from a report addressed to the Suprema by the inquisitorial financial officer of Seville (as always) in Febuary 1496. Here is what he said at the end of a very active period of [inquisitorial] activity. “As for the pecuniary sentences, I have been unaware of them, for when someone ends up in this situation, it is customary that the fines are given to the parish Church of the condemned. They are very few cases, and of little financial moment, and the people of this country are such that, if one does not give it to the Church where it can be seen [to be properly used], they say that they were condemned in order that we might steal their possessions. Of which the inquisitors will render the accounts to you most openly.”
Thus the Christian population identified itself at all levels with the Inquisition. The inquisitors were at the time, their employees, their spokes-persons who expressed their wishes, their guides, and in essence, their representatives. Surely this has for those of us who call ourselves believers in Democracy, a great value.
This was true from the start, because the Inquisition was in the beginning received by the sincere conversos and the old Christians, as a defense against the Judaizers. They offered the Spanish people, according to the formula of Americo Castro, “a quasi revolutionary conquest.” And this remained the situation right up to the end. The Inquisition never ceased to incarnate, as Fernand Braudel put it, “the profound will of the people.” Even at the beginning of the 19th Century, in 1813, it was the people who demanded the reestablishment of the Inquisition in the Cortes of Cadiz where it had been suppressed. And as Henry Kamen notes, this demand reflected “a great wave of opinion which rose up in every part of Spain.” An excellent example of this is the general petition from the city of Cordova. It is also confirmed by the latest Spanish encyclopedia: “The mass of people manifested, by every possible means available, their most intense support for the re-establishment of the glorious tribunal.”
At this point Voltaire had been dead for thirty-five years. Having no direct knowledge of Spain, and intoxicated by anti-Iquisitorial propaganda, he flippantly wrote the verses which he believed portrayed the truth of the Spanish Inquisition:
“[...] This bloody tribunal, This terrible moment of monkish power, Which Spain had received, but which she abhorred.[...]”
NEGLIGIBLE NUMBERS
Before considering some of the other reasons why the Spanish people persisted in their extraordinary attachment to the Inquisition, let us say a little more about the fines and the confiscation of property which we are going to consider. Anti-Inquisitorial historiography would have us believe that the Spanish Inquisition was an organization that openly engaged in rapine and that it had been especially created in order to “rip off” the Judaizing conversos.
As with the number of victims claimed by Llorent, a host of historians cite absolutely fabulous and fictitious numbers based on suppositions and hearsay with regard to fines and confiscations. Little by little the truth has been exposed, for the archives do not leave the issue in doubt.

It seems that from the beginning, a great many people were dispensed from confiscatory sentences. Such was the case which benefitted the family of the converso bishop Juan Arias Davila, a person in possession of over 300,000 ducats, according to his own estimation; and during the same period, that which benefitted the innumerable conversos of Cordova and 92 conversos of Cuidad-Real and Almagro, etc. And further, the archives make it clear that the totality of the sums collected by the inquisitorial tribunals from fines was negligible. Kamen and his predecessors have, for example, completely ignored the accounts of the Grand Inquisitors at the time of the Catholic Kings as found by Father Azcona in the archives of Simancas (Diversos Castilla). These accounts give the total amount received by the Inquisition as a result of pecuniary fines imposed up to the early part of 1493. That is to say, during 12 years of activity as intense as any known, and directed almost exclusively against Judaizers. The sum total collected from all the inquisitorial tribunals was only 44,344 ducats (exactly 16, 629, 065 maravedis).That is to say, one seventh of the fortune (300,000 ducats) of the single converso Arias Davila, and but an infinite part of the royal budget of around 1,000,000 ducats a year, or 12,000,000 ducats for the parallel period of 12 years.
The confiscation of goods - which were royal confiscations - do not appear as such in the archives; the details of the royal revenues were given during the time of the Catholic Kings, not by their nature, but by the geographical provinces they came from. And the inquisitorial processes are not much help either, the sentences of confiscations were frequently not carried out, or were dismissed because of dispensations.

All in all, this enormous collection of facts makes it clear that the product of confiscations were only of minimal importance. Ramon Carande, an expert historian who has studied the finances of Charles V - Carlos Quint y sus banqueros - makes no mention of inquisitorial confiscations among the revenues of the Spanish crown which he has researched and published in detail. And Braudel in his resourceful researches relative to Philip II’s rise to power in the Spanish peninsula in 1559, and the completely empty Treasury at this time, found no trace of inquisitorial confiscations. Now at this time, the burning of prominent “Lutherans” at Seville and Valladolid should have provided very lucrative confiscations. We know for a fact that one of the most famous cases of condemnation to the stake involving the son of the Count of Bailen, was associated, once again, with the absence of confiscation: his entire wealth definitely passed on to his descendants.
