The Spanish Inquisition: Difference between revisions

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The Inquisition witnessed very few [[Witch Hunt|witch trials]]; this is not just because they dealt only a small proportion of the peninsula's (minority) urban population at intervals of decades or more - some towns for which there exist records were not visited more than a few times during the entire period of the Inquisition's existence. This ended in latter 16th Century, when the Inquisition ruled that so-called witchcraft did not exist. The Inquisition deemed all self-identified 'witches' insane and denounced the backwardness and unorthodoxy of witch-hunters - the Inquisition was not so much interested in enforcing 'old' Catholicism as it was in promoting the 'new' Catholicism of the Catholic Reformation or Counter-Reformation.

Unfortunately, this did not stop civic authorities - who had their own court systems independent of the Church and the Crown - and groups of angry villagers from rounding 'witches' and hanging them anyway. Said authorities and mobs did not, sadly, keep records, so the actual number of Spanish people killed as witches remains unknown. That said, it is generally assumed to be lower than that in, say, France.

A common misconception is that the Spanish Inquisition was deployed overseas - it was not. There are contemporary, sensationalist, rumours of the Spanish Inquisition burning people left right and centre in the Netherlands during the course of the Reformation and Eighty Years' war. This was however the work of the Dutch Inquisition in the Spanish Netherlands, who were again in many cases using heresy as an excuse to deal with Dutch Nationalists and other politically troublesome individuals.

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* The Holy Office of the Inquisition is now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Amongst the most recent Prefects of this office was one Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger... currently known as [[The Pope|Pope Benedict XVI]]. In fact, he was Prefect when he was elected Pope.

** Though the Holy Office per se only had direct jurisdiction over the Italian peninsula at most The Holy Office reported directly to the Pope, while the well-known Spanish office, as said above, reported to El Escorial first.

* One of the main reasons for the villain status of the Inquisition: Their host country was ~~nearly continually~~ at war with primarily Protestant nations such as England and the Netherlands, where printing presses and popular literature were much more common. This meant that at the beginning they criticized the Spanish Inquisition's poor job on executions and conversions. When the Inquisition became a bit harsher, they went [[Berserk Button|apeshit]] and exaggerated its reputation of being a blood-thirsty organization. Some modern-day Spaniards refer to this as the "Black Legend."

* One of the main reasons for the villain status of the Inquisition: Their host country was often at war with primarily Protestant nations such as England and the Netherlands, where printing presses and popular literature were much more common. This meant that at the beginning they criticized the Spanish Inquisition's poor job on executions and conversions. When the Inquisition became a bit harsher, they went [[Berserk Button|apeshit]] and exaggerated its reputation of being a blood-thirsty organization Some modern-day Spaniards refer to this as the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_legend| "Black Legend."] Protestant criticism was mostly just propaganda against their religious opponents, each side considering the other heretics. Then during the Enlightment period critics of the church and/or atheistic writers took this [[Historical Villain Upgrade|even]] [[Demonization|further]] and [[Cowboy Bebop at His Computer|the results have reverberated through pop culture ever since]].

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