Posted on 07/18/2015 11:11:54 AM PDT by Gamecock
How Many Protestants Were Killed in the Inquisition?
A friend asked me that question earlier this week. And so I thought it might be helpful to share a few thoughts, from a historical perspective.
Opinions about how to answer the question vary widely. Some suggest that just a few thousand people were executed during the Inquisition, while others project that there were tens of millions of victims. So how can the estimates be so widely divergent?
There seem to be several explanations:
1. First, the imprecise nature of the historical records means that contemporary historians are forced to extrapolate on the basis of the limited information they possess.
One of the first accounts of the Inquisition came from a former Spanish secretary to the Inquisition named Juan Antonio Llorente (1756–1823). According to Llorente, the total number of “heretics” burned at the stake during the Spanish Inquisition totaled nearly 32,000. Llorente adds that another 300,000 were put on trial and forced to do penance (cf. Cecil Roth, The Spanish Inquisition [W. W. Norton, 1964; reprint, 1996], 123).
But there is considerable controversy about the accuracy of Llorente’s figures. As a result, historians must decide whether or not to take those numbers at face value. Some believe his numbers are too low, and should be adjusted higher. However, the majority of modern scholars believe his numbers are too high.
William D. Rubinstein summarizes the consensus of modern scholarship:
Nothing in the whole history of the Catholic church did more than the Inquisition to damn it in the eyes of rational, enlightened thinkers, or to give it the reputation for medieval barbarism it held in many quarters until recently. The Inquisition was only formally abolished in the early nineteenth century. Yet it also seems clear that the number of victims of the Inquisition can easily be exaggerated. Juan Antonio Llorente (1756–1823), a fierce enemy of the Inquisition, whose Critical History of the Inquisition of 1817–19 remains the most famous early work attacking everything connected with it, estimated the number of executions carried out during the whole of the period that the Spanish Inquisition existed, from 1483 until its abolition by Napoleon, at 31,912, with 291,450 “condemned to serve penances.” . . . Most recent historians regard even this figure as far too high (William D. Rubinstein, Genocide [Routledge, 2004], 34).
The conservative approach of modern scholarship can be seen in the writings of Henry Kamen, who is one of the leading authorities on the Spanish Inquisition. His work on The Spanish Inquisition is published by Yale University Press (Fourth Edition, 2014). Kamen’s research has led him to conclude: “We can in all probability accept the estimate, made on the basis of available documentation, that a maximum of three thousand persons may have suffered death during the entire history of the tribunal” (p. 253). Kamen’s estimates may be too low, but they represent the general perspective of contemporary scholars.
Modern historians also note that sixteenth-century Spain (during the height of the Spanish Inquisition) only had a total population of around 7.5 million people (cf. John Huxtable Elliott, Spain and Its World, 1500–1700 [Yale University Press, 1989], 223). Consequently, the notion that the Spanish Inquisition could be executing tens of millions of people during that same time period seems mathematically untenable.
2. Second, some earlier historians seem to have conflated the number of people killed with the number of people persecuted by the Inquisition. In other words, when they spoke of “victims of the Inquisition” they did not specify between those who were executed and those who were merely imprisoned or forced to flee because of the erupting persecution. Obviously, depending on how one defines a victim, the number of victims could vary widely. Perhaps only tens of thousands were executed, but hundreds of thousands were victimized in some way.
David Plaisted (a professor of computer science at UNC) notes that possibility in his paper titled, “Estimates of the Number Killed by the Papacy in the Middle Ages and Later” (http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/estimates.doc). He thinks the number of executions during the Spanish Inquisition could be quite a bit higher than just a few thousand. However, he acknowledges that the very large numbers (given by some earlier historians) might include everyone who was put on trial, and not just those who were killed. Also, some of the largest estimates likely include non-Protestants (such as Jewish and Muslim populations) who were expelled from Spain as a result of the persecution. If so, it helps explain where those very large estimates originated.
3. Third, confusion also stems from the conflation of the Inquisition with other events in European history. In the narrow sense, the term “Inquisition” refers to official trials conducted by Roman Catholic authorities in places like Spain and Portugal. When the question is limited to just those Inquisitions, the number of Protestants executed is likely in the thousands or tens of thousands.