The only exception to this negligible character of royal confiscations occurred in the middle of the 17th century, but here it was a question of a political exaction directed against the rich converso bankers of Portugal who had become enemies of the state as a result of Portugal gaining its independence from Spain. These Portuguese conversos had established themselves in Castile where they had up to then been left undisturbed, once again disproving “inquisitorial cupidity.”
THE POVERTY OF THE INQUISITORS
It is necessary to point out yet another salient fact, one for which Kamen this time provides the evidence: the inquisitorial tribunals were impoverished and nearly always ran in the red. “The Inquisition,” he states, “was not a flourishing affair, and during the greater part of its existence, it had great difficulty in balancing its budget.” Even the salaries paid to the inquisitorial staff - from the usher to the Inquisitor-general - were rarely readjusted to take account of the rise in the cost of living. This failure of adequate renumeration, as Kamen states, “certainly created great misery during the periods of inflation which characterized the middle of the 17th and 18 century.”
A last and overwhelming fact: as of 1501 Rome had to provide financial assistance to the Spanish Inquisition, funds being paid out of canonical and other ecclesiastical benefices. And further, this shows that the Spanish Inquisition was as much a Church as a royal institution. Thus we see that in 1578, in the receipts of the inquisitorial tribunal of Cordova reviewed by Kamen, the canonical revenues provided by Rome were established at 866,560 maravedis, greater than the royal revenues which (both juros and censos) were only 757, 590 maravedis. This fact once again, in an indirect manner, teaches us about the paucity of confiscations; the juros and censos were the interest at 3 and 5% on the portion of the confiscations that the royal treasury assigned to the Inquisition.
Thus it was the Church, more than the condemned, who paid for the expenses of the Inquisition; for as all our information confirms, the fines received by the inquisitorial tribunals were quite minimal. Bartolome Bennassar was able to conclude: “It is quite clear that the Inquisition is not to be condemned for living on the proceeds of fines and confiscations.” And from these latter the Inquisition received nothing in the way of capital and nothing immediately, only receiving revenues from interest on her minority portion, which were quite insufficient. The accusation that the inquisitors were hungry for gold and that they made fortunes is nothing more than a legend to be added to the others. Moreover, it is a most unjust legend because the confiscated goods served an important role; their revenues and the goods themselves placed in the hands of the royal treasury assured the defense of the accused: the tribunal used these funds to defray the costs of the appearance in court of witnesses, and to provide the honorariums given to the lawyers who defended the poor, as was indicated in a marginal note above.
A REMARKABLE INTELLECTUAL QUALITY
Who were these inquisitors whose lives were usually so lacking in selfishness? Were they gloomy fanatics? How can fanaticism be joined with prudence, discretion, equity, respect for the accused and even for the condemned; with the evident desire for reconciliation so atypical for that period of history; with the inquisitorial procedures and the manner in which they were carried out? How can one join stupidity with the juridical qualities of the inquisitorial code? Such a conjunction is impossible. And once again, the anti-inquisitorial historiography is as absurd as it is wrong.
For the inquisitors were among the best products of the most remarkable Spanish Church which provided Europe with so many individuals of the highest caliber. This Church of which the great historian of Spanish economics in the 16th century could say, after having seen things in the clear light of numbers, that it was quite as much concerned with solving economic, social and political problems than in promoting the faith. Which he wrote, “confirmed the great culture of the clergy and its philanthropy.” A Church which according to Braudel,- and this goes to explain why - “is in Spain, much more open to the poor than elsewhere.”
The inquisitors were chosen from among the most cultivated of the clergy, men open-hearted and often bound to the people by their very modest origins; and of which the people were very much aware as we have seen. Bartolome Bennassar provides evidence that a great many of the inquisitors were graduates of the most prestigious universities, especially that of Salamanca. And that, given the quality of their training, they had gone on to occupy the highest positions in the Church (a great many being bishops, archbishops and cardinals), or/and that they had been appointed to the most important positions in the chancelleries and royal councils. For they could and most often were “men of the most remarkable and highest intellectual quality.”
A MODEL OF EQUITY

The statement is not a new revelation. It has frequently been made by the real students of Spain, and especially by French scholars before the fires of anti-inquisitorial passions were aroused in the 19th century and totally blinded peoples minds.
