Tomas de Torquemada
Tomas de Torquemada
Tomas de Torquemada (1420-1498) served as the Grand Inquisitor in Spain's zealous movement to restore Christianity among its populace in the late fifteenth century. Known for an extreme devotion to his cause and loyalty to his patrons, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, Torquemada headed an organization of ecclesiastical courts which imprisoned, tortured, and burned suspected nonbelievers at the stake. It is estimated that at least 2,000 died in Spain during his tenure.
Torquemada was born in 1420 in Valladolid, Spain. He was the nephew of a celebrated theologian and cardinal, Juan de Torquemada, who himself was a descendant of a converso. This was the term that designated a Spaniard who had converted to Christianity from Islam or Judaism. In the eighth century, Moors invaded Spain. This powerful group of North African nomadic peoples had originally come from Mauritania. Recent converts to Islam, they conquered the southern half of Spain and established the Umayyad emirate there. Over the next few centuries Moorish Spain thrived, and great mosques were built; religious tolerance, however, was also the order of the day, and Spain's Christians, Jews, and Muslims coexisted peacefully, however tenuous the arrangement. Even the most famous folk hero from this era, El Cid, was a Christian who entered into the service of a Muslim ruler in the late eleventh century. By the 1200s, however, the Moors were losing much territory to hostile Christian armies from the northern half of Spain, and soon the Moorish strongholds of Toledo and Cordoba began to surrender.
Religious tolerance began to ebb in the newly Christian Spanish kingdoms. Laws against Jews were enacted in several towns and cities. They were compelled to wear a special symbol or were restricted in business matters. They could not work as grocers or butchers, for example, and could not hire a Christian to work for them; in other cases, heavy fines were levied on Jews who did not appear on the religious feast day of Corpus Christi to pay respect to the annual procession. Many Muslims and Jews began to convert, finding it more socially, politically and economically expedient to join the Christian fold. An ancestor of Torquemada's did so in the 1300s. In 1391 unruly summer mobs rioted against wealthy Jews in the kingdom of Castile and forcibly baptized them. The unrest spread to Seville, Cordoba, Valencia and Barcelona. Many of those who refused to convert were slain.
An Era of Religious Intolerance
New tensions arose, however, for Christians came to regard the conversos with distrust. It was rumored that many conversos practiced their true faith in private or took part in secret and blasphemous ceremonies that mocked the Christian mass. But Christianity itself was far from an orderly, organized religion in Spain at the time. Priests complained that most believers were alarmingly ignorant about the very origins of the faith, its tenets, and the sacraments; many thought that some sort of magic was involved in the liturgy. Such was the situation when Torquemada took his religious vows as a Dominican monk in the mid-1400s.
Torquemada served as the prior of the Monastery of Santa Cruz at Segovia for 22 years. His more public career, however, would be closely linked to Spain's Queen Isabella I. Her marriage to Ferdinand, scion of a long line of anti-Moorish Spanish rulers of Castile and Leon, made her one of the most powerful women in the world in her day. She came to know Torquemada when he was prior of the Monastery of Santa Cruz and she was living in Segovia. She requested that he become her confessor, or personal priest, and when she assumed the throne in 1474, Torquemada rose to a position of great influence at her court and became confessor to Ferdinand as well. She offered the monk grander ecclesiastical titles for his service as an adviser to them, which he declined. Torquemada was already well-known for his fanaticism: he had been the first to introduce a statute of limpieza sangre, or "pure blood," into a Dominican house, and had supervised a book burning of works considered heretical at a monastery in Salamanca.
The Role Accorded the Dominicans
The term "Inquisition" had been used as early as 1233 to designate a new type of ecclesiastical court that could determine heresy among Christian ranks and bring the accused back to the fold; the court also held the power to punish suspected nonbelievers if they refused to confess and repent. The Dominican order to which Torquemada belonged was granted special powers by Rome and came to be the leaders of inquisitions at a local level, first in Germany, then in parts of France and Italy. The initial inquisitions in these places were decidedly unpopular and unsuccessful, and in some cases the inquisitors themselves were killed.
Ferdinand and Isabella, deciding that a wholesale separation of Christians from non-Christians was the solution to Spain's unrest, asked Pope Sixtus IV to establish an Inquisition in Spain in 1478. The first attempts were disorganized and encountered much resistance. Ferdinand and Isabella again asked Rome to intervene. They were then allowed to establish seven Inquisition courts across Spain in February of 1482. Torquemada became head of one of the tribunals, having met the stipulations of the post: the inquisitors had to be at least forty years old, possess a flawless reputation, and be well-versed in theology or canonical law.