However, if the term is used in a broad sense—to represent all Roman Catholic activity against non-Catholics—then the numbers rise dramatically. If the historian includes forms of torture and killing that did not involve a formal trial, along with religious wars and other forms of Catholic violence enacted against Protestants and other non-Catholics (in areas outside of Spain and Portugal), then one can easily speak in terms of millions of people who were killed.
David Plaisted acknowledges that reality in his study: namely, that the really big estimates of Protestants killed by the papacy throughout European history necessarily include those who died in religious conflicts like the Thirty Years War.
So … how many Protestants were killed during the Inquisition?
Well, that depends on how you are using the word “Inquisition.” And even then, the reality is that no one knows for sure.
However, if we are simply talking about official executions during the Spanish Inquisition, most contemporary experts would place the total number of executions between 3,000 and 10,000, with perhaps an additional 100,000 to 125,000 dying in prison as a result of torture and maltreatment. The Inquisition in neighboring Portugal resulted in even fewer such deaths (cf. Joseph Pérez, The Spanish Inquisition [Profile Books, 2006], 173; R. J. Rummel, Death by Government [Transaction Publishers, 2009], 62).
Clearly not enough.
Good thing the torture has stopped., I live in an area that is 85% RC
I noticed...< grin >
Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking. It would seem completely natural for a muslim convert to take up where he left off killing Jews.
Frederick II was Holy Roman Emperor, not King of France. The King of France as of 1225 was Louis VIII (reigned 1223-1226).
The Truth about the Spanish Inquisition
Thomas F. Madden
April 2, 2011
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2011/the-truth-about-the-spanish-inquisition
Because it was both professional and efficient, the Spanish Inquisition kept very good records. These documents are a goldmine for modern historians who have plunged greedily into them. Thus far, the fruits of that research have made one thing abundantly clear — the myth of the Spanish Inquisition has nothing at all to do with the real thing.
; )
We often think of the Roman Inquisition as being far in the past. But it was very active in WWII, and its office in the Papacy remains open even until this very day. The name has been changed. The Concordat was agreed to by Yugoslavia and the Vatican is well documented. This laid the groundwork for the agreement between German, Yugoslavia, and the Vatican.
Toby Green, himself a Catholic and historian is not critical, but is rather dimly a documenter in his book "Inquisition". He documents not only the Spainish and Portugal inquisitions but that of Mexico , central and south America, north Africa, and eastern Asia.
Green states the number of deaths at the direction of the Vatican rivals the number of deaths by Mao and Stalin, albeit over a period of 600 years.
Some consider the Roman Inauisition as the darkest hours of the earth. Green estimated between 50 and 100 million were murdered at the order of the Vatican, although Green (catholic) believes the number to be closer to the higher of those two estimates.
I don’t know about her family, but mine certainly was!
My Mother’s mother’s side of the family were also.
I don’t remember where I got it from but vaguely remember googling ‘more people killed in secular wars’ or something to that effect- You can find a graph at this site showing religious wars count for less than 4% of all wars (not including Islamic wars)- i’ll see if I can find the source of my figures presented htough
https://carm.org/religion-cause-war
Thank you.
You can find a list of wars and deaths here at wiki- while not categorized like I had- into ‘religious non religious’ you can pretty much figure out which ones were or not religious- I’m still looking for my source htough as it was more informative I htink
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll
That is an excellent site with different time periods delineated.
Hard to say how many were Protestant. None, at first.
If 32,000 died, as is stated, over the course of 400 years that means on average about 80 people per year, equal to about the number of Jews in one train car at Auschwitz, or several days of incineration at Lenin’s Lubianka prison. (The Czar, in the year of the revolution, executed a total of 12 people for various capital offences.) This in no way excuses their use of Torture.
C.S. Lewis traced possible source for the use of torture by the church and by civil authorities in Europe to certain permissions incautiously granted by Augustine, the bishop of Hippo I North Africa. When faced with the abandonment of the Faith by a group of North African heretics—I do not recall their names...began with a “D,” Augustine worked to bring them back to the faith, but they were resistant. An exasperated Augustine, agreed to their torture by Civil authorities to force them back to the faith. (He was Roman and shared their outlook about torture.)
You sound like a murderous ISIS militant not a Christian.
You sound like somebody who needs to read the entire post before commenting (it wasn't that lengthy a post, so that shouldn't be a challenge)
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