It was a Frenchman, the Abe of Vayrac who, at the start of the 18th century wrote his monumental Voyage d’Espagne et Italie with a detail as impressive for its accuracy as its extent. He said: “I avow that, if those who cry out against the tribunal of the Inquisition were to look at the individuals it is composed of, they would speak quite differently [...] What is even more deplorable is that prejudice is such, that I despair of in any way being able to make my countrymen understand the virtues of circumspection, wisdom, justice, and integrity which characterize the inquisitors.”
Another Frenchman, a man who lived ten years in Spain as commercial and diplomatic agent, who to use his own words, associated with “almost all classes of Spanish society,” and a person whom the revolutionary Convention appointed as ambassador to Madrid, hence hardly suspect of having reactionary or priestly sympathies; this Bourgoing in 1797 described the Inquisitor-general Lorenzana as a “priest who was as brilliant as he was kind.” How is it possible for Kamen to characterize this man as a “reactionary,” and to portray this Inquisitor-General as being a model of fanatical obscurantism? And he followed this by stating: “The Inquisition, if one ventured to excuse its forms and the reason why it was instituted, could be cited as a model of equity for our times. It makes every effort to state with exactitude the evidence which it receives. No one can say that the resentment of a hidden enemy suffices to release its thunderbolts. It never condemns anyone on the basis of a single accuser. One must be guilty of repeated offences and what the believers call grave offences before encountering its censures.”
This truth with regard to inquisitorial repression, which we have established by the study of documents and original witnesses is confirmed with exactitude by Bartolome Bennassar who dared in 1979 to write that “If the Spanish Inquisition were compared to other tribunals, I do not hesitate to conclude, without fear of contradiction or of misrepresenting the received ideas, that it would have been considered superior. [...] Without doubt, it was more efficient. But it was also more precise and more scrupulous [...]. A justice which practiced the careful examination of witnesses [...], which accepted without haggling the challenging of suspected witnesses by the accused [...], a justice which rarely resorted to torture [...], a justice which was deeply concerned with educating, with explaining to the accused why he was wrong, which reprimanded and which counseled, and which only applies definitive sentences on those who relapsed.”
A POSITIVE GRANDEUR
But Bartolome Bennassar, so lucid and definitive in his own writings, has been responsible for serious errors in his recent Inquisition espagnole. He asked for the collaboration of his students and left the editing of several complete chapters in this book to them. For want of direct information, of maturity and control of the subject material, these chapters are often very poor: one finds little in them that is not the boring repetition of preconceived prejudices for which the professor, president of the university and director of this work has so recently expressed his contempt. And so it is that falsification of history persists.
Yet Professor Bartolome Bennassar should be thanked for finally exposing the truth about inquisitorial repression to our contemporaries. We should be even more grateful to him for having - it seems he was the first to do so - noted that the Spanish Inquisition was “deeply concerned with education” This is a fundamental and oft forgotten truth which restores to the Spanish Inquisition the essential character of its historical reality: a grandeur often surpassing and curbing the repression with its own requirements, and at the same time understanding, welcoming and incarnating, in a truly brilliant and popular culture, views that were highly advanced for that time.
It is this positive grandeur which we wish to review in terminating our study. One can see, on the basis of the sources we will quote, that it would be entirely unjust to only see the Spanish Inquisition in its negative aspects. And in considering its positive aspects, we hope to demonstrate the ability and quality of the individuals involved, so often misrepresented as a result of simple ignorance.
PRECURSORS OF THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
The Catholic Reformation, inexactly called the “Counter-Reformation,” which for example inspired the Grand Siecle in France and all of Catholic Europe down to our own times, was initially Spanish and the work of the leaders of the Inquisition. Who was it that promoted and realized in depth this Catholic Reformation as early as the year 1500, even before the Protestant Reformation? Who produced the open-hearted, cultivated and “philanthropic” clergy so desperately needed in Europe? The three great reforming prelates, Jimenez de Cisneros, Diego Deza and Alonso Manrique were all three also Inquisitor-generals.
From 1498 Jimenez de Cisneros carried out this design, one at that time without parallel, by the thoroughgoing reform of the immense archdiocese of Toledo and simultaneously, of the enormous body of the Franciscan order. By his promotion of studies for the clergy which was the primordial objective of his foundation of the university of Alcala of Henares, a center of Renaissance culture; and by the brilliant renewal of biblical studies of which he is historically the initiator. For he edited a Polyglotte Bible, the very erudite Complutense, in the second decade of the 16th century which united for the first time, the Hebrew, Armenian, Greek and Latin versions of the Bible - a publication which predated all the renewed biblical studies, both Catholic and Protestant.
Diego Deza, another “prelate dedicated to the reform” did the same thing in his diocese of Palencia from 1500 on. Then in his archdiocese of Seville where he founded and endowed the college of Saint Thomas which became the second university of the capital of Andalousia.