A Medieval Holocaust
The Inquisition launched a reign of terror in Spain. People could be summoned from their homes and taken to a secret place for questioning simply on the basis of an anonymous denunciation made to the Inquisition authorities. The accused were kept in darkness so they could not see their accusers or judges, and testimony that would normally be discounted in a court of law-from thieves, the excommunicated, or criminals-was acceptable. The accused was not allowed to have a lawyer or legal clerk to help him with his case, since they, too, would be viewed as accomplices to heresy by the court. They were also compelled to swear an oath of truth before taking the stand, and a refusal to utter the oath was automatic grounds for imprisonment. The auto-da-fe, or a mass public bonfire of nonbelievers, began to occur with alarming frequency.
In 1483 Torquemada became Grand Inquisitor of Castile, and on October 17, 1483, Ferdinand appointed him chief inquisitor of Aragon. He convened a general assembly of the other inquisitors in 1484 in Seville, and gave them an outline with 28 points to conduct their inquiries. In 1488 he was named head of the Consejo de la Suprema y General Inquisicion, which gave him virtual papal powers over a large part of Spain. Nothing could take place without his approval, including a prison term, an excommunication order, or an auto-de-fe; he also controlled the priests and bishops, and even went after some of them as heretics as well. Opposition remained strong in many places; in some cities, Jewish or converso families had risen to prominence in politics and finance and spoke out against the Inquisition's methods, which included heinous, though bloodless according to Church law, forms of torture. Jews, however, were immune from prosecution by the Inquisition, since it was an ecclesiastical court charged with determining heresy within its own ranks.
Abuse of Power
The terror and officially sanctioned lawlessness of the Inquisition was the result of its violation of several human rights tenets. The prosecutor and judge were the same person, which compelled him to make his charges stick to the defendant at all costs. Secondly, all suspects were presumed guilty, and Torquemada instructed his judges that a person might outwardly be very devout, but in his or her heart could be a nonbeliever; it was the judge's role to ask a series of questions on theological topics to determine his true belief. If the defendant still professed his innocence-his belief in Christianity as dictated by the Church, that is-he could be imprisoned for an unspecified length of time. Those who survived, confessed, and were set free were forced to wear a sanbenito, or special penitential garment with a large "X" on it. Those convicted and excommunicated could appeal to the Holy See in Rome, but Torquemada had jurisdiction over all appeals as well. The property of those condemned was seized by the inquisitors for the state, and in other cases bribes were paid for release.
Torquemada's role as Grand Inquisitor allowed him to ruthlessly implement these policies across the entire Iberian peninsula. Scholars estimate that under Torquemada's watch, 2,000 to 8,800 Spaniards were burned at the stake. His powers sometimes invoked the wrath of Rome, but he was closely allied with Ferdinand and Isabella, who were determined to eradicate Spain's religious problems-by ridding the kingdoms of non-Christians entirely. A large number of those summoned before the Inquisition courts were conversos; in Catalonia, 1,199 were tried between 1488 and 1505, and 1,191 of them were conversos. Some Jews settled old scores, lying about conversos who had treated them with disdain, and accused the new Christians of practicing Jewish customs in secret.
Spain's Jews Expelled
The dilemma led many to suggest that Spain's Jews should be expelled en masse, and Torquemada convinced Ferdinand to enact a decree that would ban Judaism from Spain entirely in 1492. A coalition of powerful Jewish families offered the king 30,000 ducats in return for rescinding the expulsion decree, and Ferdinand contemplated accepting their offer. Reportedly Torquemada appeared before his patron with a crucifix, said, "Judas Iscariot sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver; Your Highness is about to sell him for 30,000 ducats. Here He is; take Him and sell Him," and with those words laid the cross on the table. Ferdinand submitted, and some 80,000 Jews were forced into exile. That same year, Spanish royal forces had seized that last stronghold of Moorish Spain at Granada, making the country, at least outwardly, a homogenous Christian nation.
The Inquisition still continued, however. Torquemada served as Grand Inquisitor until his death on September 16, 1498, in the city of Avila. Diego de Deza succeeded him and the Inquisition was carried on, in varying degrees of harshness, for the next 300 years. After the rise of Protestantism in the late 1500s across many other parts of Europe, and the subsequent pyrrhic religious wars this engendered, the Inquisition courts in Spain were used to root out anti-Catholic sentiments. It spread to Spanish colonies in Central and South America as well. It was abolished by a Revolution of 1820, but only in 1869 was a law guaranteeing religious liberty for all enacted in Spain.