Alonso Manrique worked to the same purpose in his diocese of Badajoz from 1500 onwards. The Constitutions that he established then, of which we have found a copy in manuscript form, were equivalent to the table of contents of Erasmus’ Colloques which denounced the vices and abuses of some of the clergy and which was published in 1518. Erasmus who then inspired the Protestant Reform as an aspect of Catholic “evangelism,” was a correspondent, friend and protege of this Inquisitor-general. Manrique refused to in any way censure the works of Erasmus or those of his disciples. The Spanish Inquisition stood up against the Sorbonne and even Rome, being well disposed to Erasmus and to his sometimes very bold attitudes. She did so because of her understanding, open-mindedness, culture and intelligence. It would not be the last time.
BROADMINDED OUTLOOK
The attitude of the Spanish Inquisition with regard to a famous Spanish book, Celestine, the first comedy dealing with modern customs, which appeared at the end of the 15th Century, provides us with yet another example of her broad-minded outlook. As is well known, this comedy described the friendly relationship between monastic priests and a madam as well as a denunciation of the deplorable practices of many of the clergy of the epoch. The editions of Celestine benefitted from a “splendid impunity” because of the Inquisition. As Marcel Bataillon notes, the Inquisition considered Celestine as a praiseworthy work because of its brutal frankness, “an almost canonical moral teaching, [...] serving a most salubrious social function.”
The same broad-mindedness of the Spanish Inquisition is manifest, quite surprisingly, with regard to Protestant biblical exegesis. This is shown with regard to the publishing of Arias Montano’s new Biblia Poliglotta (1569-1573) which wasn’t condemned. It also welcomed the publication of a Protestant Vulgate, the Biblia sacrsancta of Zurich of which the Inquisition authorized the publishing in Salamanca in a parallel edition with the Vulgate of St. Jerome. And this as the official Latin bible of the University of Salamenca and Alcala (1584). Thus the Spanish Inquisition, after publishing the first polyglotte Bible, officially accepted the first ecumenical Bible.
THE CASE OF GALILEO
The open-mindedness of the Spanish Inquisition, its culture and sense of the future, shown forth in its Indexes (lists of expurgated or prohibited books) which are with regard to the essential issues, a monument of lucidity and comprehension. For the Spanish Inquisition preserved a happy and responsible liberty with regard to Rome on all matters which were not of faith. She was thus able to avoid the many serious errors of the Roman Inquisition. An important fact: the Spanish Inquisition neither expurgated nor banned the works of Giordano Bruno, Galileo or Descartes, all of which were burnt, condemned or prohibited by the Roman Inquisition (Descartes in 1663).
Current historiography keeps silent about these facts which are so completely incompatible with the “blind fanaticism” of which the Spanish Inquisition is accused. It was necessary for us to seek out this information in the vast and often remarkable Historia de los heterodoxos espanoles written by Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo.
And, as we only like to believe what the documents of the period attest, we have further verified this from this very rare copy (two in the entire world) of a 17th Century Index which lists in parallel the Index or decrees of prohibition of Rome and those of the Spanish Inquisition. We moreover find there stated that unlike Rome, the works of Copernicus and Kepler were not prohibited.
How is this possible? From the beginning the Spanish Index was prepared by the Inquisition in close collaboration with the must cultured Spaniards, notably the staff of the universities of Salamanca and Alcala. Then Spain supported an important school of astronomy committed to the Copernican view and hence prepared to accept the opinions of Galileo; a school to which the sagacious inquisitorial consultor Juan de Zuniga belonged, the person who had introduced the system of Copernicus to the University of Salamenca in 1594. Now one finds Juan de Zuniga in 1602 raised to the position of Inquisitor-general. Finally, the Spanish position in favor of Galileo was declared to be completely licit; The Spaniards stressed that the Italian astronomer had only been condemned, by “certain cardinals” in what was a position open to debate, but not by a Council or by the pope speaking ex cathedra.
Descartes expresses the same judgment in his letters to Father Mersenne. And the Spanish Cistercian theologian Caramuel, officially stated this in his Theologia fundamentalis published in 1676.
And later, the Spanish Inquisition avoided prohibiting Liebniz, Hobbes, Spinoza, Newton and the Spanish Benedictine Feijoo in the 18th Century dedicated his life to the diffusion of ideas which were both foreign and ultra modern south of the Pyrenees.
It is thus ridiculous to claim, which is almost always done, that the Spanish Inquisition smothered the culture of the country in forbidding it exposure to the modern world. Henry Kamen notes with justice, that the Spanish Index demonstrated a “a clemency often highly beneficial to men of science.” It is the least that one can say.
One more fact. With regard to the great case of Galileo the Spanish Inquisition was both more just and more far-sighted than the rest of the Church (the Dialogue of Galileo was not removed from the Roman Index until 1822). These things were so clear for the people living at that time, for Galileo wished to move to Spain in 1612 when he began to be persecuted in Rome.

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nor John of the Cross ever saw the inside of an Inquisitorial prison; nor were they ever subjected to an inquisitorial process.
In fact the totality of the “persecution” of Spanish culture that can be documented during three centuries is limited to two temporary imprisonments during the 16th Century: that of Vergara and his friends, the nature of which we have seen; and that of the poet and theologian Luis de Leon and his colleagues in Salamanca. This latter affair ended with a simple reproach for Louis de Leon who returned to his professorial chair at the university and later was nominated as provincial of his order (Augustinian). Everyone knows what happened during these very same years, to Thomas More, Dolet, Servet, and Giordano Bruno. The Catholic inquisitions outside of Spain and the Protestant Inquisitions did not hesitate burn and or decapitate dozens of humanists during this period. And the Spanish Inquisition was satisfied with temporary residential restrictions or simple censures of blame.
The truth of the matter cannot be questioned. The Spanish Inquisition is the only one that never burned any writer, humanist or scientist. .In France the repression of intellectuals was prolonged and without pity; civil judges arrogated to themselves competence in matters of the faith. Thus between the years 1662 and 1663 the Parliament of Paris alone burnt along with their books, Claude Le Petit, a friend of Moliere and author of Paris ridicule, and Simon Morin, the Norman compatriot of Corneille and author of Pensees - the one for impiety and the other for heresy.
THE INTELLECTUAL ELITE AND THE INQUISITION: THEY WERE ONE AND THE SAME
What is the basis for this difference in attitude? Quite simply it is because the intellectual elite and Inquisition were one and the same. We have seen that this is so from the beginning of the 16th Century with the Inquesitor-generals Deza, Cisneros and Manrique, the first two being founders of universities; the second a humanist editor and the last the sponsor of the great Erasmian movement. And also, at the end of the same 16th Century, with the Inquisitor-general Valdes, founder of the University of Oviedo and a great jurist; with the Inquisitor-general Quiroga, the protector of Therese of Avila and two major historians: Ambrosio de Morales and Juan de Mariana.
The Inquisition and the intellectual elite were one and the same at the end of the 18th Century with, as we have seen, Lorenzana, one of the most remarkable scholars of the epoch. But also, with a host of other “ordinary” Inquisitor-generals which preceded him. Thus with Juan de Zuniga, whose essential role in the spread of Copernican astronomy at the start of the 17th Century has already been pointed out, and who established at the University of Salamanca a faculty of mathematics which was for the time unique in all of Europe. At the very moment when Claude Le Petit and Simon Morin was being consigned to the flames in Paris, there was an Inquisitor-general from the middle of the 17 century who is never remembered: Diego de Arce y Reinoso, Head of the Suprema from 1643 to 1665. The National Library in Madrid possess an important manuscript of this “obscurantist” given by him to the Count-Duke of Olivares, the first minister of Philip IV and a great protector of the conversos. This is the title of the book written in the hand of the Inquisitor-general: “Libraries, their antiquity, the good one can draw from them, the place where they should be established, the value that republics should attach to them, and the obligations which princes as well as secular priests and ecclesiastics have to establish, enlarge and preserve them.”
AN ANTHOLOGY OF PRAISES FOR A PATRON
At the time of the Golden Spanish era, in the 1610s, the Spanish Inquisition offered us one of the most brilliant promoters of the intellectual life that Europe has ever seen. The achievement of Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, an Inquisitor-general whose glory merits being extolled even in our times by the Anthology of praises for a Spanish Patron published by Rafael Lainez Alcala, a professor of the University of the Canary Islands.

For this Inquisitor-general was none other - as has been pointed out before - than the patron of Cervantes: the author expresses his gratitude to the Inquisitor-general in the very text of his Don Quichotte. And what is more, the Anthology of Praises consists of expressions of gratitude from all the writers who formed the then dazzling constellation of Spanish authors. The gratitude of the picaresque novelist Alonso de Salas Barbadillo. The gratitude of Luis de Gongora, considered an immortal poet even today by Garcia Lorca, of his disciple Francisco de Quevedo, no less famous a poet, but also a novelist, philosopher and moralist; the gratitude of Vicente Espinel, a novelist who plagiarized our Lesage with his Gil Blas. The gratitude of Tirso de Molina, illustrious dramatist and creator of the Don Juan, a character of universal wake. The gratitude of the famous Lope de Vega, author of hundreds of theatrical masterpieces, almost the equal of Cervantes.