Books
Kamen, Henry, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision, Yale University Press, 1998.
O'Brien, John A., The Inquisition, Macmillan, 1973. □
Torquemada, Tomás de
TORQUEMADA, TOMÁS DE
Grand inquisitor of the Spanish inquisition; b. Valladolid, 1420; d. Avila, Spain, Sept. 16, 1498. The son of Pedro Fernández de Torquemada and nephew of Cardinal Juan de torquemada, Tomás De Torquemada entered San Pablo Dominican convent at Valladolid, from which he graduated in theology. He became prior of Santa Cruz convent, Segovia (1452), confessor to the royal treasurer Hernán Núñz, and confessor (1474) to Queen isabella i and King Ferdinand V.
Although of Jewish descent, Torquemada probably encouraged the monarchs to attack both the orthodox Jews and those crypto-Jews who had been insincerely or forcibly converted to Christianity but continued to practice Judaism in secret. He helped draft the first royal request for an inquisition into the crypto-Jews (1478) and was one of eight Dominicans appointed (Feb. 11, 1482) to moderate the unjust inquisitors first appointed. On the advise of Cardinal Pedro González de mendoza, Isabella persuaded Pope sixtus iv to unify the whole Inquisition for Castile (Aug. 2, 1483) and Aragon (Oct. 17, 1483) under Torquemada's control, giving him power to appoint, dismiss, and hear appeals from other inquisitors. Thus empowered, Torquemada organized the Inquisition under five territorial tribunals, with one supreme appellate council under himself; he issued (Seville, Nov. 29, 1484) the Ordinances, which, as supplemented in 1484, 1485, 1488, and 1498, regulated inquisitorial procedure in spain for the three succeeding centuries.
From 1483 on, Torquemada used this efficient police instrument to investigate and punish crypto-Jews, apostates, witches, and other spiritual offenders on an unprecedented scale; approximately 2,000 people were executed and vast numbers otherwise punished. Complaints to the Pope were ineffective since Isabella and Ferdinand supported Torquemada. Pope alexander vi actually appointed four extra inquisitors general to try to restrain him (June 23, 1494), but Torquemada remained in control even during his retirement (1494–98) in the convent of Santo Tomás that he had built at Avila. Exceptionally intolerant even for his times, Torquemada publicized an alleged ritual murder at La Guardia to encourage the expulsion of the Jews (1492) and tried far more suspects than any of his successors. But even though his successors reduced actual arrests, the spiritual police system Torquemada had organized effectively guarded Spanish thought throughout succeeding generations.
Bibliography: f. fita, "La inquisición de Torquemada," Boletín de la Real Academia de la historia, Madrid 23 (1893) 369–434. h. c. lea, A History of the Inquisition of Spain, 4 v. (New York 1906–07). e. lucka, Torquemada und die spanische Inquisition (Leipzig 1926). t. hope, Torquemada, Scourge of the Jews (London 1939). w. t. walsh, Characters of the Inquisition (New York 1940). h. del pulgar, Crónica de los reyes católicos, ed. j. de m. carriazo, 2 v. (Madrid 1943). n. lÓpez martÍnez, Los judaizantes castellanos y la Inquisición en tiempo de Isabel la católica (Burgos 1954). m. de la pinta llorente, La Inquisición española y los problemas de la cultura y de la intolerancia, 2 v. (Madrid 1953–58).
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Torquemada, Tomás de
TORQUEMADA, TOMÁS DE
TORQUEMADA, TOMÁS DE (1420–1498), Spanish inquisitor. Tomás de Torquemada, nephew of Juan de Torquemada (1388–1468), the celebrated Dominican theologian, canonist, and cardinal, was born at Valladolid and as a youth entered the Order of Preachers. For twenty-two years he was prior of the Dominican convent of Santa Cruz at Segovia. In 1474 he was appointed confessor to Queen Isabella I of Castile, and later he performed the same service, nominally at least, for King Ferdinand V of Aragon.
By a brief of February 11, 1482, Pope Sixtus IV named Torquemada, along with ten other Dominicans, to replace former officers of the Spanish Inquisition who had been charged with corrupt practices. On August 2, 1483, Torquemada was appointed grand inquisitor for the kingdoms of Castile and León; a few months later his authority was extended to Catalonia, Aragon, Valencia, and Majorca. He forthwith established tribunals at Seville, Cordova, Jaén, and Villarreal (later transferred to Toledo). Between 1484 and 1498 he set down the basic procedure of the Inquisition in a series of instrucciónes —fifty-four articles in all—that guided the activities of succeeding grand inquisitors. These were published in 1576.