THE FAMOUS MEN OF LETTERS AND ARTS WERE “INQUISITORIALS”
And even more, if such is possible: the masters of literature and of the arts in Spain were themselves “inquisitorials.” Lope de Vega was an “collaborator” of the Madrilene Holy Office, and among one of his great theatrical works one can find a historical comedia entitled The Innocent Infant which is none other than the “Holy Infant” of La Guardia, the sweet and tragic witness to the Inquisition’s anti-Judaizing conviction.
Cervantes, so grateful to the Inquisitor-general, was the grand-son of a judge of goods confiscated by the Inquisition, and the son of an “collaborator,” both Cordovans, as he indicated himself to be. He had for his first patron his father, the cardinal of Cervantes y Gaete who was the principal inquisitor in Aragon, was a relative. He had as leaders and companions during his military service, before and after Lepante, the generations of “collaborators,” the Meneses which we have already alluded to, and which he inserts in the scene of Don Quihotte entitled “Story of a Captive.” When he married, he had for his brother-in-law a priest who was to be a “commissioneer” of the Inquisition as well as the person who he left his possessions to. He habitually used the names of his friends for the personages in his stories; as that of the Meneses or of their relative Loaisa - all connected with the Inquisition - as in Gitanilla, the Tia fingida, and the Celoso extremene. For the Loaisas, who were also from Cervantes (de Talavera) and among the judges of Vergara, the Inquisitor-general Garcia de Loaisa, yet another was a contemporary of Cervantes and an eminent member of the Suprema, the erudite Pedro Garcia de Loaisa Giron. Finally, when Cervantes chose his tomb, he placed it, with permission rarely given, in the Madrilene convent of the Trinitarians of Cantarranas which had just been established and which was managed by a branch of the Meneses family overflowing with “collaboraters,” “commissioneers,” and “officials” of the Inquisition. His posthumous novel, Persiles Sigismond appeared with the foreword consisting of a poem signed by another “collaborator” of the Inquisition.
The great dramatist Calderon de la Barca, who was the mainstay of the Spanish theater towards the end of the 17th Century, and who has never been surpassed, is an “inquisitorial poet,” according to his editor and biographer Menendez y Pelayo, mentioned above. Throughout his well known plays the sublime message of the faith and the rigor and understanding of the Holy Office are manifest.
Zurbaran, the Sevillan painter in whom modern painting recognizes one of its precursors, received his first large commissions from the Dominican inquisitors in Seville; those of the convent of Saint Paul and the College of Saint Thomas founded by the Inquisitor-general Diego Deza. It was there that Zurbaran painted his masterpiece the Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinas and several other private portraits.
El Greco, another precursor of modern painting lived in Toledo, where he came in 1577 as a protege of the Inquisitor-general Quiroga, whom he painted from real life; a man whose face, as Marcelle Auclair remarked, reflected “more fatigue than severity.” El Greco received his first important commissions from the cloistered nuns of Santo Domingo el Antiguo, a convent attached to the same branch of the Menses inquisitorial family as those with whom Cervantes wished to be buried, a branch directed by the Gaytans of Ayala. . And like Cervantes, El Greco wished to have an inquisitorial tomb. He wished to be buried in Santo Domingo el Antiguo. The contracts entered into two years before his death (the 26th of August and the 20th of November, 1612) have been preserved and express this will. Contracts in which figure, after his own, the names of the prioress and nun Gaytan de Ayala, a member of the inquisitorial family. This family of which we have the portrait signed by him in the Prado showing the illustrious soldier, the master of the camp, Julian Romere, father of the foundrice of Cantarranas where Cervantes is buried. This famous Presentation of the chevalier aux lis to Julian Romero which Henry de Montherlant considers to be “the highest point of his art... the point beyond which El Greco could not go,” and which inspired him to produce The Master of Santiago.

We could easily elongate this list of masters of art and literature which are some of the many flowers nourished by the inquisitorial soil, and who without any equivocation bear witness to their choice of the Holy Office as their fatherland.
UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF BLASPHEMERS AND SORCERS
In order to complete our understanding of the work of the Inquisition we must show that it was far from being an institution whose influence was restricted to the elite. Quite the contrary, it benefitted all the people who found in it even more reasons for “loving” and “respecting” the Holy Office.
This fact is so evident that even current historiography declares it so. First of all the people were habituated to blasphemy, especially in Spain where oaths and ironic interjections were forms of expression that were constantly on the tongues of the humble. One knows the fate that was for many centuries meted out by civil justice to blasphemers in France in the name of the faith. It is sufficient to cite with regard to this, the case of the knight of La Barre which the Parliament of Paris condemned to decapitation followed by the burning of his body as late as 1766. Now, in dealing with blasphemers and those guilty of sacrilege - the knight of La Barre was guilty of both - the Spanish Inquisition was constantly characterized by extreme moderation. She was careful not to punish it brutally. As Jean-Pierre Dedieu, one of Bennassar’s collaborators, writes with regard to this matter: “it was considered a matter of education [...] of correcting the delinquent party by a penitence chosen with care [...] and above all by the need to educate others.”
The people - everyone knows the extent to which this phenomena existed - still believed in “sorcerers” and “witches.” We are told that outside of Spain, throughout all of Europe, hundreds of thousands of victims were involved in suppressing this evil. In the single year 1545 in Geneva alone, Calvin executed 31 persons for sorcery. In the single year 1582, 134 “sorcerers” and “witches” were burned simultaneously in Alsace. In 1609, 600 were burnt in the French Basque country. In Scotland during a period of 40 years at least 3,400 “sorcerers” and “witches” were similarly burnt at the stake. In Spain, according to the American Lea, “the delinquents had the chance to have the Inquisition as their judge rather than the secular courts which everywhere showed themselves without pity.” Just as the Spanish Inquisition never condemned any writer or savant to the stake, so also, from 1530 onwards, with one exception, it never condemned any “sorcerer,” or “witch” to death. The penalties which she meted out were generally simple reprimands or demands for abjuration - the maximum penalty being temporary banishment. In 1530 the Suprema issued an special instruction to all the tribunals of the Inquisition enjoining them to refuse any systematic persecution of “sorcerers” and “witches.” This Instruction was the result of a meeting of the Inquisitors to study the problem in Grenada in 1526 where the future Inquisitor-general Valdes distinguished himself among the lucid liberals: for him the “confessions” of “sorcerers” and “witches” were only the products of the imaginations of sick minds.
COMPARISON WITH THE REFORMERS
All this which has been well reviewed by Kamen, should be compared to the attitude of the Protestant reformers on the same subject and during the same period - the latter being committed to the extermination of “sorcerers”: Melanchthon, like Luther; Bullinger, like Calvin. The Inquisitions of these reformers immolated a host of poor souls in whom they deceived themselves into believing they recognized the scent of Satan. Is it appropriate to use the term Inquisition with regard to the Protestant Reformation? Most certainly. When the pastors in Geneve were going to throw one of their furnace-loads of sorcerers into the flames, Calvin, their leader, in November of 1545, used the word Inquisition in front of the Counsels of the city and demanded that they “order the officers of said land to legitimize the inquisition against such heretics in order extirpate them from the land.” And a little later Calvin, always angry and fanatic, said in one of this sermons: “There are a great many unbelievable things that one can expect from sorcerers. And in fact, whenever we intend to speak of the matter, we not only shudder, but are seized with great distress; our hair stands up on end [...]. We cannot in any way allow casters of spells or sorcerers in live in our midst. When the judges and magistrates perform their duty, it is certain that they will no more allow for such, than they would for murderers. Because it would be to turn upside down the service of God and to pervert the order of nature.”
ONE OF THE GREAT BENEFACTORS OF HUMANITY
Compared to the writings of the Reformers, those of the Inquisition concerning “sorcerers” once again provide powerful evidence of their intelligence and humanity. These texts are moreover, absolutely unique for the epoc: outside of Spain, the secular Catholic judges, often pushed by their bishops, massacred as many “sorcerers” as Protestants do. Jean Bodin, the most penetrating and broad-minded of the French scientists in the Catholic movement, also believed in the Demonomania of sorcerers and wrote a treatise on the matter under this title.
In 1610 the Spanish Inquisitors were forced to accede, for the first and only time since 1530, to the unanimous reaction of the population of Navarre against “sourcerers.” These unfortunate people were lead astray by the epidemic of “sorcery” and its repression in neighboring France. Of 29 “sorcerers” and “witches,” they burnt 6. But the Suprema immediately reacted and established a delegation to make a special inquiry. Alonso de Salazar Frias was provided with the powers of general absolution. After having visited village after village which had been led astray in Navarre, and after “reconciling” more than 1802 so-called “sorcerer” and “witches,” he made his report to the Suprema on March 24, 1612.