Torquemada, though himself descended from Jewish forebears, was particularly harsh in carrying out the mandate of the Inquisition against crypto-Jews (Marranos), Jews who continued to practice Judaism in secret after their forced conversion to Christianity. In 1492 he supported, and perhaps promoted, the expulsion of the Jews from the newly united Spain. Complaints about his severity moved Pope Alexander VI in 1494 to add four colleagues to his judicial bench, but as early as the next year they were accused of financial misconduct, and there was no discernible change in the Inquisition's practices after Torquemada's retirement or even after his death.
Torquemada became, and has remained, the personification of religious intolerance at its worst. It is believed that as many as two thousand people were burned to death under his regime, and many thousands of others suffered imprisonment, confiscation of their property, and various other forms of harassment and indignity. Papal efforts to moderate the inquisitorial zeal in Spain were usually ineffectual, because the Spanish Inquisition, as Torquemada fashioned it, was an instrument to secure the racial and religious uniformity that was a primary concern of the Catholic kings and of Spanish policy for a long time afterward.
Bibliography
Two classic works include treatments, hostile, of Torquemada: Henry C. Lea's A History of the Inquisition in Spain, 4 vols. (1907; reprint, New York, 1966), and Juan Antonio Llorente's Discurso sobre el orden de procesar en los tribunales de Inquisición (Paris, 1817); an English translation and abridgment of Llorente's work (London, 1823) has been many times reprinted. A good brief study is A. S. Turberville's The Spanish Inquisition (1932; reprint, London, 1949), and a popular account of a special subject is Thomas Hope's Torquemada, Scourge of the Jews (London, 1939).
Marvin R. O'Connell (1987)
Torquemada, Tomás de (1420–1498)
Torquemada, Tomás de (1420–1498)
A notorious prosecutor of the Spanish Inquisition who served the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella by ruthlessly ridding their kingdom of non-Christians during the 1490s. It was Torquemada's task to root out all false converters and punish them with imprisonment, public humiliation, expulsion from the kingdom, or death. Born in the town of Torquemada, he was the nephew of a Catholic cardinal, Juan de Torquemada. Raised in Valladolid, Tomás became a friar of the Dominican order and was then appointed as the prior of Santa Cruz, a monastery in Segovia. He became confessor of Isabella, heir to the throne of Castile, while the princess was living in Segovia. In 1474, when Isabella became the queen of Castile, Torquemada followed her to the royal palace, where he became both confessor and adviser.
In 1478, Pope Sixtus IV established the Inquisition, an office meant to root out all religious heresy. The first Inquisition court was established in the southern city of Seville. In 1483, the pope rewarded Torquemada for his service to the church by naming him to the post of General Inquisitor. Over the next few years Torquemada founded Inquisition courts in Valladolid, Seville, Cordoba, Zaragoza, and Avila, established a council of five to hear appeals, and wrote a set of rules and regulations for religious trials that remained in effect until the eighteenth century. But the Inquisition had jurisdiction only over Christians; in the meantime the Jews of Spain, also known as Marranos, were accused of heinous crimes, including the notorious murder of Pedro de Arbues, another member of the Inquisition, in 1485. Frustrated by his inability to arrest and try members of the Jewish faith, Torquemada decided on a show trial as the most effective way to enhance his authority. He had eight Jews rounded up in the town of LaGuardia, and had them tried and convicted of the ritual murder of a Christian child—even though the court had no evidence of the crime and no victim. In 1492, the threat of Jewish ritual murder, as revealed by the LaGuardia trial, persuaded Ferdinand and Isabella to pass the Alhambra Decree, giving all Jews one month to leave Spain; those who remained had to sincerely disavow their faith and convert to Christianity.
Torquemada's Inquisition court arrested suspects denounced by a network of spies, and extracted confessions through torture. The Inquisition seized the property of those it accused, then paraded them through the streets before having them publicly whipped at the doors of a church. Some of the suspects were turned over to the civil authorities for a public execution. A mass execution of this sort, known as an auto-da-fé, or “act of faith,” might have a dozen or more victims tied to stakes and burned to death.
See Also: Ferdinand II of Aragon; Inquisition; Isabella of Castile; Jews