If the history of the Spanish Inquisition had been treated with even a little objectivity, this report would long since have classified its author as among the great minds responsible for freeing us from ancestral terrors, and unquestionably as one of the great benefactors of humanity. Let the reader judge for himself! The Inquisitor Alonso de Salazar Frias wrote: “After having considered what happened with all the Christian vigilance of which I am capable, I have not been able to find the least indication which allows me to conclude that a single act of sorcery ever really took place. Moreover, my experience leads me to the conviction that, of those who have taken advantage of the general absolution, three quarters or more were accused falsely - both them and their associates. [...] The truth of the fact that neither sorcers nor witches existed until they became the subject of conversations or writings, convinces me of the necessity of silence and prudence.”
Once again “Christian vigilance” and “prudence,” two keys to the real Inquisition, are then, strongly manifested, at the highest level, in the Suprema itself. On August 31, 1614, under the authority of the Inquisitor-general who was no other than the converso Sandoval, she published a new set of instructions in 32 articles which adopted all the conclusions of Alonso de Salazar Frias. And so that the people would fully understand her attitude, she rehabilitated the six “sorcerers” burnt in 1610, removing their sanbenitos from the Churches where they were exhibited, and annulling all disgrace with regard to them and their descendants.
After all this, is it surprising that, on reflection, the greater part of the Spanish people were committed to “loving” and “respecting” this “glorious tribunal?” Within a short period of time no one in Spain was seriously accused of sorcery, and as a result sorcery itself disappeared. As Kamen concludes: “The Inquisition can, with justice, claim credit for having wiped out the one superstition in Spain which in the other countries was responsible for more victims than any other wave of religious fanaticism.” Wiped out, yes, but only by means of the mind and the heart.
A SUCCESSFUL EXAMPLE OF A TRULY POPULAR CULTURE
A last comment. These forces of the mind and the heart were employed in a negative manner only against fanaticism and for purposes of its repression. The Spanish Inquisition used them with great practical skill and unparalleled success, always in the service of the Spanish people and in order to increase in a positive manner their culture and their faith - the one being inseparable from the other. We have already cited with regard to this the contributions of a Calderon, a Cervantes, a Lope de Vega, a Zurbaren and an El Greco. We now wish to offer for the reader’s reflection, another contribution, less well know, but operatively much more significant
We are reminded of a book on our shelves published in the 17th century. In this heptameron-like collection of tales in which the faith is always manifest, one finds novels, stories, literary works, dramatic works, auto sacramentales and comedias, for each day of the week. At the end is an Index of the writers of Madrid, a veritable summary of Spanish culture.
Not of the lesser writers, but only of the most important. The novels translated into French are, as Sorel notes, very much in vogue to the north of the Pyrenees. Two are comedies highly praised in the Grande Encyclopedie and by Pierre Larousse in his Dictionnaire. A third has created a genre in the culture of the modern world - the remarkable Don Carlos which has inspired works on the same subject in every land by Saint-Real, Otway, Alfieri, Schiller, La Motte-Fouque, and Verdi. The Index of the writers of Madrid remains, even today, a source which is constantly quoted. But on what cheap paper this precious and continuous witness to European letters is printed! Without doubt: on the cheapest possible paper. The paper that one used at the time for the printing of popular novels and almanacs in order that they could be sold at a minimal cost.
And in fact, just as is the case with this heptameron, so also it was with all the other popular literature. Books printed on this poor paper which does not last, utilized for popular reading under poor conditions - the popular autos and comedias - have been lost.

The original edition of this heptameron which appeared in 1632 is impossible to find - “almost unknown,” as the recent bibliographer Palau y Dulcet states. And despite the fact that the book was printed repeatedly throughout the century, and often in several editions during a one year period, the rich collection of Salva in the 19th Century, could only obtain an example of the re-edition of 1736. It was only by chance that we were able to obtain an example from the year 1666, a year which saw two editions 34 years after the original printing.
Here then is a very high quality of literature published for the people under conditions in which they lived, and certainly welcomed by the hundreds of thousands of readers in the 17th century. In brief, we have one of the rare and successful examples in classic times of a true popular culture.
But who was the author? One of the illustrious individuals of the golden Age of Spain: this Juan Perez de Montalvan to which the Dictionnaire des Lettres francaises dedicated a special article in its volume dealing with the 17th century and recalling his influence which is stamped on French literature.
What connection has all this with the Spanish Inquisition? Juan Perez de Montalvan was the intimate disciple and “collaborator” of Lope de Vega of the Madrilen Holy Office. He was the personal notary of this same Holy Office, and hence a direct participant in its procedures. His remarkable and fully successful attempt to foster popular culture was offered to the people by his inquisitorial family. And it wished it to be so, as mentioning the title of this book makes clear: Para todos - For Everyone.

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